Unimogadventures - Our build and travel thread

[pairospam]

Guys, be happy! You have been mind and hands busy for quiet a long time! This is good.

I bought the truck in 2010, and been working on it since then part-time, and sometimes few-or-no-time also. The initial date for finishing the project was december 2012, he, he.

When I finish I have a house to build, a 6x6 Chevy Blazer conversion to finish and a world to travel.

Just keep going. It is worth doing it, even if you never get the engine running out of the garage.

Cheers.


Pairoa

 

[Iain_U1250]

I must admit that i really enjoy building the truck, for me it is like therapy. it is great to be able to do things myself, and get things done the way I want them to be done. I am really looking forward to a break from work, this last contract has been particularly difficult and extremely frustrating.

I am also easily distracted, and getting new toys like my DJI Phantom drone, more camera gear and a Land Rover Discovery 3 for my wife. As usual, I could not help myself, just had to make it a bit special for her, so for the last month or so, that's been the main focus of my effort, that's when I am not learning to fly the quadcopter or taking more photos of my favourite subject with my new cameras LOL. I promise I'll post some before and after photos will be here soon, just have to finish putting it all back together again. it will be a bit different to my other builds as she wanted it to be "Civilised".

Here is the "before" picture

 

[nick disjunkt]

Hi Iain,

I met the owner of the newer atego truck below whilst staying at the (only) rv park in new York city. I can't seem to post the link as an image on tablet.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hn1Ri390keI/VF4GGceWv5I/AAAAAAAACiI/lsG3_eVyasw/s1600/IMG_5259.JPG

His blog isn't great but as you both have fantastically furnished Mercedes expedition trucks it seems you have something in common.

http://www.guthier.com/

Looking forward to seeing progress on your projects.

Nick

 

[Iain_U1250]

Thanks Nick, he had a nice website as well

 

[Iain_U1250]

Brief update

Just a brief update of what has been going on. All going well I will be full time on the truck after Easter. I have not done much work at all for the last few weeks as I have been working on my wife's new car, but that is almost finished.

I managed to get some time in this weekend, and made some progress at last. I made up the replacement spring retaining plates for the rear axle. I used 12mm thick steel, which will give me around 30mm extra lift than the stock support.



Whist I have the torque tubes off, I will replace the output seals on the transfer case, not a big job and give some peace of mind.



The dash is also in, an I am pretty pleased with the result.



I need to get my new steering wheel sorted before I fit all the warning light, have to make sure I can see them all.



The engine block is now back from getting machined for the oil squirters.









The squirters cool the underside of the pistons, and are fitted to all the mogs over 170hp. with the new turbo, intercooler, fuel pump, injectors, I should be at around 200hp so they will be pretty useful in making the engine last.

 

[canals1164]

Iain

the good work continues, do you have to uprate oil pump for extra oil used?

Cheers
Ian

 

[Iain_U1250]

I already have an uprated pump, but you will need it if you have the standard low HP pump. As I have change the turbo from an oil cooled bush type to a water cooled ball bearing turbo, I have had to fit a restriction into the oil line to limit the flow, so I think I might have quite high oil pressure, hopefully not too high.

 

[Iain_U1250]

Finally finished my wife's car.





Colour coded all the plastic, new grill, black 20" wheels, tinted windows, Kenwood double din radio, GOE suspension height adjustors (for an extra 65mm lift when necessary) , D4 LED tail lights, EGR blanking kit and BAS remap. It goes great, super quiet and really comfortable. Most important thing is that she loves it

Here is the "before" picture

Really looking forward to full time work on the truck in a few weeks time

 

[piratexpress1369a]

land rover looks awesome .early morning shot to give it that pink tint ..

 

[Kiomon]

Ian, your builds rocks! For your rear suspension, which springs do you have? Are they the 'Heavy Duty' from Merc or did you change them out for the springs from AV?

 

[Iain_U1250]

I have the original spring, they have the inner helper springs. They managed to handle all the rail gear, cherry picker and crane, so I am hoping they will be good enough for my camper. If not, I will get some from Ben at Unimog Central, he has been getting springs made to upgrade the ADF military Unimog. I will get him to get some made for me if necessary

 

[Iain_U1250]

land rover looks awesome .early morning shot to give it that pink tint ..

It was late in the day, we had lot of fun that day, playing with my new DJI Phantom quadcopter

 

[piratexpress1369a]

great video

 

[BunyipBen]

Rule no.1: It is always better to ask forgiveness than permission

I like your logic

 

[Iain_U1250]

LOL, good points.


The block is back, and pretty clean, inside and out. Going to clean the rest of the stubborn paint off with a wire brush before I start assembly, but I am waiting for a gun cleaning kit to arrive so I can clean out the main oil gallery where the oil squirter were bored into. Don't want any little bits of metal blocking a squirter.



The crank, pistons, rods etc are back from the balancing shops. The conrods were pretty "terrible" according to the balancing man. he said modern diesels come from the factory all be within a gram of each other. The tolerences being so much tigher nowadays.

Here is the list:


Conrod Weight Before:

1974.4g
1968.0g
1977.1g
1952.7g
1970.3g
1949.3g

Which means the difference is 25g roughly, not sure if that is good are bad, but it is only 1.1% roughly.

Balanced Weight - 1948.4g for all of them.


Big ends

1371.6g
1368.7g
1379.1g
1358.9g
1373.9g
1354.6g

Balanced Weight 1354.6g

Small ends

602.8g
600.2g
598.0g
593.8g
596.4g
594.7g

Balanced Weight - 593.8g




The brand new pistons

1094.1g
1093.7g
1093.7g
1090.7g
1094.2g
1098.4g

Balanced weight - 1090.7g So pistons were about 8grams out at worst, still around 1%. He said it was pretty normal for aftermarket pistons, even good ones like the Mahle ones. He has seen some more than 25g out.



Pin weights
508.3g
509.1g
508.6g
509.1g
508.8g
508.9g

He said they were close enough

The crank was also balanced, he took off 12.8g off one couterweight, 1,8g of then next, and in the end the reading on the machine said it was within 0.3g of true balance, which he said was pretty good, even for him.

I am not 100% sure it it was worth the $320 it cost me, but I suppose ti cannot be a bad thing, it if maks the engine smoother and last longer, then it has to be good.



I took a few photos of my camshaft. It is an OM352.81



The lobes on the exhaust are pretty flat. It is the same camshaft in the workshop manual that says is now replaced by OM362.04, and this is a new engine from 2012 or so.

Just cleaining up all the othe parts of the engine, making sure it is all spotlessly clean before I start the re-assembly. I am going to try and take a time-lapse video with my Go-pro of the process, will post a link if anyone is interested. I am getting the hang of making videos now, its a lot fo fun