tatra 813 new owner

[duncan]

The split is electronic pre-select. Theres 3 wires (black/white/green) coming from it. If you open the driver side of the front panels (as pictured) , you can see the wires coming out of the gear shifter. While you're looking there, under the power steering liquid reservoir, you can see a bolt mounted with a spring on the business end of the clutch pedal. When you push down the clutch, the bolt makes some electrical contact that switches the splitter. With that bolt you can set the sensitivity (how far to push down clutch to split) too

Thanks for the info about washers being cleaning wipers, one can never know enough english terms for things.

So anyway, in regular gearing, the 1lo to 5hi take you from 0 to about 40 km/h, in hi-speed gearing it goes from 0 to 80km/h. I tried taking off from 1lo in hi-speed, but thats still so much reduction any speed you build up is lost when switching to 2lo When using 1lo in regular gear, and you let the truck run stationary, its so slow you can get out, take a leak, and not have more than 5 metres to walk to get back in again.

 

[duncan]

So, replaced my tail lights today, one of them had a broken lens which is illegal. Ofcourse, couldnt get the same model again, so had to buy 2 new ones. Got proper tatra ones though, waterproof and fitting the same mounts.

Then we decided to fully unroll the winch cable, see how long and what condition it was. Well.... its long. Very long. Sorry for the ****ty overbright pic, but the yellow marked van in the background had the winch cable tied to it. 100 metres easily, and mint condition.

The two closeups show the location of the drain plugs to get water out of the air system, one on the bottom of the air tank behind the cab, and one one the frame between the 2nd and 3rd wheel, right side.

Lastly a pic of the rear bumper to clearly show the rear controls. Left of the hitch theres the control to unlock the side-to-side movement of the hitch, the one to the right allows to hitch to extend when pulled out. Far right is the winch lock, push in to connect the winch to the drive, pull out to disconnect. Leave out when not using winch.

 

[duncan]

Still waiting for the people of MortarInvestments to respond.... or to win the jackpot and be able to afford the dealer price

 

[tatra813]

Still waiting for the people of MortarInvestments to respond.... or to win the jackpot and be able to afford the dealer price

nice pics, how does the beast do in the soft sand?

 

[duncan]

Very good actually. Didnt air down the tires so went in at road pressure. All fine untill you go steep uphill. Tried it slow the first time but there is not enough grip... went it at a bit more speed the second time (3rd low in crawl gear). Decided to stop before the top, cause theres a building on the other side I didnt want to drive through Would've made it though, speed seems to be the key when going uphill in soft dry sand.

 

[OPCOM]

I've been looking at this tread for a while, nice to see the innards and naughyt bits of the truck. Tough looking truck allright. Not sure the air cooling would do well in Texas. All I can say it is it looks very, very Russuian!

 

[EZFEED]

Oh the air cooling does OK Pat! Remember I'm here in LA and I run half of their Tatra powerplant

 

[tatra813]

The motor has no problem in HOT weather.

 

[cranetruck]

Hey Duncan, what's the speed rating on those tires and are they bias or radial? Thanks for posting the images!

 

[duncan]

Tbh, I wouldnt know. But theyre the originals so should be rated for over 80km/h... Michelin Barum is the brand, will get some more info off the sides next time Im in the garage.

 

[cranetruck]

Much appreciated....

 

[FridgeFreezer]

speed seems to be the key when going uphill in soft dry sand.

In anything soft, momentum is the key. Sand really saps power, you have to keep moving or you'll just grind to a halt. Oh and if you do stop or get stuck, stop driving and try to reverse. If you spin the wheels you just dig a big hole!

I'd say running with the rear diffs locked would probably be good in soft sand as it helps prevent a wheel from spinning up in the first place.

 

[duncan]

Much appreciated....

Right, there is not much info on the tires:

15,00-21 Chemlon - Barum - 12 ply rating - 11 / 25 - 21

All there is to be found.

 

[duncan]

More interesting, started on removing the cab. Step one was removing the dashboad.

I knew where one of the bolts keeping it in place was, on the right side between the gear stick and dash.



Took me a long while to find the bolt on the other side, it turned out to be under the door rubber.



Then went on to remove the electrics. There are three plugs to disconnect. One massive one to the right of the steering column, and a little one to the left of it (guessing that's the positive lead).



I did it wrong the first time, so pay attention There are 2 rings on the connector. One screws the "cap" on, the other holds it down. As you can see, I undid the wrong one at first. You need to unscrew the one near the panel instead.



Now from here I was so busy some pics are missing Theres a last electrical plug that goes into the left side of the cab. Assuming that controls the heater or something.
Then I undid the air pressure line coming from the CTIS to the dash, another air hose (forgot what It was connected to, red/brownish in pic), the speedo and tacho drives (mechinal), and lastly the oil temperature wire. As said, forgot to make more detailed pics, sorry!



Final overview. Also note the horn removed from the steering wheel. Took me a while to find out its not bolted on or anything, just slides right out. Theres a massive nut in there (guessing 41mm'ish, not sure yet) to remove the steering wheel. I didnt have the tools to remove that, so I had a bit of a fight removing the dash with the steering wheel still on. I suggest removing it before though.
In retrospect, next time Ill undo all the connections before removing the bolts holding the dash on to the truck. It kept falling on my head while working

 

[duncan]

But hey, that wasn't all. I was on a roll, so went on to do more stuff to prepare for removing the cab.

Located the 6 bolts keeping the cab down on the chassis:

Two at the rear under the bench near the heater. Now you need two people for this, because theyre regular nut-bolt connections, and the nuts are massively hard to reach. All are 19mm, but rusted, so getting a spanner size 20 for the nuts is adviseable.
The bolt in the 3rd picture here (the one on the right side of the truck) does not have a bolt, thank god, because it wouldve been inaccessible thanks to the air tank hanging under that part of the cab.



Again, from there on I forgot to make pictures but there are 2 bolts (one left, one right) in the same spot as the base of the handbrake. The last two are at the front of the truck, best reached through the opened radiator grill. The one on the co-driver's side has its nut welded to the frame again, because its unreachable.

Next, undoing the handbrake. It failed. Managed to get the main pin out, the big one in the picture. Now the handbrake is still connected to all the rods linking it to the brake drum. We cant raise it enough to allow the smaller pin to be removed. Tried to remove some links halfway, but that failed too. Not sure on what to do here....



Removed the gear stick, very easy Undo and remove the bolt, and disconnect the 3 wires controlling the splitter, then ease it out with a hammer.



Lastly, removed the radiator from the front grill. Your regular rusty bolt and nut job.



So... once we get the handbrake lever off, we should be able to lift the cab!

 

[tatra813]

But hey, that wasn't all. I was on a roll, so went on to do more stuff to prepare for removing the cab.

Located the 6 bolts keeping the cab down on the chassis:

Two at the rear under the bench near the heater. Now you need two people for this, because theyre regular nut-bolt connections, and the nuts are massively hard to reach. All are 19mm, but rusted, so getting a spanner size 20 for the nuts is adviseable.
The bolt in the 3rd picture here (the one on the right side of the truck) does not have a bolt, thank god, because it wouldve been inaccessible thanks to the air tank hanging under that part of the cab.

View attachment 141326View attachment 141327View attachment 141328

Again, from there on I forgot to make pictures but there are 2 bolts (one left, one right) in the same spot as the base of the handbrake. The last two are at the front of the truck, best reached through the opened radiator grill. The one on the co-driver's side has its nut welded to the frame again, because its unreachable.

Next, undoing the handbrake. It failed. Managed to get the main pin out, the big one in the picture. Now the handbrake is still connected to all the rods linking it to the brake drum. We cant raise it enough to allow the smaller pin to be removed. Tried to remove some links halfway, but that failed too. Not sure on what to do here....

View attachment 141329

Removed the gear stick, very easy Undo and remove the bolt, and disconnect the 3 wires controlling the splitter, then ease it out with a hammer.

View attachment 141330

Lastly, removed the radiator from the front grill. Your regular rusty bolt and nut job.

View attachment 141331

So... once we get the handbrake lever off, we should be able to lift the cab!

Great info Duncan!

Thanks for taking the time to post it all with pics!!!!!!!!!

 

[duncan]

Will see about making some more when we're lifting the thing. Want to remove the exhaust manifolds before we do, because it's a very tight fit, and I dont want any bad move to damage the engine. They need new gaskets anyway. More work scheduled on friday and saturday!

 

[duncan]

More work done! Managed to remove the handbrake (using loads of R-rating words). Ofcourse I forgot to make pics again I was crouched between the front wheels, covered in mud and grease trying to undo some rusty bolts, so you'll have to excuse me. Also removed the steering wheel (undo the 41mm nut, and give the wheel some hammer time).

We then went over the entire cab again to see where it might still be attached to the chassis.

Found one bolt here... dont mind the nut on the picture



Noticed the air filter channel was attached to the cab as well, so removed the two filters and took the duct out alltogether. Just have to remove the main power relay now (the one behind the air filter units), then the cab should come right off!

Got my work cut out for tomorow!

 

[duncan]

Got my work cut out for tomorow!

Yes. Welcome to tomorow. We removed all the windows, and brought a forklift in with extended bars.



Cab came right off! Then after 10 cm we got into a little problem, the driver side floor panel ran into the brake and clutch pedal... we decided to use an angle grinder to remove the floor panel from the cab rather than remove the pedals... cab is scrap metal anyway.



Piece of cake from there on! Only problem we had was the cab hitting the steering column, which might have damaged the steering pump. Have to take apart and check it to make sure... it has a little free play now that wasnt there before

 

[duncan]

I like the looks of the thing without cab, it looks MEAN.