MB 1120 Coming to America! Purchase, Build and Now Travel!
- Thread starter VerMonsterRV
- Start date
VerMonsterRV
Gotta Be Nuts
.125, it was 6061 but bent easily once annealed. Pretty much complete now, need to weld on 6 mounts for the light bars (2 per bar), 1 weld in bung for the air exit (utilized the main tube as the air line for the horn) and make a mount for the air horn. Hopefully will finish in the morning and Heather can start burnishing. With luck Tom and I will start the storage box in the afternoon.
VerMonsterRV
Gotta Be Nuts
Nothing like yours... Just a single rectangular trumpet, don't want to make someone soil their shorts ?.Looking good! Any crazy horns, or something sensible...
VerMonsterRV
Gotta Be Nuts
The air solenoid is at the base of the horn. Now I just need to get the wiring up to it and decide on the dash switch. I really would like some Mercedes switches and dash plates to fit them, just not sure I want to wait that long to order them from Europe.
VerMonsterRV
Gotta Be Nuts
The entire top tube will be pressurized (it is one piece from front mount pad up and around the top to the other front pad). There is a threaded bung behind the driver's side lower mount, so hidden when bolted on. We will weld on another threaded bung at the top. There will be a short 3/8" hose to connect to the horn. The solenoid is mounted to the base of the horn. The only bit I haven't figured out is where to put a shutoff valve like @Sitec did. Might screw one into the rooftop bung prior to the quick connect fitting, otherwise it would run for a while with the air volume in the tube. Matter of fact, I think that is what I will do, I already have a nice stainless valve in hand and I can step on the front fender and reach it.
So normally I would run both positive/negative wires back to a central ground (from fiberglass sailboat days). Since the cab/chassis is grounded any reason I couldn't just terminate the ground wire right to the rack? Got 3 light bars and the horn solenoid, would save a bit of wiring/work and easier if I need to replace something.
VerMonsterRV
Gotta Be Nuts
The rack and storage box are now bolted on and the light bars/horn mounted. We are back at the little campground where we will finish the wiring/tubing for the lights, horn and paint the box. Of course ran into a issue with the 50" light bar on our first drive. Right at about 20mph it started to sing to us and by the time we hit 50mph it was screaming at us. A quick internet search and I learn that this is a common issue! Really? I have found a few "fixes" but it would really seem that with a minimum of design change in the extrusions there would not be a problem. So, a trip to Home Depot to get a couple of things to fix it.
Here is right after we got the rack bolted on at Tom's shop (I am on the left). You can also see the new small storage box behind the ladders. It completes the front half of the passenger's side rear wheel well. Tom was a good guy to work with and hopefully when we get back from Mexico he can help with our turbo upgrade.
Here is Heather burnishing the rack, we are leaving it plain aluminum. Tom has been building dune buggies/sand rails since he was a teen powered by air cooled VW engines.
Here we are at an high school friends house bolting on the light bars and horn. I don't travel with a right angle drill and he had one so it made installing the side light bars way easier.
And a pic back at the campground.
Haven't mentioned it yet but look what pulled in at the campground. Nice German couple that we need to spend a bit more time getting to know.
That's it for now, hopefully the next post the lights will all be wired in and the under storage box all finished.
Here is right after we got the rack bolted on at Tom's shop (I am on the left). You can also see the new small storage box behind the ladders. It completes the front half of the passenger's side rear wheel well. Tom was a good guy to work with and hopefully when we get back from Mexico he can help with our turbo upgrade.
Here is Heather burnishing the rack, we are leaving it plain aluminum. Tom has been building dune buggies/sand rails since he was a teen powered by air cooled VW engines.
Here we are at an high school friends house bolting on the light bars and horn. I don't travel with a right angle drill and he had one so it made installing the side light bars way easier.
And a pic back at the campground.
Haven't mentioned it yet but look what pulled in at the campground. Nice German couple that we need to spend a bit more time getting to know.
That's it for now, hopefully the next post the lights will all be wired in and the under storage box all finished.
luthj
Engineer In Residence
Oh look a MAN! 
In case you haven't figured it out, the typical cause of the whistling noise is this gap. Its essentially the resonance slot in a whistle, just really big. The easy fix is to lower the light bar, but you don't appear to have a way to do that. Some aluminum extrusion (angle maybe), would work to fill the gap I think.
I like the rack. Looks like it will do a good job fending off those offensive low hanging tree branches!
In case you haven't figured it out, the typical cause of the whistling noise is this gap. Its essentially the resonance slot in a whistle, just really big. The easy fix is to lower the light bar, but you don't appear to have a way to do that. Some aluminum extrusion (angle maybe), would work to fill the gap I think.
I like the rack. Looks like it will do a good job fending off those offensive low hanging tree branches!
VerMonsterRV
Gotta Be Nuts
We made the hop south of the border and are now camped on the beach in Baja. All went smoothly at the border. We are now parked next to another expedition rv, friends of @Neil who helped put us in touch. They built a very cool stub nose double cab with an Ormocar built habitat (they finished the interior).
I also got the howl fixed on the light bar. I ended up following a guy on youtube. He got a strip of vinyl baseboard from Home Depot. It has a nice 45 degree angle at the bottom. I cut that strip off and glued it into the leading cooling fin. Worked perfect. Also got to test the new air horn, sounds just like I wanted.
And.. our second (replaced under warranty) Sterling b2b charger has issues. It was shutting down due to overheating. I opened it up today and one of the 2 cooling fans is pretty much seized up (you can still turn the blade but us pretty stiff).
So over the next couple of weeks we will wander further south.
I also got the howl fixed on the light bar. I ended up following a guy on youtube. He got a strip of vinyl baseboard from Home Depot. It has a nice 45 degree angle at the bottom. I cut that strip off and glued it into the leading cooling fin. Worked perfect. Also got to test the new air horn, sounds just like I wanted.
And.. our second (replaced under warranty) Sterling b2b charger has issues. It was shutting down due to overheating. I opened it up today and one of the 2 cooling fans is pretty much seized up (you can still turn the blade but us pretty stiff).
So over the next couple of weeks we will wander further south.
luthj
Engineer In Residence
Yeah, the sterling units are pretty inefficient, and seem to be marginal for cooling. There was a guy over on the sprinter forum who 3d printed an external adapter for a blower/fan, as it was the only way to get full output in arizona summers.
We are feeling the grey of winter up here pretty hard right now. Might need to swing south ourselves once I get our rig back together. ?
We are feeling the grey of winter up here pretty hard right now. Might need to swing south ourselves once I get our rig back together. ?
Neil
Observer
Really glad you guys eventually met up.
We had nothing but grief with our Sterling B2B. In the first year it was repaired 3 times andcreplaced once under warrantee.
In the UK their customer servicescare famous for being dreadful.
It eventually , after loads more problems, burnt out.
I replaced it with a Victron one, which has been fantastic.
I could never recommend Sterling sadly.
Neil
We had nothing but grief with our Sterling B2B. In the first year it was repaired 3 times andcreplaced once under warrantee.
In the UK their customer servicescare famous for being dreadful.
It eventually , after loads more problems, burnt out.
I replaced it with a Victron one, which has been fantastic.
I could never recommend Sterling sadly.
Neil
nick disjunkt
Adventurer
Ours was mostly fine whilst I owned it, but it would occasionally just forget to turn on. Very irritating when you've been parked up for a week or so and the batteries are low, and you do a long day of driving, and find the batteries haven't been getting any charge.
Sterling were the only people making these at the time I brought it, although they already had a ropey reputation. Then Antares started making one, and now all the big players have a version
Last edited:
