Two new toys unimog 404

[joeblack5]

Spring has started so we got out and tried to remember what was on the agenda.
Decided to tackle some insulation, more as an experiment and to get back in the groove.
Then we drilled holes and screwed the skin with ss screws and 1/8" thick nylon washer of the bus framing to reduce with thermal bridging.. left the screws loose, added sicaflex 252 in the gap and tightened the screws.

 

[joeblack5]

The weather is cooperating..finally found energy to weld the remaining section of the rear wheel well and add steel to the inner skin around the rear wheel to beef things up a little. Then closed the holes in the floor.
Now we needed some moral support so moved on to interior work, just to see where we were going.
Cut another bulkhead and then the bathroom wall. Temp installed kitchen sink. Installed a bus seat for the "dinette".
Anyhow..an interior shot of the status quo.

Our daughter passed her driving exam, that is good...interest in vehicles has increased

 

[joeblack5]

More interior rough work.

Can't put the final countertop in because the rear entrance door has to be modified from dual to a single.. and that creates more space, hence a longer countertop nevertheless it shows proof of concept. Put a shelf above. Will have to make sliding plexiglass door to keep the elf on the shelf.
Made the connection from cab to bus. Drilled a lot of 1/4" holes in the angle profile that remained after I took the rear cabin wall of.. wooden 2*6 bolted in place Things are stiffening up. Laid out the table for the "dinette"
Tomorrow some work on the couch and mount angle iron to connect the bulkheads and walls to the floor and support beams.

In the mean time I got 316 stainless seamless tubing to sleeve the rear brake cylinders.. this is slightly undersized but the rubber cup seal fits fine
Is 1.25*0.065 wall. It will be nice to work a bit on the operational side. Still need to replace the turbo and install the intercooler.

 

[joeblack5]

So I made a mistake in the description above about backdoors. To avoid confusion I meant the original handicapped side doors at the passenger rear side .

 

[joeblack5]

Today was a dull and painful day.. first I had to remove the other rear brake cylinder. Then a lot under the mog to drill holes to structurally connect things together. It was all muddy and wet from the rain so I got dirty wet and tired.

But there was a very positive development.
My friend Ellis stopped by. He machined the critical transmission input shaft drive extension for the tdi motor and the more structural welding. Ellis took the wheel cylinders to sleeve them.

 

[marchplumber]

Good ole dirty, wet, and tired......happiness and joy!

 

[joeblack5]

Today we did some work on the layout again. First we supported the floor better then over to a Couch/ bed design. The plan is to make the couch 24" wide and then can be pulled out 10" while the back support folds down. Then together with the driver seat foldable to the front this will become a bed . We used some heavy duty 28" long slides and removed the thinner telescopic pieces since we only need to pull 10" out. We reinforced the remaining slider with an aluminum u profile that fitted exactly.. pure luck..less likely to deform.now.
Anyhow , first steps..

 

[joeblack5]

Yesterday we made a 2*4 against the wall to build the couch of . I was lazy and went a bit fast. Last evening I thought that structural design could have been better.
So this morning I tore it back out ,cut a hole in the bulkhead for the 2*4 . Now the forces are not carried by the screw anymore.
Mocked up the plywood seat and will test with some cushions but I think it can be a bit smaller. Younger daughter for reference..
Tomorrow I will concentrate on the second rear wheel well. It is more complicated because it interferes with the door.

 

[joeblack5]

Pretty chilly day today. On top of that I forgot to charge all my batteries. Decided to dig into the passenger side wheel well. It looks like the original wheel well can be partially reused further to the back. That would be a lot less fab work.

 

[joeblack5]

Pushing along to get this 404 for a tryout trip.. cut more floor out, removed original aluminum wheel well and reset in further back and inwards... Now the next part.

Then brought some wife made pillows in from an earlier camper build to see how height and width of the couch worked out.. to borrow I will cut 4" of the width..

Put the overhead bed in to get a feel.
For reference I am 6ft02" on a good day
Probably can lower it a bit now that I found a way to lift it up during driving.

 

[joeblack5]

I am under some pressure to get this well with me forgetting some tools.. the afternoon was better.
Back on the brakes.
Since the cab is now lifted 3" the clutch and brake pedals have to be raised. Fortunately other people have done this before so I can nicely copy. The holes are about 2-1/2 apart.. see if I have a piece of 1/4" plate around to make some reinforcement. The brake rod is going to be pretty long..
My clutch is hydraulic so I will have to modify that separately.
Finally got my head straight about the 3" spacers for the rear cab mounts.. I will reuse some body mounts with donuts from the donor bus to allow the cab some movement and vibration forgiveness.
The aluminum plate is the adapter to the Bosch hydromax brake amplifier..


Oh and see what followed me home .. a 1975 awd FWD snowplow with a 855 Cummins and 5 SPD automatic.

 

[joeblack5]

Another day, the girls walk the dog to school.. then I go and pick him up and we go to the barn where the 404 is in progress. It is nice to have the dog as company, hence he is the pics.

Here is the next experiment with the overhead bed.. put some hinges in and made some cuts so that it confirms more or less to the ceiling. I think it is going to work out good.

Then went home and started on brake stuff.
Found a 1/4" piece of stainless plate to raise the pedal group up 2.5"... would have been nicer if it was a 1/2" wider but it is what it is. By that time Tanya came home and I thought to expose her to some 1/2" drilling.. told her to keep the chips coming and add drill oil...she did not disappoint.
Not to bad for HF drills.
Then the aluminum 3 to 4 hole adapter.
When all lays in line then this is what you get, old master brake cylinder next for reference.
Not sure how long it gets . Will see when I mock it up again and see how the access to the brake reservoir is. Always can go remote but if this works then good.

 

[Mullaney]

Another day, the girls walk the dog to school.. then I go and pick him up and we go to the barn where the 404 is in progress. It is nice to have the dog as company, hence he is the pics.

Here is the next experiment with the overhead bed.. put some hinges in and made some cuts so that it confirms more or less to the ceiling. I think it is going to work out good.

Then went home and started on brake stuff.
Found a 1/4" piece of stainless plate to raise the pedal group up 2.5"... would have been nicer if it was a 1/2" wider but it is what it is. By that time Tanya came home and I thought to expose her to some 1/2" drilling.. told her to keep the chips coming and add drill oil...she did not disappoint.
Not to bad for HF drills.
Then the aluminum 3 to 4 hole adapter.
When all lays in line then this is what you get, old master brake cylinder next for reference.
Not sure how long it gets . Will see when I mock it up again and see how the access to the brake reservoir is. Always can go remote but if this works then good.

.
Absolutely!
And the best part is that the dog doesn't complain...
Just kinda kicked back, curled up and comfy.

 

[joeblack5]

Installed the pedal group, haha, clutch pedal interference with the steering shaft.
Really have to find the thread that talked about this.
Changing the angle of the steering box and cut a corner of the clutch pedal will do the trick i think.
Fitted the whole assembly to see where the brake reservoir ends up..right under the seat.. I think I will cut an access hole there with a cover plate. I could move the master brake cylinder further backward, behind the cab but I do not like all that weight hanging on the three m10 bolt that held the original master brake cylinder in there. I had Tanya put the pedal group in place

Some more fitting.. and maybe tomorrow..??

 

[joeblack5]

While I was working on the new master brake I noticed that I had not taken care of the raised cab mount.
Although I did modify the swivel frame to a solid first cross member and have the middle and last swivel there is still three feet between the solid crossover and the solid cab mount that can twist a little bit

So I want to avoid a full solid cab mount and so decided to reuse the old rubber body mounts from the Econoline bus body.

Two rubber donuts stacked gives 3-1/4" raise. The holes in the 404 cab mounts are for M10 bolts.
I want to clamp the cab mounts between the rubber donuts and a spiral spring or Belleville washer so that when pushing down the donut will absorb and when pulling up the spiral spring will give. A construction similar as some rough terrain trucks use for their beds.
.
I did this by buying m10 SS coupling nuts. A piece of SS tube , press fitted, and welded that inside the ford bodymount .

So now a m10 bolt holds that down to the chassis mount. The cab sits on top of the rubber and a second m10 bolt with washer and spring comes from the top. A total of 2 per cab side so 4 total for the cab and then the front of the cab will have an extended swivel connector.. hope this helps a bit with vibration as well.
The two bolts bottom out in the middle of the coupling nut... Will see if this works and holds up.

 

[joeblack5]

Has been a depressing week.
The 404 is 10 min away from our house. A lot of trips forward and backward to get another tool.

After I nicely put 1/2-20 brake nuts and double flares then it turns out that one of the port of the master is 9/16-18.
I took the easy way out and got a brass adapter..

Next problem was the power steering. An epas conversion for a Hyundai. Well two problems.. first over the last two winters water had run into the hollow steering shaft and had made its way into the epas..
Took the whole thing apart and cleaned out but it would be a miracle if it still works.
Then another critical thing was that when I raised the cabe 3" that the steering adapter shaft was now to short.. no wonder I had issues getting things aligned.
So more welding and or a whole new epas unit.

Got the cab mounts somewhat worked out.
They say the last parts are the heaviest and it sure feels that way.

 

[joeblack5]

The waterlogged epas from the Hyundai did not sound happy anymore.

Decided to try one of a Toyota Prius.
The Prius epas has a remote controller. The motor is a brushed servo, the Hyundai is a three phase brushless motor. See picture of the Hyundai setup..

The Prius motor is longer and skinnier and with the absence of the controller it gives more space under the dash.

This is all double work that takes away from the finishing but what can you do.
First test fit.. I did not want to modify the steering box. The spline shaft that I welded on was for the Hyundai and you guess it ,the prius is slightly different. So decided to modify the steering shaft . By moving the Prius epas higher up I was able to get more range out of the tilt / tele mechanism and at the same time use an expandable steering shaft to the steering box.. that is some improvement as far that cab movement is now better insulated from the steering box.

 

[joeblack5]

Crawling forward.
The original kkk turbo had 1/16" axial play and so there was some smoke. Got a used replacement that is a Garrett.. I reindexed the blower side housing to point the outlet angled down so that it is easier to interface with the intercooler and all the piping is more straightforward.
To my surprise all the screw and bolts came of.. it is a real advantage that the cab is three" lifted so that I can work laying on the front tire and it is all right there.
Nevertheless in the end a little snafu where the oil line goes into the turbo was a different thread between the kkk and the Garrett... Lucky for me my harbor freight tap and die kit had the unlikely die of M10*1. The steel was soft so it worked out.

Next step is an oil pressure adapter that uses the mechanical pressure gauge from the 404.

Later Johan

 

[joeblack5]

It has been a long time. Small stuff to get the remote oil filter and fuel filter in a good spot. Plenty of problems with the brakes. One of the adjuster cams came of. More small modifications to the brake setup. Yesterday we got the brakes to work but only with multiple pump. Maybe we have to tighten the cams a bit further. Then this morning they were ok, maybe some air worked itself out of the master.

Then the clutch system I had used out of the 1998 donor vw golf TDI was incomplete and I had used a clutch master cylinder from Mk4 . These have weird o ring connection with a pin to keep them in place.. did not like it then and somehow the clutch did not completely release. Changed the whole system over to metal cylinders from an 98 mk3 and m12x1 brake line and now it works,

Still have a bunch of tdi ECU errors to explore and fix but I moved into a new spot and hopeful next week to our house to start bringing it up to the next level

 

[marchplumber]

It has been a long time. Small stuff to get the remote oil filter and fuel filter in a good spot. Plenty of problems with the brakes. One of the adjuster cams came of. More small modifications to the brake setup. Yesterday we got the brakes to work but only with multiple pump. Maybe we have to tighten the cams a bit further. Then this morning they were ok, maybe some air worked itself out of the master.

Then the clutch system I had used out of the 1998 donor vw golf TDI was incomplete and I had used a clutch master cylinder from Mk4 . These have weird o ring connection with a pin to keep them in place.. did not like it then and somehow the clutch did not completely release. Changed the whole system over to metal cylinders from an 98 mk3 and m12x1 brake line and now it works,

Still have a bunch of tdi ECU errors to explore and fix but I moved into a new spot and hopeful next week to our house to start bringing it up to the next level

Thats a TON of work and effort!! Congrats!!