Vladislav

Ok, hit the road agian and passed the most of Georgia in one day since the distance wasn't large. Saw many scenaric environment and enjoyed riding beautiful mountain roads with very light traffic, smooth pavement and uncount sharp corners. Seeing no police or road cams interested in the speeds I rode 😀😀

Turned out not really bad since it was snowing for a few hundred meters and stopped when I actually passed the highest point. Probably that cloud was stuck at that side of the mountain and didn't go to the other. I wasn't a cloud riding my wheels so went down from the mountain suffering much harder rain though. My clothes were waterproof but some water was sleaking under them anyway and it was coldddd!!! Also I had to have my helmet's screen open being not able to see the road otherwise. Drove nearly 100 km of serpantine that way after which rain stopped its deal and I could achive a city of Mtsheta (a neighbourhood of Gergian capital Tbilisi). There I stayed for a couple of days to slack up and wait for more rains to pass by before continue the ride. The city was quite ancient as many othet places in Georgia so I just enjoyed walking the streets, eating fresh barbequed beef and making pics.

So after long winter months I finally went on a trip to a country I wanted to visit for a long while - Iran. Some prep work was required for. Visa was easy to achieve for a Russian citizen, but I needed to arrange paperwork for temporary import of my motorbike into the country since I planned to use it for my journey. Speaking short I found Iranian guy on the net who helped me with that for some money and the deal turned out smooth. The first stretch of the trip was nearly 1800km of a highway in Russia I could cover in two days ending up in a motel right near the border to Georgia (the country, not the state of the US). Actually I drove exactly that path one year back and posted the most interesting subjects on here. So now I just duplicate a few remarkable points. You need to go over a mountain pass from Russia to Georgia crossing the Main Caucasus ridge, nearly 2500m high above the sea. The weather was cool in that morning and right about the time I started entering the mountains it started raining. Not really hard in the beginning though. But than closer to the highest poing rain started being quite moderate and the temp dropping down. I sure was afraid of ice and looked up a forecast which was "promising". That turned out it was almost +2 Celsias near the top and wet snow started falling from a cloud I was actually in 😀

Thanks for posting that Youtube video. And sure for the original post. Great looking truck! And the sound is well recogizable.

Best B-day wishes!

As said above and welcome to the forum! Pics are always appreciated. Vlad

I would guess if you had cleaned that breather earlier the truck would eat all the organic from the tank even together with algea and alu brightener. But that's of no matter now and doubtly you would like to provide experiments putting the old tank on and putting old dirty gas in it. P.S. The girl worth a half of the thread.

After reading that I wouldn't mind any sealing of the new tank. Just put it on and be happy. On the other hand (my usual thrifty approach) I see no principal troubles cleaning the old tank and use it. Algae is not corrosion so can be separated off the walls. I'm not almost sure on the principal of its build up but as long as we concluded the origin is penetration of humidity into the alcahol that means we deal with water of some kind. If so the derbits could be products of aluminium corrosion (what is doubtful) or organic reactions in the water. If so you should clean it with stuff which dissolve fat or other organical dirt. Something of what is used to clean clogged kitchen sunk. Sure after test application on another aluminium part.

That idea of putting epoxy sealer (not a DD screamer) into the new tank was floating over my mind. And I didn't point that out since in a case you have a clean brand new tank the straight simple way just installing it seemed very attractive. But on the other hand considering options and adding some reasonable amount of efforts into a deal could pay off in the future. I don't see any issues applying sealer to a new alu tank. Sure you should check out the particular compound on its applyability to alu. Also you better degrease the inside of the tank with suitable degriaser before sealing and be sure that light evaporating stuff to not poison your breath of make big boom. On the other hand from those arguments above the worry of use alu tank for gas is water which could get collected in the fuel because of alcohol. But I guess water wouldn't affect aluminium really fast even being poured clean right into the tank. So adding fuel stabilizer and not allowing old gas to take place for a long while should secure you quite enough from notable tank inside corrosion.

BTW you seldom see such fashiony looking trucks on a road in Europe. The most countries in the central part such as Germany, France, Belgium usually operate single axle units with middle rise cabs of single white or red color or so. I bet those on the pictures were imported from Scandinavia. Icey roads and heavier allowed weights predict the 2nd drive (or tag) axle and attractive look prevails over cost savings. Bullbars (or elk bars?) are a common thing too.

A candy! A pleasure to look at!

I have opened heated Bulldog mirror apart once or twice. Don't remember seeing any separatable heating elements. As I remember the heater was glued up to the back side of the glass or integrated another way.

I think that's colors of a certain spedition in PA or OH. Very clean looking MH indeed.

Tom, many thanks! I have already had this one in my 'puter but as we say there can never be too many trucks! The one on the picture is the most probably R688 with thar R700 big grille installed. For some reason SGT R-models didn't have classic later R-model grill installed at all or had the appearance as on this picture. Speaking the tanks there were two of them at each side. The main one was that long so had to be hanged by 4 brackets. That's a factory configuration tank but probably the longest avalible option. The 2nd set was for fuel. I tell that by a point which was mentioned in a build sheet for my truck. Two additional aluminium fuel tanks of certain amount of gallons were specified. What's interesting my truck, along the 4 others imported to Russia as a bunch, had those tanks specified in the build sheets but never had them installed for some reason. I could see the mounting holes pre-drilled in the rails but no appearance of any brackets ever attached to there.

My guess is the most observers would "not see the forest because of trees" in the particular case.

Those are cool looking units. And looks like they suited the sevices very well. Definitely different principals in design and different engeneering and trucking culture. But that must be cool when you have choices.

Very interesting info, Paul. Always cool to learn facts about your country. Many differences to what I used to be living in. But sure the basic things are understandable since the most humans are supposed to think similar ways. Putting aside some doubts on that we may have found from time to time. That must be cool entertainment riding a tank off-road. I had luck driving big tracked artillery tractor once. Generally in a lap deep mud over a nearly 2 km loupe. But had to attend military education cource in my university. Mostly for that mentioned reason

Wonder what was the reason? Don't they want for general public to own an armored vehicle? Here some kind of that matter takes place. A friend of mine owns WW2 German half track armored transporter. But its side sheets have 4 big holes cut at each side which were welded up with thin (common) sheet metal. That way the rig keeps historical appearance but can't be used by its original purpose. Sure the gun is inoperational. Cut in the barrel or so.

Sludge is removable. And if you even have a new tank it can build up from poor condition fuel. Or otherwise from super-puper efficient additives in it. Which don't do any bad if burned in time but may bring unexpected surprizes keeping their presence in a tank for a while.

What you showed in the alu pan doesn't look like rust chips. So my guess the things are much better than I expected. There's probably no need to sandblast or gravel wash the inside. Just some heavy cleaning agent of those the guys mentioned and you must be fine. My issues were concerning heavy rust on the inner walls which chipped off and clogged filters or needle valve and duses in carbs. I have friend's Mercedes 280CE car of 1972 in my stable for a while and it used to ruine electric fuel pumps. When we removed its tank initially and my guys drained it I couldn't belive my eyes. There was a 10 liter can filled with gas which was HALF FULL of rust chips! We sure cleaned the tank as good as we could that time but the pumps have continued giving up the goasts. So I found a good replacement one and going to swap it. Ok, I'm going to do that for no less than 6 years now

I'm afraid the way Fuzzy Buzzard adviced is the most right direction. You can remove the tank yourself putting a stack of pallets below it to loose the straps and land it down onto. Than you will need help to pull it off from there on the ground and for further relocations during the upcoming care. A cement mixer or tractor drive wheel idea seems more productive to me than hand shaking and else. There's also way to cut off a portion from the rear (unseen) wall to sandblast the inside. Could be a bottom (end bottom I mean) either but depending on who's going to weld it back up and how would you sure on their skills making good looking seam. A side idea is you may put some portable small tank for example in the luggage compartment below the sleeper and connect it to the system keeping the original tank just for look. This way you'd get the truck running reliably and 10-15 gallons might be enough for locals drives. Getting to the main tank repair later. The issue is we seldom get back to back burner deals soon.