"BIG FOOT 40"

or 

2007_01 till 02

or

"What happened whilst the last weeks:"

 

 

Here a photo of the “pigs nose” (because of the look-alike when you open the cover), a Nato-standard connection between vehicles to support each other with electricity when the battery fails. It was originally mounted on the battery holder on the left side, but this one is meanwhile removed as you may have read in „Big Foot 39. So I mounted it between the cabin and drivers cabin. The construction was welded from myself and afterwards zinc-coated, described as well before.

 

 

The truck is equipped with a rear camera. But in darkness the standard rear light was not bright enough to allow visibility through the camera. So I added two rear lights that are equipped with halogen light. So far I did not drive backwards in darkness and so I am unable to say if it is sufficient. Due to the newest regulation 2 or four rear lights are now allowed (alternatively 2 to the rear and 2 to the sides). Because I laid a 2,5 mm² cable from the fuses to the rear and use the original rear light cable only to switch a relay there is in the worst case still „space“ to upgrade even further if required.

 

 

On the army truck type 1017 the spare wheel is mounted slightly tilted to offer bigger slope angle at the rear. But mine is a former border police truck and here the spare wheel is mounted horizontally. Due to the thicker tires the off-road facilities were even more limited as you can see on the picture from Boxberg, where the rear tire already is scratching the ground: [img].

 

 

The limited slope angle I was able to improve by the following modifications. The support onto which the tire is resting I have cut by half and the remaining part I modified to a triangle shape. The long threads were equipped with a plate, heated and bended according to the triangle shape. The plate provides a rest for the rim and provided a mismatch of the threads with the holes of the rim when the threads were bended. Finally the spare tire support was zinc covered. Here I am rethreading to get rid of the zinc.

 

 

When I lifted the support with the tire the rope got stuck somehow and the worm wheel made out of plastic broke. So this needed to be renewed. The new parts are now made of solid metal instead of plastic! The winch housing was cleaned, rust removed and then everything sprayed.

 

 

This picture hopefully shows the new, tilted position of the spare tire after the modifications. The next off-road ride will prove if it was enough – but further improvements are not possible without intensive modifications.

 

To be continued!!!