Thread: Progress on My Unimog

I have not done as much work as I wanted the last few weeks - first off I have been away "Consulting the Community" at work - and I also got the flu - not pleasant at all. We also had a photo shoot for 4WD action magazine of the Discovery, which meant I had to spend some time cleaning and polishing it - the photo shoot was great fun, it took the whole day and by the end the Discovery was muddy again.

I have only 4 weeks left with my current job. After 3 3/4 year, I finally had enough of the politics and nonsense, so I resigned. - I decided to take some time off work to get the mog moved along. All going well I will have 3 months off, but I suspect that there will be other opportunities that come up as soon as I finish work that will mean I'll have to go back earlier than that, but time will tell - there is such a shortage of people in the business I'm in, I doubt I will be able to get away with 3 months off..

The lining panels have started to arrive.

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They are very light, made from two sheets of 1.8mm plywood and 6mm of foam, but the are very strong. They will be covered in 0.8mm of white Formica, so that will make them very tough and hard wearing. Once all the panels are here, I will mark all the areas for inspection openings and wiring openings and send them back for finishing. Next time I see them it will be to fit them in their final position.

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Back to the Bullbar fabrication:

The infill panel arrived, and I can finally weld the thing up. Lots of clamps etc, but the temporary braces worked well, and the section fits in perfectly. I have to fabricate the supports as well - all from 6mm plate. The bolts are all M16, and after I tacked the support in place I discovered that the rear bolts were too long to get out to the hole - so I have to cut a slot in the rear.

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Next was to cut the various slots for the winch cable, the handle for the clutch and a slot to see how the cable winds up on the drum. I also mounted the roller fairlead and the Hella 4000 main beam lights.

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I'm getting used to making cardboard templates - its a great way to see how things will look without too much effort. I tried a few different styles of support for the bar work, and this is what I think looks the best. I have to make the front supports deep enough so that the fairlead does not protrude past - one of the ADR requirements. Not sure how getting hit with a fairlead or a solid steel bumper would made a difference, but apparently it does.

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Now to turn cardboard into steel

I made the first support out of 6mm plate, but as is usual I ran out of steel and had to get some more the next day. That's the main problem working mainly at night, if you run out of something, then it's either take time of work or wait until the weekend, luckily the steel supplier is just around the corner and opens at 7:00am, so I was able to get some the next day. I made them exactly the same by cutting the second one roughly, then tack welding the two plates together, and finishing off all the edges with a grinder. I tack welded these in place on late on Friday night, and also tacked the flat bars to brace the supports. I welded them on starting with the bottom at the back - that way I was able to bend them a lot by hand.

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I started again on Saturday morning, this time armed with a propane torch and a big hammer. After much heating hammering and tacking, I had the supports in place - I only had to cut one of the tacks off to realign the strips - must be getting better at this fabrication business.

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Next was to weld it all up - there is lots of welding, and as the plate is all 6mm, that means turning up the welder to the max. It generates a lot of radiant heat - there were time when I could see the smoke starting to come off the welding gloves before I feel the heat starting to come through the gloves - then I had to stop or risk melting my fingers.

This is what it looked like after much welding:

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The next stage was the lower bar - I didn't want the space between the bumper and the upper bar to be too big - else the pesky kangaroos might find a way to commit suicide by jumping into the radiator.


After even more welding, cutting and bending

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And this is how I left it this evening. The bar is pretty heavy - there is a fair amount of 5mm, 6mm plate and 60mm tube, I can lift it off by myself, but it is just too heavy and a difficult shape for me to lift it back on by myself - that's where my trusty forklift comes into play. I think it weighs around 60kg - but I'll borrow the scale tomorrow and weigh it.

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Nice work, love your updates.

Sometimes resigning is the only way to retain one's sense of integrity... bon chance!

May you enjoy devoting some quality time to your magnificent obsession! and keep up the pics!

Finally got the roof rack on - I had to "press gang" some extra labour to get it back on top of the truck.

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I've also finished the roof lining of the cab - added some extra "top hat" sections, primed, painted and sound insulated. The dynamat copy worked just as well as the dynamat I've used on the bottom of the cab.

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Just to give everyone a sense of scale - I'm 180cm tall - unimogs are not small

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Finally, to prove I have a life, we spent the whole day at the beach on Saturday

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Originally Posted by Iain_B

................
Just to give everyone a sense of scale - I'm 180cm tall - unimogs are not small

Thats cheating that mog is on tippy toes

Originally Posted by Iain_B

Just to give everyone a sense of scale - I'm 180cm tall - unimogs are not small

Yep. You may struggle getting that in the underground car park at the local Woolies.

I expect that the front will settle about 25mm when I fit the rest of the stuff on it, the rear will settle about 50mm. The front springs may be a bit to hard - given the amount of weight the rail gear used to be, but I'll wait until I get it up and running before making any changes.