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saddamsnightmare · 09-18-2008, 17:40

September 18th, 2008.

Dear Tennmogger:

My truck seemed to be fairly well kept by the Swiss, except for the inevitable deterioration of rubber components and canvas cab and bed covers (both shot completely from outside storage), she ran fair when I got her, but never well enough to trust her to go more the 6 or 7 miles from home. What pushed the rebuild was the leaves in the gas tanks, gotten from a gas station pump whose tank was being run low and no screen on the pickup (SURPRISE< SURPRISE, SHAZZAM!), when the tanks were removed several pounds of leaves had gotten in in a decayed condition, so no wonder the prefilters clogged regularly. The Unimog now has fairly good pick up, long hills are a problem under load at road speed, but it handles much more like a sports car then a deuce (I own both, so I know what they are). If the deuce had the capability to lock all the differentials like the Unimog..... look out! The only reason I may add the crawler gears is to get more power at low speeds to crawl out of the blackland mud here..... but she is generally babied to death and kept cleaner then most normal pickups.
The only oddity, and the Mercedes Manual confirms it, is the use of the choke for cold starts, once she's warm or the ambient temperature is normal (summer), she starts in a flash and is so silent compared to the deuce that i have to use the oil pressure gauge to confirm she has started. I made almost the same trip last night with my wife's 2006 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited with cruise control, and even the better driver's seats in it did not make the geometry as comfortable as the Unimog in terms of fatigue at the end of the trip. With the Unimog you set the hand throttle and she generally minds herself, there's just not a lot of area to put the right foot down in the well away from the throttle pedal.... Boy, I bet your French Army S.404 was a piece of work, as the French generally ran the Unimogs to death... The Case 406's would be interesting, as Chesapeake & Ohio Canal National Historical Park had the MB version with a flatbead and a knuckleboom crane for workingon and in the Canal, and it is that truck that provoked me to buy the S404 when it came available...... The U1300L's are so much larger and more powerful and more sophisticated that they must almost be another animal compared to the S.404's.
Probably where you're at they can get a little more logging road or hill climbing work.... here in Texas it's the mud and sometimes the snow that earns their keep.... I don't know but what I may transfer back to the NPS in the Great Smokies, and that terrain will give these two trucks more reason to exist, for now they're just overgrown working pickups that go where no other truck can take a load.... Thanks for the input.... the true Moggers are really fanatical about their trucks, mine's just a respected veteran working out her daily existence....

I remain, most respected sir,
sincerely,

Kyle F. McGrogan