Pretty Ugly... 1835, The Build Begins

pairospam

Observer
Hi, Madoxen:

First of all, nice to see that big red cabin has not a single spot of rust. That is quite good news.

According to the old school, meaning exclusively IMHPO, all the air spoilers, on the upper and lateral cabin and also the incorporated bumper spoiler, must be removed. All of them. They are good for mileage, air speed, aerodynamics and all the stuff that is pretty important for reducing costs on long terms for freight companies, but they look quite weird and have no real meaning on a 4x4 expedition truck.

Maybe, if you are not so rigid with the interior height of the Box and you take the deflectors out far, you can still shape it with a little 45º degree cut in the upper front if you are really mad for it. I personally do not like it but, hey... this is your truck!

Speaking about the interior height, it is always better to have more space above your head rather than be short of it, and staying under 385 cm is almost always safe anywhere.

Kind regards and full support for your final decision.


Pairoa
 

Madoxen

Active member
First of all, nice to see that big red cabin has not a single spot of rust.
Oh there is rust :-( unfortunatly but the underside is all good. Rust is on roof and at the rear of the side wall under the air cleaner/roof box . I am going to have to cut out about a 8 inch square and re weld right on an awkward double seam/joint. But u are right it could have been alot of rust all over .

The lower grill/bumper has to go it just cant stay and 4x4 no way. The rear side and roof spoiler set at lowest position is at same height as the air horns. So i guess i either remove it all or live with it . Im prettu sure i can keep it all and stay below the 3.85 . But i am not sure i want to keep it. I like the look of pretty ugly just as a cab but when you make it taller and longer maybe it needs the go faster stripes etc. . Once i have fixed the rust and figured out how to swap cabs i will try with it on and if i dont lile or i figire a masive height saving i will remove if i have to.

Thank you for your input it is always appreceated and helps with the motivation .

I hooe things are going in the right direction with your build
 

Wyuna

Observer
I'd keep the upper wind deflectors, i love the look of them, it reminds me of the logging trucks and transport back in NZ

The bonus of keeping the deflectors is that you can get rid of the 45 degree angle at the front of the Habitat section and you can plan to have the solar panels just under the deflectors for more headroom in the habitat.
 

joeblack5

Active member
Nice lithium, Nice solar panels. I would be a little nervous with such large panes of glass that vibration and wind might damage it. we have 3x 325 Watt panels on our small bus and sofar they are OK but on my second bus we used 16 x 75 watt panels ( because we had those left over) I do like the smaller ones better ... It i easier to walk over them . we lost one to a falling branch and it was easy and cheap to replace. I like redundant systems.
 

Madoxen

Active member
I do like the smaller ones better ... It i easier to walk over them . we lost one to a falling branch and it was easy and cheap to replace. I like redundant systems.
Thanks Joeblack5, yes Size ! um I have to hold my hand up and say It was all about the max size for space and covering the roof surface as we will have no hatches up there and the solar will act as a tropical roof as well. but I never for one second considered the size related to Vibrations and bad road bumps it just did not cross my mind .... now im worrying, Maybe if i install a small ali subframe with foam backing behind the PV to give it a little more support. ? not sure But if at the end of the day it goes very wrong I will have to rethink things and learn a lesson from it too, but with any luck it will all be golden.
 

joeblack5

Active member
Thanks Joeblack5, yes Size ! um I have to hold my hand up and say It was all about the max size for space and covering the roof surface as we will have no hatches up there and the solar will act as a tropical roof as well. but I never for one second considered the size related to Vibrations and bad road bumps it just did not cross my mind .... now im worrying, Maybe if i install a small ali subframe with foam backing behind the PV to give it a little more support. ? not sure But if at the end of the day it goes very wrong I will have to rethink things and learn a lesson from it too, but with any luck it will all be golden.


By chance I have an image of the roof of both of our buses. The yellow schol bus in the rear has the 325 watt, I bought the panels with out frame ( cheaper) and made my own but I am going to put an M6 Stainless threaded rod in the center over the panels as to prevent the panels being sucked out of their frames.
 

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Sitec

Adventurer
I'd keep the upper wind deflectors, i love the look of them, it reminds me of the logging trucks and transport back in NZ

The bonus of keeping the deflectors is that you can get rid of the 45 degree angle at the front of the Habitat section and you can plan to have the solar panels just under the deflectors for more headroom in the habitat.


Agreed. If you manage to get that red cab succesfully onto your chassis without too many mods, then the shape of that cab and it's height naturally depicts the height of your body. I had quite a bit of work getting my roof rack looking right on top of my lower cab so it matched the body. You have this already with the red cab. :)

Just talking with Joe on my build thread about crawl thru doors between the cab and Hab Box. It would be worth you looking at a few of his pics... He has a huge double glazed door in the back of his cab that opens and they can walk into their Hab Box. With the size of that red cab, you'd nearly do the same!

Just found the pics of his setup:-

Joe 1.JPG

Joe 2.JPG
 
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Madoxen

Active member
This weekend I ha e managed to strip the truck further and taken some pictures of the rust on cab that will need to be sorted


20200801_104543.jpg

20200801_104559.jpg

20200801_104616.jpg

Have also completely detached everything from cab to chassis and it it held on with 2 bolts each side now and the cab locs at rear so next step will be to lif the cab off the chassis. Where i will strip it further to check the rust damage in more detail.
 

Madoxen

Active member
As she stands ready to br lifted off but that will have to happen during the week or weekend.

Any one here have some poimters for lifting off or just strop through open doors and lift with hiab? /timber through cab and lift off the timber ? Any one know the weight distribution ie front or rear heavy any info will be greatly recieved thanks

20200802_192751.jpg
 

Sitec

Adventurer
Any one here have some pointers for lifting off or just strop through open doors and lift with Hiab? /timber through cab and lift off the timber ? Any one know the weight distribution ie front or rear heavy any info will be greatly received thanks

When I lifted our 'spare' cab of the donor truck before I sold the chassis, we did exactly that. A strap thru the open doors onto a 3m pallet rack cross bar that was strapped to the fork tines. I took a punt that the center was the right place to lift but I should have been approx. 200mm further forwards.... With your sleeper I'm guessing the middle of the door opening will be close... It is a guess tho! :)


Donor Merc cab off.jpg
 

Madoxen

Active member
200mm further forwards.... With your sleeper I'm guessing the middle of the door opening will be close... It is a guess tho! :)

Did you have spare stripped inside or was the seats etc still in place.

Thanks for the reply and picture i could not for the life of me remember who or where i had seen that, thanks again
 

Sitec

Adventurer
Did you have spare stripped inside or was the seats etc still in place.

Thanks for the reply and picture i could not for the life of me remember who or where i had seen that, thanks again


No worries. It was/is a complete cab.
 

Madoxen

Active member
I keep finding extra hurdles.
With the front mounting point for the cab shown in pic 1. There is a 260mm spacerplate that lifts the megaspace cab up so the floor can be flat. It was my goal to just use the top mount and artach to prettyugly chassis and then maybe lift it a little to get the right height and cut some floor out. But i have now realised that if i remove the front spacer the rear locs of the cab will also be 260mm lower. Shown in pic 2. So i either cut/butcher the rear mount to make it work or use the spacer and gain another 260mm total height on the cab. Now i think i measured the big red cab at 3.86 mtrs heigh but that was from ground to heighest point on the chassis that it is on (red one) . Are u still following me. I hope so.
The pretty ugly chassis is actually already heigher than the read one by a significant amount/mayber 250 to 300mm heigher. So if i use the spacer i am adding more height to the cab and will i think end up over 4 mtrs with a need for a escslator to get into the thing .
1
20200803_155202.jpg
2
20200803_155312.jpg
 

Madoxen

Active member
Ok mega space cab on pretty ugly chassis with the spacer makes for 4.08 height.
Without is 3.82. Guess i am going to be fabricating a new cab mount for the rear of cab to drop the locs 260mm inline with the front
15964295810542891314095088136112.jpg
 

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