Good day all.
It has felt longer than the half life of Uranium 238 since I have updated this thread. Well not really since the decay of that particular isotope takes 4.468 billion years but you get the point.
Much has occured since we met last and most of it was stuff that I was putting off.
Proof?
Oh, I have proof:
How did we get here? Let's review.
We left off with our hero (me) about to square off with his greatest nemesis: PAINTING!
Why do I hate painting so much? I'm not limited by weather or space, I'm not too cheap to buy the correct paint, I'm not even bad at it. No one really knows the reason but it sucks and I don't want to do it.
Regardless of the awfulness of the process, here are the results:
The rear cage panels were done silver on the inside then flat black inside and out for that "bare metal when scratched" look that never actually works. It is spartan and utilitarian which is exactly what a Mog should be.
For the cab, I chose Duratrax metallic red backed with silver. No deep reason behind this choice: saw the color at the hobby shop, though it looked good, slapped it on, and all worked out.
One of the bits that I needed for this body was the Knight Customs grill because the stock grill is bad and also Unimog.
I made up the badge so you can tell it isn't an Axial but people will still assume it is an Axial.
The KC grill requires you to cut away most of the front end. I guess it is supposed to be secured with hopes and dreams but I used copious amounts of E6000.
The interior required yet more painting.
My driver is wearing a gray shirt while sitting in a gray interior because why not? He's a happy dude, gray is the boldest color he can handle without getting overly excited.
See?
Dude is jacked out of his mind being in a metallic red Mog!
Here is a bit of the running theme on this truck.
The washers holding the body to the cage were printed after I lost the stock ones. That pic of the clear body on the chassis from the last post: the last time I saw the stock body washers.
Builds always start off with certain goals and one huge one for this truck was to have the body hinge just like the UMG10 kit.
And I succeeded. I succeeded so hard.
The cage hinges on the rear most chassis hole.
While the front drops into these mounts I designed to accommodate the factory UMG10 mounting system.
Only 2 body clips for super convienient access with no exposed body clips.
You may applaud now, it is well deserved.
One chassis mod that I had to make for the body to fit was pushing the receiver box more towards the rear of the truck.
The box lid was used as a template to drill new mounting holes.
It isn't much of a change but enough to make things work.
You might have noticed the not stock sliders in previous pics and you would be right that they are much different.
The UMG10 body leaves a large gap between the body and chassis. If there is one thing that I can't stand, it is egregious body/chassis gaps. The stock sliders weren't close to the right shape and the lower edge of the UMG10 body is easily damaged so matters had to be taken into my own hands.
Again, the Prusa MK3S is my friend. Peep the creative process:
Ultimately, I decided on a squared design that wraps around the outside of the body and captures the inner corner of the cab doors to keep them from being pushed in.
Functional versions were printed in PETG and bolted up.
My thought was a real Mog would want some protection for those exposed fuel tanks so that was the inspiration. Functionally, they key the center of the body in place since the body is captured inside and out.
No more body gap, body protection, and that other stuff sliders do; win-win-win.
At this point, it has been so long since the last post that a whole slew of aftermarket parts have become available. I have never been one to apply the mantra "run it until it breaks than upgrade" because if I was then this whole thread would be in defiance to those personal beliefs.
I'll run through this quickly:
#1 - Stock plastic hexes = lame
Samix aluminum hexes = not lame.
#2 - Stock plastic c-hubs that crack when installed per instructions = lame
SSD aluminum c-hubs = very much not lame
#3 - Stock diff covers = function fine, look like big, blocky dog shite
SSD diff covers look 10,000X better.
There we have a whole lot of lame replaced with a whole lot of not lame.
I am going to take this opportunity to stress how much better these axles look with the SSD diff cover so here is another picture.
This is not a debate, this is an indisputable fact. There is no argument or discussion to be had regarding the merits of the stock cover over the SSD because those merits do not exist.
And with that, we arrive to the Enduromog in its current state.
Obviously, the wheels and tires are conspicuously absent on this build. That is for the very good reason that I am undecided on what to run. If that is the hardest thing left to do, then I will definitely finish before June.
For those of you counting, this truck has 5 functional chassis parts that I have designed and printed plus the spare tire on the body. Build time goes up exponentially when you have to make your own parts. It is all worth it when we get to the end and I can confidently say "I have an Enduromog and you don't, na na na na
".
Oh and while I still have your attention, please enjoy these chemistry related puns that I could not work into today's post due to too much good stuff:
"Me take too long, that's phosphorous"
"I have included everything and the kitchen zinc"
"The Unimog grill is positively ionic"
"They protect the noble gas tanks"
"I beryllium got through this"
Tires to come later.
