1984 Trabant 601S

The washer bottle you have removed is not from a later Trabi. They still used the same as you have just put back.
It’s definitely not normal to remove the rubber air hose. It is actually very affective during the summer for cooling whilst on the move.
The lid of the air filter can be clipped on in two positions. One position for winter and one for summer.

We made it four days into ownership before I rage quit on the mishmash of budget tyres on the Trabant. Wouldn't have been quite as bad if the two matching tyres were actually on the same axle, but the tendency for it to attempt to rotate clockwise every time you so much as looked at any surface water wasn't going to be something I would put up with. Three tyres had varying degrees of perishing from minor to major present anyway, so time for a new matched set.





Fancy disk brake upgrades, which work very nicely indeed. Nice to have given there's no engine braking available to help with slowing down.



Though we did discover that the wheel from a later car is also something that's part of this as the dish is fractionally different and if you put the older wheels on the front the spokes foul on the caliper.

Noticeable that we have a very, very oily looking gearbox there. Will definitely need to check that the level is correct ASAP, then see if I can figure out where the oil is escaping. Given where it seems to be mostly concentrated I'm tempted to point at the speedometer drive initially. I reckon top up then go after the whole general area with the pressure washer and some degreaser is probably going to be the starting point though as there's no chance of figuring out where it's coming from just now as there's a 1/8" thick coating of slime over the whole thing pretty much.



While the gearbox is very oily, the suspension spring it's very obvious is very much the opposite...I have to wonder when that was last greased.

Same looks to be the case for the rear spring too.



A couple of folks have warned me that the rear suspension trailing arms are quite prone to rust issues so are worth checking. There is a bit of rust on them here but nothing scary. A good wire brush, some Vactan and protection going forward to prevent them degrading further should be fine.



My choice of tyres will surprise absolutely nobody if they've followed my motoring nonsense for more than five minutes.



Uniroyal RainExpert 3s in this case.

Car already feels are more positive, and most noticeably actually brakes in a straight line now - it always pulled slightly but noticeably to the right under braking before the tyres were changed.

As usual the guys there took quite an interest, including the manager of the place who seemed quite taken with it.

Had a few minutes spare when I got back so have continued just picking away at obvious simple to sort things.

There was a random lamp holder floating around down by the fuse box with a ground still attached to it. On a hunch (after I confirmed the lamp in it worked), I went looking for a home for that. Turns out it had been pulled out of the back of the rear window heater switch - so that now lights up again as the designers intended.



Those switches could both do with being dismantled, cleaned and having fresh grease applied to the moving parts as they are really, really stiff to operate just now. Plus the caps could really do with a good clean. The red circular thing to the left of the hazard switch which looks like a push button is actually the tell tale for the hazards, as the number of contacts in the switch didn't leave space for an integrated light in the switch itself. This also now works having cleaned the contacts.

Investigation of the two random chopped wires I found in the engine bay a day or two back revealed exactly as I had expected that they were for the windscreen washers. One is an ignition switched live (which was just floating around uninsulated in the engine bay, nice) and the other is a ground that's switched by the washer contact in the windscreen wiper switch. I'll get that wired up properly again when I have a chance - for now I've ensured that the live wire isn't given an opportunity to find a ground.



Yes I probably should have used electrical tape, but I had that to hand and the two wires are individually wrapped before being overwrapped so it'll be fine. It's not as though I'll be leaving it like that for years and it's far better than it was.

The heater hose that goes into the air blend box is quite a loose fit and you can feel a pretty large amount of hot air escaping around it if left to its own devices. I suspect this may well have been far more snug when it was new, but now it obviously needs some help to make a good seal, so a hose clip was added to that join.



Did refitting the jacket around the engine cowling make any difference to the noise levels? I can't say I really notice anything - but in the same breath the felt underlay from under the carpets is currently in the spare room until I get to the bottom of the plethora of water ingress issues so that's not a fair comparison really. From outside there doesn't seem to be a really noticeable difference though as far as I can tell.

Was out and about after this doing a variety of errands today and definitely am still enjoying the car. The gear shift is so, so much better now it's been greased which really makes a huge difference to how enjoyable the car is to drive.



It's hard to really convey in photos how tiny the thing is compared to most cars. You can zap around mini roundabouts which you basically just drive over in other cars with ease. It's a little over a foot longer than a classic Mini, and the vast majority of that is behind the rear wheels, if that gives a sense of scale folks are more likely to be able to picture.

I still need to finish getting back used to reversing a left hand drive car though, that always takes me by far the longest of anything to get back into the swing of when I get back into one.

It definitely seems to! Very reminiscent of a Mini in the way it goes round roundabouts and the like.

-- -- --

Think this is a record for the shortest time between me getting a car and getting a message from someone saying "Was this you?" relating to a post somewhere.



Yep, that will have been me.

Noticed another item for my shopping list today in the form of a steering rack gaiter.



Not much else going on today aside from a decent amount of driving around locally.

I did give the dash a (very) quick wipe over though, and have got the shelf underneath back into shape again. It had basically collapsed because several of the trim clips that hold it up had vanished.



They definitely haven't been replaced with a random selection of screws. I'll put the proper clips in once I have some to hand - all the ones I currently have are too big.

Car definitely feels a lot better for the new tyres. Really has changed the feel of the steering completely, and it's definitely less bouncy than it was - a bit anyway.

The door seals never seem to be completely water tight. I replaced mine and it still lets water in.
The gear box oil is just diff oil. You can get it from any car parts place. Some people use automatic transmission oil as the gearbox has a free wheel in it.
And the rubber trim on the front wings constantly come out of place. Both of my Trabi’s have that issue and so do ones I see when I’m in Hungry.
But if everything was perfect it would be boring. You can accuse a Trabant off a lot of things, but boring isn’t one of them.

I had one of these in this same colour a few years ago. It was one of the cars used in the Warner Bros film remake of the Man from UNCLE.
I bought it from the guy who had a business hiring cars to production companies, he had 6 for sale at the time in various colours.
I’d just returned from a long weekend in Berlin & had visited the Trabant museum there, so sort of got the bug for one. I gave £600 for it at the time.
Tbh I was just way too busy at the time with too many cars (you know how it gets sometimes?) so I never did anything with it & just ebayed off, albeit for a bit of profit.
Wished I’d done more with it now.

I don’t think the common 7” lights fit them. I managed to get hold of some RHD lights second hand. I have read somewhere that the lights from a Mk1 Golf fit.

Had very little time available today but still managed to get something ticked off.

If you look at the front of the Trabant it's obviously taken a minor knock to the front at some point. Nothing major, I'm talking a parking mishap rather than a crash. The visible evidence of that is a crack in the bonnet and a ding in the front panel (aka radiator grill which isn't actually a grill).





I'm guessing the badge pinged off into oblivion at the same time.

Underneath the bonnet there was some further damage in that the catch assembly which is normally bonded to the underneath of the bonnet moulding had come adrift.

That had sort of been "fixed" with a bolt at the leading edge - and a bundle of tiny zip ties through one the badge mounting holes.

I've reverted this to a more similar arrangement to what the factory would have used, "gluing" the latch assembly back to the underside of the bonnet using PU adhesive.



Reckon this should be more than strong enough for the job, I made sure the surfaces were clean beforehand and roughed up so it should have a plenty strong bond. Better than the 1/32" of the edge of the washer on that one bolt that was basically holding it together before that's for sure. That bolt (and a larger washer so it actually does something) has been put back in for now, keeping things squeezed together while the adhesive sets. After that I'll remove it and fill in the holes that shouldn't be there. I do have a replacement badge on the way. I have picked up some paint which may or may not be a vaguely close match, I've not checked yet.

While I had the adhesive out I took the opportunity to fill in the 3/4" gap in the top of the windscreen seal. I know I've got a replacement on the way but I don't know when I'll have the opportunity to actually fit that, and a gap that big definitely wouldn't be doing us any favours.



It was dark by the time it had set up so I could remove the tape, so no photo of that. At least there's not a visible gap to the outside world behind the rear view mirror now.

So nothing ground breaking, but one more thing ticked off hopefully.

Can't really think of a better car for doing battle with the pre Xmas madness if unlike me you were unfortunate enough to have to go out into it today than the Trabant.

Usually I'd have avoided going anywhere, but the delivery order we had yesterday evening was missing about 30% of what we'd asked for, and I needed to get to a pharmacy anyway.





In fairness, things were busier than usual but nowhere near as bad as I've seen it. Imagine tomorrow will be utter carnage though. I will emphatically NOT be leaving the house tomorrow! Not voluntarily anyway...

Things in favour of this car today:

[] Tiny footprint. Even the smallest parking bays look huge.

[] Unreasonably tiny turning circle which makes getting into said spaces easy. Invacar actually loses points there as the steering lock actually isn't great.

[] Good sized boot for such a small car. Again big bonus over the Invacar which has to make do with a shelf behind the seat.

[] Excellent all round visibility.

[] Finger light driver controls.

[] Plastic body panels shrug off the usual car park dings from errant car doors or stray shopping trolleys with almost complete impunity.

[] It's noisy enough that there's at least a 50% lower chance of people just walking out in front of you than anything else I own.

Was far less stressful a trip out than I'd expected it to be. Aside from it taking me a trip to four pharmacies before I found anywhere that had my meds in stock anyway, that always gets the nerves going a bit!

Oh, also fixed this, which had been bugging my OCD something rotten.



I didn't realise the little fuel/mileage tracker gizmo was just sitting on a magnet, so nothing to stop me moving it to sit centrally in the car rather than randomly off towards the passenger side where it was before.

Service access, you say...

Well remove two thumbscrews and the whole front panel lifts out.



Shown here while I was in the process of replacing the hose between the air cleaner and the carb. The old one was quite badly perished and a really loose fit. New one is much better. Would have been a bit fiddly with the panel in place.

The carb is basically invisible with everything in place, but is reasonably easy to get to now.



Likewise the fan belt adjuster is now readily accessible.



Which I've nipped up a little as it was really loose before and chirping quite a bit at idle. Belt is obviously not in the first flush of youth so I'll get two new ones ordered up (I reckon that's a smart spare to keep on board). I guess this is the one area I could criticise, on a car where you're so reliant on the fan it would be nice to see a duplex belt like on the Invacar. Being fair, it's far from the only air cooled car to only use a single belt though.

I reckon in ten minutes you could have the front panel off along with all the heater duct work, so you've got access to pretty much everything. Hard to criticise that access.

Yes you can get the wings off a Mini or 2CV pretty quickly, but it definitely takes more than the 30 seconds taking this front panel off takes.