Trabant 601 - The Beast from the East (of Germany)

[PatrickOUFC]

They really do love their Trabis in Dresden great thread - look forward to the finished article.

[Lewis's Friend]

For terrible cars, these seem to get a lot of love. It must be the underdog spirit I think...!

A minor update to show some work is going on in the background. During the front end strip down, many pieces of fairly vile metal were removed, and I have taken them home to make them (slightly more) beautiful again.

So just as a taster, this is the air filter housing. My plan was to wire brush the rust, and possibly POR15 it. However, the paint was so naff, it pretty much just fell off, so I went for a bare-metal respray. Really its concours quality now...!

Horrible filter housing:



Almost finished wire brushing:



In primer:

[AceOfHearts]

Looking good

If you have half an hour free this is an interesting watch (to me anyways )

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emoF0EFxjjA (Starts at 5 minutes)

Looks like an awful place to work, and I appreciate the super band saw safety at 25 minutes

ETA:

I also like the way that the panels are deliberately made too big on the doors, so the panel gaps are set by running a big grinder between the door and wing

Edited by AceOfHearts on Friday 23 October 17:26

[Kieranv]

Excellent thread! We did the Trabi Safari in Berlin and loved it...and then came home and bought one for ourselves.

Here it is at the seaside.

[AceOfHearts]

Kieranv said:

Excellent thread! We did the Trabi Safari in Berlin and loved it...and then came home and bought one for ourselves.

Here it is at the seaside.

That looks fantastic! I don't think ours will ever be that clean

[AceOfHearts]

Despite the weather today I carried on with little Trabi. With the Jaguar on its way soon (see other thread) which will be taking priority, I want to get as much done on this beforehand so I don't hold up our progress too much.

I started by stripping the rear of the car



Leaving me with this







I started with a few soapy buckets of water, a sponge and stiff brush, and scrubbed as much of the mud and flaky paint off the underside as I could, and then jet washed the entire lot. Very messy work! I will leave that to dry today, and then tomorrow (weather permitting) I will wire brush any flaky or rusty bits, re-paint them and then give 2 coats of Dynax UB (left over from the XJS). It looks to have had underseal before that has dried rock hard which is good (you can see the drips were it was slapped on). Here i how it looks now after thorough cleaning





And rear suspension jet washed off and stored with the other junk ready for rebuilding

Edited by AceOfHearts on Thursday 29th October 19:23

[Hooli]

Bloody hell a Sinclair C5, only other one I've ever seen on here is LiamB's.

[LeoZwalf]

AceOfHearts said:

Looking good

If you have half an hour free this is an interesting watch (to me anyways )

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emoF0EFxjjA (Starts at 5 minutes)

Looks like an awful place to work, and I appreciate the super band saw safety at 25 minutes

ETA:

I also like the way that the panels are deliberately made too big on the doors, so the panel gaps are set by running a big grinder between the door and wing

Edited by AceOfHearts on Friday 23 October 17:26

Holy crap, that video is quite an eye-opener. How miserable, dirty, noisy, dangerous those factories were. Spray painting with no masks, huge presses with no guards. Yikes indeed

[IanUAE]

Sinclair C5, Trabant, Motorbike and car. Doffs cap.

[LiamB]

Hooli said:

Bloody hell a Sinclair C5, only other one I've ever seen on here is LiamB's.

Who in the what now? I've never mentioned a C5 on here have I?! I'm getting one to play around with when I move out but I am pretty sure I have never mentioned that on here, only the old AJS I am getting too.




Awesome project OP, been following since the start, can't wait to see if it manages to get through an MOT!

[ManOpener]

LiamB said:

Hooli said:

Bloody hell a Sinclair C5, only other one I've ever seen on here is LiamB's.

Who in the what now? I've never mentioned a C5 on here have I?! I'm getting one to play around with when I move out but I am pretty sure I have never mentioned that on here, only the old AJS I am getting too.




Awesome project OP, been following since the start, can't wait to see if it manages to get through an MOT!

Think he could have been thinking of kamilb1998 ( http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/profile.asp?h=0... ) who had a Sincliar C5 threat in Reader's Cars

[AceOfHearts]

Heres my old Sinclair thread if you ever want to read about another terrible vehicle

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?t=144...

[jamiebae]

LeoZwalf said:

AceOfHearts said:

Looking good

If you have half an hour free this is an interesting watch (to me anyways )

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emoF0EFxjjA (Starts at 5 minutes)

Looks like an awful place to work, and I appreciate the super band saw safety at 25 minutes

ETA:

I also like the way that the panels are deliberately made too big on the doors, so the panel gaps are set by running a big grinder between the door and wing

Edited by AceOfHearts on Friday 23 October 17:26

Holy crap, that video is quite an eye-opener. How miserable, dirty, noisy, dangerous those factories were. Spray painting with no masks, huge presses with no guards. Yikes indeed

I think that footage was shot in 1990 actually, it would have been even worse (if that's possible) in the 70s.

[AceOfHearts]

jamiebae said:

LeoZwalf said:

AceOfHearts said:

Looking good

If you have half an hour free this is an interesting watch (to me anyways )

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emoF0EFxjjA (Starts at 5 minutes)

Looks like an awful place to work, and I appreciate the super band saw safety at 25 minutes

ETA:

I also like the way that the panels are deliberately made too big on the doors, so the panel gaps are set by running a big grinder between the door and wing

Edited by AceOfHearts on Friday 23 October 17:26

Holy crap, that video is quite an eye-opener. How miserable, dirty, noisy, dangerous those factories were. Spray painting with no masks, huge presses with no guards. Yikes indeed

I think that footage was shot in 1990 actually, it would have been even worse (if that's possible) in the 70s.

Same year our car was built

Cleaned up the flaky paint underneath today and got the first coat of Dynax on the wheel arches. Got to go in to work now though so had to stop there

[Lewis's Friend]

And just to prove that AceOfHearts is not doing all the work, here is another important contribution from me.

I always feel with restorations, it is important to get the vital work done first, then worry about the rest. Hence I have just spent far too much of my life polishing the fan housing!



Far from perfect, but much better than it was. Foolishly I didn't take any before photos, as it was truly rough!

[AceOfHearts]

A small update, unfortunately progress has been slow over the winter (partly due to Jon breaking his thumb in a drill whilst wire brushing Trabi parts!)

Today however I got a bit of time and a break in the weather so put the second coat of Dynax UB on the arches and got the first coat on the underside of the car. Its really looking good under there now so I will get some pictures after the second coat is on. After that I I will be cleaning up the engine bay so the shell will be finished and ready for stuff to get bolted back on.

There have been a few water leaks (I suspect window seals) so this needs investigating further before the carpet can go in.

Now the shell is almost complete we will need to put in the final parts order soon (Full brake system, suspension parts, interior parts)

[Lewis's Friend]

AceOfHearts said:

A small update, unfortunately progress has been slow over the winter (partly due to Jon breaking his thumb in a drill whilst wire brushing Trabi parts!)

Today however I got a bit of time and a break in the weather so put the second coat of Dynax UB on the arches and got the first coat on the underside of the car. Its really looking good under there now so I will get some pictures after the second coat is on. After that I I will be cleaning up the engine bay so the shell will be finished and ready for stuff to get bolted back on.

There have been a few water leaks (I suspect window seals) so this needs investigating further before the carpet can go in.

Now the shell is almost complete we will need to put in the final parts order soon (Full brake system, suspension parts, interior parts)

Props for carrying on in inclement weather dude. Hopefully I'll be able to do my bit soon...!

[AceOfHearts]

Small update. Jon and I have booked off a couple of days next week to get cracking on with rebuilding the sub-frames and hopefully getting the car back on its wheels. Maybe a touch optimistic but we can have a good crack at it.

With this in mind the second big bavarian box of bits has been ordered



It includes:

Brakes
-Master cylinder and hardware
-Full new copper brake lines front to back
-Front and rear flexible brake lines
-Wheel cylinders
-Shoes
-Shoe mounting springs, adjusters and all bolts
-Handbrake cables
-Handbrake adjuster

Suspension
-Rear bushes and mounting plates
-Shock top mount bushes
-Rear shock and suspension bolt kit

Extras
-Engine fan belt
-Spare spark plugs
-Spark plug brush
-Wheel nuts
-Interior trim clips

I think that is everything

[AceOfHearts]

First day of two that me and Jon have off to work on the little Trabi. Tomorrow should have some good after photos of the parts we have been doing today (rear suspension mainly). I also got the final coat of Dinitrol under the car so it is ready for reassembly ones the parts are refurbished.





Lot of grot



New vs old shocks



Growing pile of parts



After a day of disassembly, wire brushing, rust converting and cleaning Jon finally got busy with the POR15.

Edited by AceOfHearts on Tuesday 9th February 22:30

[dbdb]

What a wonderful thread! - A superb read.