We're leaving for Dresden today, in a few (8-10) hours, we'll be arriving at "The Messe Dresden" in the rallye camp! I'm excited, there's still some things to be done and we worked hard the last few days to get things finished...


The trucks on the trailer

More to come later...

Last weekend, the Unimog Club Netherlands had its yearly meeting, the ideal chance to test our trucks. I got it filled up and drop the 70kms from my home to the meeting place in Zeumeren. A nice test, as I was a bit anxious about how things would go with the new power steering and so on... Iris, my girlfriend, drove the blue Unimog for us to sleep in.

All in all, things went quite OK. I noticed the power steering is leaking in two places, both low and high pressure, so there needs to be a new copper-ring and a new seal in a piece of tubing. The v-belts were also a bit slippery, we need to seriously look at another way to drive the power steering oil-pump, as currently it is driven through a single belt from the crank shaft to the waterpump/generator and then to the oil-pump, "less than ideal".


Test, test, 1-2-3

Since last weekend, I had a new cover made, looks slick, changed a tire, fastened some bolts that got loose, cleaned it, noticed the breaks needing adjustment, picked up a few laser-cut pieces of metal in order to install the air cylinders for our lockers (instead of mechanically) which will be doing this afternoon. Of course, air hoses need to be installed as well as the switches for it.

Nevertheless, the weekend was good fun and I also put a few other minor things on "the TODO list", all in all: plenty of work to be done.

We also got a visited by Johan Elfrink from the Finstral Rally Team, a Dakar participant.


Johan going uphill

That's one amazing truck!

Next Tuesday, our trucks will go onto the trailer and start their journey to Dresden Wednesday morning, where there will a lot going on next weekend. We will leave Thursday morning so we can do the last few bits Thursday evening and Friday morning, before the technical check to see if the trucks pass and we can get our sponsor stickers... I'm looking forward to it!

Now, back to programming for this new tool I'm writing...

In about 20 days, it is time for another rally experience, the Team Brabant-Breslau caravan will depart towards Dresden, Germany.

Dresden is getting ready for a complete off-road weekend, there's all sorts of activities: motor-bike big jump action, a fair with off-road vehicles, accessories for off-road driving and holidays, roof tents and much more... (more info here)

At Friday, the technical check will be taking place: all vehicles and riders will get their chances to have their vehicle and equipment checked according to the rallye regulations. Visitors can check out the vehicles from up close and take pictures.

Saturday, the rallye starts and participants will drive the challenging "prologue track", a guarantee for some spectacular shots, what is easy for cars can be hard for trucks and the other way around.


Accidents will happen

The track consists of deep holes, hills, mud, gravel, railroad tracks and the infamous "buckeln", a series of small bumps with holes next to them, a height difference of 1 meter or more. In short: lots of action!


Driving our truck across the "buckeln"

There's still plenty of things to be done for us and we also have to test our changes, damage has been repaired, new shocks have been ordered and lots of changes have been made! Let's see where this will get us.

Sponsors
Thanks to IBPhoenix for sponsoring the rallye coveralls, they're great.

There's still room for stickers on the truck and banners on the website, for just a few Euros, you have a chance to put your logo on it and get a nice framed picture in return!

I've noticed two video's on Youtube with Die Breslau 2008 material, here they are:

video 1 (our truck in a watercrossing at 09:00)
video 2 (waiting in the back for a though corner at 09:51)

Enjoy!

Sponsors
Thanks to IBPhoenix for sponsoring the rallye coveralls, they're great.

There's still room for stickers on the truck and banners on the website, for just a few Euros, you have a chance to put your logo on it and get a nice framed picture in return!


More to come later!

It's not that long before the rallye starts, I was hoping to say that we were finishing up on things, but nope, not there yet :)

Last weekend we started to install a Unimog 406 power steering in our Unimog 404, quite some work as, of course, it just doesn't fit in easily. We had to cut some parts from the cab to make it fit.


New steering housing (to the right) and oil pump

Other things have been taken care of, the changes so far since last year:
- completely rewired the entire Unimog
- installed a new modern powerful generator instead of the old heavy one
- created a new dashboard
- installed new brake pads, checked and refurbished all brake cylinders
- removed concrete weight at the back, seemed to heavy
- checked the winch for wear, checked and modified PTO shaft
- all sorts of small stuff...

Other things that have been arranged includes a service crew of 5 people (yay!), transport of the trucks (yay!) and much more...

Sponsors
Thanks to IBPhoenix for sponsoring the rallye coveralls, they're great.

There's still room for stickers on the truck and banners on the website, for just a few Euros, you have a chance to put your logo on it and get a nice framed picture in return!


More to come later!