Mercedes Actros 1863 Custom Work & Owners View

hi I'm stavos good morning and welcome today I'll be showing you around this brand new Mercedes actross L this truck belongs to John McGary I'm here in his Workshop in County Ross common in Ireland and John will be joining us shortly to tell us all the work he has done himself on this Mercedes let's check it out and welcome back to John mcgar now you do remember John did up the 164 Scania from 2003 did a fantastic job on the restoration of that truck John this is your own truck so you're doing up a truck for yourself not for somebody else which must be a nice feeling good morning and welcome to welcome back again yeah this time this time it's my own and and um a little bit more comfortable working on my own truck if you make a mistake slap it and start again which many mistakes have been made at this this wasn't one take this has got a lot of takes okay so um so the Mercedes actress now John you've had this for a long while because there's a 2023 registration on it we're into February 24 now so you're at it a while yeah well I have I'm a year um pimping it up and um taking it apart and putting it back and checking it and doing stuff and doing redoing stuff I wasn't happy with and and stuff that I wasn't happy with from Mercedes and stuff that I wasn't happy with from myself and I redoing again so stuff that you weren't happy with from Mercedes yeah exactly yeah it all started it all started zus what I what I were called a dodgy paint job on the chassis and I ordered a 3586 red and uh it came red but I really they were as well off to get me the paint in the Canon I put on myself oh um it was it was a lot of overspray um you lot of dry spots um you know it just wasn't a nice paint job yeah so was we started St tripping it down and then as I was taking off stuff I started painting it as well and then I said I go red on the bottom it was all gray so they went gray over red and we did the chassis again so um yeah that's that's basically what happened there so that's it has taken a year to get this this fair but it's it's almost ready now okay definely definitely be out another year yeah so John Let's uh have a walk around and you can tell us exactly what it is you've done now I noticed the um this gold what do you call this gold John it's a candy paint so it's candy gold yeah it's candy gold over a metallic silver and the metallic silver gives it the flick yeah and you have the mcgar that's very similar to the MC and McLaren it is a copy of the McLaren font very well spotted Serv very well spotted and you have the spotlights there like the Edition one is it yeah it's a it's a it's a sun you can't get those sun visors out of Mercedes on this truck in the factory so you have to um you have to order it for in Edition one or Edition two and fit it afterwards so that was that was the start of the extras then I put a Kela bear on the top and that name board came from Kela as well bits and Bobs Manan and the spot lamps so that finished the top of it off nicely then the bottom solar guard um bottom spoiler um Dave hin helped me with this we got it in from Holland um they from Drifter style and um had a kelab bear on wasn't happy with it took it off put on the bottom spoiler after several attempts of fitting it eventually settled on where it is right so happy that and John there's um this is very nicely done what you've done with the uh the G it's actually there's there was a hole cut in I cut the hole out the step box when I had the step boxes off cuz we as you can see there the steps are painted in glass black as well and that little Al that stain of Steel Allen key bolt in there is holding a bracket that's holding the ghilly light so when you want to take out the ghilly light you loosen that bolt and your G pulls out brilli you don't it to be roting and messing that's nice and tidy John and you painted the mirrors painted the mirror backs yeah painted the mirror backs and and lacked over them um didn't do the stalks out of the mirrors left those in Black all right left the door handles in black um color coded the triming up the wind screen and across the step mirror and don't color C the trimming across the yeah all around the base of the wind screen and the handles yeah there's a lot of color C on there at the front but I left some bits it's nice to leave some bits you know but look at the wheels uh candy gold and the wheels silver yeah um many trucks going around Ireland with that color of wheel they're they're very popular in I've seen them in Europe and I've seen them in candy blues and and uh Reds as well and and and um they're not steel they're aluminium they're Ally Wheels Ally Wheels was sanded and um and painted silver and then painted the gold over them are they hard to paint yeah yeah never do anymore not for myself or anyone else either that's that's the so if anyone ask you oh John can you do that to my truck no i' say the C it's a no it's a no uh too much work involved got rid of totally de chromed it got rid of all the Chrome got rid of all the badges got rid of all the uh anything that was Chrome I painted it I just I just to touch you want to do myself that was all so we got and John you painted this plastic piece here that's usually yeah just uh yeah it's I don't know what it is it's it's where the roof joins the truck and it's just it's just a bit of plastic and the air horns are black as well glass black that's that's a glass black yeah the same as the hub caps at glost black the Kel bears that lost black the tanks are done have glost black there's other stuff done at L black as well steps are the way up are done at L black oh you painted them as well yeah yeah we done them as well because they come in in just a oh yeah terribly black and you have to paint all this piece as well yeah on the door did all this as well all in around there and John lacker the whole cab I was just asking you earlier this this is an aerial is it some sort of a some sort of a Mercedes uses it for downloading information for fuel and different things like that it's an antenna for it's for their system it's for that um I I don't know about it but it's it's there anyway they so they can remotely check the performance of the truck they can yeah oh yeah now John you put on extra coats of lacquer on this truck sanded it down 2,000 West and give it two coats of lacquer and I did that so I can sand it properly now and polish up the lacquer again right yeah so Mercedes lacquer wasn't good enough it just wasn't good enough no it was it it was fine but it just wasn't good enough yeah now John uh oh yeah you've got the 630 LS LS what's the s for John that's a good one I don't know it's it's it's it's on the paperwork for the truck I know the L is for low all right and and and the seat sits nice and low now yeah but the ls is actually on the description of the truck yeah yeah all right it's on it's on the paperwor for the truck yeah and you have a kelar at the bottom there as well with the lights yeah there's there's a kelar at the bottom there's keler a bear as well on the back and umle few Kel Bears there yeah oh you've done a lot of painting down here now yeah that's pretty cool isn't it yeah looks very well now you had to respray the whole chassis the whole chassis yeah now the chassis did come from Mercedes and red it did yeah and you had to respray the whole thing again did the whole thing yeah did the whole thing yeah like why was it that bad it just wasn't good enough yeah there a lot of overspray and and a lot of bits missed and they it was even there was even spray on the diesel tanks and and on the insides of them and on the pipe work as well and um yeah I can I can send you some pictures yeah you've got that's the boy Lotus yeah Lotus he was here the last time you were here when we did the Eco video years ago he's passed away though passed away he died in um beginning of C in 20 all right yeah 20 yeah so you have the Lotus painted on the back there airbrushed yeah yeah very nicely done yeah Mickey fee did that and um very happy with a nice job yeah it's it's the way I wanted it and it's nice yeah and you've got extra LED lights there at the back and also one here and John you done all this work as well yeah that's I I do that because I we did a nice glass job on the outside of the chassis and around the nuts and the bolts and there was so much on the inside with Valves and pipes that had been painted red the easiest way out it was just repainted again but not go too fussy on the paint and make a new catwalk and cover it off and make new crossmembers for the catwalks it was it worked out it looks better like oh yeah and yeah you've got the uh the air bar at the back there as well k at the back nice so let's just yeah let's have a look at the the back wheel the gold so you were saying John that when you paint these um it's very hard sometimes you can get brighter patches yeah silver is just any silver for painting now long putting candy gold over it it can go blotchy and and dry out like like wet and dry and high and low and it's it's um there was a couple of goes at them and sanding and stuff like that and then you don't really know until you take them out in the light you really you know you don't really know what they're like it until you take them out in the light oh yeah so um the X multis melin and you have the LED rear lamps as well uh yeah you put another piece here at the back what did you do this as well the Kel at the back yeah that that Kela sign came for the air bear all right but it was black and the air bar was silver so when I painted it black there's nobody put a black kter sticker on it so I I just made use of it here and I put it down and I lock it over ah very good sticker and it yeah so John you've done an awful lot of work on this now this is aw long time matters and you had to take off the do diesel tanks as well everything yeah there was everything there was two containers full of stuff yeah mod guards and everything see all the bottom there was no red on the Plastics they were all black plastic the side skirts were gray um so I need the red we put on ourselves all right and another one of your dogs there yeah different artist done that all right yeah nice airbrush in there nice work it's a bit of black and white yeah looks very well John the Chino in red yeah looks very well and oh yeah you painted this as well the exhaust box the cover on the exhaust yeah yeah and the air intake as well that's all painted yeah yeah gray would a bit of lacker on it and painted up here as well cuz usually these are just yeah kind of cheap looking plastic but when they're painted up they look better they look better yeah this came from Bailey's the the perimeter kit came from oh yeah all of these lights here came from um they came from baile and they were they come in in um stainless steel so we sanded them down and did them in in a 95 glass black as well so they just they just bled in did just blend in nice with the paint on the truck yeah same as the wheel trims dra 95 black as well and the front is on air John front is on air front is on air and um um yeah I like this color on the badging here and that's an anodized bronze that came from Mercedes that way yeah it's nice nice color so John if you hop in the driver side I'll hop in the passenger side and we'll we'll get a look inside the cab give you guys a a little tour now you can see straight away John got this mat it's all one piece the whole way across and even at the backs of the seats there as well so that's very well done I'm just going to hop up here completely flat floor on the actas of course and yeah you did a similar color on the 164 John didn't you on the interior of the 164 the black and the cream is cream is nice yeah yeah we'll start her up [Applause] yeah no the camera mirors definitely not for me you know um we be going for a drive shortly and you see there he has the handles above the driver's side door as well and than for a little fell like me pulling himself up the top bunk nice bright lights oh the blue lights up there as well and the bottom bunk has folded up and you see there there is a fridge uh let's pull that out now your fridge and here is a storage compartment with a little bin and also you can slide out that and have a table and the armrests are nice and comfortable questionable how they last over time John they might start this is my third new Mercedes and the first one I 280 k and the and the last one I had 480 K and the seats on the steering wheel and the and all that's one thing everything in in the quality build on them it does last all right does and it did last so I I wouldn't can we hoot the air horness John give them oh yeah you're typical Mercedes not too bad there's nothing special inside this is came from Mercedes this way it's styline interior all I put in it was the mat and got a CB from the factory all right so you be able to talk a lot BS ah yeah yeah yeah nothing like it one time there were all the go then the mobile phones took over and you've got the electronic you got the elect sunlind just the roof on um oh yeah very good oh you have mercedesbenz AMG no that's jmg now that's jmg oh sorry jmg I thought it was AMG you see I ye scanny heads I think you just oh here we go L here we go you just carried away oh you got the nice um interior lighting as well John oh I did yeah did yeah kind of the yellow lights you can turn off some of them and you can leave on more of them back there as well yeah so John uh I think we'll go for a drive why not see what it's like on the road why not acoss L okay setting off in the actross L 630 metric horsepower John that's about it yeah yeah how many newton meters 3,000 3,000 same as the 580 the same as the Scania s580 so John tell me what made you go for the actross um this is my third new actress yeah um had another new truck in the meantime went back to actress again because I just like them they're good quality in them and just like them you know and we got good resale value on the other two as well so um yeah I like them what's she revving in at at 80 K John 10 and a half 105 all right okay 10 one50 yeah so it's not RPM oh yeah it's not that is the lane departure warning yes one of the most hugely annoying features ever to feature on the truck J in any truck yeah absolutely going to constantly turn it off yeah cuz it uh defaults to on every time you start the truck yeah so it's it's turned off there now and what sort of MPG are you expecting to get this I don't know because I've never done a run I've never done a load with this truck but on the previous trucks what did you get they go the this is 15.6 L the the 12.6 L were um on the work I do were around um 112 M gallon that's pretty good which is good because compared to the to a a version two Volvo another actross passing us here would be free a version two Volvo will be um on the same work as around 7 m to the gallon seven seven yeah that's bad the I'm using there around 7 so look at I would be hoping to get somewhere not that good but I would be hoping to get definitely 10 it's not more of this you know be hopefully get around there but I I didn't I I I didn't go for you know a lot of the scaners and a lot of daffs and other makes and Merc as well they want to run at a very low rev with a turbo compound they want to run at at would say 10 and a half revs at 990ks right my argument is I bought the truck for Irish work so I want I'm doing 80 K I'm happy driving at 8ks but I HED the diff and and the Lori set up for doing for doing um 990ks at 10 and 1 12 revs and I drive at 80 k then I can't drive at 8ks because I'm out of the torque parameters so you just labor course there I'm driving at 8ks and I'm at 10 and a half revs which is what's the rear axle ratio it's 308 308 okay so it's it's um it's usually with a 630 you can you can you can run a lore so you can you can run at 11 revs this would be the setup for the 510 and the 15.6 L but I don't mind having the extra revs because you can comfortably run slowly like run run at 80 K with 10 and a half revs so that's that's um a lot of the newer stuff is doesn't work like this you know it's it will be running at at 990ks at this rev all right you know so so 1200 RPM at 90k at 990ks yeah yeah and you can manually go up and down through the gearbox as well yeah yeah yeah I like the Mercedes gearbox do they make that gearbox themselves or is it ZF jro kler all right the and what's the tank capacity for fuel is uh 1250 1250 right I got the I got the blue tank uh as a part of the diesel tank on the left hand side side oh right so it's built in it's built in yeah it's another option and it just leaves you with less brackets and it leaves you it leaves you with um more space yeah more space and it makes more use out of the space of the chassis you can't do it on on the Tre on the threee pine uh 76 wheel Bas but this is 385 so you can do it on this one all right okay because you the longer chassis you can do that with the add blue tank that's very handy to know yeah you have a nice mattress topper there John got the topper on yeah I'll be going away with that for the for the why does Scania doesn't do anything like that no you have to bring blankets with you pillows and stuff it's like years PR bad all right I know but yes would it be fair to say starus you would be known as a as a scanny aead oh God here we go I I would say you were known as as a scanny aead there's a lot of you out there you know there's a lot of you out there yeah I come across you every day like you know you get used to it you just what well you know it's a V8 John Mercedes like did away with their V8 you know IO man where are all their V8s they're all gone well you have air on the front of this and it's yeah but you your 580 only has half air on the back yeah now John I'm sitting up very high here obviously I can lower this as small no no that's it you know that's it that's it um you see my you're sitting very low because a lot of actress drivers are almost sitting like me where you can see their knees yeah at the side windows here so uh yeah a lot of lactus drivers will this will be the normal seating position yeah so when you yeah it's a bit High yeah when you get when you get the L the SE that's one of the things that's nice about the L is the seat actually you can put it down nice and nor like this SC here oh yeah now John how do you find visibility out through these mirrors is it okay lovely yeah lovely like the mirrors on the am yeah I like the mirrors on the wide angle one on it yeah yeah I like them I used them I had two of them before I used them so um they don't come loose and they do what they're supposed to do but the the the Mercedes with the miror cam I I wouldn't I couldn't go them at all no no no they're don't like them no is key yeah so there's no ignition so you just leave it there it's actually one of the the start button it's one of the things I don't like about the truck is it there's actually no place to this there's no imagine yes because they used to have a slot they used to have a slot but the slot activated the key but this key this key activates remote so but you think that if some place yeah you know if if it falls down or goes somewhere you think old you think when they were doing it they have some slot there that you could keep the key safely until you get out of the truck you know whatever but um I suppose their thinking is that most drivers will have it in their pocket once they hop into the truck yeah but I I just it's one of the it's one of the things I don't like about the truck I'd have left that there but I like the way the truck hands I like the way it drives yeah I like the suspension the way it works and the cab suspension in Mercedes air suspension with the front air suspension they really do travel well and they do work like they're nice and they're nice and um and and the rear suspension works good as well yeah um and do Mercedes do a more powerful version of this this is it this is it 630 300 new m in that's it yeah that's it I was talking to somebody recently they were pricing up a Volvo 540 against a 750 Volvo and there was 27,000 in the difference between the 540 and the 750 but if you were to compare a Scania 540 to a 770 there's a far bigger Gap because the 770s are well over 200 Grand now but the 750 Volvo is coming in around 197 yeah so how much was this John that I think it's going to rain this evening you know you see like why can't I get a price off anyone guys I I all I need to know is the price well I remember the last couple of days the frost was just absolutely terrible so it's nice to see the bit of rain back again I can't get any price guys just give me the price this is the problem in Ireland guys you can't get a price of no truck you know you're right huh it's it's an Irish thing this truck was 140 out the shop 140 okay plus the that and do you know what I spent hard in the workshop with all the little bits and pieces on my labor and my time and airbrushing and paint and different things 17 so the stand 17 I spent here 17 grand yes catwalks paint Saucy lights Bears labor yeah that's 17 yeah so the so the so the cost on the road 157 and that's something including labor yeah I've ever his own labor I've everything I've everything sort of priced in at that yet that's but it's a 630 and it's it's it's now this comes this came standard out the out the factory with the twin Servo steering metallic paint air on the front it on front axle duel clutch um the styline interior um LED lights you know there's a lot of extras on it out the factory so compared to would say the other big high power the other high-end stuff Scania Volvo of the same of the same um 16 lit or whatever it was it was good value compared to those like you know but if you were to buy this in 2024 now how much has it gone up this is about 160 you see 20 grand Lads trucks are just gone Way Beyond the joke now it's just ridiculous but at least if you spend 160 at least you get a Mercedes every Young man's dream and old you know I think it's time to go back guys I might go on the CV for a while and talk a bit of BS over and out John over and out byebye and there we are back from the drive in the actross L from 2023 because John was spending so long to get the truck ready and we're in 2024 some work for a year so John any other projects going on probably end up doing another Scania oh God over we leave you there guys take care thanks for watching Che just before I leave you I have to say that John McGary did not do all of the work on this Mercedes actress he was in fact helped by Michaela beside me here yes I did in fact do a lot of the work on this Mercedes actress there you have it so John has a trainee here and hopefully she'll be a professional sprayer someday yeah hopefully sometime cheers Michaela no bother take care guys

Channel: Stavros969

Views: 56,370

Keywords: Mercedes Actros 1863, Mercedes Trucks, Mercedes Actros Owners View, Mercedes Actros 1863 Owners View, Mercedes Actros Review, Mercedes Actros Review Stavros969

Id: 5EuRThJ-ysQ

Length: 25min 5sec (1505 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 18 2024