Alucab Hercules

Since our last blog entry, a lot on our troopy has been changed:

  • First the good news:
    It Passed the Immatriculation expertise at the first time 😀
    Now our troopy is a official member of the swiss streets 😉
  • Shortly before the examination we decided to change the front bumper and winch because the old one wasn’t in good condition anymore.
    Now we have a TJM Bumper with the winch inside so it is better protected than with the old bumper where the winch was just sitting on top of it.
  • The heating system for the engine is already installed and works fine. The air heater for the interior is waiting for the interior installation first to choose its place.
  • The drawing for the interior is done and the wooden plates are delivered. Now the plates need to be cutted in the right shape and moved in place.
    The floor is already insulated and installed. So the “Foundation” is done.
  • Recently we installed the Solar panel to make sure we won’t run out of power 😉
  • In January we finally could made a appointment at Storm 72 in Zollbrück (Switzerland) to install the Alucab Hercules. Less than a week later we could get our troopy back with the dream come true. We finally got our Pop top roof.

Pictures of the work in progress:

This is how our “travel buddy” currently looks like.

From the steel box to a car

A well known issue with these cars is the amount of noise they produce in the interior. Also the sound they make if you close a door.
Because of this we bought our self sound deadener mats which should dampen the noise.

Armored with 4 rules of sound deadener we started our work:
All four doors, the Gearbox and the floor front and rear as also the side walls became stickered with this silver foil, the result is already noticeable when you close the door. We are wondering how it will be when driving, the transmission was producing a lot of noise on the previous rides.

The floor mat has just arrived and is installed, it looks much better than before.

We also got a date to present the car at the immatriculation office, unfortunately we need to be patient for two weeks until we can present the car.
This time we will spend with the Planning of the interior and other small things which are still on our to do list before we can present it at the office of immatriculation. For example installing the winch which just got a synthetic rope and also  the installing of the trailer hitch electricity.

First work in progress

Our new troopy mustn’t wait long. Soon we took it on the car hoist and checked the vehicle.
Much stuff (basically all of it…) was removed because we did not meet our plans. Especially the wooden interior. We already had plans of how we want it and decided to start from scratch.
We also did not like those stickers from the pre owner so they were removed one nice day.
We also removed a lot of the exterior (Lights, Shackle, Winch….)
This is how the troopy looked like when we got it:

Now the work started 😉

The car also had a lot of serious mechanic issues:
The Gearbox was completely broken, like so both axles where in bad condition. Especially the front axle had broken shafts and hubs so we need to replace everything. All Wheel bearings and rear propeller shaft needed to be replaced as well. For these reparations we were supported by our friend Oli, thanks again 😉

We replaced the gearbox, both differentials, because the lockers did not worked properly, all brakes and bearings are new, like so lot of pipes, filters and hoses.
Both axles are completely renewed and ready for the next 300’000 kilometers 😉

more pictures following soon.
Currently it is at the body shop to remove the orange spots 😉

Next step: Visiting the local authority to check if they like the car like we do as the car needs their blessings to be used on the roads here.

Our new family member

If dreams come true – while traveling we always thought about the things we can improve on our 90 series Land Cruiser. We simply did not have enough space.
We met several travelers driving a 78 (called “Troopy”) Land Cruiser our imaginations of our “dream traveling car” started to grew.
It took much time to search a 78 on the internet but on the 6. June Kevin found a ad. It just came online 30 minutes before when we called the seller.

While driving in Corsica, the gearbox broke down, just one day ago it was delivered back to the owner in Germany from a towing company. On the 8th of June we arrived in Munich to take a look.
After doing some checks, negotiate the price and discuss about past travels our new family member winched itself onto our trailer.
Loaded with heavy payload we started our trip back home,  late in the night we finally arrived safely at home with the two Land Cruisers.

We will keep you up to date about the future modifications =)

Working in Progress

Welcome on our English part of our blog.

Because we’ve met so much people from different countries we changed our website to multilingual.

some posts are still not available (and maybe never will) in English. To see these posts you need to change the Language to German. Feel free to request a English translation of a specific post using our contact form.

Westalps pentecost 2018

Short trip on pentecost to the westalps, it was a great time, we did not have a lot of rain and some sun.
Unfortunately we couldnt drive all the routes because of some  snow and avalanches on route.

Westalps 2017

Our travel in the westalps