Thread: Australian Unimog

Originally Posted by inken_dave

Thanks for all that info! Do you have any recolection of the gear ratios? Is the limit of the top end a function of the gearing, or the lack of torque?

My main interest is definitly going slow! I live in a great area near Tamworth NSW where there are plenty of dirt roads accessing great state forrests etc.

Zedcars, or anyone else, do you have any idea how many 404's have been brought in? One option is that I import one or two? Not that difficult these days!

Dave
The std engine derivative was the M180 a 2.2 single carb petrol unit producing 80 BHP @ 4800r/m. This engine was a five bearing crank unit and was also found in the early 1960's MB220. The 220 S had twin carbs no less!
As you can imagine at 6000 ft to 10,000 ft where I am this truck runs like an asthmatic dog! Nevertheless its a pretty bullet proof engine in its Mil form with a deep oil pan holding 8 litres of oil for all angle operation.

The M130 option produced 110 BHP at 4800r/m and was a twin carb variant and was similar to what you would find in the MB280 having a 7 bearing crank.

The power delivery of the M180 is a virtue of low down torque characteristics of a side valve engine coupled to low gearing.
Ratios are 1st 14.93:1, 2nd 8.23:1, 3rd 4.47:1, 4th 2.47:1, 5th 1.53:1 and 6th 1to 1. You could get an aux crawler gear giving 46.01:1 & 25:1 respectively as an option.
Then total axle reduction was/is 7.56:1 (made up of diff ratio 3.55:1 and portal hub reduction of 2.13:1 .

The truck is a bit cramped due to its size but is surprising comfortable once you get seated. Of the two I liked the Swissy troop carrier truck and off road it was bloody marvelous at recovering inferior 4wds in tight places The PTO driven winch is super capacity.
I have seen a short film of a German nutter of a squadie being pulled up a vertical cliff face by a fellow 404 Unimog at the top of the summit and the dead Mog on the end of the hook! The soldier is calmly sat in the driver's looking up the wire rope as he is being winched. Too much adrenaline for me!

Overall for curio big boys toy the truck can be fun, but can be tedious on anything more than a 100 miles drive.

This brings me to the next up in the model range , the 406 series which had a real truck diesel engine and much more equipment.
I was introduced to my first when I worked on a county in England and they had one as grave digging machine. One of its many talents.

I will give you blokes an overview on that model later today.
Cheers Dennis
zedcars

Wack in a OM606 and power up...
(Putting one in my G-wagen soon)

Hi Dave,

If you're after something a bit more practical how about one of these.



This is my Australian built Oka, tough as nails and very simple construction.

Perkins Phaser 110 (HP), 4 litre turbo diesel, 5 speed Spicer all synchro box, indestructable NP 205 transfer case (or equally unbreakable Rockwell in later versions), Dana 70 rear axle / Dana 60 front axle, twin 105 litre fuel tanks, dual batteries, built in snorkel in 'b' pillar (air inlet approx. 6' from the ground) and available in a number of body configurations.

Fitted with either 19.5" or 16" wheels so tyre choice is huge. A common setup for serious off road is ex army ASLAV 16" tyres, 325/85 16 Michelin XML's which will take you just about any where.

Heaps of drive train upgrade gear available, diffs., centres etc.

Extremely capable off road, 130" wheelbase and an active forum as well.

Prices start around the $25K mark and if you want a tuff, reliable off road Nissan, Toyota etc eater you won't be dissapointed.

OKA forum home page here------------ Home

Deano

Originally Posted by PeterM

The Army should start to look at selling off their 'Mogs and R series Macks from as early as mid next year as the new replacement trucks start to come on line.

Still a long way off that one happening... A lovely lass with Red hair is in savings mode

Unimog 406
I did a quick Google as Google Australia to see what came up.
Not much immediate of significance but I did get a gallery of views.
unimog 406 australia - Google Search

Someone once asked me how I would explain a 406 Unimog or its double cab derivative the 416 DoKa ( double cab variant )
Basically take the 404 model stretch the cab and the frame to take a Mercedes diesel OM 352 truck engine. A well tried unit found in all sorts of big trucks and stuff it, no shoe horn it, into the cab space available.
Then take the basic gearbox from the earlier 404 Mog and make it stronger and add a splitter box to the front for some models which is commonly known as the cascade unit.
Since the engine has an air compressor as std, all the 4WD and cross lock axle activities can be air operated instead of the handbrake like lever found in the 404.
Of course there is no room for a centre passenger space the area is taken up by a huge array of gear lever shifters and the passenger would need to be a skinny guy in any case!
Here's a basic overview for those interested:-
Unimog 406 416 info

Since the early 70's I have worked on these trucks off and on. What surprised me from first putting a wrench on one is their versatility, basic toughness and ability to be abused without mechanical failure.
Again not too road friendly with a top speed of about 45 to 48mph, but you can get fast axles which will make it do about 65 to 68 mph on the highway. Just as well since the brakes even later disc models are still a bit lacking in that area.

These trucks started to be phased out in 1978, making way for the much more road like truck successor the U Series.
Still you can often find the older 406 in all places of the world, even the US Army has a fleet with back hoes and ploughs on the front called in US Army nomenclature SEE's (small emplacement excavator.)
Dennis
zedcars

I have driven a 404.
It was fitted with a optional extra low range, which has never been needed.
The motor is too small and limits a otherwise fairly good vehicle.
A engine transplant wouldnt be straight forward without much extra work and engineering.
If you have ideas of driving a 404 around australia for that big trip , forget it.
There is a big gap in the gear ratios between 3th and 4th on the main box.
The low power stops the vehicle getting a run up over things off road wise or makes a steep hill climbs a chore especially with any sort of load.
I did like the way the body and chassis was designed to flex and high ground clearence ect.
A bloke in sydney imports the vehicle from europe and you would be looking at just over 20k for one.

Abercombie Winter Rally 2011

Originally Posted by 101 Ron

I have driven a 404.
It was fitted with a optional extra low range, which has never been needed.
The motor is too small and limits a otherwise fairly good vehicle.
A engine transplant wouldnt be straight forward without much extra work and engineering.
If you have ideas of driving a 404 around australia for that big trip , forget it.
There is a big gap in the gear ratios between 3th and 4th on the main box.
The low power stops the vehicle getting a run up over things off road wise or makes a steep hill climbs a chore especially with any sort of load.
I did like the way the body and chassis was designed to flex and high ground clearence ect.
A bloke in sydney imports the vehicle from europe and you would be looking at just over 20k for one.

Abercombie Winter Rally 2011

Ron
A good assessment.
Here in the US you can find them (404) for about $3000 to $8000 US)

About ten years aqo when they were all the rage over here and the Swiss Army was liquidating their fleets of Unimogs and Pinzgauers, they were plentiful at specialist importers around the country. A very lightly used 404 with around 5000 kms on it went for about $8000.
Cheers Dennis

A tale of mirth, the 406 Unimog and digging a grave.
I think I can tell this tale to a bunch of Auzzies as the sense of humour about such things as death, appear to have the same depth of mirth as us Poms. Sadly American find this story a bit sick, so here goes!
Back in the 1970's I got a job as a Vehicle/Plant Machinery inspector with our local County Council. Like most counties at the time, the place was run by ex WW2 servicemen like my dad, who was in fact the heavy vehicle workshop foreman.

The bosses of the shop complex were an retired ex Army Colonel and a Brigadier as his side kick.
One day the Brigadier mentioned that there were too many useless buggers digging holes on the county.

"Never gave it a thought" said I in reply.
What he was actually eluding to was the retired old plant operators that went back home to those quaint Gloucestershire villages doing a bit of hedging and patching, planting dafs and hyacinths on green verges and sometimes digging a grave when someone pegged out in the village destined to be interred in the local church grave yard. All of them were receiving a stipend for doing such things on top of their pensions. (as OAP's ) Horrible term:- "old age pensioners"

He then announced he had arranged a demo of a grave digging machine at 10,00 am sharp at Epney church yard. He wanted me to observe the vehicle in question and write a report quote:- Estimate maintenance costing difficulties for a year"

So I turned up at the allotted time to see a Case Unimog 406 with back hoe accessory roll off the trailer.

This is where the digging exercise was to take place for 1,00pm burial. Photos of Church of St Lawrence - Longney and Epney - Gloucestershire - England | British Listed Buildings
With Curate doing a fit about missing the old boxey graves with that monstrosity we got it to the grave site and the operator cut the grave in a few minutes.
I could see the Brigadier was highly chuffed with the result but the two old digger boys sat on grave with their picks shovels and old gas mask bags with flasks, beers and sandwiches were less than impressed.

The Brigadier said "Well boys what do you think? Do you think we could use on of these on the county and bring it into the latter part of the 20th century"?

The older one of the two a real country boy, lifted his tweed cap and scratched his thinning head!

Well yur highness hims a fine machine very impressive but we couldn't use im round yer see 'cos we has tradition see!
He went on and I could see the Brigadier was in for some home spun country advise! So he stood there like a school boy being lectured

"Yah see yur Lord ship, we never opens a grave before 12,00 o clock this tyme of the yur. We dah just cuts the grass sod off and rolls it up behind the church because the locals don't like seeing an open grave see. We dah put that plastic grass down while we waits and gets and the hymn sig-nal"

"Once we has a cuppa its about ha' past ten and the family members start arriving and we dah open the church for all thems to go in plus all the village hangers on who are looking for a sandwich and a pint after the event".

By noon the coffin has arrived and the vicar leads the box into the church, and we dah fast locks the door. They then are going to sing their hymns and speak their "eu-lodge ease" for the next hour!
In that tyme we has to come out yur and dig like bloody fury, in an hour we can gets down six fut see in this zoil! Then as we hear the sig nal, the hymn "abide with me: its tyme to clean up open the church door and the vicar leads the coffin to the site and down it goes ashes to ashes dust to dust an weem shoveling.

"The reason for all this tradition your Lordship is that if you dah dig the grave too early or too late like you've dun ere wid that machine, the water frum the river dah flood the hole, like its doing now!
But if you cuts it just in tyme you has a nice dry clean hole, and that's because the mourners round yur gets very upset wiv us if you has to smash a hole in the coffin to get the bugger to sink!"
That's why we has tradition in this village , and now I have to go on my bike and get a pump to pump out the ole you've made.

Poor old Brigadier got his verbal cummupence ! As a lesson in country matters As I saw the loading of the truck I had a chance to see it up close and personal like, I was impressed but the two old boys we not. As I climbed into the county Morris Minor van, the other fella who had kept quite shouts out "Hey Lad, you are Harry Williams' boy from the Central repair depot arn't yah? Ahah
Is that bloody thing made in Germany?
We might have hay seeds in our hair boy, but no way are we having German stuff in our village, I fought them in North Africa.
Food for thought at the time for sure!
I hope you enjoyed a bit of Gloucestershire country matters.
Cheers & have a good weekend
Dennis
zedcars