MB 1120 Coming to America! Purchase, Build and Now Travel!

[VerMonsterRV]

Hey all, we are now on the Kenai peninsula and continue to be having a great time. So far our weather has been pretty nice and the bugs not too bad. Been doing a mix of hiking, biking and a little bit of rafting. Also have met up with some other overlanders (Tucks Truck , a very nice Unicat and a very cool Land Cruiser with a custom habitat). Not any pictures of those as we seemed to be a bit busy chatting.

Geez, that Unicat is nice! It is owned by a very nice Italian couple that can hike like mountain goats and are fun to hang out with.


The Harding Ice Feild and one of the glaciers that exit it. 4 mile hike with over 3,000 feet elevation gain.


Closer up of the ice field. As the ice was snow covered I was a bit nervous about venturing out on it.


"Lost Lake", not sure why it was call that since there was a perfectly good trail that led right to it.


Why get your feet wet?


White water rafting "Six Mile Canyon", we one of the owners (guy at the oars) of the rafting company while in Baja (been looking forward to this since we talked). So with the current snow melt this section had 3 class 5 rapids. In our raft we all stayed aboard, due to Scotty's skill maneuvering the raft. Strange thing is, because of our sailing background these waves really didn't look too big. We had never been in class 5 before so didn't know what to expect. It was a blast though and we may just take another trip with them. What do you think @jaleel_da_sheik , wanna give it a whirl?


The second raft had a little more excitement. You can see Heather in our raft looking back to keep an eye on the guy in the water. We were working hard to try and stop our raft in case we needed to pluck him out of the water. His own raft mates soon yanked him in.


And why the guy ended up in the water. They sorta hit that rapid wrong and ended up "high siding" it. The guide is the one with the yellow helmet and likely stopped the boat from flipping. They had tried to teach us all how to go to the high side of the raft but as you can see without experience it is difficult.


If anyone gets to Hope Alaska and want to do this I can highly recommend Flow AK, great group of guys and a very fun river.

 

[jaleel_da_sheik]

Interesting setup with a center mounted rower and paddlers front and back. I've always been a proponent of a stern mounted rower when running this sort of water, but it looks like a good time!

- Sheik

 

[VerMonsterRV]

We just returned from 4 days of tent camping at Katmai National Park. This place is famous for being able to get up close to grizzly bears feeding on salmon as they swim up a river and jump the falls. Although it rained most of the time it was still an incredible experience. And as a side benefit we finally met up with some friends we met way back at the Virginia Overland Expo when we showed our truck in the DIY section. They decided there to order up a Bliss 18' habitat and then went searching for a suitable truck. They ended up with an amazing MAN Kat 6x6. That thing is massive and when we were parked next to them it gave us a break from all the people that usually walk up to ask about the truck . Decided we really wanted to travel with them through Central America especially at border crossings...

 

[Fred Skywalker]

Definitely living the dream! The portrait in front of the bears is amazing.

 

[VerMonsterRV]

Since we have relatively good cell service here in Fairbanks I thought I would do a quick trip update. We just returned from Deadhorse and the Dalton Highway. Nice and dry on the way up and rainy/muddy on the way back. Also did an Arctic swim, which was way warmer that we had imagined. We've been in way colder water swimming in semi-frozen lakes. The views from the road were fantastic and we learned a bit more about the Alaska oil business.






And the mud starts, they spray calcium chloride onto the road to make is firmer when dry. Really works and was pretty smooth, until it rains. Then it gets slick and the mud clings to your truck and dries on nice and firm...





Wiseman, AK


And having a nice evening get together back in Fairbanks.

 

[VerMonsterRV]

It has been a while so here is another update from the road. We've been pretty busy lately with doing various activities and driving long days (for us) working our way south.

While in Dawson City we decided to do a 50 mile downstream paddle on the Yukon River. With all the current we did it in 1 long day. Good fun and amazed at the remoteness.


Then off to Tombstone Territorial Park for a couple night backpack trip. This is an incredibly beautiful park. Although the weather looks a bit sketchy we learned from a local this is considered good weather for this area.




This hike had a bit of elevation gain/loss. This was a pretty steep section on both sides of the pass. Actually started to snow up here on our way out.


Then down the Stewart Cassiar Highway stopping in at a small lake for the night and a paddle in our kayak the next morning. This is a drone shot of Boya Lake.


Continuing south to the town of Stewart, this hotel uses several historic buildings. Nice little town.


And the Salmon Glacier, probably the prettiest glacier we have seen.


And finding an incredible ice cave nearby the Salmon Glacier! This was a huge cave with intense blues. Seeing one of these has been on our list and we thought it wasn't going to happen and then a couple camped next to us told us about this one.


And yesterday a mountain bike ride (trying not to die in the downhill portions) at Burns Lake. They have a pretty extensive mountain biking trail system here with a campground. Good fun.


Well, that's it for now!

 

[Geo.Lander]

It has been a while so here is another update from the road. We've been pretty busy lately with doing various activities and driving long days (for us) working our way south.

While in Dawson City we decided to do a 50 mile downstream paddle on the Yukon River. With all the current we did it in 1 long day. Good fun and amazed at the remoteness.
View attachment 742080

Then off to Tombstone Territorial Park for a couple night backpack trip. This is an incredibly beautiful park. Although the weather looks a bit sketchy we learned from a local this is considered good weather for this area.
View attachment 742081

View attachment 742086

This hike had a bit of elevation gain/loss. This was a pretty steep section on both sides of the pass. Actually started to snow up here on our way out.
View attachment 742087

Then down the Stewart Cassiar Highway stopping in at a small lake for the night and a paddle in our kayak the next morning. This is a drone shot of Boya Lake.
View attachment 742089

Continuing south to the town of Stewart, this hotel uses several historic buildings. Nice little town.
View attachment 742088

And the Salmon Glacier, probably the prettiest glacier we have seen.
View attachment 742090

And finding an incredible ice cave nearby the Salmon Glacier! This was a huge cave with intense blues. Seeing one of these has been on our list and we thought it wasn't going to happen and then a couple camped next to us told us about this one.
View attachment 742093

And yesterday a mountain bike ride (trying not to die in the downhill portions) at Burns Lake. They have a pretty extensive mountain biking trail system here with a campground. Good fun.
View attachment 742094

Well, that's it for now!

Super inspiring Jon! Beautiful pictures too!
What mountain bikes did you end up getting?

 

[JamesReddish]

@VerMonsterRV thanks for writing all this up, it's been a pleasure to read.
Safe travels

 

[VerMonsterRV]

@Geo.Lander , long story on the mountain bikes. During Covid bikes were pretty much impossible to get here. Our little 20" wheel folding bikes were pretty limited. So, some very close friends, who wanted to upgrade their mountain bikes (they ordered and were willing to wait on some nice Santa Cruz carbon bikes) gave us their older Specialized full suspension MTB's. They are older but still work well for us. Plus, now we are realizing they are physically smaller than the current MTB's for the same frame size. We'll probably upgrade them down the road but for now we are enjoying them.

@JamesReddish, my pleasure.

And unfortunately we had a pretty serious issue with the truck that I am still trying to figure out. A couple of days ago, in the very early morning while we were still in bed the parking brake let go. I incorrectly thought that these brakes couldn't do that, so I never got into the practice of leaving the truck in gear (I am now doing that). It didn't turn out too bad for us, but we rolled into a Jeep that was a tow vehicle for a Class C (we are in Banff and were "camped" in the Ice Feild overflow parking lot). We caused way more damage on the Jeep, luckily no one was hurt and the Jeep was still towable. But the rear quarter panel will need replacing. For us it was a few scratches, a cracked piece of corner extrusion (will fiberglass it and repaint, not a huge deal) and our entry steps. Our steps are junk and will need to be replaced. We feel really bad about it and hope the Jeep repairs go smoothly (our insurance is covering it all), the people were very nice about it. Supposedly it is thought that it is impossible for the parking brake to fail as each rear tire is operated separately (which they are), but I know now that it is not exactly true.

So now onto the brakes. Our truck has a couple of options in the braking system. The first is a load compensation device in the rear that will apply more brake force when heavily loaded. The second is a 4 wheel parking brake system. Both of these I knew nothing about when we got the truck. So the rear brake canisters are what are called combination canisters. They are supposed to provide full braking force with no air as they have an internal spring that is compressed when air is present (for parking and emergency while driving). So this is the normal parking brake. Then on our truck our front brakes are also applied when the parking brake is used, but these are not combination and require air to be present. We have an air leak I have been trying to find without much luck and our pressure is pretty low by morning. Since I didn't know we had this system, when we parked the parking brake always felt very secure and I felt confident in it. This masked our rear brakes not working so well. My theory at this point is that when we bought the truck our rear leaf springs were shot, simulating a very heavy load all the time. So the brake load compensation was always over working the rear brakes (causing the pads to wear). Then we replaced the springs with new parabolic springs, which then would make the load look way lighter (the device is an arm that attaches to the axle and the chassis rails so it just measures the distance between the 2). Now when I repacked the grease in the front wheel bearings I noticed the drums were heat checked. My guess is the front brakes were being over worked ever since the spring upgrade and caused way too much heat. I talked with a local brake shop and they said that checking wasn't uncommon and unless it went to the edge of the drum we were ok. And given the delay in getting things from Europe we decided to go to Alaska and completely rebuild the brakes when we returned in October to the lower 48. Now some of you may think to just bring the truck to a shop and get things done. Well, this is one of the difficult things about owning a truck like this in the USA. This truck uses what are called wedge brakes which haven't been used here in decades. So, the few shops we have had do things I always asked about getting the brakes looked into and they always refused as they were unfamiliar with them. My only option seems to be to drive the truck to Colorado, just haven't wanted to do that as it really isn't a long-term solution to this (or any other issue with this truck). This morning I am going to get under the truck and take a look at the rear brakes closer. Meanwhile I am pouring through the EPC/WIS learning as much as I can. Also, I have 4 new brake drums on the way from Europe, and numerous other brake bits arriving at my mail forwarding service in Germany for a complete 4 wheel brake rebuild in the coming weeks once all the parts arrive. This has also gotten me off my butt to order up other spares as well like a new water pump and slave cylinder among others.

We will wait until Tuscon to get the entry ladder/steps rebuilt. We know a good welder there and it will be warmer.

On the project front once we get to Idaho in a couple of weeks I am planning on starting a rather large project. We really would like to replace our entry door as we are not 100% happy with it. I went round and round with all the higher end door suppliers in Europe but none would really fit in the space we have with the requirements I wanted. So the plan is to build a complete composite door/frame with a 3 point locking system and double pane pressure compensated window that is very well insulated and a bit more robust. I am planning on essentially cloning the same shape and dimensions as our current door. The 3 point lock and glass are also on order from Europe and should be arriving soon. The full length stainless heavy duty piano hinge is on order from the USA and I am working up an order for the fiberglass, core foam and epoxy resin. Not looking forward to this project but should enjoy the results when completed.

 

[DirtWhiskey]

Wow what a photo update! I've always wanted to go to Tombstone. Did you have any bear encounters? The way I understand it you reserve tent spots that are on platforms. And reservations can be hard to get!

Sorry to hear about the brakes, glad nobody was hurt. One of the real tricks to having a little more exotic platform. I would however think that there must be some semi (big rig) brake shop closer to you that could handle air and air-oved hydro wedge brakes? Out here in SLC there are a number of old school truck shops, many operated by our Mexican immigrant community, who know how to keep older rigs running. Might want to reach out to oil and mining rig shops.

Best of luck. I really have enjoyed following this thread.

 

[Joe917]

Jon, the truck should not move with the spring brakes engaged. It sounds like they are way out of adjustment. This is serious as the spring brakes are also your emergency brake in case of catastrophic air loss. Chock the front wheels on level ground. Jack the rear wheel off the ground. there is a plug that gives access to the adjuster (pretty typical brake shoe type) with air in the system and parking brake off spin the wheel and turn the adjuster until the brake starts to drag, back it off a bit. Repeat on the other wheel.
As a minimum you should check the spring brakes once a week. Engage low gear with the parking brake on, try to move the vehicle at a low idle. If it moves the brakes need adjusting.

 

[lucilius]

@Geo.Lander , long story on the mountain bikes. During Covid bikes were pretty much impossible to get here. Our little 20" wheel folding bikes were pretty limited. So, some very close friends, who wanted to upgrade their mountain bikes (they ordered and were willing to wait on some nice Santa Cruz carbon bikes) gave us their older Specialized full suspension MTB's. They are older but still work well for us. Plus, now we are realizing they are physically smaller than the current MTB's for the same frame size. We'll probably upgrade them down the road but for now we are enjoying them.

@JamesReddish, my pleasure.

And unfortunately we had a pretty serious issue with the truck that I am still trying to figure out. A couple of days ago, in the very early morning while we were still in bed the parking brake let go. I incorrectly thought that these brakes couldn't do that, so I never got into the practice of leaving the truck in gear (I am now doing that). It didn't turn out too bad for us, but we rolled into a Jeep that was a tow vehicle for a Class C (we are in Banff and were "camped" in the Ice Feild overflow parking lot). We caused way more damage on the Jeep, luckily no one was hurt and the Jeep was still towable. But the rear quarter panel will need replacing. For us it was a few scratches, a cracked piece of corner extrusion (will fiberglass it and repaint, not a huge deal) and our entry steps. Our steps are junk and will need to be replaced. We feel really bad about it and hope the Jeep repairs go smoothly (our insurance is covering it all), the people were very nice about it. Supposedly it is thought that it is impossible for the parking brake to fail as each rear tire is operated separately (which they are), but I know now that it is not exactly true.

So now onto the brakes. Our truck has a couple of options in the braking system. The first is a load compensation device in the rear that will apply more brake force when heavily loaded. The second is a 4 wheel parking brake system. Both of these I knew nothing about when we got the truck. So the rear brake canisters are what are called combination canisters. They are supposed to provide full braking force with no air as they have an internal spring that is compressed when air is present (for parking and emergency while driving). So this is the normal parking brake. Then on our truck our front brakes are also applied when the parking brake is used, but these are not combination and require air to be present. We have an air leak I have been trying to find without much luck and our pressure is pretty low by morning. Since I didn't know we had this system, when we parked the parking brake always felt very secure and I felt confident in it. This masked our rear brakes not working so well. My theory at this point is that when we bought the truck our rear leaf springs were shot, simulating a very heavy load all the time. So the brake load compensation was always over working the rear brakes (causing the pads to wear). Then we replaced the springs with new parabolic springs, which then would make the load look way lighter (the device is an arm that attaches to the axle and the chassis rails so it just measures the distance between the 2). Now when I repacked the grease in the front wheel bearings I noticed the drums were heat checked. My guess is the front brakes were being over worked ever since the spring upgrade and caused way too much heat. I talked with a local brake shop and they said that checking wasn't uncommon and unless it went to the edge of the drum we were ok. And given the delay in getting things from Europe we decided to go to Alaska and completely rebuild the brakes when we returned in October to the lower 48. Now some of you may think to just bring the truck to a shop and get things done. Well, this is one of the difficult things about owning a truck like this in the USA. This truck uses what are called wedge brakes which haven't been used here in decades. So, the few shops we have had do things I always asked about getting the brakes looked into and they always refused as they were unfamiliar with them. My only option seems to be to drive the truck to Colorado, just haven't wanted to do that as it really isn't a long-term solution to this (or any other issue with this truck). This morning I am going to get under the truck and take a look at the rear brakes closer. Meanwhile I am pouring through the EPC/WIS learning as much as I can. Also, I have 4 new brake drums on the way from Europe, and numerous other brake bits arriving at my mail forwarding service in Germany for a complete 4 wheel brake rebuild in the coming weeks once all the parts arrive. This has also gotten me off my butt to order up other spares as well like a new water pump and slave cylinder among others.

We will wait until Tuscon to get the entry ladder/steps rebuilt. We know a good welder there and it will be warmer.

On the project front once we get to Idaho in a couple of weeks I am planning on starting a rather large project. We really would like to replace our entry door as we are not 100% happy with it. I went round and round with all the higher end door suppliers in Europe but none would really fit in the space we have with the requirements I wanted. So the plan is to build a complete composite door/frame with a 3 point locking system and double pane pressure compensated window that is very well insulated and a bit more robust. I am planning on essentially cloning the same shape and dimensions as our current door. The 3 point lock and glass are also on order from Europe and should be arriving soon. The full length stainless heavy duty piano hinge is on order from the USA and I am working up an order for the fiberglass, core foam and epoxy resin. Not looking forward to this project but should enjoy the results when completed.

Doors always seem to be a truly difficult replacement. Buying an extra door and fittings is underlined on my "next rig" must-do list. Fiberglass would be really good if you or someone you hire can get it right. Depending on the strength of your hinges and hinge mounts, I wonder if it would be feasible to make a door out of bamboo or maybe bamboo/diamond-plate affixed together if you needed it to be exceptionally strong on the outside for some reason. If that wouldn't be too heavy, you could find the ideal window/screen setup and then somewhat easily cut the door to fit the window and your doorframe. For something more modern, a trivial search for carbon fiber sheets resulted in this: https://dragonplate.com/solid-carbon-fiber-sheets-plates.

 

[VerMonsterRV]

Jon, the truck should not move with the spring brakes engaged. It sounds like they are way out of adjustment. This is serious as the spring brakes are also your emergency brake in case of catastrophic air loss. Chock the front wheels on level ground. Jack the rear wheel off the ground. there is a plug that gives access to the adjuster (pretty typical brake shoe type) with air in the system and parking brake off spin the wheel and turn the adjuster until the brake starts to drag, back it off a bit. Repeat on the other wheel.
As a minimum you should check the spring brakes once a week. Engage low gear with the parking brake on, try to move the vehicle at a low idle. If it moves the brakes need adjusting.

Thanks Joe, I agree. One thing with our truck though that masked the rear brakes having issue is we have the optional 4 wheel parking brakes (which I had no idea we had). The front are 100% air with no springs, and since we leak down air (I really need to find that leak) the front loses power overnight. But when we park they are engaged. I do test the parking brake as you describe and we do not budge, but now I understand it is the front brakes doing that.

I had thought these brakes were self adjusting (I have been in email contact with Stefan about this and he has confirmed this), though I do know the older trucks had to be manually adjusted. There is an adjustment for when the pads are first installed, but the dust/dirt covers need to be removed to get access to them. I am hoping we get a bit of clear weather and I will take them off to get a closer look. Maybe I can tighten them up a bit with this adjustment. Stefan has said that the gap should be .75mm.

I did see with the parking brake applied the linings were in contact with the drum. My guess is they are not in much contact though.

 

[Joe917]

The service brakes are self adjusting, the spring brakes require manual adjustment. Our truck was a 1993.

 

[VerMonsterRV]

The service brakes are self adjusting, the spring brakes require manual adjustment. Our truck was a 1993.

So here is how I understand it (or don't understand it). Really trying to work out how these brakes work so I can get things 100%. Here is a cut away of the air brake "combination cylinder" used in the rear (front is different) sent to me by Stefan


If you look to the right in this picture is the "spring brake". The center air chamber is the normal brakes. Essentially when you release the parking brake the air chamber on the right fills with air and compresses the spring which drives the wedge to the right releasing the brakes. The reverse happens when air is removed (parking brake is set), the small wedge moves left spreading out the top and bottom cylinders that will then spread the brake shoes, so the parking brake is activated. Both the normal brakes and the parking brake both actuate the same wedge and the same brake shoes. The adjustment that I can see on our truck is at the cylinders at the top and bottom (far left in the picture). It is a toothed wheel (this is not in the picture) that you turn with a screwdriver to adjust how the bake shoes contact the drum (you need to remove the dust shields for this). For LN2's (I say this as I don't even know these trucks, much less the other models) this happens at brake lining install. You rotate this adjustment until the lining is .75mm from the drum surface. After this initial adjustment they are supposed to self-adjust (which I honestly haven't worked out how that works).

You can also see the bolt head on the far right. This is used to compress the parking brake spring in case you need to be moved and cannot air the brake up. Turn this and it will compress the spring instead of air.

If I missed anything or am incorrect, please jump in, I wrote this to try and share what I am ever so slowly learning.

So, what did I find today? Well after removing the dust plates on the driver's side rear (I had just enough time to do that one) the bottom brake lining needs replacement. The top on the other hand is thick... For some reason, even when full braking force the lining never contacts the brake drum. Either somehow the adjustment loosened, or it was never done after lining install. It took quite a lot of turns to get the lining to be in contact with the drum. My guess the truck came to us like this as we mostly use the exhaust brake.

Anyway, I have 4 new drums, new linings, springs on order and I might even replace the combination canisters (though after my digging today I think they are working ok, but I really do not know). I really want to be sure of our brakes.