M715 on tour to Pocking Germany

April 09th, 2010.

Thank you, Herr Dose, for the exquisite pictures of your M715 and trailer, and the other various MV's in Europe. Have you had any problems with the water pump and the alternator on the 715? We had one in the Civil Defense back in the 1970's, and the front water pump bearings tended to go with a regularity that has been attributed to the Unimog S404's water pump (I'm still waiting for my S to act up that way....). The alternators in the larger sizes tended to have a 3 or 4 belt pulley, and I suspect that was too much weight on that end bearing.... When our CD director got in to start her one morning, the starter push button switch failed and grounded..... You have never seen a 50 year old guy bail out so fast when that ball of fire lit up under his right foot!!! He managed to blow a hole in the floorpan, requiring some cosmetic repairs to the floor before a new switch was installed....

Otherwise I loved that M715 as it generally rode well, pulled well and had much more carrying capacity then a lot of other similar sized trucks. Do the Border and Traffic police give you much trouble when travelling with an ex US MV? The big 3 and 4 axle cabover carriers in your last set of pictures look interesting...MB's, by chance?

Thanks again, and have a good weekend....


Cheers,

Kyle F. McGrogan

Whats behind the Iowa Flag?
Very simple, I had to choose a unit for my truck due I could not find out the one behond it in service. The Bumper marks were several times repainted and with carefull sanding down, nothing clearly was found. Today, I know that most probably my truck belonged to the 3rd Inf Div "Marne County" in Würzburg.
For I have a lot of business with John Deere in Waterloo, Iowa, I decided to mark my truck as a NG truck of Iowa and therefore I show the flag of Iowa.
I could also have choosen the NG of Georgia or North Carolina or Wisconsin, were I also have a lot of bussiness to do with John Deere. But I decided Iowa, so it is.
However, I have flags of the US (48 stars and 51 stars), the local flag of my town I live in, the flag of Ostfriesland, northern Germany, where I lived for several years, Schleswig Holstein, where I was born, the Netherlands, were I'm sometmes on a MV-meeting to honner the hosting nation as weel as France and Luxembourg.
Makes this understand the flag?

For you, sadamsnightmare or Kyle F. McGrogan, I so far had no problem with the water pump, for so far I never drove my truck since 1982 with the original engine (It ws never possible, the engine did not work, especially without carb).
May be by that time the V-Belts wre not strong enough for a 100 AMP 24 V Gen, today a single one is ok; in 1967 3 belts were needed. Today I would use a new one, in this case never NOS! The Gens of the 6.2 l Diesel are not the most reliable ones, I had several problems and since then allways cary a spare Gen with me. The water pump of the 6.2 l Diesel seems not to be a typical problem, however on my M1009 I had a water pump issue, but I could handle that with some time and thinking to change it, even I had to disassembel much more than I expected. But OParts were relatively cheep.
So with the 6.2 l Diesel it is something like an automatic trans drive. From 16 to 60 mph no shifting, just slowly ad some load on the axel. It is fun for 5.5 ton + rig (including loaded trailer). And in the cityes care for no speeding over 31 mph (legal max.over here). You do not notice that, the engine is low below 2000 rpm in direct, no big noise, just smouth and nice.
Wolf
cosmopolitan

Wolf.Dose said:

Whats behind the Iowa Flag?
Very simple, I had to choose a unit for my truck due I could not find out the one behond it in service. The Bumper marks were several times repainted and with carefull sanding down, nothing clearly was found. Today, I know that most probably my truck belonged to the 3rd Inf Div "Marne County" in Würzburg.
For I have a lot of business with John Deere in Waterloo, Iowa, I decided to mark my truck as a NG truck of Iowa and therefore I show the flag of Iowa.
I could also have choosen the NG of Georgia or North Carolina or Wisconsin, were I also have a lot of bussiness to do with John Deere. But I decided Iowa, so it is.
However, I have flags of the US (48 stars and 51 stars), the local flag of my town I live in, the flag of Ostfriesland, northern Germany, where I lived for several years, Schleswig Holstein, where I was born, the Netherlands, were I'm sometmes on a MV-meeting to honner the hosting nation as weel as France and Luxembourg.
Makes this understand the flag?

Click to expand...

Cool story. I was just wondering because I live in Waterloo, Iowa

Thanks

What is that small open-wheeled vehicle in picture 20? And what is the small tank with the guys sitting on it? Wish we had more unique stuff here in the states! H.

Try to answer the questions: The tank is a British FERRET, a reconessance tank with a RR engine. Two seats, driver and commander, very tied and small, did a fine job for more than 30 years in the british Army.
The picture 20 (as ist is numbered 20 of 60) shows a 1017A Mercedes Benz truck. So which number do you mean?
The small one in the Grenzhaus is a Trabant 601 NVA version, nicknamed Stoffhund (Clothdog) by the East. Or do you mean something else?
Wolf

An other tour to Luxembourg. It included a visit at Echternach as the actual "ville en vie". Thats why the fire trucks and their equipement was on exhebition in the yard of the Echternach cloister. Echternach was founded by the romans about 2000 years ago. The cloister is about 1300 years old.
The number of Jeeps was about 25, in total a little more than 30 MV on display.
Wolf

I have 2 more!
Wolf

thats awesome...the truck picking up his own camper is awesome...i didnt know the MAN units came in 6x6 too

MAN came as a 4x4 , rated 4 - 5 tons; 6x6 rated as 7 tons as Kat I trucks, rated 10 tons rated Kat II, and as known, as 8x8, originally rated 10 ton, the later with MAN engine rated 15 ton in the most common version as a MULTI.
Wolf

1000 kwith a Japanese Jeep

This weekend I was in Pocking with my Mitsubishi Jeep, a 1000 km trip.
Some pics from the vehicles involved. The VW181 had to drive 1000 km (one way) from the far north to the far south of Germany. The Heli is a Bell 47C in private hands, flights for 50 Euro per person for 10 minutes.
Wolf.D

And some more...
Some show the flee market.
The tank ride is for about five Euro for 15 min. on a Hotchkiss.

Nice pictures,enjoyed them all.

cool pics! enjoyed them also!
i have been at schmittenhöhe 2008 and bergen too
beste grüsse aus hamburg

here my old schittenhöhe vid:
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxRTv52VLyc[/media]

2008 konnte ich nicht, das war das Jahr, als Richard gestorben ist. Aber die Fahrzeuge kenne ich im Wesentlichen, auch deren Besitzer.
That was the year when Richards funeral was, so I could not join. However, I know most of the vehicles and their owner.
Wolf

Last weekend was a meeting in Stessel, Lux. Here some pics.
Wolf

Some more!

And more!

sweet!

This year was the last summer meeting and the last meeting in Pocking at all, August 19 to 22, 2010. here are some pics.
Wolf

And some more from Pocking.
Wolf