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

[CMYKguru]

Do the later ones still have the oil/petrol mix , that would really get on my tits

[AceOfHearts]

Yes even this 1990 requires pre-mixing the fuel.

I had 15 minutes today to continue my quest of getting the trabi watertight. The water is coming in on the drivers side and I noticed some damage around the windscreen wipers on that side. It looks like at some point someone has munched the crush washer sealing around the shaft.

In the interests of minimal spending I found some fibre washers in my outbuilding and set to work!





The door seals are also rock hard and seem a good culprit for water ingress. 7m of new seal ordered up to do both doors only £25 so hopefully that should turn up by the weekend.

Someone in the past has obviously had this problem and decided to have at it with the silicone sealant

[AceOfHearts]

Made a start with Jon today. Stripped the interior out and cracked on with cutting out the rot. A little more than we expected so am ordering up 2 new sills from Germany. Floors were all good except for one patch which was riveted over. We cut this out but will replace when the new sills are here. Also fitted the new door seals so the car should at least be waterproof now!











The patch we managed to get in has now been ground back and painted, just needs a skim of filler once we have got everything else sorted

Edited by AceOfHearts on Saturday 28th February 20:21

[Mr Tidy]

Brilliant thread - thank you OP!

Nice to see one dedicated to something left-field - good luck with the Trabby.

Now where can I find a 3 cylinder 2-stroke Wartburg??!! (2-stroke triple was good in my KH500)!

[AceOfHearts]

Well we made some good progress on the right hand side this afternoon. Got rid of a lot of the grot and removed the rotten sill. We were on a roll but unfortunately ran out of welding wire, but we are in a good place that i can crack on next week (am working all weekend unfortunately)











Old and new sill

[Lewis's Friend]

It all seems rather unnecessary though... Apparently in East Germany an acceptable rust repair is to masking tape over the rot and paint it.

We are just so committed to doing a good job!

[smithyithy]

I'm in Berlin right now and have already seen a dozen of these, convey of them drove along one of the main roads, sounded cool!

[AceOfHearts]

Cracked on with a bit more today now i have some wire. Finished welding the floor and got the new sill section in. Just need to finish welding the inside edge of the sill and get the arch patched up and then this side is done

Finished floor patch and sill plug welds ground down and painted. Will probably not bother grinding down the floor welds as they will be under the carpet.7



Where we are at the end of the day



Old to new sill section joint ground back



And almost fully in! Another afternoon and this side should be complete



I might carry on tomorrow but i have a new steering column to put in the TVR so that will probably take priority

[pstruck]

Great fun project. Keep up the good work and keep the updates going. I always like to see and read about someone enthusiastically restoring and modifying something out of the ordinary.

[Lewis's Friend]

As this is a bit of a muck-about car, we've decided to try some new things with it!

So I've been hydro-dipping small parts just for funsies on the Trabant. AceOfHearts was insistent I post these pictures... So here we are:

Grill flatted, in primer and then painted in the base coat colour



Dipped with decadent walnut and just lacquered!



Lacquer dried but before flatting:



And a comparison between original and luxurious walnut!

[AceOfHearts]

Awesome

Not many cars with exterior walnut

[threadlock]

That's quite cool. Is this a home kit?

[speedtwelve]

Your Trabi is epic! It makes a FIAT 126 look like a McLaren F1 GTR. The period details are great, particularly the 'stereo' and sub-Chinese-import speakers.

Have fun with it.

[Lewis's Friend]

threadlock said:

That's quite cool. Is this a home kit?

It is a home kit - I originally bought it to do my TVR dashboard but wasn't good enough with it. So I set my sight (much) lower and did a Trabant grill...!

[speedtwelve]

Trabi Safari googled and planned for visit to Berlin in the summer. Ta!

[AceOfHearts]

Just looked up Trabi Safari on google, looks great fun

A small update but I have fitted Jons excellent handiwork to the Trabi. I think it is so awful that it suits the car





I also just t-cut a small section of the boot and i think surprisingly the paint will clean up ok.

Back to the welding . . .

[Lewis's Friend]

AceOfHearts said:

Just looked up Trabi Safari on google, looks great fun

A small update but I have fitted Jons excellent handiwork to the Trabi. I think it is so awful that it suits the car





I also just t-cut a small section of the boot and i think surprisingly the paint will clean up ok.

Back to the welding . . .

That's lovely... It clashes so beautifully with the horrible interior!

[amstrange1]

I love these, this guy is putting a Polo G40 engine in his - albeit with a turbo instead of the G-lader:
http://www.polog40.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=116...

[AceOfHearts]

A lot more done today

We managed to get the arch repaired (which for our first ever think went quite well) and Jon did his special 'fix' for the cracked rear quarter panel

All that is left for that corner is finishing off the end of the sill and a small section of the boot floor at the rear of the arch. Then we can get the panel back on and start on the other side!

[AceOfHearts]

And some interesting videos to show that the steel frame with duroplast panels was actually quite a strong design. According to this months Practical Classics it actually outperformed the 1990 VW Polo in crash tests.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oF4phDLfGF4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ceEh7R1KYA