Unfortunately, 30 years of swedish flatulence has taken it’s toll on the foam as well as the rest of the seat.    Getting them re-upholstered is going to cost about $800 for the pair.    This set me on looking at various aftermarket seats.

A good seat for Trog must posess a a couple characteristics which greatly narrow down the choices.   A Trog seat must/should be:

• Low profile in the seat — I’m tall, so the ass-level can’t be any higher than the stock seats
• Low side bolsters — getting in and out of Trog is a sliding affair off the edge of a seat.   Bolsters would make ingress/egress even more difficult.

Corbeau makes a couple seats which could work.    First is the LG1

It is also available in all black.   Sitting in it was a dream — at least for my butt.    Unfortunately, the wings at the shoulder level pinched.

While trying out the LG1, I sat in a Recaro Expert M:

Amazing, but not $1000 each amazing.

Finally, I’ve settled on some Corbeau Moabs which are designed as direct replacement for Jeep seats:

Which is ok.    Build and fabrics aren’t quite as nice as the others, but it seems to be good enough, and at about $250 each they are about 1/2 what reupholstering the old ones would cost..

However, I think I really deserve this Recaro Magnifico:

Crafted from your choice of wood, leather and carbon fiber, this top of the line seat is exclusively designed for the larger framed individual in mind.

Definitely worth $7900 each, not to mention the burlwood accents will match the burlwood I’m putting in on the dash.

The doors got a coat of red on the interior edges.   The red is the same color as used on the Acura NSX, btw.   R77 paint code.   I used  single stage Omni MTX paint vs the 3 stage PPG paint that yields a deeper red with a lot more gloss.

The color isn’t an exact match with the existing red even though it is the same R77 code paint.   Red fades quite a bit in the sun.   Also the new paint has a higher gloss than the existing paint.   A quick wipe with a very fine scotch brite pad blends it quite well.

Masking the front cabin was incredibly tedious.    I could have done a better job b/c there was a fair amt of overspray I had to clean up.

Rear cabin got a coat, mostly on the floor (which will be covered up with flooring).

The new color, a yellowish white,  looks more white in person than it does in this pic.

Unfortunately, the guy at WesCo paints thought it wise to use a lot of flattening agent in the paint.    So much that the finish is like a chalkboard.   Flat paints are standard on say the underhood area because they cover up defects and require less care in painting.   Unfortunately,   every bit of dirt and oil that touches it will instantly bind and be virtually uncleanable.    So, back to Wesco to get a gloss version of the same paint.  I’ll mix in some of the flat to tone down the gloss.

And now magenta, the “fake” color:

Liz Elliott of Biotele.com:  “magenta ain’t a color.”

[W]hat does the brain do when our eyes detect wavelengths from both ends of the light spectrum at once (i.e. red and violet light)? Generally speaking, it has two options for interpreting the input data:

a) Sum the input responses to produce a colour halfway between red and violet in the spectrum (which would in this case produce green – not a very representative colour of a red and violet mix)

b) Invent a new colour halfway between red and violet

Magenta is the evidence that the brain takes option b – it has apparently constructed a colour to bridge the gap between red and violet, because such a colour does not exist in the light spectrum. Magenta has no wavelength attributed to it, unlike all the other spectrum colours.

A book on a similar topic:   “Blue and Yellow Don’t Make Green.“

Click on the images for a larger version.

This layout maximizes interior space usage, as well as allowing for a fair mount of storage space.

Things to note:   The rear roll ups will become rigid flip-out awnings, allowing for airflow to the kitchen starboard rear.   On the port side rear is a storage area that is accessible from the exterior of Trog.   I’ll put recovery gear, tools and other dirty stuff there.   Next to it is a hanging closet, and forward to that is a Vitrifrigo drawer style refrigerator.     Finally in front of that is the main rear passenger seat.    Additional passengers can sit facing rear across from that.      Access is from the rear door as well as the port side door.    The starboard rear door will be pinned shut, or possibly used as an access hatch for stuff stored under the settee.   House batteries are placed at the very rear of Trog.   Hopefully all that weight at the ends won’t impact ride (hobby horsing).   Trog is rated for 6 tons, and has pretty stiff springs in the back so I should be ok.      The bed hoists up to the ceiling when we are using the lounge/kitchen area.    It is lowered to rails at 4 ft high for sleeping.

The Sketchup file is here trog-front-living-room-no-top1.    Not all dimensions are completely accurate.   I’d say it’s approx +/- 1″, and up to +/- 2″.   Also the slope inward that occurs 1/2 way up the wall isn’t shown (it’s about 5″ narrower at the top vs bottom).

Trog is tall.   Getting in and out of it is quite the chore.   Recently I found a great telescoping stainless steel ladder at a consignment marine store, and as a diversion to working on the popup, I decided to spend some time on it.   All the hardware and mounting rails are stainless.    It glides on  UHMW plastic rails (the white stuff below the ladder).   It will tuck nicely under the passenger side rear door.

Extended, it extends about 10″ more than necessary.   The bottom rung will just rest on the ground, with it’s section partially extended.

Yes, that’s a bigfoot gas pedal on the TIG welder’s foot pedal.

I spent some fun lathe time making a spring loaded stainless latch (seen on the right here)

Here it is in place:

Depending on how slippery the polished rungs are, I may need to apply some sort of grip tape.

I don’t like the unsteadiness of blocks or other bodgy jack extensions so I welded up a stainless bottle jack extender that fits over the bottle jack piston.

The pin sticking out near the bottom is a stop that the top of the jack presses against.    I turned the inside of the pipe on the lathe to make it slip snugly over about 1″ of the top of the piston.    I probably should have captured more of the piston but 1″ should be ok.   Total height is approx 7″.

At the top is a plate with some 1/4″ stainless rod on the sides to cup the bottom of the spring pack on the front

and the pivot on the bogie axles on the back of Trog.

Of course I could have fabbed the extension out of mild steel in a bit less time, but I then would have to paint it and it still would eventually chip and rust.    Trog has given me a heatlhly dislike of rust…

The 2×4 cross braces are there because I don’t fully trust the lift mechanism to stay up.   I don’t have a way to keep it locked up yet and am just relying on the worm gear of the winch not liking to be driven from the load.

Begin a “post apocalyptic” vehicle, Trog fit right in.

We filled the back end in with temporary furniture, some gauzy netting and some color changing LED lights.

The guides are also stainless with UHMW bearing surfaces which were turned on the lathe.  

Here’s the forward passenger side guide with the sliding pole.

Routing the ropes was somewhat tricky, but in the end, I got a route that wasn’t too intrusive and involved a minimal number of pulleys.

The ropes are led to a Thern 472 winch.     This is a worm drive winch, which has the useful property of not being driven backwards by the output load.    Thus it acts as a sort of brake to prevent the roof from dropping.   It’s not robust enough to be the only means to lock the roof in the up position, but it does make raising and lowering a pleasant affair.   I’ll most likely use four pull toggle clamps to do that.

In this photo, the winch is clamped to a table in Trog for some prototyping.

I removed the existing input crank arm and hub and replaced it with a 3/4″ lug nut.   It’s the same size as the lug nuts on the wheels, so I can potentially use the same tool to raise/lower the roof and change the tires.

Boring out the lug nut to the 5/8″ diameter of the winch input shaft.

and mounted on the winch.   I’ll use a cordless drill to raise and lower the roof (if it can develop enough torque.   I calculated it to be ~20 in-lbs, which a drill should handle).   Otherwise, it’s 120 cranks to raise the roof!

The winch is mounted with the lug nut exiting on the side, at about waist level for easy cranking if necessary.

And here is the four corner poles raised.  I put about 100 lbs of weight, about 1/3 the roof weight, on the driver side poles — everything seemed ok.   Raising the roof was relatively easy.

I’ve been stressing about this mechanism for quite a while.   It’s good to demonstrate that it should work well.    Now I need to get a few friends in the shop to help lift the roof back on.

Here’s the spreadsheet I used to calc the loads on the winch.

A while back, I purchased a Precision Temp TwinTemp Jr propane hydronic water heater.   This unit will provide  both hot water for showers as well as heat via a heat exchanger.     It’s a bit big for Trog (it really is designed for the RV market), so I had to get creative in mounting it.

I fabricated this box to into the hole on the right side of Trog.   It will descent about 7″ below the floor, to the same level as the bottom of the frame members.

Note the red primered steel that makes up the “step up” to the rear area.   This, is a heavy  4″x2″x1/4″ gauge U channel piece, which I believe is unique to the firefighters.   The water tank must have added quite a bit of load.     Colby’s Volvo just has some sheet metal here.   There’s some empty space there which makes a useful conduit for water, propane hose and electrical runs.    I left the space uncovered on the right and left edges.

A settee will go above the heater.    This means the right front door will no longer be an entrance to Trog.   Instead, I’m going to use it as a hatch for storage below the settee.

I’m gluing the panel to the foam to isolate it from the metal of the roof to minimize thermal conduction.   If I didn’t do this, water vapor from cooking and our breath would condense on the cold aluminum and drip.

Here’s another shot of the roof, with Colby’s TGB11 in the foreground.   He’s subletting space in the shop for a bit to work on his popup roof.

This works pretty well, and has the advantage of being relatively stable laterally because the low end is only raised a bit and the canvas acts as a shear preventer.

However, the angled top limits usable interior floorspace.   So, to do a full popup, I need 3 (or maybe 4) scissor lifts.   Using 1″ sailboat T track and track slides, I can create a simple scissor lift.   It’s made out of 6061 aluminum so it’s relatively light.  Here’s the prototype collapsed.

and extended

It’s quite smooth and is also fairly stable to torsional forces.    Side to side, not so much, so that’s why I need a 3rd scissor on the end (and possibly on both ends).   I will most likely add gas springs to make lifting easier.  Maybe even some compressed air driven gas pistions (as I’ll have onboard compressed air).

Now I have to figure out the mounting of this, as well as the placement of the canvas to keep everything flashed properly so it’s weathertight both when deployed and when driving down the highway.

I’m concerned about the extra drag that the high cap will introduce.   Trog is already underpowered, with the B30A engine only producing 125HP or so.   So, I did some modeling of the drag calculations.

Google spreadsheet here.

I had to make a number of assumptions, some of which I think are a bit suspicious.   However, I believe the general shape of the curves are accurate.    See the spreadsheet for values and some notes on uncertainties.

Speed vs HP

I added 500lbs to the high-cap version to account for the new walls and windows.    At 60mph, the practical top speed of Trog due to engine RPMs, there’s an additional 16HP required to push that cap thru the air.   When laden with an upper limit of 1500 other camper conversion junk, it’s pushing 100HP.   I’m not comfortable running Trog that hard.

On a 6pct grade, Trog already bogged pretty severely, with top speed being around 30mph.   With the extra weight it’s much worse.   Since speed is reduced, the extra windage caused by the cap doesn’t matter as much.

I encourage readers to check my spreadsheet and look for anything that seems out of whack or missing.   (the 30% mechanical losses seem way high to me).

So, it’s back to popup designs.

Removing the top was surprisingly easy.   30 minutes to remove about 30 bolts and 12 screws.   The mastic seals parted with a deadlift.     The top is made of aluminum so it’s quite light; two people can easily lift it.

I’m thinking of permanently raising the roof 3 feet, to give me standing room inside.   It also makes interior layout much easier.   Here’s what it’d look like.

I think it looks pretty good, keeping the boxy military lines of the original vehicle.   The new walls would be framed in aluminum, possibly with Alucobond composite panels.   Alucobond panels are 0.020 aluminum skinned foam.   It’s a bit lighter than the 0.100 or so solid aluminum skin I would use.   Windows are Motion Windows 1600 series.

Click here a locally produced video about HazardFactory, a local arts collective of which I’m a member.  It includes a few shots of Trog and the shop I share with Rusty.

Another HazardFactory video (skip to 12:30).

Last year I won Ms. Congeniality for this entry

-Wes

Blogging from afar, 5000 miles into a Western US road trip, with a head full of Trog.

Colby.

We found a very nice campsite down by the river (with a dirt driveway that featured a 45 degree angle, pits and a fallen log — no problem for Trog)

It was hot there — in the 90s most days.    I recruited soldiers for the Swedish Army and we fought the Germans in their Mogs.

My valiant freedom fighters

Strafing some hapless Boy Scouts German spies.

Timmaaayyy! in his friends Pinzgauer joined in the fight against the Nazis.

Trog played in the pits — not even close to getting stuck…

Luci seemed to like the pits…felt closer to home.

A little Nitrous Oxide helped during the parade race.

All in all a great time.    I’m already looking forward to NWMF09.    I’m off on a road trip for a bit, so no TrogBlog posts til October…

A little processing, painting and new stainless stalk fabricated, along with stainless shaft collars as stops, and it looks way better:

I originally thought I’d hard anodoize them black, but upon further research, that may be a bad idea.   It turns out that glass bead blasting aluminum is a no-no if you want to anodize it later.   The glass beads heat up the aluminum, opening the pores.  Also as they hit, they explode into fine grains, which embeds itself within the aluminum.   The process of anodizing involves opening up these pores, then soaking it in a dye and then closing the pores.    The glass mucks up this process.   Also, these are cast aluminum, which often has high Silicon content, which also messes up anodization.

Also, powder coating may also be out of the question.   Again, the glass bead remnants mess with the powder coat as it’s curing, causing problems.

Hrm….maybe polishing w/ a 3M unitized wheel will remove the outer layer and glass beads?

Re-routing it to exit on the right side was super simple.   I picked up a 1 7/8″ ID right angle elbow at an auto parts store.     That, plus the now functional chrome exhaust bling now makes the exhaust exit on the right side of the vehicle.

I bent it a little bit so the angle is a bit more than 90 degrees so the exhaust exits pointing a bit towards the rear.  (pic is of 90 degree, before bending)

Most cars are designed with the exhaust on the opposide as the fuel filler.   In the case of Trog, there’s about 10 feet separating the exhaust from the filler at the rear of the car, so I don’t think safety is compromised in any way.

Some polyurethane caulk plugged the hole…Of course now I have to worry about the sill rusting out.   Maybe I’ll plumb up a proper drain, but access behind there is difficult.   Maybe a tube from the corner leading to the side?

The flow restrictor is the blue plastic thing.

Between the bumper and the main box, the old design used another piece of rubber. It was flawed in that it allowed mud to collect in the crack above the rubber, causing the bumper to rot out. I’m going to replace the rubber with some rigid pieces of rolled stainless, fastened/welded appropriately. Rust isn’t really an issue anymore since I replaced those sections with stainless. Still, it’ll be one less place to clean out after going off road.

I’m resisting the urge to add the classic mud flap girl:

Or, with the little one now in the house:

Thanks to Chris Marshall of SimpleMachine for rendering this version.   My lovely wife had CaféPress print a coffee  mug with this as a Father’s day present.

Luckily an L shaped piece of 14 ga steel fell into place, after a careful rotation.

I’m hoping a rectangular piece is next.

Overhead welding sucks, so I’m going to drill holes in the sheet metal and weld to the joists from the top, rather than from below.

Here’s a blurry pic of the new panel with holes drilled and weld-thru cold galvanizing primer.   The primer has zinc in it, to minimize corrosion in the space between the panel and the support pieces.

I also removed the cowling covering the rear portion of the engine and transmission and cleaned all the rust off of it.

Shot of the engine and transmission:

In each picture pair, the top one is old incandescent and the bottom is LED.   Pictures were taken off axis by about 1 meter and from about 2 meters away.   (I had a prime, non-zoom lens on the camera and had to step back to capture the illuminated patch.)

Tail light:   The only test where the results were pretty close, though the LED seems to be hotter in the center.

Brake:  Here the LED light is radically brighter.   This is the case that matters most, I think.

Turn Flasher.   Again LED better — I could barely see the incandescent flasher on the Sintrel..

And finally, a comparison of the incandescent tail and brake light vs LED brake light (night braking)

I didn’t test the reverse lights.

These 10 ohm resistors from Radio Shack will also work

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2062291

For 24V systems, you want to use a 50 ohm resistor

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2062292

The next problem was the interior dashboard indicator lamps failed to flash, even though the external lamps were fine.    This must be some sort of “dead bulb” detector in the Bosch flasher, for which the LEDs, even with the resistors, didn’t draw enough current.    It could be an inrush current thing.   Incandescnt bubls have a very low resistance when first turned on.  As the filament heats the resistance increases.

The fix was relatively easy.    I put each indicator lamp in the same circuit as the external flashers.    There are three three-way connectors behind the dash which distribute the flasher circuit.   They are the only three way connectors behind the dash.     On Trög one feeds two green wires, another feeds two red wires and a third feeds two yellow wires.    The yellow wires are the input to the flasher circuit (it unions the flasher and the hazard lights).   The other two, red and green ones are the ones you want to hijack.   For each of the red and green, I removed the female spade terminal from the feed wire to the three-way connector and crimped on a new connector to the old wire, along with a new wire.   That new wire was then fed to the indicator lamp.    On the electrical diagram I have, I connected the two three way connectors below Item 49 to Items 36 and 38 (red, green lines), and disconnected the original feed wires to 36 and 38 (orange slash).

It all works great now!

Another fix would be to source a modern electronic flasher which is pin-compatible with the old Bosch flasher.   I couldn’t find one in my searches and the surgery above wasn’t difficult at all.

The left light rotates fine, but was failing to shine.   What I thought was going to be a simple change of bulb ended up being a several hour repair.   It turns out the ground connection at the bottom was a pieces of galvanized steel crimped against a galvanized nut.   Over time, the crimp loosened and corrosion degraded this connection.    The “fix” was to weld the crimp to the nut.   Easier than disassembling further and cleaning everything up, especially since it’d soon corrode again.

Oh, and another Tollarp rant.   What goofball thought it a good idea to make the ground wire red and the power wire black???!??!?

Rather than pay outlandish prices and shipping for them via a British vendor, my friend Colby imported a bunch from China.   He’s selling them here.   They are quite nicely made and seem to be robust with quality gasketing and weep holes.  They are exact fits into the existing mount and grommet holes.   Mounting hardware is stainless steel.  My only complaint was 2 of them did not include mounting hardware (2 4mm nuts and some washers, as well as the screws that hold the lens on).   I could have very well lost them when transporting the lights to the shop.  Update:  Colby found the screw packets on his workbench.    They must have fallen out while we were bench testing the lights.

Here’s a shot comparing the old and new.    I have the brake pedal pressed.

It’s a little hard to objectively compare brightness with a photo, but this shot pretty much captures the difference in brightness.    The old one was a dim glow while the new LED light was almost too bright to look at.   I took these pictures off the centerline, behind the LED light, so it may be an slightly unfair comparison.   In person, the new LED lights are noticeably brighter.

It’s a bit less about half as bright when just the running lights are on.

The turn signals also work, with the existing stock blinker module.

Update:   Oddly, the right turn turn signal doesn’t flash when the running lights are on.   The current draw of the cheeseburgers must be right on the edge of what will work with the stock mechanical blinker module.    A 10W ballast resistor of 10 ohms connected from the flasher terminal to ground should fix this.   For 24V systems you’d want to use a ~40 ohm resistor.   I need to verify the appropriate resistor values  next time I go to the shop.

I didn’t get a photo of the backup light, but it is pretty good.   The old light was a reflector light (like a headlight), so it was fairly bright.

Getting everything to blink correctly was a challenge.   Trög is a mess of crappy wiring done by the Tollarp folks who did the fire truck conversion.  Crap such as lots of unsoldered/uncrimped connections barely held together with electrical tape or wires run willy nilly with extra lengths of wire woven thru the existing Volvo wiring.     Add various modifications and equipment removals over the day and it’s really hairy.   I spent a fair bit of time tracking down a completely incorrectly wired front indicator light which caused the right brake light to blink when the left turn signal was on!

Unfortunately, the shop is pretty dirty and is actively being used by a few people right now, including some woodwork, so it still wasn’t enough to keep all the nits out of paint. This meant I had to do quite a few paint/sand cycles to get an acceptable finish. It’s definitely not “show quality”, but it’s also better than “military quality”. It ended up a bit more glossy than I would have preferred. Here’s some parts waiting to dry hanging from an A-frame I made.

I used automotive 2 part catalyzed polyurethane paint. Polyurethane paints are significantly more durable than single part enamels or lacquers. The catalyst is pretty nasty stuff, so I dressed up in a bunny suit and used a respirator. I also invested in a good quality SATA HVLP gun, which was much nicer to work with than the suction fed gun I used on the wheels.

This takes care of nearly all of the exterior black parts, so the next task is to bolt everything back on. Then I get to tackle the interior rust and actually begin the systems installation.

* You Can’t Handle the Truth

A note from Willem about the black/white sectors on the rims

The black/white pattern of the rims is not just to spot a moving vehicle, at
night and/or in smoke/fog/water-spray; the story I was told when I purchased
mine, from a fire-chief annex castle-owner annex military naval officer annex
car-museum owner (his entire (semi-royal) family owned 200 oldtimers total!),
and confirmed by the intermediator, is that many decades ago, someone in Sweden
studied the safety regulations for dangerous devices & substances a bit too
anally, and concluded that *if* any high-pressure device must be marked with a
black/white cross label, than surely tires too, especially high-pressure truck
tires….so with that regulation in hand, he started ordering that all rims be
painted black/white….:))
The regulation might have never be intended that way, nor even be valid today,
but the paint culture was never changed afterwards….:))

Sounds a bit apocryphal to me, fire chiefs having lots of time in the station to spin yarns, but it’s a good story.

Check out the rear pimp wheel. Colby came down to the shop the other day to fabricate 4 low-rider wheels for his Volvo out of the lil’ donut spare tires from modern cars. His garage has a low ceiling/entrance, so he has to put these baby wheels on to roll it out of his garage!

Willem, a Volvo firefighter owner from the Netherlands, sent me the following as a warning against the stainless grab bars:

To:               LandCruisers@tlca.org
Date sent:        Mon, 02 Jun 1997 08:06:37 -0500
From:             "Andrew H. Litkowiak"
Subject:          Re: hood kits, a teaching tale about chrome

Brian Skalla wrote:
>
> Help!
>         I cannot find any kind of chrome hood kits for my 75 FJ40.  If anyone
> knows a company that sells them please e-mail me and tell me who.
>
>                                                                 bskall@webzone.net

Brother Brian,

Poor, misguided Brother Brian. Listen, as the story of chrome is related.

Once upon a time, in a city not too far from you, a young man named Burford bought a Toyota Land Cruiser FJ40, the roughest, toughest, most rompin, stompin 4×4 available in the known world. Burford was very happy with his Cruiser, but, being from the city, he felt that something was missing. Something cool, something to help him pick up chicks.

He gazed at his Cruiser, glorious with its hard lines and earth tones. “Ahhh” he said, “if only it were a little brighter, flashier. Then I could get all the babes I want.” Burford pondered and puzzled and thought until smoke curled from his ears. But nothing came to him.

Suddenly, there in the grocery store parking lot, he saw a low rider. It had high gloss paint, a very noisy stereo, chrome trim everywhere and beautiful bikini clad bimbos laying all over the car (turns out it was a photo layout for Low Rider Magazine, but of course, blinded by the high gloss chrome and bimbos, Burford failed to see the cameras).

“That’s it” he shouted, “Chrome!”

Burford hurried home and pulled out all his Cruiser related catalogs. He pored over them, but could find no Chrome accessories. “How odd” he thought. “Well, no matter. I’ll just send some stuff out to the local plating shop.”

Burford took the parts to the nearest plating shop. When the owner saw that they were Land Cruiser parts, he refused to chrome them. “Look son. I’ll powder coat them, I’ll black anodize them, but I won’t chrome those parts. It’s a sin, plain and simple”.

Burford went to many plating shops, but the result was the same. Metal platers everywhere refused to deal with him, the more superstitious even warding him off with hex signs and prayers. Finally, in a run down, scary part of town, he saw a sign for plating services on a dilapidated old garage. The owner was a gnarled little man, with a rheumy eye and a hunch back. “So, ya wants chrome, does ya? I’ll do it, but it will cost big.” All Burford could think of were the bikini clad bimbos. He ignored all the warnings and rumors and handed over his money to the odd little man.

While the parts were out being chromed, Burford buffed out his Cruiser until it shone like the sun itself. He also installed a wicked 250 amp 27 channel ear busting stereo system.

Well, the big day arrived. The parts were done! Burford hurried to the plating shop and collected his parts. And what parts they were. Bumpers and rims and hood hardware and tool box and bezel and tow hooks and Warn hubs and lug nuts and roll bar and wiper arms, all in glorious, gleaming chrome. He rushed home and began working on re-installing all his wonderful chrome parts.

The work was all done and nothing was left but to go for a ride. Burford climbed into his gleaming, chrome covered cruiser and headed for the mall. “This is it” he thought, “babe city, here I come.”

As Burford headed towards the mall, he came upon a small tree, just a sapling really, down, blocking the road. Cars ahead were detouring around it. He looked, and decided, “hey, it’s a Cruiser. I’ll just crawl right over.”

Burford pulled forward and touched the sapling with his tire. As we all know, when the front tire of any Cruiser touches dirt, sand, rock, grass, wood or any material other than asphalt or concrete, the Land Cruiser Gods look down upon the Cruiser, ready to admire their creation and watch with pride as it conquers the environment it was designed to conquer.

So the Land Cruiser Gods looked down on Berford’s Cruiser, and they were confused. “Where is our creation, and what is all that damned noise?” The Land Cruiser Gods looked closer and realized that it was indeed a Cruiser. They saw the well buffed paint and smiled, happy that Burford was caring for their creation. They listened to the offensive loud music and were a bit miffed, but, they let it pass, hey, who can judge taste in music, one man’s treasure is a Land Cruiser God’s trash, but, whatever.

The Land Cruiser Gods then saw past the blinding reflection of the sun and realized that the source was….chrome. “It looks like a low rider” said one God. “Look at all those greasy fingerprints” said another. “Look” said a third, “he’s even done the hood latches in…(sob)…chrome.”

So the Land Cruiser Gods conferred and debated and raged and wept, all the while trying to decide a proper punishment for Burford. At last, they found a suitable penance for the ultimate sin. They assembled in all their glory and power and carried out their decision.

As Burford’s front tire touched the sapling, he felt a shiver run through his body. His Cruiser suddenly felt….different. He stepped on the gas and……was stuck. Burford gassed it a bit more, and then a bit more, until it was floored, and the motor was screaming, but he moved not an inch. “How odd” Burford thought. He engaged the 4 wheel drive and tried again. Nothing. The engine screamed in agony, the clutch billowed noxious gasses, but the truck would not move.

Burford shut off the motor and climbed out to find out what tremendous obstacle was holding him in place. He looked around, but all looked normal. A tiny sapling lay in the road, but nothing more.

Burford bent down to look under the truck to see if he was missing something. As he gazed to the front, he noticed that his springs were….tiny. In fact, everything in the drive line was….small. Axles, pumpkins, transfer, suspension all looked as if they had shrunk. He pulled his head back and stood up.

Burford looked closely at his truck. It still gleamed and shined, but it was riding lower to the ground. He walked around it, examining. “The grill looks different” he thought. “And what are those stupid little flares doing on the front fenders?” The sheet metal looked thin and the doors were kind of odd.

As he rounded the back, a horrible thought occurred to him. Yes, the tire carrier was gone. Burford looked closer and then let out a shriek “oh, what have I done, what have I done?” he sobbed. There on the back were four terrible letters, burned into the flimsy sheet metal. J**P

And that, children, is how the Land Cruiser Gods created the J**P.

So you see, Brian. You really should consider just why you can’t find chrome parts. This story is one of the teaching parables used by the Curia. It’s origins are lost in antiquity, but Truth is a constant. I suggest you heed its message or you could face dire consequences.

Firefighters have a long history of shiny metal on their exterior, so I don’t think I’m offending any Volvo Gods.

Update — looks like the batteries are in pretty good condition. They bottomed out after ~16 hours. I’m not exactly sure how much current the heater element actually drew b/c it’s more than my meters can read. I need a shunt to measure the current.

Damplifier is good stuff, all butyl rubber vs competitors dampeners made of asphalt that can delaminate and smell like hot tar on hot days. I’m also using Spectrum liquid sound dampening as an undercoating when I redo the back cabin.

Sidewalls and roof will get some sort of insulative sound dampening in addition to the Damplifier. I think the Second Skin product in this category is a little expensive for what you get, so I’m still looking for the right stuff.

Today I applied the Damplifier to the front cabin. Applying the stuff is pretty fun — you don’ thave to be that exact with the cuts and it smooshes down easily with a wooden roller. I applied double layeres of the stuff to the bigger panels which seemed to have more “boom” when thunked. It took about 50 sq ft to do the main cabin:

It’ll take another 160 sq ft or so for the rear cabin. Maybe more.

and the bits removed

There were quite a few old patches and holes cut in these panels.   The old patches weren’t done with the greatest of care, so they tended to be the rustiest areas.

brb — diaper change break (not my best work, I’ve been informed, by both Quentin and Laura. ).

The old panels had channels  pressed or bead rolled in for strength. I don’t have a bead roller so I’ll I’ll fab new panels out of 14 gauge steel with 1″x.065 square tube or 2″x1″x.065 rectangular tube reinforcements.

Growing up with Trög, I like fact that he’ll find it perfectly normal for his family to own a red firetruck.

The mudflap design is somewhat flawed — the mudflap extends up as well as down from the attachment point. This creates a shelf for dirt and water to collect and promote rust.

I have metalworking and welding equipment, so repairs are possible, but they are time consuming, especially if you want to do it right so rust doesn’t reappear down the road.

Here’s the footwells where I removed the rusty areas and welded in stainless panels. Water collects in this area and festers rust. The stainless will prevent that in the future.

Before:

After:

Welding the stainless and chasing down all seams is a pretty time consuming task.

I don’t have to do the cleanest of jobs because all of this will be covered by sound dampening material. Here, I have it layed out but not glued down.

I’ll post about the sound dampening stuff soon.

For rusty areas where I’m not replacing the panels, Eastwood makes a really great rust converter product.    It converts red rust into a black iron oxide form.

This is then covered with Eastwood’s Rust Encapsulator which is similar to the popular POR15, but supposedly better.

If I were to do it again, I’d buy an aluminum-zinc military C304/6 and paint it red. That is if I could get a TGB13/20 with medium fast 7.05 axles like Trög has. All this time rectifying vehicular neglect could have been spent installing camper systems.

After bleeding the brakes 3-4x, they are still spongy. This is even with a powerbleeder. I think I’m going to take them to a brake shop to be bled properly.

The mechanic who last worked on Trog’s cooling took a screwdriver and tweaked the thermostat valve permanently open. Probably too lazy to order a new part and figured this would fix the problem. Tsk tsk tsk.

This explains the << 90C coolant temps on the way home.

I got the modified brake lines back from Doug at Brake and Clutch Supply.   Dear reader, as you remember, the feed lines to the lower wheel cylinders on the front wheels is all wrong.   The lines feed to the upper port, not the lower port.   This means any bubble caught in the wheel cylinder won’t burp out when the brake lines are bled.   I have no idea why Volvo did it this way.

Old (removed and held for photo)

New

In retrospect, I could have ran a longer flex-line from the axle directly to the wheel cylinder.   That would have saved a lot of hassle and the $40 for Brake and Clutch Supply to make each new hard line.

I first took some cardboard and made a template. Then cut out 2 copies of it in Sintra. I use two layers because the clips that hold the door to the frame will show thru otherwise. You know the clips, those annoying plastic ones that look like xmas trees that hold the panels and upholstery in your car. They are good for maybe two uses before being destroyed.

Luckily they are cheap and readily available.

The first layer of Sintra, closest to the door has a hole drilled a little larger than the head diameter, with a slot with width just bigger than the clip’s stem diameter cut off of it. On the second layer, I make sure that there’s no glue in the region so the clip can slide between the layers. I need to take a picture of this to make this more clear.

Some upholstery guys like to use old (60s era and before) metal clips. The Au Ve Co 10780 or 2385 clips are popular. These clips last a lot longer, but are a bit fiddlier. Then again, they are more tolerant of misaligned holes.

The first layer is placed on the door and holes are drilled for the clips.

The next layer is 1/4″ of some open cell headliner foam I got at Pacific Fabrics. I have some 1/4″ Volara closed cell foam on order, which I’ll use when I do this for real. Finally I used a layer of Passion Suede, also from Pacific Fabrics. I’m not 100% on using the fake suede…not sure what else I’d use though.

All layers were glued together using 3M Super 77. There’s better PVC cement available from Laird, but Super 77 seems to work good enough. The Sintra was scuffed with 120 grit sandpaper for better adhesion.

The embossed “feature” in the lower panel is me messing around with multiple layers of foam to break up the monotony of the surface. It’s still a bit awkward looking. I bet I could achieve similar effects by slumping the panel over a male mold with a heat gun. I didn’t glue down the grey fabric either — if i did the wrinkles wouldn’t be there.

I also messed up on the lower convex corner — should be rounded.

Looks like I’ll go with the grey and red color scheme in the font cabin. The rear cabin will probably be something more homey.

I elected to put BFGoodrich All-Terrain 315/75/R16 tires on. I considered the Mud-Terrain tires but decided that I’d be on the road far more than mud-bogging and the sanity of less road noise was worth the lack of traction off road.

I temporarily installed a couple on the rear. (These things are HEAVY — the Costco guys pointed that out a number of times!)

I like the Pi/2 out of phase version. A poll of friends was also unanimous. I’m still waiting for the chrome lugnuts I bought via EBay.

A note on lug nuts. The wheel studs are 9/16 x 18 RH threads. This is a relatively rare thread, with not a lot of choices for lug nuts. There are a lot of 2″ long lug nuts available, but they may look a little too much like Messsala’s spiked chariot wheels in Ben-Hur with the extreme offset of the C30x’s. I ended up finding some 1.4″ long Tunerlugs.

Hopefully they won’t look silly. I had to buy 60 total – I *only* need 48. Turns out I’m going to use 4 to hold the rear bumper in place — if I want to flip it up, I can use the same lug wrench I’m already carrying for the wheels.

Now, I’m just waiting for the brake shop to finally make new front brake hard lines and Trog should be rolling again!

Bench seating on both sides, the bed is two sections, the forward section sets over the folded down bench seat in the mid-cabin. The white box is a drawer style marine refrigerator

and check out the slide-out add-a-room, like on high end RVs!

The propane stove is attached to the door so you can cook outside, or in really bad conditions inside while squatting. If you look closely, you can see I’m cooking up some Indian fry bread and an acorn squash. Yum. To the right of the door is a detachable sink that uses the same faucet as the external shower.

The cool thing about this conversion is if anything gets trashed, it’s super easy to replace.

I popped my rear window and took a photo of the cross-section of the weather stripping.

and

The best match at Soffseal.com is E713. You’ll need 9′ of it.

I haven’t tried it, and it’s not an exact match, but i think it will work. The Soffseal stuff is maybe 1/16 to 1/8 thicker on the outside portion. There’s room on the outer window “shelf” for something like that.

The factory volvo seal is a single molded unit, (no seams at the corners).

I believe the side door fixed window weatherstripping best match is E750. I haven’t popped the windows to check for sure. 15′ will do both windows.

Eric, they guy I talked to was very personable, and friendly. He offers me a few tips on doing the masking myself so all he’d do is spray them for $25 a rim. He even offers to come down to my shop to inspect Trog to see about some future work. He said his father told him to help people out, even if it didn’t make a buck. Because of his attitude and friendliness, I was looking forward to working with him more.

So, I spend a sunny day masking the rims, scuffing the area to be black, and then bring them in. Eric’s brother is there and he checks out the rims and the masking. No problem he says, and he writes up a work order for $25 a rim.

About 2 hours later I get this aggressive call from Eric. He growls that I’m trying to work him over, to get him to lose money and that he’s going to have to redo everything I did. I tell him I want to work with him, not rip him off, if it takes more work, I’m willing to pay it, or rectify the masking job. He tells me he’s going to try scuffing one rim and call me back.

30 minutes later, he’s again angry and aggressive telling me he’d rather make money other ways. Finally, sick of his passive aggressive mood swings, I tell him he should make money other ways and that I will be by to pick up the rims the next day.

Maybe it’s the fumes? I did some Googling of inhalant abuse and found this:

• long-term abuse of inhalants may result in cognitive impairment, difficulty in concentration, anxiety, apathy, mood swings, depression, hostility, and ultimately severe brain damage or death.

Sounds about right.

Anyway, I ended up picking up the supplies to do it myself. Now, I can have an excuse for teh mood swings!

I’m restoring the black and white quadrant styling on the wheels and hubs. I believe it’s there so you can tell if the vehicle is moving from far away. Here’s the hubs painted:

I used ceramic engine paint because this area can get hot when braking. That stuff is really nice to work with — it flows really well and creates a very hard surface. I’m not sure about how it holds up in UV light so I clear coated it with an U-Pol #1 UV protective clearcoat I got at a Wesco auto paint store. The U-Pol Clear #1 is really nice professional stuff — it has solvents I haven’t smelled in spray paints since I was a kid — so it must work well.

The wheels masked and scuffed before going to the paint shop:

And everything bolted back with BFG A/T tires on (note the bling chrome lug nuts)

I’ll talk about my rational for All Terrain vs Mud Terrain in a separate post.

I used Dico blue compound 529-PBC-B with a buffing wheel.

The shocks are Bilstein 5150 BF5-A196-H1 shocks

Which match pretty close to the Bogen stock shocks (Volvo part # 637962-2). which are fully extended 26.25″ and compressed 16″.

On the rear bogie axles, the axle extension limit cables stop the axles at 9″ of shock extension.  Nice!

I also ordered 6 3/4″ bushings as the default bushings are too small.

I’m not so happy with the silver powder coating — it looks a bit funny next to the black/olive green.

I elected not to use shock boots because I think they just collect dirt and mud inside, plus they look funny to me .

Thanks to Colby for figuring out all the shock stuff…I just implemented what he spec’ed.

I used the yahoo2mbox.pl script to download all ~6310 Yahoo Volvo303 user group messages into one archive. This allows me to import the messages into my mail client, where searching and reading by threads is infinitely easier than via the Yahoo web interface.

Instructions for a few mail clients follow.

Mac Mail.app:

Download http://www.kmonkey.com/volvo/yahoo303/volvo303.mbox.zip

To import into Mail.app,

• Unzip to a folder
• From Mail.app, File/Import Mailboxes…
• Import Other
• Select the folder where you unzipped the volvo303.mbox file

For Outlook Express:

Download http://www.kmonkey.com/volvo/yahoo303/volvo303outlookexpress6.zip

To import into Outlook Express

• Unzip to a directory
• File/Import Messages
• Microsoft Outlook Express 6
• Import mail from an OE6 store directory
• point to directory where you unzipped the files
• select the volvo303 folder

For other mail clients (Outlook, in particular, which is truly a sorry program), the easiest (honest) way is to import into Outlook Express. Then use Outlook to import the Outlook Express mail store. Same for Thunderbird.

Set up your mail client to filter new messages to the mail folder where you stored the imported messages so it stays updated.

If you have problems importing into your mail client, let me know by commenting on the blog entry and I’ll see if I can help you.

Note that the perl script had problems with a few messages, maybe < 1%, so some may be missing.

I read over the Yahoo terms of service and I’m pretty sure this doesn’t violate it.

Brake work, ideally, should be gentleman’s work. Fussing and cussing shouldn’t be necessary. If you are doing things right, they sort of slip on with only a minimal bit of prying to fit the shoes. Not true for me, at least at first.

First problem is the copy of the service manual I have doesn’t have the best pictures of how to arrange the springs on the shoes. Do they go in front or back? I read wrong the first time. Here’s a color pic of how they should go (behind the shoes). Also included is a shot of my shop made version of tool 6118 which protects the boots on the wheel cylinders.

Once on, over the kingpin there are lots of configurations that are almost right, but aren’t. Lots of fussing and crying ensues.

Some needlenose vice grips are great for attaching the upper return spring:

Once you get the right position, the shoes slip right into the slots on the wheel cylinders prying with a screwdriver using the 6118 tool as a rest works well.

It’s a good thing Trog has four back wheels — I finally got good at it on the fourth wheel.

I didn’t install the front brake shoes, because I think I encountered a significant bug in the design of the Volvo brakes. The front lower wheel cylinders are fed wrong! Check out how the feed tube feeds to the upper port on the wheel cylinder. This should make bleeding air out of the system just about impossible. I am having new feed tubes fabricated to connect to the lower port.

Finally, I have installed Mintex brand brake shoes. Hopefully they are good — I have read good and bad things about them on the web.

The Volvo uses the same brakes as a Series 3 109″ LWB Land Rover. Here’s my order from rovahfarm.com.

Item Description Weight ShippingQty Amount
STC2797G Brakes Rear 109 Mintex S/s of RTC3418 2 107.38
STC3944G Brakeshoe Set FRT 109 4 Cyl Plain Box S/s of RTC3417 8.19LB1 47.99
600200= W/CYL LH FRT 6 CYL DELPHI 2 107.90
600201= W/CYL RH FRT 6CYL DELPHI 2 107.90
243296D Wheel Cylinder – RH Lockheed 1.24lb2 40.22
243297D Wheel Cylinder – LH Lockheed 1.24lb2 40.22
548169D Return Spring Rear 109 0.1lb4 11.00
531893D Spring Shoe Return 109 Pattern 0.09lb4 7.00
234889 Spring Shoe Return 109 Frt 0.11lb4 9.00
RTC3386D Brake Hose Ser IIa Frt & ser III rear 0.22lb3 29.97
RTC5903D Brake Hose ser III Frt 0.224 39.96
RTC3353D Brake Hose 109Rear Patt 0.221 9.95
556508= Bleed/Screw W/CYL 0.02lb4 4.60
252621 Stud 6 2.16
252621 Stud 2 0.00
They seemed to have the best prices in the US.

I also ordered flex brake lines for the jumps from the frame to the axles as well as the front wheels. It turns out the RTC3386D and RTC3353D are too short. I ended up having a Brake and Clutch Supply, a very good local brake shop make longer ones for me. The RTC5903D hoses which go from the front axle to the front wheels are the right length. The studs were also unnecessary.

Finally, one other tidbit. The red return springs for the rear brakes need a little bit of the ends of the springs ground off for them to fit in the appropriate hole in the brake shoes.

Update: The front brake shoes aren’t exact matches. They are narrower by about 3/4″ and the tongue that slips into the wheel cylinder is about 1/2″ too long. I had to grind it down to size. We’ll see how stopping power is w/ less contact area. I’m getting the old shoes re-padded at a brake shop so I may need to swap them.

The Volvo, despite being rather tall has a relatively low roof inside the rear cabin. Floor to ceiling height is approx 4 ft. I played around with a couple possibilities for the camper roof. Here’s a couple fixed roof designs that would give me standing room (I’m6′5″)

With roof height extension of 30″ or so, that preserves the rotolights. Awkward…

(using an old pic of Trog, before the current paint job).

Full length, dressed up a bit by my designer friend Marshall.

I prefer this version, but I’m worried about the extra windage trogging Trog even more.

Another option is to use a Eurovan popup lid, with the hinge side reversed (Eurovans pop up with the high side forward)

Finally, not shown is to do something like Colby intends and pop up all four corners equally. This makes for a lot more usable space below, but greatly complicates the mechanism. Shear strength and coordinated extension of the four posts (or scissor lifts) can be tricky. If i go with a four post mechanism, I’m considering going with something scavanged from a popup trailer.

Colby got his new roof panel at www.pacificpanels.com (warning, site requires Internet Explorer)  The panels are slick aluminum honeycomb core units that are very strong and relatively lightweight. Even lighter are Nida-Core panels which are plastic.

The drums came from the sandblaster with rust in some of the pocks. I don’t know if that happened while they were sitting at the sandblast shop or if it’s an artifact of how cast iron rusts. The sandblast guy indicated it was normal.

So, I had to remove the rust before priming and painting them. Harbor Freight and Eastwood sell a rust remover that I’m pretty sure is the same stuff — I mixed them and nothing exploded. It works really well too.   I dropped a very rusty light reflector in it and the next day it was completely free of rust, with no damage to the chrome or brass parts.

Rusty, the guy I share the shop with took offense.

The Oly beer, being damn near water, seemed an appropriate displacer to raise the liquid line.

The drums, with the races masked, hung up and painted with a high temp engine paint

So much better!

Only 2-3″ of the cutout is in the wheel well. This shouldn’t cause any interference with the tires.

And new stainless piece welded in. After cutting the stainless and bending it into shape, I TIG welded the seams together. Inside Trog TIG welding would be nearly impossible so I just MIG welded it in. I had to make a kajillion tiny welds because I couldn’t remove the undercoating behind. Every weld I’d have to take off my mask, dive to the ground, get on the creeper, grab a wet towel and weave my hand thru frame, steering and brake parts to make sure that Trog wasn’t burning on the other side. This made for some not so pretty welds and a rather sore Wes.

So simple. I don’t need to worry about sealing seams, popup mechanisms or anything. All I have to do is cut the Eurovan in half and then cut the roof of Trog and then simply weld the two together!

Of course I’ll paint the Eurovan part to match Trog’s red.

You know the best part about all this. I’m going to the Euovan’s motor as the drive motor. It’s a sweet 3.0L V6 that puts out 200HP and loves to rev fast. I just need to couple the output via some shafting to the Volvo’s drive system. Maybe use a diff locked portal axle? It’s almost the right size.

Some may laugh at my idea, but I spy a droll oaf.

An air chisel made short work of the rusty bits

I just need to form a piece of stainless steel to fit and weld it in. Luckily this is almost all non-visible bodywork so I don’t need to grind and fair it perfectly.

I am planning on adding a similar step to help getting into the main cab.

Listing here http://tinyurl.com/34q3l6

Too bad it’s the new digitally printed plates. I was hoping for old school plates made by hammer blows of a hardened convict. Washington residents may also note the great love taken in choosing the font for the red text. State law says plate designs have to change every seven(?) years and it has been getting worse every seven(?) years…

It had been bashed a bit with some popped welds and some rewelds by Swedish firefighters with a 12V battery and a coathanger. I initially intended on beating it into shape and putting it back on after getting it powdercoated. However, after taking it off and trying to straighten things, more drastic measures needed to be taken.

The new bumper, with the old huge ball hitch removed. The center horizontal part between the diamond plate is the only original part, the rest is fabbed new. I really should have made it all new as I spent way too much time cutting off the old ball and support bits. Way too much time really. Really. Stupid Easter Bunny. Anyway, I added a flip down step to make it easier to get in. It will be held in the upright position with a pit-pin when driving around so it doesn’t get banged by passing rocks.

After doing all this work on the bumper, I realized that it wasn’t standard equipment on C30x’s and hurts my exit angle. With the C30x’s high ground clearance, it encourages getting into challenging situations and it’d be double-plus bad to have the bumper clip on something. So I’m going to add a hinge so the entire bumper assembly can flip up. The hinge is the two horizontal cylinders above the bumper.

Here’s the step flipped up with diamond plate on the other side, so it also functions as a mini-step when up and held in place by the pit-pin.

With Volvo logo that I pulled off a 740 at a junkyard. I still need to weld in a standard 2″ receiver hitch.

I pulled an unleaded fuel fill inlet off a Mitsubishi at a junkyard. It took a while to carefully cut the military inlet in such a way that I could weld the new one inside, being sure to hook up the overflow to the unleaded inlet.

I had to cut a lot of little hose pieces to fill where it cracked on the unleaded inlet and mate the overflow tubes. Lots of fill welds to get everything leakproof.

With the unleaded cap inside and welds mostly ground down.

Update:

Here’s the painted gas fill.   I’ve also welded in a screen at the bottom to prevent ne’erdowells from syphoning the tank.   With gas only increasing in price from now on, gas rustling will become more prevelant.

Rear bumper off — I’m going to deck it with diamond plate (also powder coated most likely — there’s no shiny metal on Trog and I don’t think it’ll look good.   Then again fire trucks have lots of diamond plate and pull it off).    I’m going to add a flip down step to make getting in the back a little easier.

and here’s the rub-rails being stripped and sanded.   They are oak and in surprisingly good condition for 30 years old.

The 3″ thick civilian radiator was pretty beaten up — various impacts had smashed the cooling fins.   Also some impact had split the welds on the frame.     It turns out that a cheap plastic scraper from Harbor Freight was the perfect tool to realign the cooling fins.

I had to fabricate and weld some brackets to the radiator to attach the fan.    The whole assembly barely fits after rerouting the air intake snorkel.   There really isn’t a lot of extra space in the front of the C30x.

I can’t test it out until I get the CV boot installed and the brakes fixed…

An amphibious version was also prototyped as well.

The other day, I attempted to bleed the brake lines, but both right rear wheel cylinders didn’t bleed. Turns out rust had clogged the bleeder valve. Seeing this, I decided to investigate the other wheel cylinders and found lots of rust, scored cylinders and even a couple rust-seized cylinders. The front cylinders could be honed because they are cast iron. The rear are aluminum and honing would destroy the hard anodized layer. However, I think I’ll just buy new wheel cylinders all around and completely revamp the brakes. I’m also upgrading the flex lines to stainless braided lines. Luckily, C306 brakes are the same as the 109 LandRover so parts are available.

Brake shoes have approx 3mm of pads left — Volvo recommends replacing them at 1.5mm.

More worrisome is the oil leak on the right front axle (and the middle left axle). Hopefully this just requires getting a new boot. Worst case is some greater damage is lurking in the portal axle.

(I’ve spent the last week scraping the bottom and most recently figuring out some horrors with the brake system).

A reader sent me the following:

Yours was retired from service from a town on the west coast at the top of a sea inlet called Kungsbacka with a vehicle service number of O36-505, this is a standard radio and vehicle identifier that enables the identity of all SDF vehicles for all of the Swedish Kommunes – communities).

Kungsbacka’s official English website is here.

Interestingly, Kugsbacka was almost completely destroyed by a fire in 1846. In late 2006 another major fire affected the town centre. Trog probably left Sweden sometime in 2004, so he missed his chance for glory. (According to the internet Wayback Machine, the first reference to Trog at xtremevehicles.com is Feb 2005)

Service and parts manuals arrived today. I used the personal bookprinter service lulu.com to print them up. Lulu is pretty cool — you upload a PDF and can get single quantity copies of hardbound books for $30 or less. Colby did the same thing, but his layout of the service manual layout was a little wonky. Not all chapters began on odd pages so sometimes 2 page layouts wouldn’t span facing pages. The C30x manuals also have some not-so-useful chapters, such as extensive unit conversions as well as a treatise on petroleum engineering. I moved those to the back of the book. I also changed the cover to include the pic from the original brochure for Trog. I ordered Colby’s parts manual as is because it isn’t referenced as often.

My service manual is here

Colby’s parts manual here

Neither Colby nor I make any money off the manuals.

• Strip with adhesive remover I bought from Home Depot. This worked pretty well, but unfortunately it worked really well on my skin. Any drippings burned like acid.
• Chisel bit in an air hammer. Too gooey for this to work
• Air needle scaler. Also too gooey, though it does work to get bits out of the corners
• Heat gun and a scraper. Worked pretty well. It gets really old working with hands above with sticky gooey stuff dripping on you.
• Paint thinner with a rag. This works ok to get the last bits the scraper doesn’t get

The process would go pretty quickly if the underside was a flat piece of sheet metal, but unfortunately the panels have channels pressed into it to give it strength. Most of the time is spent working the channels. I’m two days into the project and almost done.

Update:   A propane torch works a bit better than a heat gun (away from fuel lines, that is)

I’ll finish the hatch and bulkhead soon, but the easy flash of the brass was too hard to resist, especially after lots of messy stripping.

http://tinyurl.com/37thrk

Next up, is removal of the rear cabin box. It should come off easily — only a few wires enter it. It attaches to the frame with maybe 8 bolts and a few dozen smaller bolts to the forward cabin. Removed, I can get at top and bottom sides and seriously address the rust issues. I’m considering replacing the floor panels w/ stainless panels. I also plan on doing the camper conversion to the box removed from the frame. It’s easier to work on and doesn’t take up so much room in my shop.

It was a messy job, with over 10 gallons of hydraulic fluid to drain.

I have no use for all this stuff. I believe Jim Molloy and/or Zach of NW Mogfest has a Unimog firetruck that he’s working on and could use the parts. (Zach: to take the pump, you have to take the 10 gallons of hydraulic fluid too!)

I’ll probably remove the PTO (power take off) equipment as well, unless I can think of a good use of PTO output. Perhaps a winch, but there’s plenty of decent 12V winches I could use.

It’s 24V and I have a civilian C306 which is 12V, so I’ll have to make a voltage doubler circuit. I’ll also have to add a secret enable switch for 2 reasons, one to prevent friends from running the siren and two, it’s illegal to have a siren/working red light on a non-emergency vehicle in WA state.

WA code:

RCW 46.37.190

Warning devices on vehicles – Other drivers yield and stop.

(1) Every authorized emergency vehicle shall, in addition to any other equipment and distinctive marking required by this chapter, be equipped with at least one lamp capable of displaying a red light visible from at least five hundred feet in normal sunlight and a siren capable of giving an audible signal.

…

(4) The lights described in this section shall not be mounted nor used on any vehicle other than a school bus, a private carrier bus, or an authorized emergency or law enforcement vehicle.

So as long as the light and siren is non-functioning, I should be fine. I think I’ll carry a copy of this section of the code in case of street hassle.

Interior anti-slosh baffle:

I found that an angle grinder with an abrasive wheel was much more effective than a sawz-all, or circular saw at cutting the fiberglass.

The wreckage:

Underneath the tank, much rust was lurking:

The harvest:

I have some patching to do:

I also spent some time renovating the driver seat, making it so it can move back an additional 4″, making Trog much easier to drive (I’m 6′5″).

Willem-Jan Markerink, on the Yahoo C303 group believes that Trög may be the first C306 built. The Swedish license plate is the same as the one on the original brochure from Volvo.

Lots of pictures of Trog on Flickr:

http://flickr.com/photos/92778554@N00/sets/72157603902642236/

A week+ ago, my friend Colby (www.prevolve.com) and I flew, one way, down to San Diego to check out a 1977 Volvo C306 6WD firetruck that came up for sale. With 35K km (21K miles) on the odo, It checked out mechanically fine, with just a few oil leaks. Then began the LONG drive home. The 6WD versions of the Volvo C3 series trucks are geared lower than the 4WD versions. This means that top speed is effectively 80km/h (50mph). And at that speed the interior noise is DEAFENING. 4 long days of driving later, we arrived in seatttle. One of the first tasks will be to address the noise issue.

On the way home, I consulted an online English-Swedish dictionary and tried out a few possible names for the truck. Some things i tried: Fire – eld or brand. Flame – flamma, and some others i forget. I kinda like Flamma, but it sounds a bit feminine. My wife Laura, waiting patiently for me to return home suggested “Trög”, Swedish for “slow” (also in the mental sense). Fullständig!