Merry Christmas to you, guys!
Well, it's been a while. Too much regular work, little time to work on the truck, less time to work on the updates.
Where were we? Oh, yes… the elements of the bogie. Many of them were ready, except the springs, the shafts and some of the struts. The springs would have to wait until I had the time to do a specialist consultation and do the maths to modify the amount of leaves and, of course, for replacing the broken master leaves.
Made some order, moved the “blast chamber” over the frame and discarded a lot of old and broken boxes and accommodated the parts in new ones to have them clean and ready for assembling.
I then started working on the rear part of the frame, at last. For a long time I was busy cleaning the surfaces and the crannies from rust and dry mud with manual tools in order to work the less with the sand blaster, which would do the final touch. In some places, as I stated before, the dirt was hard as a rock and I had to chisel a lot.
Tired after a lot of chiselling and spreading rust everywhere I stopped and made something different for a change. I buckled down to take out the exhaust muffler. It was in good condition, something pretty rare among the trucks of that age. I took out the left exhaust pipe without much trouble, but when I tried to remove the right side exhaust pipe it did not move a single millimeter. After trying many ways I ended up using the cutting disc. It was not a nice picture but the muffler was going to be replaced anyway.
Once the muffler was out the bulky gear box/transfer was totally exposed, and the next job was to clean it and prepare it for painting. It was also necessary, of course, to clean the rest of the frame, the supports and all the corners full of some crusty mix of dirt, grease and rust.
Scraping before cleaning and washing was capital as the grease remover was not able to deal with the job by itself, and there were some points where I had to chisel hard to take the dirt off. The electric wires were stuck in this kind of cement as they passed between the cross members and the main rails of the frame.
After many hours there were several kilograms of dirt and pebbles under the gearbox, but it seemed that there was no difference comparing before and after. The cramps at the arms and forearms told differently, though.
The next working sessions I went on cleaning the rest of the surfaces of the gearbox and the frame. I also dedicated some time to lose the wiring from the frame so I could finally remove it completely. That way it would not longer block the cleaning and painting of the frame and I would be able to inspect and repair it carefully. I was only hoping to be able to put every connector and wire back in place as at that time I had been not able to get the wiring diagrams.
Eduardo and I went to the cattle once again carrying the diesel generator that I had rejected as noisy, and Christ… how I was right! Hanging fiercely the big power grinder I hoped to finish Spare's suffering applying the quietus to the frame. Once cut no one, not even me, could revive Spare. Finally he was free to rest in peace.
I took a big portion of the front frame including the cross member to have material to work with to fabricate supports or anything that could be necessary. We loaded the piece of steel on the Mitsubishi L200 and took a brief rest and to allow our ears to heal.
At the shop I disassembled the piece of frame to get the rails. However, what seemed to be a simple task ended up with an almost two hours struggle to take all the bolts and the rivets out. The guys at Mercedes knew what they were doing!
When both rails and the cross member were separated and once the measures were ascertained many times they were marked and cut as required. Put in the right position it looked that there would be no major problems. The graft rails were taller than the original rails but the inferior parts could overlap so it would provide a better surface for welding and better resistance.
I removed the aft cross member to allow for the auxiliary inner rails to be held in position to test if they fitted and to see if any other manoeuver was of use. They fitted perfectly, not to believe it.
One last look and a shot at the Merkabah with her frame intact for the last time, the grafts ready for welding. I could have welded them myself, but I had still a little common sense left so I preferred to call a professional for that quiet important task.
