1979 Mercedes Unimog 406 Barn Find

Years ago me and a neighbour worked near Hemel and lived up her in the land of Milk and Beans, used to race round the multi roundabout in Hemel in opposite directions to see who could get to our junction first, great fun.

Oh yea Swindon magic roundabout is interesting, i only live one junction down the M4 from there. I think i could take my C1 test here in Chippenham but its not cheap and I'm not sure i have the patience to take a driving test these days.

My hope would be that having one of the only Mogs in the country that you could legally drive on a normal car licence would mean it would keep its value even without all the work kit on it. Focus the restoration more for offroad pleasure use with winches etc i think the right person would snap it up for normal Mog money if ever i decided to sell it. As stated values are increasing and there aren't that many 406 left really.

Getting it down-plated will have a cost, in time, money and aggravation which you could offset against the time, money and ag of doing a test. Swings and roundabouts.

And yes, having it correctly and legally down-plated would open up the market to some buyers, but it would also close it to those who wouldn’t want the aggravation of getting it put back again.

You need to find out exactly what is required for the down-plate. It’s not as simple as unbolting unwanted kit until you get under 3500kg. When I was looking at Bedford MKs, all the down-plated ones had suspension and brake modifications which would have required reversing to get the weight back up against (and none of the ones that I chased up had retained the parts to do it). You also need to retain a “useable payload”, that is undefined but is generally regarded to be 500-1000kg, depending on the vehicle. You’d never get a 17ton wagon down rated to only have a one tonne payload for instance, but you might be lucky with a Mog at 500kg. Another consideration is, if you successfully get it reduced, is that you’ll forever be one good lunch away from being overweight.

Anyway, like I said before, you’re a good way off worrying about that for the moment. It all has to be roadworthy before the DVLA will allow any changes regardless, so you’ve plenty of time to decide.

The owning land thing is incorrect.

Minimum payload to be classed as a pickup from HMRC



I would think they have probably worked with the DVLA to come up with that figure.

Which is why I’d register it as an LGV and run it on pump diesel. But then, it’s easy for me to be flippant, because I already have a license. There are various ways of approaching this, but loopholes that existed in the past have been closed (or just become obviously unworkable), and whichever one you choose would come with restrictions/hassle. At the end of the day, someone, somewhere upstairs at the DVLA/DVSA (or whatever they were called at the time) decided that they didn’t want people with car licenses driving anything over 3.5 tonnes back in 1997, and in the intervening 23 years they’ve made it harder and harder for any of the exceptions to continue. Currently, the paths of authority are difficult to navigate, as you are discovering. It’s because they would prefer you to just take your test. 🤣

Anyway, enough paperwork nonsense, have you got it going yet? 😃👍

We made some proper progress on the old truck today. Ive come to the conclusion its going to be best tp shot blast the cab so i have started to strip it down. Windows, doors and roof have all been removed as well as front arches. We also had time to lift the bed off the back to get a better look at the running gear and chassis. She looks really solid underneath. Ive started to make a list of missing or broken parts that will need replacing as well.



















I still have the tipper frame attached so thats the next thing to be removed, then the rear linkage and PTO setup so that can all be sold on to gather funds. I even managed to run her up so i could use the onboard airtank to start to blow her of with the airline which was super cool.

After popping up a post on a Mog page this morning some legend has pointed me to mogparts.de who stock pretty much everything you would need to restore one. They have everything I'm going to need so I'm going to have to weigh up shipping costs Vs travelling over when we are permitted to. I love Germany so any excuse for a visit.

Yea the plan is to stick it on a weigh bridge to see where she gets too. Only weighing 3400KG, then after we take all the kits off I reckon we will be well under 3000KG. Id say just the tipper bed and its frame have to be 300KG, Linkage will be close to 100KG for the whole setup then rear PTO etc as well.

I'm so keen to get this thing on a weigh bridge as soon as it runs now. Yesterday i removed the tipping bed frame from the Unimog, it took a few hours with awkward bolts but its certainly helped being stored in the dry as no bolts have snapped yet. Id estimate that the bed and its fram weigh close to 200kg's.




Now the frame is off i can get a much better look at everything else the chassis holds. I started to remove the rear linkage which has a nice twin ram setup sat inside the chassis, all very heavy stuff i don;t need. I managed to sell the bed and the PTO centraliser already which will help fund fixing the gearbox. The linkage is also pending.







As you can see I still need to give her a jet wash off to get rid of the years of muck but i reckon its actually protected the chassis as most of it still has black paint underneath.










I love how chunky the frame for the rear suspension is, id like to create a bed that shows the rear suspension tops I think. Once ive removed the linkage setup and its hydraulic lines I'm going to have alot more room to play with. As I'm removing the PTO setup i may be able to run just one large single winch and then it can run forwards or backwards and the line run under tha cab if needs be.I'm going to move the Air cannister and battery up onto the new bed out of harms way. I don't want to fracture an air tank offroad or a battery and then i can keep them out of deep water and wade over the tyres without worrying.







Grabbed a few shots of the axles as well as they may interest some. Portal axles are offcentre and have there own gears to change make the transmission much stronger. they look bullet proof and should give great clearance in the muddy stuff.