"BIG FOOT 41"

or 

2007_03 till 08

or

"What happened whilst the last months!"

 

In summer 2006 I had bought an ex German army 28V, 73 Ampere Diesel generator with noise insulation and had the luck that it was one of the rare with starter motor! The idea was to mount it at the trucks frame. A place was identified quickly, the move of the starter batteries into the cabin was done by purpose (pls. refer to here) plus the move of the air tanks into the frame (please refer to here), only the master brake cylinder remained. So I welded in March 2007 two supports to fit the generator, her the one in front

:

the rear:

and here the overview:

 

But exactly the master brake cylinder which you can see in the middle interfered too much with the generator and as a result it reached out too much over the edge of the cabin. So the idea was to modify the housing of the generator.

 

Here you see the already taken off control unit. All the control panels and on- and off-switch I wanted to have in the cabin , the emergency switch-off plus connector should move the side, connector for remote control was for my purpose no longer required. So once taken off I could fit a plain piece of metal and cut off the rest of the housing till here.

 

But first I had to extend the cables for the controls and switchers by using two different trailer sockets, which will be connected with multi-wire cables and trailer cable plugs. So the complete unit can be (dis-)connected quickly and easily without mixing up, the connection for the Diesel to the main tank is anyhow by a standard Army quick-release connector.

 

Here nearly ready, only the second trailer connector is missing:

 

When cutting off the housing walls I wondered a little bit that there weren’t that many sparks but found out very quickly the reason when I wanted to weld the walls into the new, L-shape form: Army lightweight! Aluminium!! I don’t want to know what the beast would weight in normal metal, even with Aluminium housing it was already 150 kg!! OK, welding iron is OK for me but Aluminium??? What would I do without knowing Franz-Jakob and his company! So his expert for Aluminium - Tobias – formed some new parts and welded for me in a view hours in a perfect way the new shape of the housing. Before putting the generator into the support I pre-sprayed and then sprayed in colour RAL 1002. Here you can see the new L-shaped design and the modified control unit:

 

As mentioned before the cables were extended into the cabin to built everything into the control panel. This shows the disaster BEFORE adding the additional cables (it more than overdue that I spend some time to lay the cables perfect and to add some connectors for quick disassembly – at least I think to have all the required parts!:

 

The supports were galvanized and – again – with the fantastic and gracious support from Franz-Jakob and Tobias I built an additional cover for the generator. The additional cover is required because even when driving on wet streets lots of dirt and water got through the air inlet into the original housing. So if really crossing a river or so it would be completely flooded! Here you can see in the background already the rear part and at the end of the vertical support the a welded in tube to extend the exhauster.

 

A view from the rear including the housing which cover bottom and front in one piece.

 

This is the new cover with all parts mounted, including the top cover fixed by rubber type fasteners. The different parts are hopefully well enough water proved mounted together by using foam rubber in between., same applies for the top cover.

What still misses: I need three waterproof shutters, ideal would be driven by motor: 1x for the exhaust, 1x for the air intake and 1x for blowing out the hot air. My wish is to push a button before I start the generator which opens all three shutters and simultaneously fans start to support the normal ventilation. Three waste water shutters with ~ 9 cm (3”) should be sufficient and with ~. EUR 25,- pricewise OK.BUT ONE motor to open / close the shutter costs as a standard part ~ EUR 170,-. This is definitely too much for that little bit of comfort, especially because I need it for all three or nothing. So I have to look for another solution, update hopefully soon! :-)

 

The rear camera from the well-known manufacturer Waeco had more and more problems to start. After the last tour it went completely into strike. So I made a bid in Ebay for a “cheap” alternative: Colour instead of Black & White, including LED’s and specified 1 LUX sensitivity, integrated microphone, waterproved housing up to IP 67 and 160° wide angle lens.
I was afraid to lay new cables all the finished cabin but luckily the cabling from the Waeco had sufficient additional wires (although quite thin). In addition I was now more then lucky that I had laid the audio cable when I installed the 7” monitor in the drivers cabin (please refer to here on the bottom) - although I didn’t see the reason in those days … but now I was lucky to have done it. Mounting the camera in the rear was the easiest job, more tricky was the connection of the different cables. So now I am enjoying a nice colour picture by daylight and even at night I see at least without the rear lights a little bit in black & white (night modus). I am curious how long this “low-cost” version will last compared to the brand-label.

 

On a tour last year in autumn the air heating had failed! Due to the good isolation of the cabin it was still warm enough in the morning, but .... .
So redundancy was required and an identical, additional Eberspächer hot air heating was integrated into the air ventilation system. With a shutter it is possible to split the ventilation circuit so that both heaters are working simultaneously but for different areas (I hope that my calculation for the air flow due to the installation manual was correct).

 

In the same go I installed the new, additional diesel pumps for the heating system for elevations ABOVE 1.850 metre. Reason: The higher you get the thinner the air will be and in comparison the normal pump will supply to much diesel which will cause functionality problems with the heating units. The solution are special pumps with a lower rate. Unfortunately the water heating has its diesel pump integrated into the housing, so currently the fifth diesel pump is not built in. So here I have to consult the local Bosch service for their advice or ask some friends for their ideas to switch off the built in one and use only the additional one.

To switch all together in one go the pumps are operated by a relay. The sockets for the relays are already fitted but the relays themselves not (on the picture). The switch is integrated in the switch board, on the right you can see the two timers for the air heaters.

 

And the complete switch board including the items from the generator now looks as follows:

 

Last but not least a modification which will increase the rear ramp angle respectively will minimize distorsion e. g. when driving though. The registration plate underneath the reaer lamps

was moved to the middle of the cabin. The previous bottom end under the rear lights was cut off..

 

Sorry that it was so much more then usual but it was as well a long time since the last update and I had hoped to finish some bits earlier and so to send different updates. But finally everything was (more or less!!) finalised all together.

 

To be continued!!!