Ian Rubie
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- Feb 24, 2010
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As some of you know I have a new toy. I have been asked to put some pictures up so here goes.
Since I sold the green car I have been in a dilemma as to which direction to go for off roading fun. The green car was fairly well sorted for the sort of off road stuff I enjoy and if I bought another LC it would only end up as a clone of the green car. I looked at Volvo C304 6x6's and Pinzgauer 6x6's but they are out of my price range for a toy. I then looked at Unimogs and ended up with a 1967 Mercedes Unimog 404 Radio Body.
It really is going to be a journey into the unknown. I have no way of knowing if it will be worse, the same or better than my old green 80 for the more extreme side of off roading that I enjoy. On the plus sides it has huge ground clearance - 16" under the front diff and very low gearing. On the negative side it is very low on power - 2.2, 6 cylinder petrol pushing out about 80hp. It is certainly going to need a change of driving style
For those that don't know about the drive train on early Mogs, it has a six speed gear box, 1st and 2nd are very low and are used as off road gears, then 3rd - 6th are the on road gears. It has a separate lever for forwards or reverse, but you can only get reverse in 1st and 2nd. There is a conversion that can be done to turn it into an 8 speed which gives two slightly higher off road gears. This involves modding the shift gate and adding an extra gear lever. There is another lever to switch between rwd, 4 wd and 4wd with the diffs locked. You can also add crawler gears but mine does not have these. The axles are portal and have mechanical diff locks. The portal bit means the diff is above the centre line of the wheels and there are drop boxes at each end to bring the drive down.
This is how it looked when I bought it
The previous owner told me that the fuel tanks had contaminated fuel in them. He just bypassed them and ran from a boat outboard tank in the cab. Also the choke knob had seized so he ran it with out engine covers so he could reach the carb from the drivers seat and set the choke directly.
I have replaced the choke cable, brand new genuine Mercedes was only £12. Job two was to remove the box from the back to make it more suitable for my planned usage and make access much easier for planned maintenance. To do this I made a large frame out of scaffold poles with a couple of chain blocks at the top.
The box came off fairly easily, only 9 bolts, a few cables and the rear lights to disconnect.
I now have easy access to the tanks and have removed and cleaned them out. It has a dual tank system were you can select which tank you feed from but to fill them there is only one filler. This filler is on the reserve tank. Once the reserve is full it overflows into the main tank via a large diameter rubber pipe. This pipe has perished and will need replacing. While I am at it I will replace the in tank filters.
The propshafts are hidden inside what they call torque tubes. The outside of these tubes do not rotate. One of the gators has perished and needs replacing.
Then I need to make some rear mud guards and mount the rear lights before I am ready to hit the road.
If the thing turns out to be as good as I hope it will be off road then I will address the rust issues on the cab. If not I will remount the box and move on to the next toy.
Since I sold the green car I have been in a dilemma as to which direction to go for off roading fun. The green car was fairly well sorted for the sort of off road stuff I enjoy and if I bought another LC it would only end up as a clone of the green car. I looked at Volvo C304 6x6's and Pinzgauer 6x6's but they are out of my price range for a toy. I then looked at Unimogs and ended up with a 1967 Mercedes Unimog 404 Radio Body.
It really is going to be a journey into the unknown. I have no way of knowing if it will be worse, the same or better than my old green 80 for the more extreme side of off roading that I enjoy. On the plus sides it has huge ground clearance - 16" under the front diff and very low gearing. On the negative side it is very low on power - 2.2, 6 cylinder petrol pushing out about 80hp. It is certainly going to need a change of driving style
For those that don't know about the drive train on early Mogs, it has a six speed gear box, 1st and 2nd are very low and are used as off road gears, then 3rd - 6th are the on road gears. It has a separate lever for forwards or reverse, but you can only get reverse in 1st and 2nd. There is a conversion that can be done to turn it into an 8 speed which gives two slightly higher off road gears. This involves modding the shift gate and adding an extra gear lever. There is another lever to switch between rwd, 4 wd and 4wd with the diffs locked. You can also add crawler gears but mine does not have these. The axles are portal and have mechanical diff locks. The portal bit means the diff is above the centre line of the wheels and there are drop boxes at each end to bring the drive down.
This is how it looked when I bought it
The previous owner told me that the fuel tanks had contaminated fuel in them. He just bypassed them and ran from a boat outboard tank in the cab. Also the choke knob had seized so he ran it with out engine covers so he could reach the carb from the drivers seat and set the choke directly.
I have replaced the choke cable, brand new genuine Mercedes was only £12. Job two was to remove the box from the back to make it more suitable for my planned usage and make access much easier for planned maintenance. To do this I made a large frame out of scaffold poles with a couple of chain blocks at the top.
The box came off fairly easily, only 9 bolts, a few cables and the rear lights to disconnect.
I now have easy access to the tanks and have removed and cleaned them out. It has a dual tank system were you can select which tank you feed from but to fill them there is only one filler. This filler is on the reserve tank. Once the reserve is full it overflows into the main tank via a large diameter rubber pipe. This pipe has perished and will need replacing. While I am at it I will replace the in tank filters.
The propshafts are hidden inside what they call torque tubes. The outside of these tubes do not rotate. One of the gators has perished and needs replacing.
Then I need to make some rear mud guards and mount the rear lights before I am ready to hit the road.
If the thing turns out to be as good as I hope it will be off road then I will address the rust issues on the cab. If not I will remount the box and move on to the next toy.
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