Category Archives: vehicles

Travel Vehicle Try #2

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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.

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Somewhere in northern germany

 

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

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

 

The Kfz Zulssungsbehörde again…

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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…

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"Muckelchen" on the first pit stop

“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).

Bring out the big guns…

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“American planes will always be superior as long as there are wonderful men like you in the cockpit. And German parts.” — Lt. Commander Block

The KE Jetronic and I go back quite some time. My first Merc (w201) had this injection system as well as the same engine (M102 but with less displacement) as the pornstyler. May it rest in peace…

w201

It didn’t run too bad but I never REALLY figured it out why it wasn’t running perfect. Then I had to part with the car quite unexpected. It still fired up and ran fine but I think it probably wouldn’t have passed the German road safety inspection anymore, they are not too keen about cabriolet conversions…

Concerning the Injection System, it’s payback time… After some consideration I bought “A quality product made in America”.

zeitronix1“Quality Exceeds Expectations / Made in USA” says another label. Well my expectations are moderate, converting the signal of a oxygen sensor to human readable numbers is no witchcraft at all. Let’s see them exceeded…zeitronix2

Inside is some circuitry probably made in china and a Bosch LSU Wideband Oxygen Sensor (made in Germany). I just want a ready-made circuit before I build my own so I can ensure that mine is working fine… And I want the pornstyler to run fine before I start building my own circuit.

Disclaimer: I didn’t mean to offend anybody from or fond of the US. I just enjoy to tease you guys 🙂 If I had thought the device would be crap I wouldn’t have bought it.

After installing it I would say my expectations are met. You wire up it just like the manual says (Plus, Minus and Emulator output for narrowband sensor), plug it in and it runs just fine. By coincidence Olli wired up an “Innovate” (same thing, different producer) at the same time and the experience was more unpleasant. The colour of the cables do not match the colours mentioned in the manual and you have to do some “free to air” (?) calibration to get it working which need an extra switch and a LED which are (i think) not in the box… Well done Zeitronix! How about Linux Software for the thing? That really would exceed my expectations…

Scary stuff in the workshop #1

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Disclaimer: It’s not as bad as it looks, the springs are not under tension.

Still: Don’t do such stuff. Even if it’s save you will look stupid. People will make fun of you and/or tell you not to to it. This is especially fun in a shared workshop. Back to the point: Putting spanners only on one side of the spring (which is under tension) is guaranteed to make funny bouncy spring make funny bouncy stuff in the workshop an maybe hurt/kill somebody. Not funny.

The save way to go is to use proper spanners, compress the spring, remove it and then decompress it. And we also have decent spanners in the shop you don’t have to use the cheapos… If you have to support something which is under pressure please do it right. Use something which has a proper stand (three or more legs) so it won’t jump away easily if somebody kicks it unintentionally. Also use a layer of wood to distribute the load.

In this case I would have used the workshop pushcart (you can see the wheels in the back of the photo) and put it under the differential or some proper three legged stands…