Two new toys unimog 404

[joeblack5]

Nice..even in German ... Have not even checked mine yet.
Yeah age...sore everyday.. Not enough desktime to relax..getting 60 in August, God willing.. To many projects, covid helps me staying more focussed. Still afraid that I have more projects then time..

Good enough I finished my horn button.. And also the flu419 loader support. Just reading up on the news...Crazy times out there.

 

[Ferretboy]

Hey there Johan....what brand of lathe you work with???i do a small bit of machining myself...love making parts when i can.....not a master machinist but have been"tinkering"for about 30 years.....

 

[joeblack5]

David, This is a Southbend. My tinker lathe. Somehow it is the right size and convenience. Just feels confortable. we used to build non destructive ultrasonic and eddy current test machines for aircraft turbine engine parts.. More specific the rotating hardware. www.zw-art.com

We had a small machine shop to modify and fine tune parts that came from the CNC shops in the area..

For big work I have a leblond and for the specialty stuff a monarch EE.

We bought our equipment at auction from local university.

What kind of work were you involved in?

 

[Ferretboy]

Very nice machines you have...i never did any professional machining...just home workshop....i just have 12x20 lathe and a small milling machine....there not the best...but not too bad either.....they have really come in handy over the years...

 

[joeblack5]

Thank you David.. Especially a lathe is very handy...
Got side tracked a bit with other work.. Did not start on the rotted out door... Did not get the ether in to attempt and fix the temp gauge..and no other old broken gauges to tinker with.. Also waiting on the antique title and license plate. With covid things take more time.

So here I am going to divert and mix a little from the unimog to the bus side. I have a thread going at expedition portal as well.
Not sure if this acceptable on the steelsoldier site. If not please let me know.


Today we worked a bit on separating the bus body from the e350 van chassis. It is tedious because I am not completely sure where it will end up so I separating as carefully as I can. Here I have drilled out the rivets and sliced some of the welds with the grinder. This was a had side since the van body , door frame and bus body are intertwined.
Tomorrow I hope I can get some of the body mounts loose.

 

[Ferretboy]

Hello there Johan....somewhere in my mess i have an old vcr tape of mb promotional videos....i hope its still watchable....i seem to remember some mogs that were fixed as passenger or tour bus type vehicles...much like your school bus body idea...i think that is a cool idea......go for it!!!!

 

[Ferretboy]

I find satisfaction in working on an antique vehicle....bringing something old back to life....maybe thats a guy thing....love to hear from guys or gals....your stories add motivation to many of us...cheers.

 

[joeblack5]

Hi David, the hardcab, ....restoration would be a big word when I compare that to your and others results but it need be functional with some style, Now the 404 bus / RV conversion , probably "blasphemy" ... I felt i had to give the poor thing, without a bed and roof a new purpose. i doubt the 404 is going to be proud with its new shell but what the hell. It gives me something to design and create and beyond the sore muscles and rust particles in your eyes that is is a fun thing. it is 2 years older then me and i appreciate that it wakes up in the morning.

Something else, with your mercedes sign and VCR tape, were you professionally involved with MB?

 

[Ferretboy]

Professionally is a relative term???...my late brother 7-12-19 worked for freight liner....they sold mbs also...my love for mogs started a bit earlier...the mb sign saved from a trip to the dump...the vcr tape sent from an old mog owner...i will look for the old tape and see if it can be copied.....i always enjoied it....

 

[Ferretboy]

Im what some may call a Jack of all trades...my father tought me mechanics...electrics...plumbing..ect....i started with a hammer and a hacksaw....

 

[joeblack5]

Hi David, sorry to hear about your brother.

 

[joeblack5]

Today the ether came in. I tried to see if the old capillary is good but I think it is closed. I can not find a dent and I inserted a 0.1 MM wolfram wire about 4" into each side. So maybe it is open. I based it on ether coming out of the gauge when I unsoldered it and concluded that it was charged but the gauge did not respond..

So from the junkyard I had liberated a working temperature gauge. It had a small kink but was operational.

The capillary material is different.. The original is very thin and springy... Like phosphor bronze.. The junkyard one seems soft copper.

I cut the working one at the kink and smelled the ether as well. The temp. range of this gauge is higher.

I exercised my soldering skills without closing the capillary up and test the pressure of the gauge . with 10 bar it reads 260F .it should have read 248F to be compatible . this all might have been my tolerances and it being a cheap gauge that overestimates.

So after this promising beginning I soldered the original unimog gauge with the proven bulb of the other gauge.
I added 1cc of ether thru the capillary with a seringe while cooling the bulb down with ice water as to reduce the pressure . this seemed to work. Then with the bulb in the ice water I soldered the capillary onto the gauge.

Gauge responded on temp increase and I thought that I had a winner ...but then then a leak appeared at the gauge itself. So I disconnected the capillary again and found that the gauge had a hole drilled at the base. I guess someone else had tried the same thing before me.

I closed the hole. Confirmed the gauge was working.. Confirmed the capillary was open. Refilled again with same method. Resolderd and... Poor response. Gauge moved but not good.. So what is wrong? Not enough ether.. Contamination??

Tomorrow I will experiment some more.

So above the junkyard gauge that i used to hone my soldering skills on. At the same time I was able to measure the pressure rating on the gauge because i could hook it up with the 1/8 NPT adapter.
A little frustrated right now, this does not appear to be rocket science although the ether burning of gives it a certain rocket perspective.

tbc
Johan

 

[Ferretboy]

Amazing you can work on gauges.....very interesting....i thought when one was bad it went to the scrap and you searched for a replacement...i guess if someone made it..someone can repair it....very nice....excellent!!!!

 

[joeblack5]

Haha... To the scrap... Sofar no luck on Unimog 404 scrap gauges.. No replies to my request. Maybe they never break. Haha.

So , still frustrated this morning and did a rough approach. Used the junkyard one where I soldered a 1/8 NPT fitting to. Made a build from a 1/8" female coupling and plug.
Filled it with ether and screwed it together... And it worked. So now I have revised my filling approach on the original Unimog temp gauge and will try it again.

Above picture was heated with a heatgun.
While the wife was out of the kitchen......

 

[Ferretboy]

Oh Johan...you must be very careful working in a kitchen without your wifes permission...i mean supervision....well anyway its a good thing you didnt get caught....ha ha....its all fun.

 

[Ferretboy]

Heres a photo of my lathe...yes its a smithy....bought it new in about 1996....i learned with it and have done many modifications to it....its no southbend or leblonde but i always thought if i can learn to use this then if i ever got a better made machine life would be easy...

 

[joeblack5]

That is a handy lathe milling setup.
The monarch EE that I have is very high end and a beautiful machine but most of my activity is on the old worn out south bend.

The temp gauge saga had me stumped for a while. One gauge was working fine but I could not get the original one to work.. I thought a micro crack in the bourdon caused my issues so I build a test stand to confirm it was yea or nea holding pressure.



I was wrong. It held pressure.. Then I build a temp gauge from scratch with a new manometer. Did not work either. Took the working one apart and reassembled..working fine.. Then I prefilled my new non working gauge with ether and reassembled... Worked... Aha...

Did that for the original gauge and.....

Success.

Now rebuild the whole thing and install.

TBC
Johan

 

[joeblack5]

well along with our Frankenstein project. At another forum, skoolie.net, I posted this progress from a skoolie perspective. Since both of these were with one leg in the grave the Frankenstein similarity is not far of.
Turned the bus around and aligned it with the Mog.
Still have 4 body mounts to remove. To get access to the heads I had to drill holes in the aluminum floor with a hole saw. Most of the cuts thru the shell have been done only the floor inside and then I need to get a crane ( flu419) involved.

 

[Ferretboy]

Hello Johan....the old smithy lathe is o.k. for a home shop....some people love them and some hate them...i only use the mill / drill for drilling sometimes...i have another milling machine.....looks like you are coming along nicely with the gauges.....to me that looks like rocket science.....very interesting work...best to you....

 

[Guyfang]

Hello Johan....the old smithy lathe is o.k. for a home shop....some people love them and some hate them...i only use the mill / drill for drilling sometimes...i have another milling machine.....looks like you are coming along nicely with the gauges.....to me that looks like rocket science.....very interesting work...best to you....

Got to admit, it indeed looks like rocket science. Gage's for me as toss away items.