A Trabant owner rebuilds his entire drivetrain....

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Graaf Statler
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Re: A Trabant owner rebuilds his entire drivetrain....

Post by Graaf Statler » Mon Oct 07, 2019 4:48 pm

That Saab SAAB 2-cycle car 3 cilinder cars where great! I had both one for my mother in that time (on here expense) after the last Austin Allegro misery. because in the Austin Allegro and Mini Metro had come all misery of BMC together.
Smooth, very relabel, little service, always starting. And a lot of comfort. Swedish car engenering was great! Later they putted a ford V4 in it, but these cars where not as good driving as the 2-cycle cars.

A GAZ Volga from the '70s and either drivetrain-swap to a 4-cylinder Toyota truck would be great! Or a modified Tatra 2-603! Just put there some front drive train with the gear box in front in the rear! Must work out! French cars had often that technic in there traction avant cars. Or a Volkswagen van old type driving train.
Or from a Porsche.... :roll:

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Re: A Trabant owner rebuilds his entire drivetrain....

Post by Strelnikov » Mon Oct 07, 2019 9:44 pm

Graaf Statler wrote:That Saab SAAB 2-cycle car 3 cilinder cars where great! I had both one for my mother in that time (on here expense) after the last Austin Allegro misery. because in the Austin Allegro and Mini Metro had come all misery of BMC together.
Smooth, very relabel, little service, always starting. And a lot of comfort. Swedish car engenering was great! Later they putted a ford V4 in it, but these cars where not as good driving as the 2-cycle cars.

A GAZ Volga from the '70s and either drivetrain-swap to a 4-cylinder Toyota truck would be great! Or a modified Tatra 2-603! Just put there some front drive train with the gear box in front in the rear! Must work out! French cars had often that technic in there traction avant cars. Or a Volkswagen van old type driving train.
Or from a Porsche.... :roll:


The Tatras are like hen's teeth - they are screamingly rare. Volgas are somewhat rare, but they are beginning to emerge more and more. Military lorries like the ZiL-153 and the various Ural vehicles have buyers who want a very weird truck. Tatra 2-603s came with a V-8 engine which I've never heard anybody complain about, but the powertrain of the GAZ-24 Volga has been endlessly mocked (though they aren't as shit as the Fiat-124 copy Zhiguli/Lada Riva) though the thing seats six.
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Re: A Trabant owner rebuilds his entire drivetrain....

Post by Graaf Statler » Tue Oct 08, 2019 11:20 am

Strelnikov wrote:The Tatras are like hen's teeth - they are screamingly rare. Volgas are somewhat rare, but they are beginning to emerge more and more. Military lorries like the ZiL-153 and the various Ural vehicles have buyers who want a very weird truck. Tatra 2-603s came with a V-8 engine which I've never heard anybody complain about, but the powertrain of the GAZ-24 Volga has been endlessly mocked (though they aren't as shit as the Fiat-124 copy Zhiguli/Lada Riva) though the thing seats six.


You have to admit a Porsche Carrera driving train in a Tatra must be spectaculair...... :mrgreen:
The problem of the Tatra's in that time in Czech was the heavy weight behind the rare axle, what gave extreem reactions in bends. And the Fiat-124 copy Zhiguli/Lada Riva has been a strange story in Holland. The car was rather populair and had not the Fiat 124 corrosion in the prospectus effect. in a Fait 124 after three year you could shake hands with a pedestrian without opening a window.

All of a sudden al these Lada cars had disappeared of the Duch roads and where bought by.......... Russians who exported them back to Russia because they where here much cheaper!

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Re: A Trabant owner rebuilds his entire drivetrain....

Post by Strelnikov » Wed Oct 09, 2019 4:30 am

That's because the Ladas were made out of very thick sheet-metal to handle the rough winters. The Italian originals weighed less because of that.
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Re: A Trabant owner rebuilds his entire drivetrain....

Post by Graaf Statler » Wed Oct 09, 2019 8:56 am

The salt on the Dutch roads in winter was the problem. First VW golf's Alfa Sud's, Fiats and French cars where eaten by corrosion in a Titanic bacterium iron eating way. In six years nothing of your nice car was left! It was ready for the junk yard! Often a car was technical still OK, but the holes where in it.

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Re: A Trabant owner rebuilds his entire drivetrain....

Post by Strelnikov » Wed Oct 09, 2019 4:30 pm

Road salt is a car-killer in the American midwest and northeast - go to Saint Paul or Minneapolis, MN. to see the trucks where the sidepanels are totally rusted away. I never saw that in Philadelphia. That's why Soviet/Russian cars are made out of thick sheetmetal and they trowel on the anti-rust sealant under the car. With Datsuns/Nissans, the bodies would rot away, but the mechanicals (drivetrain) would still be working. This is why Southern California is such a magnet for old cars, because the weather is permanent Sicily.
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Re: A Trabant owner rebuilds his entire drivetrain....

Post by Graaf Statler » Fri Oct 11, 2019 8:05 am

True. At the moment there are several firms active to import Southern California old timers to Holland and the rest of Europe.
Because repairing coach work is expensive and hard, and technic repairs are much easier.
Special the technic from the last century, thise cars where all simlpe mechanical construction kits.

And if I look to the video of that Trabant and other restoration projects I am always surprised there are still so much spare parts. There must been still stock and stocks on this world.

But that is the same with Eric his NOS vacuum tubes, there are warehouses filled up with that stuff, special in Russia.
I bouth by a friendly freak the tubes for my vacuum tube amplifier, and he advised the Russian NOS variant of the EL84. Should be much better...

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Re: A Trabant owner rebuilds his entire drivetrain....

Post by Kazmer » Tue Oct 22, 2019 8:54 pm

Trabant is a cool car. My parents had. But it broke and I can't drive it.

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Re: A Trabant owner rebuilds his entire drivetrain....

Post by The End » Thu Oct 24, 2019 6:02 am

What amazes me is reading about Trabants, Wartburgs, Nivas, and other Soviet/Eastern European cars finding their way into Western Europe, Britain, and even Canada. You'd think the Cold War would mean the West would never allow Communist products into their markets considering that Western products would never be allowed in Communist countries, at least not for the non-elite.
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Re: A Trabant owner rebuilds his entire drivetrain....

Post by ericbarbour » Thu Oct 24, 2019 8:14 am

The End wrote:What amazes me is reading about Trabants, Wartburgs, Nivas, and other Soviet/Eastern European cars finding their way into Western Europe, Britain, and even Canada. You'd think the Cold War would mean the West would never allow Communist products into their markets considering that Western products would never be allowed in Communist countries, at least not for the non-elite.

Soviet cars had a real problem with importation but then ALL foreign car makers have epic difficulty importing their products to the States. A big part is the ruthless auto-safety regulations, demanding this and that and many crash tests. America imports almost no Chinese or Indian cars despite the MASSIVE production quantities in those countries. I can think of only one Indian car being sold here, and it's only allowed for off-road use.

The Yugo only made it because the Yugoslav government of the period used the car's similarity to a Fiat model as "proof" that it was "safe". It also failed California emissions standards. This "project" was started in 1980 and the first cars did not hit dealer lots until 1986. It was cheap, not great quality--but the car magazines and Detroit did everything possible to make it out as the "worst car in America". Plus, that enormous twat Clarkson.
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