Unimog Club UK

Hi, My name is Ed and I currently run a 406 in my tree surgery and firewood business based on the Staffordshire / Derbyshire border near Alton Towers.  I've had the mog for 5? years and following repairing the cab with around 200 hours of work, over the years I have modified it considerably to suit me, so here goes: 

Approx 1968, Ag spec, yellow, with fibreglass roof and 3 way tipper, modified by me to have a 4 spool proportional valve block under the back to run all the hydraulics, running off a joystick in the cab so no disconnecting quick connectors in the dark to tip, three point linkage, twin ram pick up hitch with hook and drawbar, webasto diesel fired water heater (excellent at defrosting!) Hydraulic 4 ton front winch, Tico Hiab crane which has a 20 metre winch on it and can rotate constantly, rated at 4.4 ton metres on it's own demountable frame (10 mins on and off).

Next things for the mog is to make the crane radio remote control and find a Mueller trailer to carry the wood and bobcat around on as the bobcat is too heavy for an Ifor Williams.

Thanks Brian,

It's amazing what a bottle of wine and ebay at Christmas gets you... started looking for a landrover and ended up with the unimog!

Hi Ed
Welcome to the club. That's a nice useful mog you have there. Better than a Landrover any day.
Nick

I forgot to say I do have a 300tdi 90 land rover as well as my daily ride, they have their purposes and it's a winterised version out of the MOD, so it's not the normal freezing cold one, it has mod cons like a webasto, radiators in the back, heated front and rear screens (not bad for a 1991 vehicle) and a lovely MOD green and black paint job which the wife dislikes so all I do is go and pressure wash it and hey presto another shade of green or black appears, happy days.

Castro, let me know if your interested in any close up pictures and I can take some and put them in the other forum.

Yeah stick some more pics up. I guess u chip into the trailer?
I run a 300tdi in my 110, and don't think u can beat them for what they do. plus parts are cheap  

how many vans have you had already bri? 

i'm liking the winch on the crane as well! had a few jobs where theat would have been rather a bit usefull 

Castro, I do chip into the trailer or take the crane off and carry the chipper on the 3 point linkage and chip into the back when I have a few little jobs on in a day. 

My chipper is a Vermeer 625AI with a slight modification i.e. folding chute, tracks and a slew ring ( I got fed up of being tied to moving all the brash to the chipper so spent a week putting it together).  Best thing I did with it and as you can see below, I can now take the chipper to the job.  Vermeer didn't even ring me up about it when I showed them the pictures in 2008, at least Greenmech copied it for the next APF but mine is the only one that can spin around and around.

Good thing is that the unimog can carry it so I don't have to have the trailer, and the crane can lift it over a hedge.

I'd recommend Tico cranes, I borrowed a friends and liked it as it can spin around and around, so a search on ebay again and a year later found this one, although in a right state (new hoses, tubes, valve block and controls) it fixed up ok.  Shame Hiab bought them out and 'closed them down'.

Mine's a K472, they also do a larger one and I watched one on ebay go down south for 600 pounds on a trailer, so they don't fetch much, but you do have to do some hydraulic work as it returns all the oil back into an integral tank.

Winch on the crane is excellent, you can lower and lift vertically which is really trick with a hiab as you will know if you have one, and conifer hedges stand no chance as their not out of reach!  I sell firewood in 1 cubic metre bags and I've got the hang of using both the winch and fixed crane hook to tip up the bags as well, so really versatile.

The Landy was picked as it's capable of towing an Ifor at 3.5 tonnes and has no electronics, new Nissan style pick up's look good but cannot tow much more than 2.6 tonnes so I don't believe their legal to tow big ifors, so no use to me.  Back to the old school really and parts are cheap so cannot complain.  Still does 30mpg which isn't that bad.

Blimey... A look at the pictures of this truck have got me more than a little bit jealous! That crane is just amazing!

Welcome to the forum Ed - I don't think I've ever seen a 406 kitted out with so  much cool stuff. The bottle of wine at Christmas certainly made your investment decisions work well for you. I'm half way through a bottle of rum this evening (not something I make a habit of) but I still don't think I could make the jump that you have! I should keep my rambling to a minimum as I do go on a bit after I've had a few, but I think this is one of the best U900's I've ever seen (sorry Brian...)!