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

[Dog Star]

You must have been bloody freezing doing that outdoors at night.

[Sillyhatday]

Excellent. It's refreshing to see a build, that isn't taken so seriously, the fun is lost.

[AceOfHearts]

Finished underside looking good in the Dinitrol. As Jon says, much better than the car deserves







Rear shocks built up



New vs old front leaf spring



We made a start on the front end too.



Stripped down, here was the gearbox before



And after



I also started to de-gunk the subframe prior to paint. This all took quite a while though so we will carry on another day

Edited by AceOfHearts on Thursday 11th February 09:44

[james_tigerwoods]

So when is the 1000cc motorbike engine being fitted?

Looks great - as you said, better than the car seems to deserve

[Lewis's Friend]

Minor progress report in refreshing the suspension, and trying to make it look as though it hasn't just been salvaged from a mid 80's shiping disaster...

Before:


Wire brushed (be careful here; don't break your thumb):


To apply POR15, you then degrease, rinse, then metal prep and rinse again. This leaves you with:




It has now had one coat all over, and needs another.

Sadly, in taking all this apart and cleaning it up I found a crack in one of the front drums. So new ones needed!


More money - but totally worth it to get this magestic beast back to its former glory.

[AceOfHearts]

Got a little bit more done with Jon yesterday but was scuppered by some missing parts (mainly bolts I forgot to order) We now have another order list that we need to get over from Germany which I will sort out this week. We did manage to get some suspension bushes in though:



Wheel bearings cleaned out and re-packed with grease



And refitted to the car



Its nice for things to start going back on

[Kieranv]

Coming along nicely! I had mine out for its first jaunt of the year last weekend.

So much fun.

[AceOfHearts]

Front subframe finally cleaned up and painted

[AceOfHearts]

One corner built up.

New brakes


And a clip from the manual for anyone nerdy enough to care


Hub and drum on (not torqued up yet)


And jacked up a wheel to see where we should end up

Edited by AceOfHearts on Saturday 9th April 21:41

[poing]

Nice to see progress still ongoing with this, I see one regularly on my commute and it always makes me smile.

And to think I was proud of myself for swapping my wheels back to the summer wheels today instead of being lazy and paying the garage! I haven't driven it yet of course, I'm not that stupid!

Working on old drum brakes brings back some memories though, seeing one of these springs fly past my head was the final straw and taught me 2 things:
1. Never work on a car on a gravel driveway, never found that spring.
2. I'm too mechanically inept to work on drum brakes.

[LewG]

That spring sounds like the reason for your username

[rangie999]

Looking good.....much better than mine! Although I have managed to register and MOT mine at last! Interested in your lowering springs ....will see what it looks like when you are finished.

[rangie999]

Just to cheer you up, mine is finally on the road!

[AceOfHearts]

Looks great, how was the registration process in the end?

[AceOfHearts]

Trabi has a new friend. It has been pointed out that my drive is starting to look like Checkpoint Charlie

[rangie999]

Registration was a walk in the park once I had joined the IFA club. They did a vehicle report and age verification for me which seemed to make it all go very well indeed. I can only sing the praises of this club, very friendly and helpful.
Trying to get it running more smoothly and with a bit more power...some seems to have gone missing! Great fun to drive though.... You will have loads of fun!

[LewG]

Not much can have gone missing though rangie otherwise surely it wouldn't even move?

[AceOfHearts]

Got the other rear corner and the handbrake mechanism fitted the other day. The handbrake is now also a rather fetching shade of orange.

After that we made a start of the front but unfortunately one of the front wishbones slipped and bent in the press whilst removing the old bearing so a new pair of wishbones are on order.

We made a start and got the front hubs built up though with the new brakes and bearings:

[AceOfHearts]

Front sub-frame built up today with the new wishbones. Looking much better

Jon has an update still to make about rebuilding the hubs with new bearings and bushes (which sounded a total pig) so hopefully he will update this week.

Once the engine bay is cleaned up a bit it can be bolted back in and it will be back on its wheels!

[Vitorio]

Excellent work, and ill echo the "much better then the car deserves", you guys are really doing quality work!

That front wishbone suspension is just engineering comedy though