Using my SEE for real work

[SeeNebraska]

all good ideas and I'm sure it would have been doable, but it was easier to let the neighbor come in with his tractor and pull me out.

 

[The FLU farm]

all good ideas and I'm sure it would have been doable, but it was easier to let the neighbor come in with his tractor and pull me out.

You mean like this? Except it took more than a regular tractor - my friend was spinning all six tires on his 30,000-lb. rescue machine.

 

[lurkMcGurk]

If only there were a search tab on a realty site just past ACREAGE choices that said NEIGHBORS 1. quiet 2. aloof and mysterious 3. chronic borrowers or 4. Have Badass Machinery and eclectic tastes in obscure projects. I KNOW which option I'd pick!! As of now I am a guy with a MOG to rescue another MOG if need be, and 1-3 on the neighbor scale.

If there is an application for such a neighborhood I could fill it out in advance and seek approval for retirement in 12 or so years! Also thinking a STUCK and UN-STUCK FLU419 photo forum is in order! SeeNebraska can get the first pic and/or make major contributions for snow and I will post mostly to the MUD section in a month or so!!!

 

[The FLU farm]

If you prefer number 4, it sounds like you'd fit in fine around here. Plus property is cheap.

Heck, even the local corrections department has a SEE.

 

[Pinsandpitons]

Thinking ahead to my winter solstice bonfire party next year. Thought I would gather a little wood.

 

[kira2235740]

Slowly building my house, jerry rigged a extension bar that attaches to where the rock ripper attaches. Works well, a lot easier lifting the logs with the backhoe then with my back. Keep you all up to date on how it is going.

 

[Another Ahab]

Slowly building my house,

Great pics, kira2235740, thanks!

Is that a kit, or are you going "homegrown" with some standardized logs?

 

[kira2235740]

Great pics, kira2235740, thanks!

Is that a kit, or are you going "homegrown" with some standardized logs?

We contracted a company of of Roosevelt, Utah to cut the logs, saddle, and cope them. He went through and cut what we need and it is up to us to put it together. So it is a cross between a kit and home build.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Speedwoble]

Removed a mulberry tree for my neighbor and bent my backhoe thumb.
https://youtu.be/tmQkfTBYHDM

Eventually I will get the hang of editing videos, but for now it is raw. Fun stuff starts at 9:40 unless you want to listen to a Unimog idle for 9 minutes with some hammering interspersed.

https://youtu.be/WX2mbMQaHNE

 

[The FLU farm]

Love your door decal! I would like to have one on every vehicle I own...except many would say that then I couldn't drive them.

 

[lurkMcGurk]

So Maine had a bit of a dry spell and pretty high temps recently. I have installed a gravity drip irrigation of sorts on fruit trees but my rain catchment that feeds the system was depleted pretty quick. I do have alternate water accessible and ran an extension cord (or 2) and aquarium pump with a decent head height so I can fill the final tank linked to the rain catchment system. Because of the UNIMOG and its ability to lift blue barrels I set up some more remote barrels for irrigation around some further trees from the house as well. Because I'm ambitious as all get out and like every professional non professional gardener, I will find any and all ways possible to kill my plants . Enjoy

 

[Another Ahab]

So Maine had a bit of a dry spell and pretty high temps recently. Because I'm ambitious as all get out and like every professional non professional gardener, I will find any and all ways possible to kill my plants . Enjoy

Ingenious!

I never thought that growing trees would be a challenge in the Great State of Maine:

- Isn't that the place where the Tree was invented?!!

 

[peakbagger]

I did some serious digging on Sunday followed by an interesting drive home. Dirt in much of northern NH is a misnomer, its mostly rocks with dirt filling in between them on top of glacially deposited hard pan clay which is one step away from concrete. My SEE has the optional Hein Werner rock bucket which has 5 staggered ripper claws on the back of the bucket. It came in handy. Northern New England is in hot spell currently. Berlin NH frequently is one of the coldest places in the lower 48 in winter yet its gone through three days over 90 degrees and expected to be a couple more days of it. Nevertheless I had offered to dig a trench for electrical conduits two towns away so it was time for a road trip. The prior time I made this trip I had the old Michelins on the SEE and it was quite a handful on the road with a lot of side to side and front to back pitching. I have replaced them with Pirelli Pistas which is a NATO road tire. It rode better although I was in no rush. After a 45 minute ride I was at the lot already roasting as the heat from the engine and up into the footwells was significant despite leaving early. I only needed a 18 inch deep trench but inevitably had to go deeper to clear out rocks that were sticking up. The bucket also does not make a clean hole as the ripper hooks hang out the back. There is shallow ledge on the lot and after doing a test hole I found a spot where I could sneak by. I then switched to straddling the center line and digging. There were the usually rocks until I got to to the ledgy area. That is when the hooks came in. I caught some ledge and it was big but by curling the hoes bucket I could rip at in looking for weak spot. If you zoom in on the first photo you can see some of the chunks I took out on the left.

About that time the SEE started stalling when in high throttle. I took a break but it kept happening. So I opened up the strainer and found it sealed off with a sticky gummy material. I scraped it off reinstalled it and it started right up. I had dosed it with injector cleaner awhile back and possibly that caused the issue. The other thing I was happy to have proved out was my replacement hydraulic unit cooling fans. This was the hottest conditions I have worked on for several hours and the fans kept up.

After making it past the ledge I did a curved trench heading toward a barn from the side as there was stuff in the way. The boulders in the foreground in the second photo were just a sample of the boulders I found. It had been successful day digging so I shut down and took a break. When I went to start up the red air pressure warning light was lit and the both needles were at zero. I could hear the spit valve cycling but the front air tank had no pressure in it, the rear tank did. I checked a few things but decided to head home minus air assist brakes using my emergency brake and gearing. The house lot is on a steep hill that runs into a state highway and into a steep hillside on the other side of the highway so I put it in low range and 1st gear and crawled down the hill. Yes I had some brakes without air but not much. By timing the three traffic lights on the way so I could crawl up to them so I didn't need the brakes much and used the E brake to stop if I needed to. Meanwhile it was over 90 degrees and with all the windows and vents open it was tolerable in the cab but the heat just cranked up from the foot well and some came through a gap in the engine cover. I needed diesel so I stopped at the local gas station. The fuel strainer had given me some trouble with the pump shutting down the last time I used it but I had not checked it. I pulled it this time and found the same sticky gummy stuff almost blocking it so its definitely something plating out in the tank. I headed home. I live on a steep hill off a state highway. it has runaway truck ramp on the bottom. I got as much steam up as I could but ended up going up in first gear. That was a workout for the cooling system and my ankles and lower legs due to heat coming in through the floor. When I got home I also used my IR gun to shoot the portal boxes, they were all in line with what I expected

I have heard Unimog folks comment that a MOG rarely strands you, it just returns home with a list of things to fix. Well I got a list, I need to figure out the air system and then deal with the gunk in the tank.

 

[The FLU farm]

That looks like fun, peakbagger. Well, the part where you used the backhoe.
The rest makes me appreciate my trailers that much more.

 

[lurkMcGurk]

I want to hear what is up with the air system! I had a power waning and engine stoppage this year too. Surely it happened as i ran the fuel filter for more than a year without change, much gunk is an understatement. Although for science's sake I washed the old filter in fresh diesel and voila back to business. I mean its a metal screen right? I am interested to know if you replaced the oil to hydrailic oil that is cooled with the fans. I have never had the fans come on with the hydraulic oil changed FLU.

 

[peakbagger]

I want to hear what is up with the air system! I had a power waning and engine stoppage this year too. Surely it happened as i ran the fuel filter for more than a year without change, much gunk is an understatement. Although for science's sake I washed the old filter in fresh diesel and voila back to business. I mean its a metal screen right? I am interested to know if you replaced the oil to hydrailic oil that is cooled with the fans. I have never had the fans come on with the hydraulic oil changed FLU.

I havent changed the fluids as the prior owner did. I went through the fan game a couple of years ago. Mine was one of the many with the dry rotted grommets on the top of the fan housings (covered by a technical bulletin) , water got in and rotted the guts out. I ended up replacing them with Spal fans as the stock fans are no longer available. More than a few folks over the years have had fans that do not turn on. My new ones seem to do what they were designed to, when its hot out and I am using the backhoe hard, the fan cycles on and off to cool the oil. Its pretty easy to check the system out by jumping the terminals in the junction block at the base of the back of the fan box. Note these shorted fans gave a lot of folks trouble as when the temperature switch closes it trips the fuse that feeds the rear platform. The remote throttle. remote loader lift and the hydraulic tool system are some of the systems that do not work with the fuse blown. By the time the owner finds the bad fuse the oil has cooled down and the new fuse works until the next time the oil gets hot. I think one fix was just disconnect the wires at the terminal block. The fans dont try to turn on so the fuse does not blow. Note when the fans rot out they are just as likely to fail without grounding so they never turn on.

I am bit confused on your fuel issues. I had build up in the strainer right on the outlet of the tank. That is a screen. Downstream under the hood is the real fuel filters that are made of felt. They are designed to be rinsed out with diesel and re used.

This is the second go around with the air system. I never cleaned the line between the engine and the alcohol injector so maybe it had some carryover. My alcohol injector bottle was cracked and full of gravel (another issue in the technical service advisories). It was valved off when I got it but wonder if it leaked at some point. I did replace the unloader valve at some point and replaced the cross body air line ( another known issue). Mine had a 1/4" copper tube with some real sketchy connectors. When I pulled the line if was full of crap. If you look in the parts manual some SEEs came with screens in the inlet of the unloader valve which may help. My rebuilt unit and I think many of the SEEs do not have a screen, so any crap that comes with the air eventually settles out in the tanks. I ended up ordering 6 MM NICU tubing and the right EN connectors to replace the cross body line.

BTW, Someone else on Benzworld went through all the services bulletins and I aggregated them and indexed them then stored them on the Misc Tech Forum on this site.

 

[lurkMcGurk]

I havent changed the fluids as the prior owner did. I went through the fan game a couple of years ago. Mine was one of the many with the dry rotted grommets on the top of the fan housings (covered by a technical bulletin) , water got in and rotted the guts out. I ended up replacing them with Spal fans as the stock fans are no longer available. More than a few folks over the years have had fans that do not turn on. My new ones seem to do what they were designed to, when its hot out and I am using the backhoe hard, the fan cycles on and off to cool the oil. Its pretty easy to check the system out by jumping the terminals in the junction block at the base of the back of the fan box. Note these shorted fans gave a lot of folks trouble as when the temperature switch closes it trips the fuse that feeds the rear platform. The remote throttle. remote loader lift and the hydraulic tool system are some of the systems that do not work with the fuse blown. By the time the owner finds the bad fuse the oil has cooled down and the new fuse works until the next time the oil gets hot. I think one fix was just disconnect the wires at the terminal block. The fans dont try to turn on so the fuse does not blow. Note when the fans rot out they are just as likely to fail without grounding so they never turn on.

I am bit confused on your fuel issues. I had build up in the strainer right on the outlet of the tank. That is a screen. Downstream under the hood is the real fuel filters that are made of felt. They are designed to be rinsed out with diesel and re used.

This is the second go around with the air system. I never cleaned the line between the engine and the alcohol injector so maybe it had some carryover. My alcohol injector bottle was cracked and full of gravel (another issue in the technical service advisories). It was valved off when I got it but wonder if it leaked at some point. I did replace the unloader valve at some point and replaced the cross body air line ( another known issue). Mine had a 1/4" copper tube with some real sketchy connectors. When I pulled the line if was full of crap. If you look in the parts manual some SEEs came with screens in the inlet of the unloader valve which may help. My rebuilt unit and I think many of the SEEs do not have a screen, so any crap that comes with the air eventually settles out in the tanks. I ended up ordering 6 MM NICU tubing and the right EN connectors to replace the cross body line.

BTW, Someone else on Benzworld went through all the services bulletins and I aggregated them and indexed them then stored them on the Misc Tech Forum on this site.

You are CORRECT Sir! it is a strainer and not a filter. I believe i have changed a few of these already and left them in a jar somewhere thinking i could use them again. So i guess i have extras now?? I did change the actual filter but the nomenclature was clearly lost on me this time, figured both were filters.

I recall the issues with the fan from the same source as the above cartoon. The Mog i swapped to Hydraulic oil has yet to have the fans turn on. The other has had the fans switch on and has the Govt equivalent motor oil in it at the moment. When I was drilling rocks with the latter and the fans switched on the fans quickly began to squeal and blew the fuse. I may switch it over to hydraulic and see if that staves off the fan issue instead of swapping the fans out for now. I'm project heavy and time light at the moment.

The air system came reasonably clean for me but it has its issues when not run for a few months (wont engage 4x4, pressure not building etc), I use the alcohol system to great effect to make everything functional again. i'm stealing a line from this forum when i mentioned the alcohol fix but yes, its funny how alcohol can make some things work!

 

[Another Ahab]

i'm stealing a line from this forum when i mentioned the alcohol fix but yes, its funny how alcohol can make some things work!

Without the revenue from the taxation of alcohol sales, it is arguable that government (as a "thing") might itself not work.

Of course, there are those who will argue that it (government) doesn't much work. But that's another issue.

 

[The FLU farm]

Downstream under the hood is the real fuel filters that are made of felt. They are designed to be rinsed out with diesel and re used.

Hmm. Never even considered doing that. I've been buying the filters for about $35, with the housing, so it never dawned on my to try cleaning them.
Now I know what to do with the old ones.

 

[peakbagger]

Hmm. Never even considered doing that. I've been buying the filters for about $35, with the housing, so it never dawned on my to try cleaning them.
Now I know what to do with the old ones.

There do seem to be lot of surplus mercedes fuel filters and housings for sale on Ebay (along with the oil filters and housings). I expect when they dry up the price from Mercedes will be lot more dollars.