FLU419 SEE HMMH HME Owners group

[General Hood]

Does that mean they were almost as good at it as GP is?!?

Telehandler vs SEE vs massive tree / vegetation overgrowth = GP Texarkana prep for auction

 

[General Hood]

Them little bees are taking it on the knees here in the U.S. lately. The good news is that the hive was that healthy for another queen and the swarm. That sounds good, General Hood!

Do you have a funky label for the honey you jar?

As a matter of fact, I do have funky labels

 

[BigBison]

I haven't figured out where to put the slash-cut tube on my FLUs yet. On my Dodge CTD's they go on the outside curve of the turbo downpipe. On my NA lude, it's after the secondary collector on the tri-y header. The catch-can acts as a vacuum accumulator (again, "my" way), but unless you have enough room to install a big one, it won't "even out" the draw if you have, say, one slash-cut on one primary y-collector. On the 455 Olds, it's looking like dual slash-cuts, one per side, below the secondary collectors.

What I'm thinking on the FLUs, is the outside of the curve at the bottom of the exhaust stack. I probably need to move or delete the jerry-can holder to mount a sufficiently-sized catch can between the spare tire & the rear hydraulic tank on the rear of the cab (disconnect AN connectors before tilting). Preferably move, because I've come across these jerry-can-shaped first-aid kits I'd rather mount there than fuel or water, given the likelihood of bloodshed working on, with, and around a FLU. So far, I've only dislocated my right ring finger...

The distilled-water reservoir can go where the ether used to be, under the hood.

 

[The FLU farm]

Telehandler vs SEE vs massive tree / vegetation overgrowth = GP Texarkana prep for auction

In all fairness, they do take several photos...and check the seat belt function.
As many mirrors as they break, on SEEs alone, we can't really ask them to be lucky with how they position the forks, can we?

 

[BigBison]

My GMCMH has the "Electro-Level I" system on it (never was a II as far as I can tell). OEM, you got a Schrader valve you could fill anywhere within a PSI range at any gas-station compressor. Full air-ride suspension, but no switches left of the driver to level off at a campsite, and no on-board air (small, ancient, belt-drive DC) compressor. Electro-Level was a dealer-only option. Until about yesterday, I assumed all GMCMH's had the same switches & compressor as mine. I have all the original documentation, and I've now seen pics of others' installations.

The dealership that originally installed mine, thankfully used different-color air tubing for the different bits of the system. They also Xeroxed the diagram, and colored it in according to the color tubing they'd used. 40 years later, like, bless someone's soul for doing it this way! It would be so hard to learn how the system works, let alone replace & relocate the compressor as I'm doing, without that sort of guide. Applies to the electrical connections, too. I may buy one color of air tubing, but I'll be using different colors of heat-shrink to identify the different "circuits."

(The old typewritten manual with hand-drawn diagrams is quaint, but also quite detailed as to how the 8" of rear suspension travel changes caster & camber on all 3 pairs of wheels.)

There are six air solenoids and two, two-way height-control valves on my GMC. Four solenoids are three-way, the other two are two-way. What seems complicated at first, turns out to be fairly simple & elegant, but it sure helps to have the color-coded diagram & tubing! A concept I'll be carrying over to the FLUs as I work on their electrical and air systems. I'll be ready to tackle my SEE's air foibles after I've re-done the air suspension on my GMC.

ATM, the GMC's all gutted out inside, with the exception of the suspension "air control system," and a loop of engine-coolant cable that used to plumb into a separate heat exchanger inside the 10-gallon AC water heater. Yeah, kinda exactly like having hydraulic windshield wipers. I'll be circulating engine coolant through the entire "house" for hydronic heating, which isn't much of a stretch considering half the plumbing exists for it already.

 

[The FLU farm]

My GMCMH has the "Electro-Level I" system on it (never was a II as far as I can tell). OEM, you got a Schrader valve you could fill anywhere within a PSI range at any gas-station compressor. Full air-ride suspension, but no switches left of the driver to level off at a campsite, and no on-board air (small, ancient, belt-drive DC) compressor. Electro-Level was a dealer-only option. Until about yesterday, I assumed all GMCMH's had the same switches & compressor as mine. I have all the original documentation, and I've now seen pics of others' installations.

The dealership that originally installed mine, thankfully used different-color air tubing for the different bits of the system. They also Xeroxed the diagram, and colored it in according to the color tubing they'd used. 40 years later, like, bless someone's soul for doing it this way! It would be so hard to learn how the system works, let alone replace & relocate the compressor as I'm doing, without that sort of guide. Applies to the electrical connections, too. I may buy one color of air tubing, but I'll be using different colors of heat-shrink to identify the different "circuits."

(The old typewritten manual with hand-drawn diagrams is quaint, but also quite detailed as to how the 8" of rear suspension travel changes caster & camber on all 3 pairs of wheels.)

There are six air solenoids and two, two-way height-control valves on my GMC. Four solenoids are three-way, the other two are two-way. What seems complicated at first, turns out to be fairly simple & elegant, but it sure helps to have the color-coded diagram & tubing! A concept I'll be carrying over to the FLUs as I work on their electrical and air systems. I'll be ready to tackle my SEE's air foibles after I've re-done the air suspension on my GMC.

ATM, the GMC's all gutted out inside, with the exception of the suspension "air control system," and a loop of engine-coolant cable that used to plumb into a separate heat exchanger inside the 10-gallon AC water heater. Yeah, kinda exactly like having hydraulic windshield wipers. I'll be circulating engine coolant through the entire "house" for hydronic heating, which isn't much of a stretch considering half the plumbing exists for it already.

Finally, I found the Unimog related mention!! Do I get a price?

 

[Couchoffroad]

Being now aware of sue happy individuals, I'll preface with this is only for technical "what if " information . Doing any adjustments of the factory set system will cause damage, bodily injury and probable death!!!!!
Finally got some photos of how to setup the pressure for the front implements and hydraulic aux hose reel! Video was worthless. Hopfully this hasn't been addressed yet.
There is also a crossover relief valve that drives you batty. This unit should be set at around 2360psi wich is too low to be really usable. We couldn't easily measure our new setting, but we've turned the adjustment all the way in and back out a quarter turn, "4.25 turns" to play it safe. It's located on the main cross bar on the loader connecting the lift cylinders over to the down stroke side, flowing in that direction.
These modified pressures finally allow me to actually lift the front of the Unimog to max retraction of the lift cylinders.

The modified pressures finally sure have made the loader pretty dam usable.

 

[Couchoffroad]

 

[The FLU farm]

Could the pressure be checked at another point in the system, such as at the tool hoses, or is it best to tap in where you did in photo number 4?

 

[Couchoffroad]

O pretty sure your most accurate reading it where we did it, but at the tool hose reel should work.
At the valve body is a simple to get AN fitting.
Call me when u get a minute

 

[BigBison]

For the record, I've only ever filed one lawsuit, 20 years ago. I sued my County government on anti-trust grounds, and prevailed.

The HMMH will get some use tomorrow, I have some pallets of warehouse shelving sitting out next to the county road. I'll need to use the forklift to move them into the compound for construction, then the crane (I'd use my service crane, but) to lift the finished shelving onto a truck to take up to my Quonset hut.

Then the HMMH goes into the garage downtown for servicing, which will happen during the lull in motorhome construction while I wait on various stuff I've ordered for it.

 

[Another Ahab]

For the record, I've only ever filed one lawsuit, 20 years ago. I sued my County government on anti-trust grounds, and prevailed.

I can't swear by the truth of this, but I recall reading where suing the related municipality for car damage from potholes is an automatic victory for anybody who pursues it (anywhere in the country if I remember it right).

You can only recover damages for the related repair, nothing more, but it's automatically yours. Still, hardly anybody does it.

I think it was here in D.C. where I read that. We got some serious pothole issues here with our standard freeze/thaw winters.

 

[The FLU farm]

I can't swear by the truth of this, but I recall reading where suing the related municipality for car damage from potholes is an automatic victory for anybody who pursues it (anywhere in the country if I remember it right).

You can only recover damages for the related repair, nothing more, but it's automatically yours. Still, hardly anybody does it.

That is odd, considering people's apparent sue happiness. Must be that I'm not the only one who find it easier to simply steer around them thar potholes.
And if I screwed up and hit one badly enough to damage my vehicle, I'd probably find it quicker and easier to fix it than to mess with the legal process. Especially since I would insist on fixing it myself.
It's just (there we go again) quicker and easier to do it myself, I think, than to pay someone to do the job (sort of) and then have to do it myself the right way afterwards.

 

[patrol578]

The other issue is that there seems to be a far more active parts market in Europe for mog parts and frequently a web search doesn't pick up those sites.

I searched some of the Euro sites too, hoping to find Schmidt loader parts, but without luck. Ended up walking into the local Kubota dealer. They made up an exact copy of the one hose I really needed in less than five minutes. Didn't even get a chance to look through all of their forestry tools! That's probably a good thing, as I just would have spent more money.

Total spent for the exact item I needed, made up while I waited? 66 bucks.

 

[patrol578]

No luck on today's FLU419 auction. Got outbid on two low mile ones and did not want to take the risk on the ones with thousands of miles on the clock.

For the next try it would be valuable to know what the current FLU419 owners consider acceptable as far a miles on the odometer is concerned?

Who has the one with the most miles that is still running strong and did not need major repairs?

FWIW, mine has only1090mi on the odometer, but north of 10,000 hours on the engine. So I'm about 2,500 hours away from the recommended OM352 rebuild mark.

I think relying on the mileage is a crapshoot; you could get a good truck or a problematic one either way. Less than half of GP's published checks turned out to be accurate on mine (in my favor, fortunately).

 

[peakbagger]

FWIW, mine has only1090mi on the odometer, but north of 10,000 hours on the engine. So I'm about 2,500 hours away from the recommended OM352 rebuild mark.

I think relying on the mileage is a crapshoot; you could get a good truck or a problematic one either way. Less than half of GP's published checks turned out to be accurate on mine (in my favor, fortunately).

If they are being sold off at surplus auction, its a crap shot. Lack of use or abuse is worse than normal use. The only exceptions are rebuilt versions that got rebuilt and then parked. Who knows how many shortcuts were taken during the years while the not rebuilt SEEs got parked before they were finally hauled to Texas or some other depot to be used for parts?. My observation of the limited quick fixes on my SEE is that every repair was a hack fix intended to get it running again but with no regard to long term suitability. I expect that since yours was being run, it may have gotten normal maintenance. The military was a firm believer in oil analysis and if you are paranoid you could get an oil analysis done on your engine.

I don't expect most SEEs are going to stop running because the engine is worn out. I expect some will loose their main bearings prematurely as someone has managed to run the engine backwards (its easier than you think and when a SEE is running backwards there is no oil pressure). The transmissions do seem to be more problematical and lack of service of major components are going to catch up with folks who bought these and expect that they don't need to do any maintenance. I wouldn't be surprised to see far more of these ending up as projects for sale to the highest bidder. The ad will read something like this "low mileage Unimog runs good, just needs a clutch (IE transmission is messed up and they don't know any better); just needs an portal hub rebuilt (ooh I had to check my fluid levels in the portals?); just needs a problem with the locking diffs repaired (time to tear the axles apart to change the seals as they didn't know they were supposed to drain and lubricate the bores yearly) or just needs a bit of electrical work (IE the infamous texas rats ate the harness).

The other issue is service. There are few if any places that specialize or understand service on a Unimog and I don't expect there is training school for SEE mechanics anymore. My limited understanding is that the military approach was if a new/rebuilt part could be bolted in at a base it was done but much else it went to a depot for repair and possible abandonment. The few shops that do work on Unimogs are used to dealing with typical Unimog folks who were around long before the SEEs made it to the market and realize that they are expensive to work on and everything comes at a premium. If in doubt when paying for someone who knows MOGs to work on your rig that every bill is rounded up to the nearest $1000 increment and there is no such thing as a firm estimate or schedule. Mix together people who bought SEE's for cheap at auction and shops that charge dearly for repairs and bad things happen. My suspicion is those without the skills and ability to RTFM and unable to do the work themselves are slowly going to run their rigs into the ground as things break and they will slowly become the source of parts for those who are keeping theirs running. This happened with the Case MB94s and expect it will happen with SEEs. Note this is not specific to Unimogs, old heavy equipment of any manufacturer usually is expensive to repair and parts are expensive, I know a few folks with old Cat equipment and they complain about many of the same things.

 

[patrol578]

And that's one of the reasons I'm not too worried about parts supplies in the future. With DOD releasing 3000+ of these, there should be plenty of parted out SEEs for years to come.

It leaves me to wonder how many Unimogs are in the U.S. right now. Will the FLUs increase that number by 50%? Will they double it?

 

[The FLU farm]

FWIW, mine has only1090mi on the odometer, but north of 10,000 hours on the engine. So I'm about 2,500 hours away from the recommended OM352 rebuild mark.

I think relying on the mileage is a crapshoot; you could get a good truck or a problematic one either way. Less than half of GP's published checks turned out to be accurate on mine (in my favor, fortunately).

I think you'll find that 2,500 hours is a LOT of backhoe work, and that you might be worn out before the engine is.
And like you, I have found more positive "mistakes" than negative ones on the GP evaluation lists. Case in point, the parts SEE which supposedly didn't have low range or 4WD.
It may look like crap, but with many new cylinders and other things, it was a good find.
By the way, I remembered wrong; it has an indicated 749 hours on it, not 479, and runs so nice. When it runs.

Not so sure that the DoD can release 3,000 of them, though. I've read that "only" 2,800 were built.

 

[patrol578]

If in doubt when paying for someone who knows MOGs to work on your rig that every bill is rounded up to the nearest $1000 increment and there is no such thing as a firm estimate or schedule.

Hmmm...sounds like a good way to fund retirement.

 

[The FLU farm]

Hmmm...sounds like a good way to fund retirement.

If fighting rat damage and nearly impossible to reach fasteners is a good way to fund retirement I'd hate to think what a bad way is.