Unimogadventures - Our build and travel thread

[Iain_U1250]

Back from holiday and now work starts full time on the Mog, first thing was to find out how much it weighs.

I hired a set of weigh pads again. The results were a bit disappointing given how much focus I've put on the weight.

I put most of the stuff that I plan to put in the truck, including the spare wheel, jack, bedding, and all the bit and pieces I have still to go.

The truck now weighs in at 6.3 tons, I think I will still be adding another 100kg for things like the windscreen, wiring, speakers, amplifiers, engine oil and water, inter cooler, that should be basically the "dry weight" of 6.4tons

Add:
150kg for people ( 2x75kg as per standard)
200 lt of water ( I'll probably increase this by 100lt after it's registered )
400lt of fuel

That gives me 7.150 tons.

So, only 350kg of "stuff. Considering we had a lot less in our Land Rover on our 3 month trip, we should be OK, just. but we will be close to GVM nearly all the time.

For the record:

Right Front - 1550kg
Left Front - 1594kg = 3144kg Front Axle
Right Rear - 1582kg
Left Rear - 1580kg = 3162 Rear Axle

Total: 6306kg.

The water will be directly on the rear axle, the fuel probably an equal split and the people on the front axle.

The scales are pretty accurate, we tested them with some gym weights and they were spot on for 10kg and 20kg weights.

Searching back through this thread, here are my estimates from a few years ago, last time I had it on the scale, out by at least 500kg.

I'll will still try and get it registered for 8.0tons, as the plates on the cab say I have 4 ton axles, and the U1250 brochure says up to 8.0 tons.

Still, it pays to watch the weight for anyone building a camper. I'm guessing that this was the state of the interior when it was weighed.






So a lot of things have been added, but it all adds up.

I have hired a mobile truck weighing station and weighed my camper, and as it stands on the weigh pads today, the whole truck weights in at:

Front Axle - 2.74 tons
Rear Axle - 1.96 tons
Total - 4.70 tons.

I have quite loaded up most of the bits I have taken off, doors, bumper, seats, rear windows, radiator, battery, winch, AT-Vos sound insulation kit and anything else I have lying around.

I am on track to come in on target with:
Truck - 4700kg

Parts to go:

Front Winch - 50kg
Sprung Mattress - 50kg
Windows and glass - 50kg
Floor - 75kg
Spare wheel - 100kg
Furniture & Lining - 100kg
Fridges - 50kg
Solar Panels - 40kg
Toilet - 35kg
Stove, Calorifier, water pump etc, 50kg
Roof Rack & Bull Bar - 100kg
Insulation - 100kg
Batteries & Chargers - 250kg

Other stuff:

Fuel - 400lt
Water - 300lt
Food etc - 500kg
People - 4 x 75 = 300kg

Total 7250kg.

That gives me only 250kg up my sleeve, which is not that much but should just be enough.

If I can still keep it on a diet, then everything should be fine. Thanks to everyone who warned about keeping the weight down - you were right - things add up quickly.

The truck was previously registered as 8 ton - so I will try for that again, but the plate on the side says 7500kg. We will see what the authorities say when I go to register it.

 

[graynomad]

I hired a set of weigh pads again.

I used bathroom scales (with a little help from Pythagoras), worked a treat

I too was heavier than I expected with Wot Mk2, it's still OK but I was hoping for better. Seems to be par for the course with these trucks.

 

[Iain_U1250]

HI Rob, i saw your method in your build up of Mk2, but I'm too lazy

I've found all the details on the "official" U1250 weight, and it's 8000kg, so I will push for that, then I'll be OK weight wise.

 

[philco]

build

Hi Iain, Have been following both the build and your trip around Aus in the 110, Looking forward to seeing how it all goes when its completed.

 

[Iain_U1250]

Thanks, I'm working on the truck now, so I will have some updates in the very near future, at the moment, I am undo a lot to things, and redoing them based on our experiences on our trip. Progress is slow, and a lot of waiting for the interior fit out to finish. Next week I start work on the cab fit out, we learnt a lot about how much punishment we are likely to subject the truck to, so some thing will have to be made to take quite a hammering. It is scary what corrugations can do to a truck, I'm not sure how the Unimog will perform, whether the huge tyres and double the weight will smooth out the corrugations. If I work out the tyre pressure based on the max load of 3550kg per tyre @ 88 psi. With my measured wheel weights of 1600kg the tyre pressure should be around 40psi on the road, and less off road. This is lower than the Land Rover rear tyres which full loaded run at 60PSI. On the corrugations I ran 22psi in the rear, and 15 psi in the front. I expect to run similar pressures in the Unimog, I have internal bead locks, so can run very low tyre pressures but the range of 15 to 40psi seems about right.

Once I have sorted out the cab layout, then I'll start rewiring the whole truck. I prepsre a list of things to I have to do.

There are four major parts:

1. Cab
2, Engine Compartment
3. Camper box
4. Chassis


Each section has various subsections.

1. Cab & Cab Interior

Dash Wiring
Switches and Gauges
Windscreen wipers
Overhead Console and Video Screens
Air Con System
Radios ( UHF and Stereo)
Door Speakers and Overhead Speakers
Aerials
iPad Mount
Door Trims
Dashboard
Window Channel felt trim
Sound Insulation kit final fit
Steering wheel (Nashy99 is working on fitting a U5000 wheel to my steering shaft.)
Electric Window wiring.
Electric Mirror wiring
Interior Lighting
Gear shifter Mods
Interior carpeting
Windscreen


2. Engine Compartment

Intercooler and piping (Modified by Nashy99 - Thanks Ben )
A/C Condenser
Electric Fans
Intercooler radiator
Webasto heater and hoses
Turbo Water cooling hoses
Cooling System & Hoses
Horns
Alternator wiring
Starter wiring
Electric Fan Controller
Wiring everything else


3. Camper

Finish interior panels ( My very slow cabinet maker's job)
Radio and speakers
Sat Phone Installation
Fans and down lights
Heater piping and valving
Wiring
Rear Shower and drinking water plumbing
Reverse Cameras
Exterior Lighting
Toilet external venting
Rear kitchen Inverter
Rear Kitchen Fold down table
Rear dust seals and panels
Boot locks
Spade and broom storage hatch
Rear boot panel
Gas bottle storage compartment
Final Painting of lower panels
Automatic Step
Grey Water Tank and plumbing
Positive Air Pressure system
Fridge venting fans
Boot compartment vents and fans
Sound insulation bag between cab and camper.


4. Chassis

Rewiring all exterior lighting, indicators, sensors, pressure switches etc.
Fit ARB Electric air compressor into air system
Finalise air system fitting including air tool connections
Fuel lines and filters
Fuel tanks
Fuel change over valves
Fording/Breather tubing and manifold
Steering arms and draglinks ( new bushes and ball joint seals)

There are probably a lot of things not on the list, but that should be the majority of items left to finish. not having worked on the truck for around four months, getting back into it has been difficult, just trying to figure out where to start.

The past two weeks since we got back, there has been a week of doctors appointments, and then catching up on 3 months worth of house maintenance and fixing up. With most of that done, it is time to get stuck into the truck.

This time my wife will be helping out a bit, and doing more work on the interior upholstery etc.

There will be regular updates, and I have a dedicated camera for the workshop, and even a GoPro so loads of photos and possibly even a video or two. I'm planning on an update a week, or more often if I get my act together.

The next stage is to sort out what order to do all this work in.

 

[graynomad]

Fit ARB Electric air compressor into air system

The dual one looks nice, 6CFM, 100% duty cycle and able to run many tools with a receiver, at least according to the blurb.

 

[Bernard_Roofus]

That is quite the list!

 

[Iain_U1250]

I have two of the dual ones, but will only fit the second one after I get it registered, or if I need it to ensure I make the 5 minute cut off to release the handbrake. The main use would be for running air tools and pumping up tyres without running the engine. I have around 60lt of air tanks, which is around double what it came with, but I would rather have more air than less in the truck.

The dual one looks nice, 6CFM, 100% duty cycle and able to run many tools with a receiver, at least according to the blurb.

 

[Iain_U1250]

Sure is

That is quite the list!

 

[Bernard_Roofus]

I am afraid to make a list of what I have left to do, I just sort of go day by day. Maybe that is why I am three years deep now. No worries, I like how yours is turning out. Can't wait to see the interior finished.

 

[LukeH]

It is scary what corrugations can do to a truck, I'm not sure how the Unimog will perform,.

Rest assured it's better, unless the corrugations are caused by your sized wheels.
Way back I convoyed with some friends in a TGM on 365/85/20 and I was on 235/85/16. On the stretches of corrugations made by landrovers, toyotas etc on 16 inch wheels they didn't even notice them and sped off leaving us with the choice between rattling our fillings out or crawling. On another day we found a 120km stretch of corrugations made by semi-trailers driven by total psychopaths. That stretch took both vehicles two days.
The mad drivers did it in two hours, but the trucks weren't their own!!!
On two occasions we had to dive the trucks into the bushes as a driver coming the other way DRIFTED his fully loaded trailer round the huge sweeping bend!!

 

[Flys Lo]

The dual one looks nice, 6CFM, 100% duty cycle and able to run many tools with a receiver, at least according to the blurb.

I've got one - and they are nice.

If I had to do it again, I would fit the Air Zenith compressors (the one compressor I saw on every "low rider" at SEMA). A single compressor pumps out almost as much as the twin ARB unit, and they are cheaper too.
They also make a twin compressor kit
http://www.autoanything.com/suspension-systems/69A4912A0A0.aspx

 

[Nashy99]

Looking forward to more shots of the interior Iain!

 

[Iain_U1250]

Time for an update then. First of all, the interior fit out saga continues slowly, but the rear overhead locker is now in, and that meant I could fit the speakers and the fans.




The door for the toilet locker was also delivered, so I screwed it on. It looks good, but there was a mistake - there was supposed to be a strip of Jarrah on the bottom as a "kick panel" - so it had to be taken off and sent back for the strip to be added.



Since I had the door, I could then fit the toilet slide, but there was a problem as the hinge is about 3mm proud of the side of the door (there is a strip to cover the edge) as the panels are only 12mm thick, and the hinge is 15mm. Unfortunately that mean the toilet slide did not work properly - hitting the hinges, so I had to reposition the toilet slide so it would work. An hour of two of repositioning and refitting, and we have a toilet. As usual, there was a problem, the little handle that you move to direct the flow to the solid or liquid containers would hit the door. So that hand had to be cut off, and a lower profile handle made that I put in the inside, out of the way. At last the whole thing was functional. Now to make the catch to hold the slide in position so it is not putting any load on the door.





After the Sikaflex had gained enough strength, I installed the speakers - a pair of Jl C5 6.5" splits. Whist i was doing the wiring in the locker, I decided to fit the fans. The fans we had bought a long time ago, they are a nice classic chrome fan, with two speeds. I fitted these and after turning them on, realised that they were way too noisy. The locker acting as a sound board amplifying the noise. I tried fitting a rubber pad, but that did not do much good. After a bit of research, I found what was rated as the quietest fan on the market, the Camframo Sirocco fan.

Our local marine supplier had them on special, for only a bit more than I could have bought them Overseas, so I headed off there and bought a pair. What a huge difference, they are really quiet on low speed, and have a faint hum at full speed. They fold flat against the back as well, and even have a timer from 2 - 8 hours.



Now that I had the speakers, it was time to fit the radio. Originally that was going in the front overhead locker, but since that was not ready ( first it did not fit, then it go damaged in transit from their workshop to mine) I decide to fit it in the main panel. After some rearranging it got it to fit. The first song i played showed up a flaw in the rear locker design - it was just too flexible. I was hoping not to have to box out the corners, but the speakers made the whole locker vibrate when I turned it up loud. just not good enough So, back to the drawing board and I fitted a whole load of reinforcing inside the speaker boxes and fully sealed the spears. I also filled the box about 50% full of speaker wadding. The result was fantastic, they sound absolutely brilliant.

There was not much more to do on the inside of the camper, so I turned my attention to the cab. First off was to fit the new door handles/ arm rests, what could be simpler. Unfortunately the new one are not the same as the old ones, and the little red handles that pull the lock to unlatch the door did not match the side of the bolts required to fit them. Luckily I had some 10mm airline, and that with a bit of reaming, made a nice spacer and enable me to fit the handles into the new arm rests. I'm not sure whether something was missing off the kit or the red handles were supplied wrong, but I would have hoped that when you get new armrest to replace the old ones, they should fit. When I went to fit the passenger door armrest, I noticed that the part that goes inside the door with the captive nuts was missing. I knew I had it, an they should have been in the bag with all other door lock parts. I searched the workshop but to no avail. I decided to bite the bullet and order a new one, and just after had done it, I found the missing part - in the bottom of the door along with a spanner and some bolts, looks like I had been fitting it and then gone of and done something else. Luckily I was able to cancel the part I had ordered. Since I have a lot of electric gear in the door, I needed to fit a wiring harness into the doors. There are five wires for the central locking, six for the electric mirrors, two speaker wires and two for the electric windows. This meant drilling a few holes in the door and pillar to route the wires through. I fitted them all in heavy duty plastic sleeving, and will add some rubber grommets to protect it from sharp edges - as soon as I can get to the grommet shop.




I also trial fitted the heaters, they will have a decent frame to support them, but I needed to made sure everything worked before making the frame. It is a tight fit, but all good. We will draw cold air in from outside through a vent in the external locker door. I'll fit a K&N flat panel air filter to keep the dust out, the four fans put out a reasonable amount of air at full power, and that should help the keep the condensation under control. The fans a really quiet in low speed mode, so we can run them all night.


One day after playing the radio pretty loud for a few hours, I noticed that the temperature inside the cabinet was getting pretty hot - checking the sensor on the solar controllers reading 48 degrees, and that was when it was less than 25 degrees inside the shed. The radio with it's 4x50w built in amplified produced just to much heat for the enclosed space, despite having ventilation holes it has. There was a simple solution, fit an external amplifier. I had a nice little Eclipse 2 ch amplified lying around, it fitted quite nicely under the shelf. The good part was that it has had a really improved the sound quality as well. The JL speakers can handle 75W RMS, and this little amp provides ample power to run them.



The final bit of work this week was fitting the ARB air compressor into the rear locker. This a pretty heavy unit, but with a bit of reinforcing and and extra plate or two, it fits quite nicely high up in the locker. I'll make up a guard to prevent anything from lying on it, as it might get pretty hot, but since it should only run when I'm starting the truck with empty air tanks, and as a back-up for the engine compressor. It is rated at 6cfm and 100% duty cycle should help get the air tanks full within the 5 minute limit we have here in Australia. If it doesn't then I will fit a second one next to it, as through a deal I though really strange, I could get two of them for just $50 more than one. i might just fit the second one in any case, but after the roadworthy, as they are not light. I'll run an automatic pressure switch to shut the compressor off at 100psi ( 6.9 bar) with a second fail safe at 120 psi ( 8 bar). The compressor has built in thermal circuits for protection.



Next week I'm planning on working on the overhead console in the cab - time to get that sorted out and finished. Then I will be looking at mounting the turbo intercooler, as soon as I have the new hoses for the radiator and can make sure everything will fit.

 

[Bernard_Roofus]

Wow, that's quite the update! Looks amazing, I love how clean the details are. Can't wait to see the next update.