Travel Vehicle Try #2

Posted on May 1, 2013 by andi

Time is flying by and I’m tired and should go to sleep right now. But at least I can post some pictures. I bought it on Sunday and fetched it on Monday afternoon. On Tuesday I had a thorough look at it, it seems not too bad but it certainly has it’s issues. I’ll write more about it later this week.

It’s a Mercedes Benz Model 602 aka T1 aka “Bremer Transporter” (lorry produced in bremen/germany). It’s quite a late model made in 1993 and has the strongest diesel engine available (OM602 2,9L 5cyl, 95hp). About 970000 of them were produced by Mercedes up to 1995 and they are still manufactured as license builds in India.

The interior is self made by the first owner and it seems that he knew what he was doing most of the time.

Somewhere in northern germany

The black stripe on the bottom isn’t original, it’s been repainted due to corrosion

The interior is alright but i think i have to repaint the panels

Workshop Improvement Day

Posted on April 27, 2013 by andi

The club (akakraft e.V.) who runs the workshop I’m using is holding “work days” on a regular basis. The workshop is cleaned, maintenance of the machine park is done, light bulbs are changed and new hardware is installed. Some time ago a extraction system for exhaust gases was donated. Today we started to do the piping. There already is a hole in the outer wall at a convenient place but the pipes used are 11cm in diameter and the hole is 17cm. Where can we get a adaptor? This doesn’t sound like a part which is available everywhere.

Have you ever tried to put a keg on a lathe? Nope. Not until now…

I LOVE such tasks. Just take your measuring tape and roam through the workshop or a hardware store and look for stuff which might help. Great training for your skills in visual judgement of dimensions as well. Obviously I started searching at the scrap box since it’s full at the moment and there’s always good stuff. And Bingo! A five liter keg of a rather well known beer which doesn’t really taste like much. It’s conical as well so it will be a snug fit. It only needs two holes of the right size. Normally you would start to mess around with pliers to get it done somehow in a fast and dirty way. But that’s not how we do it. Everything has to be over engineered, look nice and the fabrication process has to involve fancy machinery. 🙂

On the bottom we just marked the center with a center bore, adjusted the turning chisel to it, zeroed the scale and measured outwards.

: A keg spinning on the lathe at 14 (!) rpm

Since the top already has a small hole we started on the outer diameter, zeroed the scale and measured inwards.

The finished part.

The first hole was a perfect fit. You could slip it on the tubing easy and it was difficult to remove it again. The second hole was a little off but still alright.

The finished product

Temporary installment to see how good it fits.

I hate you, smartphone! Recap…

Posted on April 20, 2013 by andi

I decided to get rid of smartphones. I bought a cheap phone (Nokia 100) and a Tablet (Asus Transformer) instead and thought I would carry the Tablet if I need Internet and stick to the phone otherwise. Then a good friend needed a phone fast so I traded the N100 for pizza and some beer (yeah, it really is THAT cheap).

Yesterday the screen of my HTC Desire cracked. Again. While driving my car. I put it under the armrest in the middle between the seats and when I arrived it was lying in front of the back seat with the screen cracked… Maybe it was my unusual reckless driving, I tried to figure out the top speed of the pornstyler. This was a failure as well, too much traffic and too many idiots on the autobahn. At least it runs 190km/h (GPS measured) and it was still accelerating. And the breaks are fine as well…

Anyways, a realized that a 10″ tablet with a keyboard is not just looking like a subnotebook, it in fact is one. So I don’t just carry it in my jacket… I wanted to get a replacement for the HTC fast so I did two things which I normally don’t: I synched my whole phone with google and I went to “media markt” to buy a (Google/LG) Nexus 4 Tablet Smartphone.

The HTC Desire is not a small phone but it looks just silly beside the Nexus

While synching the phone was quite unspectacular besides the bad feeling giving my data to google the shop visit was. The price at the “media markt” online shop was 349€ if you pick it up in one of their stores. Since I didn’t want to give my personal data to “media markt” as well I just went to the shop. 395€ for the phone. Well… I asked an employee if I really had to order online to get a normal price. He was quite helpful, had a look at the website, adjusted the price in his software and that’s it. So if you just walk in and buy the thing they just rip you off big time. Interesting. I thought about buying some HDMI Adaptors (20€ each) and some Crimp Connectors for the car stereo (6€ each). But since these items are sold on the internet for maybe 2€ / 10 Cent I changed my mind quickly. So Dear Idiots: Please stop buying overpriced crap at “media markt”! Just imagine a world free of ridiculous “media markt” stores and silly “media markt” advertising… You can do it! Well, alright. You probably can’t because you’re stupid… My bad…

The Kfz Zulssungsbehörde again…

Posted on April 9, 2013 by andi

Last time they forgot to transfer the admission for the hardtop and the cabin for the taro to the new papers. I got around pulling a number this time by telling the guy for the appointments that my time amount isn’t unlimited and that they messed up (in a polite way). He sent me to a accountant who was on holidays and gave me the wrong desk number. The person on the desk wouldn’t belive my story and asked if I had the printed email with me. Nope, but I’ve got a computer and internet access with me.

Now I’m waching two Employees since almost an hour taming the software beast to add two lines to the papers. Luckyly I brought a computer. Back in the days this was made by hand (or typewriter) and signed with a stamp. A matter of minutes. Now it takes 3 manhours (them two and me waiting) to copy&paste two fucking lines. Also funny: They scan every page but they can’t access it. If I hadn’t brought the old papers from the 90s they wouldn’t have known what to write. I’m amazed. Where is all this german efficiancy gone?

Just when they were about to finish a third person came and told us that I should have been at her desk hours ago. She wasn’t very impressed when I told her that nobody told me to do so. It really drives me nuts if the government wastes my money to pay people to waste my time… I can do this myself….

Travel vehicle buy try #1 failed…

Posted on April 9, 2013 by andi

“Muckelchen” on the first pit stop

Well. After not finding a decent van I thought about just buy anything which comes for a decent price and then sell it again if I don’t like it. Then I saw the following combination on the web: VW Taro (badge engineering at it’s finest, it is a Toyota Hilux which was put together in Hannover, Germany by VW). On Top of it a Tischer Cabin originally for a VW Caddy (small pickup on the golf I chassis). To cut a long story short: The state was not exactly as mint as advertised. There were some leak issues which were hidden under a second wall. Also the Hilux is not quite comfortable for a guy with almost 1,90m of height. And I realized that the cabin is to small and that I want a bathroom on board. And a motorcycle. And a bicycle. And other stuff. So I have to get a decent sized van.

Today I sold the cabin for a decent price to a guy from the VW Caddy forum. If the Hilux is hitting the price I expect I will make a small profit with this failed buy. So all in all this buy wasn’t a total fail after all since I learned a lot about my expectations on a travel vehicle, (hopefully) didn’t loose money and got to visit a good friend who is living nearby the place where I bought the car. So it feels almost like a win while it is technically a fail (on acquiring a travel vehicle).