Grenadiers
Adventurer
My wife and I, two small dogs, and a cat, took off December 30th, 2017 in our new to us, 1985 Swiss-made, Saurer 6dm military camper conversion to Baja California. We purchased our 'Helga' (it is yellow, and Swiss!) in May of 2017, and spent three months adding 30" to the front of the cabin, and then remodeling the inside of the cabin to include a Thetford Cassette toilet and, a Splendide RV washer/dryer combo. Also, we painted the cabinets, replaced the flooring and covered the walls with white wallboard, and a new ceiling. Plus new batteries for the cabin and starting batteries. Lots of ETC~! Anyway, that build-up is documented here: http://forum.expeditionportal.com/threads/172929-Swiss-Army-our-1985-Saurer-6DM-build
Our journey began soon after completing the modifications. Well, we spent a month after that, sanding, and staining our 1800 square feet of decks at our house, and replacing the deck railings. My 'trigger thumb' is the painful result of that! Drilling 2" holes in 32-5"x96" logs for the spindles. Grrrrrr.
We had companions in our trip, a German couple we met on the Mexican mainland a year ago. They have a 1983 MAN DOCA overland vehicle where they disabled the cab tilt mechanism and connected their cabin to the trailing edge of the cab. Remarkable. There are a lot of differences out there for big overland vehicles of course, and our two were quite different. The Saurer was built in conjunction with Mercedes Benz, and definitely refined by the Swiss; aka, it's overbuilt. The MAN sported a six cylinder Deutz non-aspirated diesel engine. Our Helga has a 320hp six cylinder turbo-charged engine. The MAN is probably a 8.136 truck, with 136 hp or so; not sure.
Anyway, my wife speaks fluent German, and I just grunted, and handed out beers. We were good. The two of us were set on Baja, even though we only had did a cursory trip to the Mogollon Rim in northern Arizona, in the area where we live. In other words, we were a tad nervous! However, none for the worry, the Saurer lived up to it's reputation of excellence, 55-60 mph down the highway. The semi-automatic transmission, which has a small 5-speed shifter, with overdrive for each gear, was easy to use. After a few hundred miles, I realized that I didn't really have up-shift or downshift, I just left it in fifth gear, and the tranny did all of the work. Oh well, I'm old~!
We took off from Prescott, AZ, down Hwy 89 south, if you haven't been on that road, you should! Lots of twisties, cliff roads, and you can go to Wickenburg. But there is a bypass to Hwy 60 to Quartzsite; which we took. We were sorta interested in Quartzsite, but the thousands of RVs intimidated us, as in, it was getting late, where do we park? So, instead, we took Hwy 95 south and camped in the Kofa area for the night. Very nice, big moon, lots of dirt, and a few suds!
The next day, we continued down Hwy 95 through Yuma and west on the freeway to Hwy 98, then south on Hwy 7 to the border, which is Mexicali East. Which we had heard was good for bigger vehicles instead of the West crossing. Good choice, getting our FMM, we were the only ones in the office, very friendly staff and the banjercito was a few feet away, again, very friendly people as well, and great service. So, we continued through the city, looking for our first destination, the COSTCO~! The wives went in, of course, snort, and bought some essentials like food, and we went back to highway 5 to continue south.
More to come, have to look for some more pics~!
Our journey began soon after completing the modifications. Well, we spent a month after that, sanding, and staining our 1800 square feet of decks at our house, and replacing the deck railings. My 'trigger thumb' is the painful result of that! Drilling 2" holes in 32-5"x96" logs for the spindles. Grrrrrr.
We had companions in our trip, a German couple we met on the Mexican mainland a year ago. They have a 1983 MAN DOCA overland vehicle where they disabled the cab tilt mechanism and connected their cabin to the trailing edge of the cab. Remarkable. There are a lot of differences out there for big overland vehicles of course, and our two were quite different. The Saurer was built in conjunction with Mercedes Benz, and definitely refined by the Swiss; aka, it's overbuilt. The MAN sported a six cylinder Deutz non-aspirated diesel engine. Our Helga has a 320hp six cylinder turbo-charged engine. The MAN is probably a 8.136 truck, with 136 hp or so; not sure.
Anyway, my wife speaks fluent German, and I just grunted, and handed out beers. We were good. The two of us were set on Baja, even though we only had did a cursory trip to the Mogollon Rim in northern Arizona, in the area where we live. In other words, we were a tad nervous! However, none for the worry, the Saurer lived up to it's reputation of excellence, 55-60 mph down the highway. The semi-automatic transmission, which has a small 5-speed shifter, with overdrive for each gear, was easy to use. After a few hundred miles, I realized that I didn't really have up-shift or downshift, I just left it in fifth gear, and the tranny did all of the work. Oh well, I'm old~!
We took off from Prescott, AZ, down Hwy 89 south, if you haven't been on that road, you should! Lots of twisties, cliff roads, and you can go to Wickenburg. But there is a bypass to Hwy 60 to Quartzsite; which we took. We were sorta interested in Quartzsite, but the thousands of RVs intimidated us, as in, it was getting late, where do we park? So, instead, we took Hwy 95 south and camped in the Kofa area for the night. Very nice, big moon, lots of dirt, and a few suds!
The next day, we continued down Hwy 95 through Yuma and west on the freeway to Hwy 98, then south on Hwy 7 to the border, which is Mexicali East. Which we had heard was good for bigger vehicles instead of the West crossing. Good choice, getting our FMM, we were the only ones in the office, very friendly staff and the banjercito was a few feet away, again, very friendly people as well, and great service. So, we continued through the city, looking for our first destination, the COSTCO~! The wives went in, of course, snort, and bought some essentials like food, and we went back to highway 5 to continue south.
More to come, have to look for some more pics~!
