Meet the Trot'n Turtle - Unimog U1300L Build

[Hodakaguy]

[Hodakaguy]

[Hodakaguy]

Playing with seats today. I'm wanting to change out the stock seats for something more comfortable but I'm wanting to keep seating for 3 people at the same time. Today I borrowed a Stow & Go seat out of a Chrysler mini van from a friend for a test fit, it fits really well! (I'll fabricate custom seat bases when doing the real install, just sitting on the stock base in these shots). The seat is 21" wide and has drop down arm rests, just narrow enough to fit in a center console seat from a modern truck in the middle. The console seat will be nice since you can fold it flat and use it for cup holders and storage when only two people are in the cab.

Stock bench seat. It's a tight fit for two people on the bench seat but it works ok with my Son in the middle.

Removed the bench, here is the stock frame.

Stow-n-Go seat.

And sitting on the stock frame brace for fit up, not a bad fit. I sat in the seat and it feels really good, I think these will do the trick.

Now to source a couple of these Stow & Go seats and a matching console seat....time to hit some junk yards!

Hodakaguy
_________________
My Syncro Build: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=517384

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[Hodakaguy]

Starting on side ladders today.

First up headed to a friends house to bend some 1.25" tubing for the side rails...Man I need to get a bender, soooo many things I could build.

Notching tubing for the steps

Steps and mount plates

Two of the mounting bolts will go through the rear double lip and have lock nuts on the rack, the rest are set with rivet nuts.

And one rail in place, more to come tomorrow.

Hodakaguy
_________________
My Syncro Build: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=517384

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[Hodakaguy]

Time to finish up the passenger side ladder.

Here both base plates are installed and I'm using magnets to line everything up and hold the side bars in place. The magnets with black T handles are called MagSwitches, the larger square ones will hold 400 lbs each and you can turn them on/off at will by twisting the black handle. These magnets are really handy to have around for this type of fabrication.

Installing the steps.

Clamped and ready to tack everything up.

Fully welded up.

I did the welding this time around, not as pretty as my fathers work but it will do

And bolted onto the truck...now to replicate it on the drivers side.

My father was the first to try out the ladder and go for a climb

Hodakaguy
_________________
My Syncro Build: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=517384

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[Hodakaguy]

Today's project...fab up the drivers side ladder.

Here's another handy tool, it's a deburring tool you use to smooth the edges of drilled holes. This ensures no burrs are left on the insides of the holes so the rivet nuts will sit nice and flush/tight.

Assembling the rack.

Tacked up.

Needed to turn the truck around in the garage so I HAD to take a couple pics of the truck while it was out

Now to start on the push bar.....once I decide on how I want it to look

Hodakaguy
_________________
My Syncro Build: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=517384

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[Bills85Westy]

As usual, amazing fabrication skills! Looking forward to the next installment.

Are those Wurton lights? I really like how you treated the light bar across the front with the rooftop rack. That will surely throw off a tremendous amount of light!
_________________
89 Tristar Syncro Doka - White
85 Westfalia Syncro (conversion)
SAH 1.8T Conversion - 2005 AWP
Engine Conversion Thread: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=612144&highlight=
85 Doka L345 Grey - 1.9L

[Hodakaguy]

[Hodakaguy]

Seats arrived yesterday. They are the middle row seats out of a 2017 Chrysler Town and Country Van. These units are black leather and were new take outs, for $100 a seat they will be nice upgrades.

The bulky metal bases will be removed leaving the tracks to bolt the new mount setup to...add another item to the list of things to get done by summer

Hodakaguy
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My Syncro Build: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=517384

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[hitest]

When Mercedes Benz Accessory Division sends you a job offer promise us you'll post of pic of it too..
_________________

[Hodakaguy]

[Hodakaguy]

My father and I hit the wrecking yards today looking for a center seat solution, we found a couple that I think will work but not in the right color yet. While we were there my father had the great idea to check out some of the trucks to see if we could find a fuel tank for the drivers side of the truck, luckily we found one that should be a perfect fit!

Here's the tank still attached to what's left of a Ford LCF Chassis.

The tank holds 40 gallons and is sized perfectly for the Mog. It is like new inside, outside will need a little elbow grease but will look like new as well once done. For $125 it makes for a fairly cheap Aux tank and should give us great range with 80 gallons of fuel on board. Now to research fuel switching valves and figure out the sending unit to gauge connections for both tanks.

More to come....

Hodakaguy
_________________
My Syncro Build: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=517384

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[Hodakaguy]

Update on the Ford LCF Fuel Tank. Apparently these tanks are known to De-laminate internally and destroy the injection pump, injectors, fuel lines etc. This looks to be a major problem with the LCF trucks, so even though the tank is the perfect size it's also a nightmare waiting to happen. I've considered having a local shop prep and coat the inside of the tank to prevent any delaminating issues...but I'm not sure I'm going to mess with it at this point....have to think on it for a while.

Had a few minutes tonight to play with the seats. Removed the drivers side seat to look at the base and see what it will take to mount up the new unit on the suspension base. The seat rails on the new seats are the same width as the base so that makes things easier, but the seat sits to low when mounted directly to the base so a spacer will be needed. After looking at the stock seat it looks like I can cut the adjustable portion off of that seat and use that to mount the new seat to the suspension base, this will give me the needed height and also allow me to adjust the height for different drivers etc.


Stock seat mounted on the suspension base.

This is the adjustable section of the seat, you can adjust height and angle of the seat with these two black knobs. The lower clear dial is where you set the drivers weight for the suspension base.

Seat removed

Seat rails on the new seat

Seat sitting on the suspension base. The seat is to low in this configuration.

Underside of the stock drivers seat.

The adjustable base is spot welded to the seat pan.

Disassembling the seat, carefully removed the stock cover to expose the base.

Cover and cushion removed. I'll cut the adjustable base off the seat pan and fabricate some adapters to mount the new seat to this base.

More to come.....

Hodakaguy
_________________
My Syncro Build: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=517384

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[Hodakaguy]

Well up early and ready to install the drivers seat today. To keep the adjustable base from the original seat and use it on the new unit the base and seat pan needs to be separated. I can either cut the pan apart using a skinny wheel or drill out the spot welds using a spot weld remover, after all of 30 seconds I decided removing the spot welds would be cleaner overall so I set out to separate the two.

Here's the spot weld remover bit, it quickly chews through the first layer and separates the two pieces of metal. You use a center punch to mark the center of the spot weld then use this tool to drill the weld out, the center of the tool is spring loaded and retracts as you drill keeping the bit on coarse.

And the spot welds before and after drilling, you can see the two pieces separating here.

Soooo.....now we have a lesson in thinking things ALL the way through before you start working on something. There are two stiff springs on the bottom side on the base that keep tension on the adjustment mechanism, as I started removing the spot welds it became apparent that the seat pan was the upper restraint for the springs and removing the spot welds wasn't an option. Out came the Mig machine and a few minutes later the spot welds were put right back where they were when I started LOL. Time to get out the skinny wheel

Here the tabs sticking up on top have been removed and I've shortened the adjusting bars on all 4 corners to allow clearance for the new seat to go lower, the new seat is slightly taller than the old one.

Stops tack welded in place to keep the adjusting mechanism from coming apart if the adjusting wheel is turned to far.

Mounting bars installed, these were needed for the new seat to clear the adjustment bars.

Installed in the truck. The seat is very comfortable compared to the OEM unit and adds a bit of modern look to the interior as well. Glad I kept the height adjustment as I like to run the seat up very high but anyone with a heavier build will need to lower the seat to drive it. When I pull the seat back out I'll blend down the edges and paint the needed bits.

I ordered another suspension base to install on the passenger side seat as well, hopefully it will help out with my father bad back when on long trips. I also want to raise the passenger seat up to the drivers seat height, it feels like sitting in a hole when your riding on that side with the bench seat. You can see the current height difference in this pic.

Started stripping the truck down for paint & powder coat prep that will hopefully start soon. Still have several holes to fill on top of the cab from the old radio antennas as well.

Parts that will be going out for powder coating soon. The mounting tabs on the front fenders had a thick layer of rubbery sealant applied under the paint all the way around each bracket to keep out moisture. We didn't want the powder coating place to warp the sheet metal trying to get that stuff out with a sand blaster so my father carefully removed it all with hand tools. There will be more to powder coat but this will be a start.

Hodakaguy
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My Syncro Build: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=517384

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[Hodakaguy]

Not a ton of progress this weekend but slowly chipping away at it.

When the troop bed arrived to us the front of the bed had been bent slightly forward, we straightened it when we installed the bed on the truck but there was some damage on the passenger side gate that still needed attention. The passenger side gate is very tight and you have to hammer it into place and use a pry bar to remove it from the bed, not going to work once it's painted so we needed to fix this issue. After looking at the problem a bit the center pivot was hanging slightly and after a couple minutes with a air grinder and blending pad the gate is removable again by hand . We then used a torch and a few pry bars/hammers to work the dents out of the metal where people had used hammers in the past to install the gate, will look great again once painted.

Disassembled the battery box and removed it from the truck along with the steps on both sides, these will all be re-done in a satin black. The battery box is in really good cond, just some slight surface rust in spots.

All removed hardware goes into marked Zip Lock bags for easy identification later during re-assembly.

With parts removed for paint we decided to switch gears a bit and rotate the tires, I'm starting to notice some slight cupping on the front tires so it's time (also need to chalk the tires with the RW1 box removed and figure out proper air pressure). The 22 Ton air jacks are to short to reach the axles even with the tallest supplied adapters installed so we had to use some wooden blocks to crib up the jack. My father is picking up some round stock this week that we will machine into taller adapters so the jacks can be used on the MOG without the blocks.

More to come...

Hodakaguy
_________________
My Syncro Build: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=517384

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[Hodakaguy]

Finished rotating the tires and torqued the wheels down this morning.

Time to start on the front push bar build. I needed to turn the truck around in the garage so I had to get some temporary power to the truck to start it since I removed the battery box.

Here's the push bar, it's built from 3.5" tubing (We thought this size fit proportionally with the size of the truck). Here we are getting ready to mark/cut the proper angle on the bottom of the tubing, we performed a test cut at the bottom of the tubing to verify the angle was correct.

Test cuts were right on the money so here we're marking out the final cuts.

We will be making the push bar easily removable for maintenance purposes etc. To bolt the push bar to the factory bumper we need to fill the step in the top of the bumper so the push bar base plates sit at an even height. Here we cut two pieces of steel to fill the step.

Here my father is removing paint from the bumper so we can weld on the plates (we changed our mind on this process as our plan evolved, more below).

Here the base plates are cut and you can see how the bottom spacer plate is needed to let the base plates sit flush. The push bar will be welded to the top base plate.

Drilling the bolt holes. At this point we changed our plan and decided to keep the bottom spacer plate a bolt on unit as well. This will allow us to powder coat all the parts top and bottom and will prevent any rust between the plates.

Here the bottom plate has been trimmed to the same size/shape of the top plate, looks better this way.

And the push bar sitting in place for a preview. The bar still needs to be trimmed slightly for level and angled (The bar will slant out slightly away from the grill). Still have to fab mounts for the 20" light bar as well. Hopefully weld the bar to the base plates tomorrow.

Hodakaguy
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My Syncro Build: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=517384

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My 4wd Sprinter Build here:https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?p=9334401#9334401

[Hodakaguy]

Time to get the push bar finished up. First up we need to lay out the proper angle on the tubing so we can make the final cuts so the push bar will sit at the correct angle on the base plates. The cuts we made yesterday were 90 deg cuts and we don't know what angle we need as of yet. My father had an awesome trick for laying out the perfect cut lines on each side. We placed the bar in the correct location on the base plates and leveled it, then tilted the bar until we liked the angle. At that point we found a small spacer that was just high enough to clear the gap at the back side of the tubing. We then cut down a marking pen and used it on top of the spacer to slide it around the base plates and mark out the perfect cut line onto the tubing, with this method there is no guessing and both sides will be right on the money!

Push bar leveled and the correct angle set. Cut lines marked.

Nice flush fit.

Dad performing his magic!, he's an artist with a TIG torch.

Installing the 20" Baja Designs light bar. We drilled holes for the bolts to recess into the push bar then welded half nuts onto the bottom of the bar. The light mounts will now bolt directly to the under side of the push bar. The mounts are set back slightly so that the push bar sticks out past the light bar for protection.

Light mounted up to the push bar.

Push bar angle

The light bar has a solid driving light pattern to compliment the spot beams higher up on the truck. The bolts holding the push bar to the bumper are the same size as the OEM bolts that are holding the bumper to the truck but have smaller round heads.

More to come...

Hodakaguy
_________________
My Syncro Build: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=517384

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[Hodakaguy]

Stripping down the front end today.

Hodakaguy
_________________
My Syncro Build: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=517384

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[chrisflstf]

Those weld beads are just pure art. Props to your Dad

[Hodakaguy]