Unimogs have a very flexible chassis, excellent when driving in heavy terrain and it’s one of the reasons these vehicles are so good at it.
But of course, the living area, the cabin, shouldn’t twist as the chassis does, it will destroy the cabin. This requires a so-called ‘subframe’. The idea is that this will connect the cabin to the chassis without relaying the chassis movement to the cabin.
We’ll connect the subframe via a 4-point attachment system to the chassis, in a diamond shape. The front and rear connection are left/right flexible due to a pivot point, while the middle connections are forward flexible due to a rubber bushing.
Martijn drew (part of) the Unimog chassis and designed a subframe. the idea was that the cabin would be mounted on top of this frame.
Later, we we heard the frame could be integrated in the floor, so the cabin would be slightly lower. And as it should be mounted as low as possible, we decided to do so.
After having all the parts laser-cut, it’s time to assemble!
Design #2 
Middle attachment 
This should be it 
Laser-cut parts 
For attachment points 
Just like lego!
hi Iris & Martijn.
Greetings from South Africa
Firstly great work on your unimog – amazing that you are able to to so much of the work yourself
All the best for your journeys
I want to ask about your centre subframe mountings . I see you went with the 4 point as most unimogs have . My confusion is why you put 2 pins in the centre of the pivot. Surely this will stop any forward / back rotation of the subframe. i can understand if this was only 1 pin as rotation can happen around a single pin. But with 2 – it doesn’t make sense to me.
The reason i ask: is on mu unimog ( recently bought) i have the front and rear ( front and rear connection which are left/right flexible ) but in the centre the connection point has been bolted to the chassis. I’m trying to figure why this is and if i need to change it and if so, how to change it
thanks
Hello Nihal,
Thank you for your comments, much appreciated.
In the center, the mounting wraps around a tube chassis cross member (the mounting point is built from two halves of a circle) and there’s also 2 half circle rubber bushings in between the chassis cross tube and the box frame mount. This makes it a flexible connection. If there would be 1 pin only, there would be 2 flexible points on this connection, which would result in a collapse. With 2 pins, the mount itself becomes rigid and will use the flexibility created by the rubber bushing and the rotation motion that is has around the tube cross member. The original Unimog mount works the same (except: without the pins, as the frame doesn’t need to be removable).
Click here: Unimog Platform Mount
In the above image, item 224 is a half round, like we use. In the frame above it, you can see the matching half round rigidly connected to the rest of the frame. Item 217 is the rubber bushing.
Hope this helps.