Unimog U400 Dozer Blade

Following on from my previous MOC of a loading chute attachment (http://paulstechnic.blogspot.com.au/2014/05/moc-loading-chute-for-unimog-u400-set.html) I have now finished my next attachment for the Unimog U400. This is a front mounted dozer blade controlled by pneumatics.

My research for this started by looking online at the various attachments people have designed and built for this model on the Eurobricks forum: (http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=57543). I also undertook some research online of the various attachments that are used on real life Unimogs. From this research I came up with a possible idea and I did some rough hand drawings to see what would work.

A couple of days later I had some spare time, so I got out my parts collection and started to build based on the drawings I had done. The first problem I came across was that I didn't have enough panels of the same colour to build the whole blade and support structure how I had designed it / wanted, I really wanted to keep the look as professional as possible so didn't want to start mixing colours too much. After trying a few different options I decided on making this mostly green with some red for the top of the blade and other details.

Building the support structure was fairly easy as it was just a matter of joining the angled beams together, adding some pieces to keep the dimensions correct and making sure it was strong enough to support the weight of the blade, I also added the small pneumatic ram at this point and confirmed that it would lift and lower the blade successfully. After this it was just a matter of adding the details to the blade / support structure. At this point the blade was built and tested as working.

One of my goals with this modification was to move the pneumatic control in to the cabin beside the driver’s seat, the same as it would be in a real life Unimog. To do this I added an extra beam from the axle which controls the hand of god steering to a mounting point inside the cabin, I then built a simple mounting for the pneumatic switch with a thin beam on the other side to route the pneumatic hoses down to the bottom of the cabin and out the front where they connect to the pneumatic ram. This took a lot of time as I wanted to try and keep the original look as much as possible and make as few changes to the Unimog as I could. I had to remove one of the support axles from the front of the cabin to allow me to route the pneumatic hoses out the front; this has very little impact on the looks / function of the set. The pneumatic hoses have been neatly routed inside the cabin and out the front before being connected to the pneumatic ram and tested. The front PPTO has been moved in to the cabin and connected to the pneumatic switch, if another attachment needs to be used at the front with the PPTO this requires adding a T piece and connecting both of the output pneumatic hoses to it. The cabin still opens as origional.

Overall I spent a few hours researching / designing this last week and about 5 hours over two nights building and testing it. Most of my time was spent on moving the front PPTO to inside the cabin, installing the pneumatic switch and routing the pneumatic hoses in such as way that I was happy with the looks and function. I am very pleased with the end result and now have some more ideas for other attachments to built for the Unimog. Those with a keen eye will also notice I have converted this to right hand drive because I am in Australia and this is the right side of the road to drive on

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-IMr14dQPSSw/U2nrJzC0ehI/AAAAAAAADz0/YEIAcV4-W7M/s1600/UnimogU400_DozerBlade+(2).JPG

More photos and a video can be found on my blog: http://paulstechnic.blogspot.com.au/2014/05/following-on-from-my-previous-moc-of.html

Great commentary Paul. Love your work.

Paul,

Great build; excited that you converted to right hand drive as I do that with every model I have had for the last 30 years.

Great work.