Jim the Truck - a mercedes 1823
- Thread starter nick disjunkt
- Start date
nick disjunkt
Adventurer
me too, I guess I was just getting used to the american hospitality at the time. It took me a while to calibrate my English attitude of not wanting to impose myself on anyone, to the amazing generosity that Americans showed us.
nick disjunkt
Adventurer
I put Jim through the annual test again this weekend, as part of the process of getting him road legal after a year out of the country.
All went fine, but the strange result was the weight. Before we left the UK I weighed Jim at 13,400kg, and now, in basically the same condition he weighed 12,000kg. One of the weighbridges is clearly off, but have no idea which.
All went fine, but the strange result was the weight. Before we left the UK I weighed Jim at 13,400kg, and now, in basically the same condition he weighed 12,000kg. One of the weighbridges is clearly off, but have no idea which.
nick disjunkt
Adventurer
Knowing how useful it would have been to me when I was planning the trip around America, I wrote a blog post detailing all of the major costs associated with the trip. Hopefully others will find it interesting.
http://jimthetruck.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/how-much-316-days-of-travel-cost-us-and.html
I kept track of the mileage and cost every time we filled up with diesel on the trip, which allowed me to get a good understanding of the cost of fuel, and the fuel economy of Jim over the course of the travels. Over the 11 months, we filled Jim up with 7,580 liters of diesel (2,002 US Gallons). The average cost, using the Pesos to Dollar exchange rate we paid at the time, was $1.01 per liter ($3.81 per gallon). At the current GBP to Dollar exchange rate, this is 64p per liter, approximately half of the cost we would pay in the UK today. The lowest price that we paid for diesel was 59p per liter when we filled up in Austin, Texas, and the highest price was 71p per liter, incurred when we made the mistake of filling the tank in Key West, Florida.
Over the 16,602 miles that we traveled whilst I was tracking the fuel economy of the truck, we averaged 8.29 miles per US gallon. This equates to 9.96 miles per UK gallon, or 28.35 liters/100km. This is worse than I expected, and is probably below average for a 14 tonne truck limited to 55 mph. However much of this driving was through extremely mountainous terrain, and so the economy was worse than I see when driving around Europe. The best economy we returned was 9.86 miles per US gallon, when driving between Lincoln, Nebraska and eastern Michigan. This equates to 11.84 miles per UK gallon, or 23.85 liters/100km. Nebraska and Iowa barely have a hill between them, and the roads were so straight for much of our drive through these states that I could have left the cab and made some lunch without the truck leaving the road. The worst fuel economy that we achieved was 7.48 miles per US gallon, achieved when driving between Tulum and San Cristobal in southern Mexico. The road from Palenque to San Cristobal is extremely winding and mountainous and this probably accounts for the poor economy here.
I also recently had the time to take a short trip in the truck down to Dorset an Hampshire, two beautiful counties in the south of England .
http://jimthetruck.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/a-short-trip-down-to-dorest.html
http://jimthetruck.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/how-much-316-days-of-travel-cost-us-and.html
I kept track of the mileage and cost every time we filled up with diesel on the trip, which allowed me to get a good understanding of the cost of fuel, and the fuel economy of Jim over the course of the travels. Over the 11 months, we filled Jim up with 7,580 liters of diesel (2,002 US Gallons). The average cost, using the Pesos to Dollar exchange rate we paid at the time, was $1.01 per liter ($3.81 per gallon). At the current GBP to Dollar exchange rate, this is 64p per liter, approximately half of the cost we would pay in the UK today. The lowest price that we paid for diesel was 59p per liter when we filled up in Austin, Texas, and the highest price was 71p per liter, incurred when we made the mistake of filling the tank in Key West, Florida.
Over the 16,602 miles that we traveled whilst I was tracking the fuel economy of the truck, we averaged 8.29 miles per US gallon. This equates to 9.96 miles per UK gallon, or 28.35 liters/100km. This is worse than I expected, and is probably below average for a 14 tonne truck limited to 55 mph. However much of this driving was through extremely mountainous terrain, and so the economy was worse than I see when driving around Europe. The best economy we returned was 9.86 miles per US gallon, when driving between Lincoln, Nebraska and eastern Michigan. This equates to 11.84 miles per UK gallon, or 23.85 liters/100km. Nebraska and Iowa barely have a hill between them, and the roads were so straight for much of our drive through these states that I could have left the cab and made some lunch without the truck leaving the road. The worst fuel economy that we achieved was 7.48 miles per US gallon, achieved when driving between Tulum and San Cristobal in southern Mexico. The road from Palenque to San Cristobal is extremely winding and mountainous and this probably accounts for the poor economy here.
I also recently had the time to take a short trip in the truck down to Dorset an Hampshire, two beautiful counties in the south of England .
http://jimthetruck.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/a-short-trip-down-to-dorest.html
Iain_U1250
Explorer
Maybe all the exercise your truck got made it lose weight 
Thanks for the blog and the costs, it was very useful, 28lt/100km is a bit on the thirsty side, hopefully mine does a bit better than that, or I will have to fit bigger fuel tanks.
Your truck always looks great, love the colour scheme and the orange highlights
Thanks for the blog and the costs, it was very useful, 28lt/100km is a bit on the thirsty side, hopefully mine does a bit better than that, or I will have to fit bigger fuel tanks.
Your truck always looks great, love the colour scheme and the orange highlights
Overland Hadley
on a journey
Thanks for posting the cost of your travels.
Is "Living costs" food and camping? Do you know how much you spent on camping? Did you pay for campgrounds most nights? Thanks for answering my questions.
Is "Living costs" food and camping? Do you know how much you spent on camping? Did you pay for campgrounds most nights? Thanks for answering my questions.
nick disjunkt
Adventurer
Thanks for the blog and the costs, it was very useful, 28lt/100km is a bit on the thirsty side, hopefully mine does a bit better than that, or I will have to fit bigger fuel tanks.
Your truck always looks great, love the colour scheme and the orange highlights
Thanks Iain! 28l/100km is pretty poor, even by big truck standards, but this was after a lot of driving in mountainous areas. I actually noticed a fair improvement after I got the truck serviced in Denver; the WS system was still telling me that I had around 30,000km until the next service but the dust and long periods at full power had taken their toll.
Living costs is everything else: food and drink, campsites, entertainment, park entry, etc.
In America we pretty much only paid for campsites in national and state parks. We stayed in a campsite for 10 days in New York City, and for a few days in Phoenix when it got to 111 degrees but everywhere else we just free camped. In cities we just found leafy spots with no parking restrictions, and elsewhere we would look for land such as national forest or BLM property. Of course there were also a few generous people who offered us the use of their land to park on. I would say we spent less than 10% of nights in America at a campsite, probably nearer 5%.
In Mexico it was much harder to free camp, the roads are much smaller in general and a lot of the time it is hard to find a piece of land that does not belong to someone. We probably spent more like 50% of our nights in Mexico in campsites, perhaps as much as 70%. This put is in the strange situation of actually spending more money in Mexico than America, despite fuel, food and everything else being cheaper.
It was great staying with you! You live in a great place, I get pretty envious when I'm stuck at my desk looking at grey skies and wet streets.
julius0377
Adventurer
Hi Nick,
Is that a roof rack I'm seeing? I'm looking for something similar, could you elaborate on the supplier/fabricator or the parts you have sourced?
Any info is much appreciated!
-Julius
nick disjunkt
Adventurer
Hi Julius,
most of what you can see in this photo is an awning from a British company called The Awning Co.
http://www.theawningcompany.co.uk
it is mounted to a custom galvanised roofrack built by Brownchurch. They specialise in working on land rovers but they are experienced and skilled in fabricating items for all kinds of vehicles. It was a bit of a struggle squeezing my truck in their yard but they were very accommodating.
If you search on my blog there are some better photos from when I was converting the truck..
most of what you can see in this photo is an awning from a British company called The Awning Co.
http://www.theawningcompany.co.uk
it is mounted to a custom galvanised roofrack built by Brownchurch. They specialise in working on land rovers but they are experienced and skilled in fabricating items for all kinds of vehicles. It was a bit of a struggle squeezing my truck in their yard but they were very accommodating.
If you search on my blog there are some better photos from when I was converting the truck..
julius0377
Adventurer
Hi Nick,
I was not very precise in my request for information, sorry about that! I'm inquiring about the part on top of the drivers cab, see items marked in red on picture.
I have been checking with some of the offroad RV builders to have something made, but it's very expensive! So anything I can make myself or buy off the shelf is very welcome.
I was not very precise in my request for information, sorry about that! I'm inquiring about the part on top of the drivers cab, see items marked in red on picture.
I have been checking with some of the offroad RV builders to have something made, but it's very expensive! So anything I can make myself or buy off the shelf is very welcome.
nick disjunkt
Adventurer
Hi Julius,
Sorry, I misunderstood you.
The cab is actually much simpler. I got a local welding and engineering company ( http://www.specializedgroup.co.uk/ ) to make and fit four brackets to the roof of the cab, to support two standard Thule roofrack bars. These bars come in many lengths up to 2.2m, which is the length I fitted as it matches well the width of the Atego cab. These bars go across the width of the cab, and are a standard size so that I can fit any off the shelf roof accessories. The two Items sticking out of the front of the truck are Thule bike carriers, but I could just as easily have fitted a roof box. Unfortunately carrying the bikes with the carriers shown in the photograph added too much height to the truck and so we didn’t use them as intended. In future I will replace these with a general use platform with multiple tie down points.
The brackets that support the bars, mount into the protrusions that Mercedes provide for fitting items such as wind deflectors and air horns. Specialized could not get the diagrams from Mercedes and so it was hit and miss whether they found the Mercedes threaded fittings with their drill. About half of the fixing use Mercedes nuts, and the rest were fitted into the cab sheet metal using nutserts/rivnuts.
I don’t think I have any photos of the brackets and bars. Specialized did a good job of making and fitting the brackets, but a terrible job of painting them. When it gets warmer I will get up on the roof and paint it all, perhaps I can get some photos then.
Sorry, I misunderstood you.
The cab is actually much simpler. I got a local welding and engineering company ( http://www.specializedgroup.co.uk/ ) to make and fit four brackets to the roof of the cab, to support two standard Thule roofrack bars. These bars come in many lengths up to 2.2m, which is the length I fitted as it matches well the width of the Atego cab. These bars go across the width of the cab, and are a standard size so that I can fit any off the shelf roof accessories. The two Items sticking out of the front of the truck are Thule bike carriers, but I could just as easily have fitted a roof box. Unfortunately carrying the bikes with the carriers shown in the photograph added too much height to the truck and so we didn’t use them as intended. In future I will replace these with a general use platform with multiple tie down points.
The brackets that support the bars, mount into the protrusions that Mercedes provide for fitting items such as wind deflectors and air horns. Specialized could not get the diagrams from Mercedes and so it was hit and miss whether they found the Mercedes threaded fittings with their drill. About half of the fixing use Mercedes nuts, and the rest were fitted into the cab sheet metal using nutserts/rivnuts.
I don’t think I have any photos of the brackets and bars. Specialized did a good job of making and fitting the brackets, but a terrible job of painting them. When it gets warmer I will get up on the roof and paint it all, perhaps I can get some photos then.
nick disjunkt
Adventurer
I do not think that it is necessary for you to be getting quotes from specialist expedition truck manufacturers. Any local welding/engineering company with experience of working on commercial vehicle should be able to help. A commercial vehicle body builder would also be a good bet. The companies building refridgerated trucks often include a catwalk/platform on the cab to make servicing the reefer unit easier and so they may even have built something that matches your requirement.
julius0377
Adventurer
Thank you for the info. I know of a company near where I live that builds fire brigade trucks, I'll stop by and ask what they can do for me, seems like they make a lot of specialized one-off stuff so it may be just the ticket!