My 66 Unimog 404 Cartography Truck

[Nick02]

Since I was a wee little lad (13 yrs old to be exact) I had an obsession for portal axles and unimogs. I set a goal to buy one, and nine years later I achieved that goal!
I had to sell my project ford, my kidney, live off ramen and corndogs but here it is.

It is a 1966 Unimog 404 cartography truck, 2.2L gas inline six, on the fly locker portals, 6-speed 2 reverse the usual.

Plan is to fix it up and get her on the road; it has a bad pressure plate,tires,canvas, brakes and some rust; but i'am confident I will have it running in no time. I am planning on bringing it to overland expo in a few months here with our company.
I want to go expedition style on this thing, on board water, air etc and move all the stuff from my trailer into the back of it.

Some pics of it sitting

I paid $3500 for it, it was in Prescott needs about 1.5-2K in parts to be reliable, and a title
Tlow uses his diesel Unimog to maneuver mine around his yard and onto our giant trailer.

Then we got it home, towing the 3 ton beast wasn't that bad.

Next to my little Subi DD.

SOHC just like my dakota, only 4 decades earlier. This mog has 11K on the chassis and has a newly installed rebuilt M180 motor!

Portals!

Interesting that some of the exhaust is run through the battery box to keep em warm

I found this buried in the cab and as you can see it needs batteries, throw out bearing and a pressure plate. Parts soon! I ordered the original style organic clutch instead of the "puck" style.

The box is super cool, has gun racks, storage, map desks, forced air heating, seats, windows, etc...

more inside

I love the deskspace, a nice window to look out of!, I could live in here.

Three points and a rollbar sweet!

The gas heater for the box

Up front, everything seems ok but the locker lever is frozen and the 3-4-5-6 range of the gearbox is impossible to engage; gonna crack oven the cover and free some stuck syncros.

That is it for now, gonna be 2-4 weeks for parts to come in! ahh!

 

[mogwildRW1]

Have fun. Should be a nice rig when your done. I'm sure you know, Scott @ Expedition Imports will have most/all the parts you'll need.

 

[rbgerrish]

Good to see another youngin' excited about 404's! I fell in love with the 404 Radio Truck back in 1998, and ended up getting my first one in 1999. Loved it! I regret selling it. You'll have a great time, they are awesome rigs.

 

[gm13]

That's a thing-o-beauty, good luck with it. Look forward to seeing more pics.

 

[Rbertalotto]

What a great find. Love the box and the signs in German...?

 

[grizzlyj]

Nice truck

Is the battery heating exhaust from the engine or the box heater?

Have fun!! :wings:

 

[desertrover]

These trucks are great, but they come with their own headaches. The throwout bearing will likely be a big one. You may be able to get to it without totally pulling the cab, but seperating the tx from the engine made me rethink my mog ownership. Being a stubborn bastard, I pulled the cab, engine, and front axle to get to my dead transmission for replacement. The ancient mog email list, http://www.tx4x4.com/mog.html, and Scott Ingham of Expeditionimports.com will soon be your best friends. Dont take this as a downer, sounds like you like these trucks as much as I do. Get her running and hopefully make it out to Calico this year! Hit me up if you need any 404/radiobox related help. Are you planning on implementing full camper style systems in the radiobox?
Best of luck from a fellow mogger.

 

[Nick02]

The battery box looks to be heated directly off the exhaust system.

Hopefully I wont roll this thing, i'll just have to try harder and not play monstertruck with cars again.

The seller, Thilo of T-Low's offroad was a pretty cool guy. Thilo gave me an overview of how to pull the engine forward to separate it from the engine and allow for the pressure plate to come out. Since the front clip is rusty I also bought another I'll kill two birds with one stone and cut the old one out to help with engine relocation before I weld on the new one and start on bodywork.

I currently have the mog parked at my work, I have access to a forklift which will hopefully make the process go smoother.
I have been lubricating every part on the truck, and finally got the lockers to engage. I also freed up that stuck syncro and can now get the truck in all six gears.

No plan for the box right now, I would like to get the desks out and strip the wood floor, install my on board hot water setup.

I do have a question, how are the batteries in the box configured? What size of batteries should I buy? I know I have to connect them in series, but I only have two terminals going into the box both are the same color, have no polarity markings and one has a smaller post connector then the other.

I'll be sure to send some PM's or reply here if I have any questions, the engineering and subsequent serviceability on this truck does make it quite interesting to work on.

 

[762X39]

Regarding the batteries, 2 group 27 size batteries will fit. You seem to be missing the battery tray or did you just pull it out? Enjoy your truck, I really enjoy mine.

 

[Tennmogger]

I understand your enthusiasm because I was also that enthused in late 1997. The radio/command 404's are great trucks.

Looking at your little yellow list makes me think that the TOB might be the only problem with the clutch system. It says "No Clutch/ TOB". I interpret that to mean "no clutch because of TOB". Then it says great runner. Somebody apparently drove that truck when the note was made.

There's no reason you could not get the engine running and find out the extent of the TOB problem. Sometimes these TOB's get dry and sound horrible, BUT the TOB is greasable through the access hole in the top of the bell housing. I claim to be the first American to do this, ha ha.

http://www.rockymountainmoggers.com/

http://www.rockymountainmoggers.com/tech.html

http://www.rockymountainmoggers.com/throwoutbearing.html

The reason that might be important is that replacing a TOB can be done without taking the engine out or cab off. What you have to do is take off everything in front of the engine, radiator, etc, disconnect the exhaust, remove the carb, unbolt the pivot point at the lower front of the engine, and basically move the engine forward to the grill (hanging from an engine hoist). That leaves enough room to extract the tranny input shaft from the clutch assembly and slide off the bad TOB, then new one on. I have done that a couple of times and it's much easier than pulling the cab then the engine.

Make a support beam about the length of the engine, suspend that from an engine hoist, and support the engine front and rear. With the hood off, and cab top and windshield off, the engine will be a direct lift.

The Rocky Mountain Moggers site, above, will tell you a lot about 404 Unimogs!

Welcome to Mogdom,

Bob

 

[desertrover]

These trucks are normal negative ground, so just figure out which lead has continuity with the chassis and that's your ground. Does your radiobox have it's own batteries?

 

[grizzlyj]

"Automotive batteries typically have one of three types of terminals. In past years, the most common design was the SAE Post, consisting of two lead posts in the shape of truncated cones, positioned on the top of the battery, with slightly different diameters to ensure correct electrical polarity.

The "JIS" type is similar to the SAE but smaller, once again positive is larger than negative but both are smaller than their SAE counterparts. Most older Japanese cars were fitted with JIS terminals. You must ensure that when you are buying a new battery that you know which terminals you have. One must also look at the orientation of and which side of the old battery the terminals are on, otherwise you might find that if the terminals are oppositely oriented that the battery cables will not reach the new battery terminals."

From-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battery_terminal

 

[762X39]

As I mention earlier, a pair of group 27 batteries will fit, my 1970 404 has SAE terminals (it is a swiss troop carrier). Battery terminals are inexpensive, even the marine ones so I wouldn't lose any sleep over them. You will need a short jumper to tie the two batteries together if the original one is lost though ( I made mine from 1 foot of #2 welding cable).

 

[Nick02]

Yay my parts arrived all the way from Istanbul Turkey!

NOS organic clutch to replace the metallic puck style one that's probably in there, I have been told the organic style is more forgiving to the pressure plate compared to the puck style.
Also got a new TOB, master cyl piston/kit, carb kit, wheel cyl seals and fuel pump kit.

Next paycheck I'am going to get some batteries and get it running, soo excited, thanks for the insight and tips!

 

[desertrover]

Who did you go through for parts if you don't mind my asking? As far as the clutch, these trucks just don't seem to be too hard on clutch parts, probably because of the relatively low torque at the crank and high reduction ratios throughout the drivetrain. You seldom have to slip the clutch off road. I think I put the most wear on my clutch on road, starting from a stop on a grade in 3rd. Once you get it running, mods I can't recommend enough are Amsoil MTF in the transmission, a transmission temp sensor, and the Pertronix ignition.