Mercedes Overland Building/Tuning

[RoamIt]

OK- Completely off topic: I'm planning a trip to Iceland in late June this year. Wish I was taking my rig, but we are going to rent something. Looking at 10-12 days, drive the Ring road.

Found that renting a camper van is going to be $3,000.- $3500. Which sounds pretty expensive to me. Anyone have any experience staying in guest houses/hostels? (there's going to be 4 of us)

Any advice on Iceland would be appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[RoamIt]

Well, not much of an update. I have the new super single wheels in. But had a huge hassle with the tires, I paid for liftgate delivery and basically FedEx refused at the point of delivery. Wanted me to pull the 5 tires off the truck myself, all 900lbs of them. I refused.
So still working on tires.

Weather finally cooperated, (I'm working outside unfortunately) and pulled the leaking brake cylinder off.
Mercedes part A 014 420 99 18 looks to be WABCO part 925 428 104 0.

Despite there being WABCO distributors in the US, they cannot order parts from Europe evidently. I did find the brake cylinders on https://spareto.com/ (thanks Jon!) for a eye watering $1381. each. FYI-I also reached out to Unimog Canada, Hans quoted me $2600. ea. for the same part.

They also sell rebuild kits and I have complete diagrams/specs for them. So I'm considering my options. I wanted to replace both while I'm at it. But considering the price, I may order just one and then a rebuild kit. Other option is 2 rebuild kits and take the chance that I have the tools needed to do the job and what is actually wrong with it would be repaired by what's included in the kits(?)

 

[RoamIt]

I spoke too soon, SpareTo replied and said they do not have the brake cylinders/repair kits. And did not know when they would. Other Euro suppliers show it's not available.

I reached out to a N. America WABCO distributor, since the part is not sold in N.A., it does not even come up in their system. So they cannot order it.

Next step was to reach out to WABCO directly. Their initial reply was the part is still available, but I could get it only if the unit was down (which I found to be an odd response, why would I order a part if I did not need it?) and it could take 6-12 months to get it, and I should contact a N.A. distributor.

So, in other words, I did not get the sharpest customer service rep. As my initial email explained that Euro suppliers were showing unavailable/N.A. suppliers did not have it in their database.

So back to square one.

 

[RoamIt]

I did get some good news, got a notification from a vendor I was talking to and the uber rare OM366LA workshop manual in English popped up for sale.

Snagged it immediately. I would be happy to share any info, copy and send pages to anyone in need.

 

[Homer Crimson]

Any updates? This thread has been very helpful/educational. Mainly in that it has me very wary of trying to go the used Euro firetruck route without doing a LOT more research and developing service/supplier contacts in Europe.