FLU419 SEE HMMH HME Owners group

The FLU farm said:

"Crawling" is obviously a relative term. Please keep in mind that these three Unimogs were idling, not running 2,000 rpm.
I put a "Creep Kit" in my tractor, and really appreciate it. Not that it's used very often, but it's a great feature when doing precision work. Top speed in First is under 1 mph. That's crawling in my book.

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That crawling gear is one fine feature of the Unimog.

You can take your rig for a "walk" using it; drop from the cab and walk alongside of it. You wouldn't need it often for sure, but when you did: sweet!

I would really like to be able to go slowly with the HMMH. It'd be most helpful when positioning the forklift for picking things up, but also when navigating through the aisle in the barn. It's easy enough to back out, using the mirrors, but going in is tricky when there are things within a 1/2-inch that shouldn't be run into, or over.

By the way, I remembered wrong about the tractor's creeper gearing. It'll do 0.68 mph at full throttle in Fourth gear.
In First it's 0.22 mph maximum. Usually Third gear, low rpm, is what I go for when slow maneuvers are warranted.

In the hunt for air leaks in the fuel line, noticed that the hose coming out of the fuel shut off valve looked a bit wet. Also, the hose wasn't coming out in line with the valve.
Well, when the ferrule looks like this it was understandable that it leaked a bit, and that the hose looked crooked.

Spent time searching for ferrules and some hose, eventually gave up and called Von. Not only did he convince me to stick with the plastic hose, he pointed out that BelMetric has the hardware. Yes, there's a Unimog fan at BelMetric, so it makes sense.
Eagerly awaiting the package from BelMetric and looking forward to driving the (formerly) parts SEE for more than 15 minutes at a time without having to refill the strainer, bleed and so on.

The FLU farm said:

By the way, I remembered wrong about the tractor's creeper gearing. It'll do 0.68 mph at full throttle in Fourth gear.
In First it's 0.22 mph maximum. Usually Third gear, low rpm, is what I go for when slow maneuvers are warranted.

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OK, OK... I say "crawling" when I mean "going slowly," in blissful ignorance of the meaning of that term to wheelers like you. How fast is too fast for a snowblower? Time will tell!

Blizzarding outside now, still too warm, yesterday was 60*F outside, ridiculous weather (it's been days since I've lit a fire in the woodstove, is this really February in the high country?), but I've almost got the inverter wired up on the service body.

Hey FLU farm, if you need any of the air stuff, give my parts guy, Steve a call. We literally have parts bins of the correct metric fitting,air lines etc. for all of our different Unimog and we've even now, after months of waiting have several of the hyd cyl. Rebuild kits for the crane.

I was trying to do a video of how to set up the hyd. Pressure, but the cap and grub screw was seized and took too much time to make a presentable video.
I will say again though this is probably the fourth SEE/HMMH we've done this to and it makes digging with the loader and heavy back dragging almost pleasant.
One thing to note though is that if you are using the aux. hydraulic tools, they are rated at 2500 psi cont. duty and they are now running at 2900-3000 psi. This could be good or could be bad. Only time will tell . We've got 3 sets of tools to test, but no rock and few trees!

The SEE with the high speed AG tires is a digging ANIMAL!!! My girlfriend had to pull my ballasted LMTV that was pulling my dead MAN KAT with a big Unimog on the back of it though a ditch we were stuck in along I70. It barely slipped a tire and just grunted! The LMTV just spun tires and didn't budge the dead KAT.

The FLU farm said:

Spent time searching for ferrules and some hose, eventually gave up and called Von. Not only did he convince me to stick with the plastic hose, he pointed out that BelMetric has the hardware. Yes, there's a Unimog fan at BelMetric, so it makes sense.
Eagerly awaiting the package from BelMetric and looking forward to driving the (formerly) parts SEE for more than 15 minutes at a time without having to refill the strainer, bleed and so on.

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There is a special tool for sliding the barbs into the plastic hose. I found one on craigslist from a retired Mercedes mechanic. I'll try to get a photo of it.

Couchoffroad said:

I will say again though this is probably the fourth SEE/HMMH we've done this to and it makes digging with the loader and heavy back dragging almost pleasant.!

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Are you flipping them for sale, or are you building a fleet?!

We have over sixty nice rigs here. 20 of them are my childeren.
were going to start offering some of the 419s stretched/104" ,widened, softened up turbocharged and built for off-roading.
Heres one we did five years back. When we're finished they are pretty darn impressive

That's excellent.

What are all the different boxes mounted on the bed; your alls custom additions?

Couchoffroad said:

We have over sixty nice rigs here. 20 of them are my childeren.
were going to start offering some of the 419s stretched/104" ,widened, softened up turbocharged and built for off-roading.
Heres one we did five years back. When we're finished they are pretty darn impressive

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When you say softened up, what do you use for springs? I am guessing you just remove the giant sway bars?

Speedwoble said:

There is a special tool for sliding the barbs into the plastic hose. I found one on craigslist from a retired Mercedes mechanic. I'll try to get a photo of it.

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Ah, the plot thickens. Von said to simply use a heat gun then shove the hose in place.
I'm guessing that the tool is what Couch showed a photo of. Maybe my somewhat similar brake tubing bender could be used in a pinch (no pun intended).

Another Ahab said:

What are all the different boxes mounted on the bed; your alls customer additions?

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Except for the ice chest, that all looks like standard fare SEE stuff, Ahab.

BigBison said:

How fast is too fast for a snowblower? Time will tell!

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Depends largely on the amount and type of snow, I've found. The problem is that when the 'blower is driven off of the same engine that powers the SEE, throttling up to make the 'blower run more efficiently makes the already too fast SEE even faster. Then the 'blower really can't keep up with the ingestion process.
When it gets to be too much for the snow blower (running 1,200 to 1,800 rpm) I take two cuts. Since my SEE with tire chains has no problem going through two feet plus of wet snow (in 4WD but unlocked), and probably at least three in dry snow, it seems to be quicker to take two passes. Besides, I always have to return anyway.

Speedwoble said:

There is a special tool for sliding the barbs into the plastic hose. I found one on craigslist from a retired Mercedes mechanic. I'll try to get a photo of it.

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Couchoffroad said:

View attachment 666158

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That's a nice solid looking tool, but it looks more like some kind of swaging clamp.

I can't really picture it; how exactly does it work to "slide" fittings INTO the hose?

We pull the sway bars and replace the coil spring. Ther are multiple different wire diameters available from Mercedes, but they are not cheap. The cheapest thing about buying a Unimog is the used purchase price!!!

We pull the sway bars and replace the coil spring. Ther are multiple different wire diameters available from Mercedes, but they are not cheap. The cheapest thing about buying a Unimog is the used purchase price!!!View attachment 666206

Sorry for the duplicate post.
As a helpful warning to anyone using their SEE for front loader digging, be carful not to use the low side intermediate gears when really driving hard into the ground.
The heilical gears look like they can put a bit of thrust loading and grenade the new style synchronizing ring for this gear group.
We had a customers SEE come in with this issue after some heavy digging with the front loader and had to rebuild /replace the transmission. The transmission takes around 60 man hours to pull and reinstall, let alone time for the rebuild along the some rather pricey parts.
Can't say for 100% sure this causes this, but the design looks like it's at fault and it's just not worth the risk when 1st gear direct is manageable for heavy digging.

hopefully this will save someone $14-$20k in this rebuild/repair