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Thanks very much for the support! We grew up watching top gear which is what inpired us to start going on big european adventures in silly unreliable cars, this is kind of just what it's morphed into!. That's one of my dream trips too, we had no trouble anywhere, the only time anyone tried to scam us was in mongolia. Out of all the trips I've ever done the only character i've met that all instincts told me to get away from was an American guy in Essoria in west africa. Everyone on this trip was lovely, a lot were curious but always in a very positive way. My advice would be just to go for it, we never recieved any negative sentiment throughout. Uzbekistan will make you question your life decisions though!

Hi I’m glad you’ve been enjoying it! We really just filmed it and put it a together for a laugh 😂 If you need any advice on it by all means give me a shout! Part 7 isn’t actually far off it was nearly ready as one long video but I just chopped this off of it because it was going to be beyond an hour

It was around August, we didn’t get to spend that long on it unfortunately 😢

@ are you back in the Uk 🇬🇧? I’m prepping to do the same leaving next year January. Not ideal month to go but fuck it! Can you tell me? Did you any visas in Uk 🇬🇧 or on the borders?

@ yea we are, it’s taken ages to throw the videos together 😂 the only one we had to get in the UK was the Russian one

@@baptisedbyfire ok. Thank you 🙏 for taking the time to reply back to me. It was a good video blog. Looked like you all a great time.

@@CharlieJCroker of course, I can talk about this stuff all day! Thanks, we're not media people we literally just filmed a load of stuff on various old cameras and stuck it together!

That actually is the censored version 😂

It was so much worse than you imagine 😂with the heat from the transmission coming up and the perished steering column boot allowing hot air to blow over the exhaust manifold into the cab it was at least 15 degrees above ambient in there 😂 It got even worse in Uzbekistan we started driving primarily at night! I had to go the Russian consulate in the UK to arrange it I’ve seen this before on borders it’s people who declared the vehicle as for permanent export at the first border but couldn’t get it through the next one for what ever reason. Yea there’s a few of them it seems like a bit of a waste!

Thanks!. I've got a few more videos up already!

My mistake. We're not the travel channel, we're just a bunch of greasy car guys on an adventure!

Yea it’s a 5.7L non turbo straight 6. It’s only about 130hp but an absolute mountain of torque. It sounds great doesn’t it?!, it’s a really nice running engine especially for an old diesel. Erm yes that does seem to be what happened, wait until we find the treasure trove that was the beer isle in a Mongolian supermarket 😂

@@tilmangiebel959 hi thanks for clarifying that we’ve actually been a bit confused as to what it was used for. I know it’s RAL6012 making it BGS as you say which from Wikipedia I figured was border protection, but confusingly several Germans have told me BGS was/ is military! My assumption was always that it was used somewhere on the division between the east and the west. I sadly have no way of finding its history, I would love to know!

Thanks for watching and I'm glad you enjoyed it, I'm busy putting the next video together just now!

Dumfries and Galloway in the South West!

I'm busy making part 2 now. I've got our return journey through Russia uploaded already as a seperate series as well. Thanks for watching!

Danke!

It’s surprisingly satisfying hanging out of it! On a hot sunny day you can get quite sun burnt driving with it open though 😂 I didn’t bother with a pass through I didn’t like the idea of cutting the cab, it would have restricted the use of the space at the front of the body in the back too. I’ll post a walk around video showing the configuration in the back soon, it’s still not finished yet but it just had to be an improvement on sleeping in a tent for the trip!

@@warh0rn it’s not actually as noisy as my düdo! 😂 we drove with ear plugs in, it’s mostly engine and transmission noise, I still have the original small wheels which even though they’re not the best off the road they are quite quiet on road!

I'm glad you liked it! I'm putting together some videos of our outward journey, I'm going to try and keep them below 30 minutes though. We're obviously aware of the politics but we chose to go in with an open mind and not mention any of it at any point. It's perfectly safe out there lake Baikal is very nice, the locals are genuinely quite pleased to meet someone who's gone to all the effort to come out and visit their country, you can pretty much camp where ever you want with no trouble and fuel and food is very cheap. I'd recommend going for it if you get the chance!

@@pfcvdv we exchanged euros for rubels in Georgia and Mongolia!

@@baptisedbyfire oh boy must have been a wild guess how the hell could you know how much you would need. Very cool trip though would love to see more of it

It was quite a journey!. We had to calculate how much diesel we would use and googled the average diesel price there. So we brought that amount plus around 1/3. We had a heap of food with us, but food there is cheap and very good anyway. Euros and Dollars can be exchanged in banks, you can also be clever with a crypto wallet to get money from a western bank to a Russian one if we had to buy tyres or anything major!

Hi not this time but one day we will!

@@Pro54862 Hi greetings from the UK, it was great to meet you!! We used the red key a few times actually 😂 We loved your country and everyone we met there :)

@@jaymac5402 It came with them on! I guess it was an option at the time, someone on one of the w114/5 Facebook pages will be able to sell you some the mounts will likely all be there already!

I’ve got most of them fixed! I’ve worked endlessly on it since I bought it, it’s not quite a camper yet but it’s better than a tent now. I’ll post a video of the inside soon, I’ve a lot of drive line removed just now to fix some leaks and vibrations hopefully after this I can concentrate on the inside again! I like old fire trucks, the condition is usually exceptional and they look great in RAL red, we’re definitely going to be standing out of the turret quite regularly!

I'll post a walk around video when the interior is done, as you can see by the half way round the world trip I focused almost all my effort on mechanical parts and never completed the inside!

I know, I had to pull a rear drum off to free off the handbrake it was the best part of 45kg! 😂 There’s an issue with the log book I need resolved before I can bring it home but the plan is to build an overland rig with it!

😂

Trans Sahara highway next time? 😁

@@baptisedbyfire why not! 😎

I changed it to an OM314, I’m just back from a 10750 mile journey half way down africa and back!

🇮🇶🇮🇶🇮🇶🇮🇶😘✌🇮🇶😘✌🇮🇶❤🌷😯🤔🥺

Short axle, it screams when doing 90kmh in 4th gear😄

I’m now running an OM314, the video was the last journey with the M115 I made it to show the engine running to help me sell it! The m115 did have advantages but for how I use the truck (supporting classic car rally’s and long distance trips) the om314 is definitely better. The 314 isn’t wildly quieter but I’m in the process of fitting a proper oil bath filter just now (it took me a very very long time to find one!)

@@dutchyFal it now does 105kmh with an OM314 and a bus axle 👌

@@baptisedbyfire awesome! Was it a heavy job to change it to a 314?

@@dutchyFal it was a pretty big job mostly because of all of the hot rivets which had to be drilled out. It’s surprising how much stuff had to be transferred from the donor vehicle!

You mean the 408 lf has more ps? Then the 409?

@@dutchyFal There were two transporter models with the M115 engine: L408 (80HP) and L409 (90HP). The addition LF means "LöschFahrzeug" or firetrack. Both engines are low-compression. In the Mercedes Stroke Eight 230 ist the same engine installed, only highly compressed and therefore with 15PS more power. Because of the short gear ratio of the rear axle, the bus is very slow. If you install a rear axle from L508D, you get a good cruising speed of 100 km / h and can also make good use of the first gear. If you install an LPG system on it, you can go very cheaply.

@@maralex6879 thank you for your response, i am going to buy one next month in germany, a lf409 from 1976. Thank you for the tip for the rear axle. Can i still fit the original wheels and driving shaft?

@@dutchyFal I cannot give you exact details about the conversion of the rear axle. I had my vehicle done by an auto repair shop. Only bought the rear axle before. As far as I know, the rest is original.

@@maralex6879 cool, do you still got it?

Those are 4 speeds indeed, most people change the rear diff because the LF (loschfahrzeug) (firetruck) version has a very short ratio, 800 liter water, 200kg pump in front bumper, 9 firefighters and the truck is weighing 2500 empty!

The pump is only around 50kg, but yes it was a 4 speed with a crazy low diff ratio, it required maximum rpm to do 63mph!