Having decided that we wanted our own 4×4 car to travel to interesting, desolate and sometimes hard to reach places, the question was naturally: Which car to choose? Well, on the one hand...and..so..there is.. -Snippe snip- long technical waffle-waffle piece around there are many good four-wheel drive vehicles, each with their own advantages and disadvantages. We have chosen a Mercedes GD290 W461 year 1995 that started life via the Mercedes dealer in Dresden at a giant lignite mine, where it was used hard in an environment with infinite amounts of fine-grained abrasive dust. Then it was superficially "fixed" in Germany and sold to a Danish forest worker. There it worked in the woods and actually did fairly well, considering the mechanical wear and tear.
After a few years of work, he realized in 2008 that something drastic had to be done to reverse the trend. We bought it as the only newer W461 vehicle for sale in DK, and the seller was completely straight about the level of wear. There are things that work well and there are things that don't work, it is important that the new owner is a mechanic and accepts that there is work to be done. We bought it, tested the limits on terrain and pulled on the work clothes.
The first step in making it ready for use was to get the rust under control. The car was 13 years old, there were cracks in the front inner fenders, rust in a rear corner, post and rear spring suspension had taken a beating and were worn through. In various places, the stone skin was sandblasted by large amounts of dust.
Put on the welding gloves, the glasses and start the project. Over the years, it has turned into continuous renovation of everything. Go on a trip in the summer and before the salt hits the roads, a new area is opened for improving the car during the winter.
Totally rebuilding a G using original parts is FREAKING EXPENSIVE, so we took one bite at a time and then enjoyed the improvements in Iceland (4 times), Europe, Eastern Europe, Balkans, Western Europe, Morocco and the Great Nordic Tour.
We have gone from an uncomfortable carcophony of screeching, rattling, rumbling and snorting sounds with minimal sleeping space, to pleasantly relaxing cruise-controlled "driving-on-a-cloud-of-jelly" and with lots of sleeping space and lebensraum. The appearance has also changed a little over the years (both on the car and us)