1984 Trabant 601S

"Still surprises me that given the car's been in the UK since 1999 that nobody bothered to put RHD headlights on it till now."

How did it get an mot? Is it not a requirement to fit headlights that dip in the correct direction? Pretty sure it is here in New Zealand.

Never surprises me any more just how bone idle (or cackhanded) most people are.

Handful of little things today.

Added a dedicated ground to the plate holding the ignition coils in place as it's also used as a star point for the offside headlight and indicator. I wanted to actually move it to another location on the plate so you could tighten it a bit more, but clearance is an issue so I just left it be. Sure the majority of people have zero problems with it and I'm just doing the usual and creating an overkill solution.

I also did what I could to tidy the coil wiring up a bit, though it's always going to be a bit of a rat's nest I think no matter what you do.



I think part of the issue with the ground is that the original coils were plain metal rather than painted, so made a better contact between the two halves of the bracket helping to act as one big connector rather than these ones being painted.

Had a nose around underneath the dash to see if I could see any direct evidence of where the water is coming in on that side.







Will need to pull the shelf out to investigate that black paint splodge, but my money is on the seam sealer between the various panels having failed (it seems to have gone brittle in a lot of places), so that's most likely to blame. There is a water trap outside right above the wheel arch in the engine bay (I've re-sealed this area now) through which a seam does run.

Suspect some more chipping and re-sealing is in my future.

Closer inspection of the old body ground wire revealed that it had definitely got warm in the past.



It also made crunching noises if you bent it, and measured a solid 10 ohms on the meter, so was definitely stuffed. New lead is way, way too long really but is what was in the garage. I'll swap it with a shorter one at some point.



The new tail light moulding has had it's first couple of coats of paint.



Unfortunately the colour is far too bright a white so I'll need to try another option to find something that's closer. Just shows that the swatches on the cans don't mean a thing as the one on this is very distinctly cream.

I do need to actually look up what colour this is anyway - comparing notes with another owner has led us to believe it's Papyrus, Atlas white being the brighter white.

I also addressed the nearside tail light looking very cloudy compared to the other side - that was simply because the inside of the lens was filthy.



With the exception of one running light bulb in the offside rear cluster all of the lamps I've found in this car so far have been Narva branded, so either original or replacements from someone's stash of Trabant bits most likely.

Found it quite difficult to get all of the ingrained grime out of the grooves but it's a lot better now than it was. It may get stuffed through the "parts washer" in future if I find a spare half hour some day.

The small brass brushes for Dremel tools, used as a toothbrush do a very good job of cleaning pmma grooves of dirt when used with watered down dish soap. Just be gentle and follow the pattern.

Phil

Given the initial inspection for corrosion should be visual, if it looks neat and tidy upon inspection there should be no cause for a tester to poke holes 😂

Time to look at getting that smashed rear light surround changed.

It looked like it should be as simple as removing the lens from the light, unplugging the wires, removing two nuts from inside the boot and the whole lot just lifting off the back of the car.



I'm not new to this game though, so was prepared for this seemingly simple task to turn into a headache. However it actually was exactly as simple as it looked.



Here's where the wires go in case you somehow find yourself doing this job and forgot to take note.



Red and black one goes to the terminal on the back for the brake light.

All back together in less than ten minutes, including transferring the seal from the old backing plate to the new one.

Before:



After:



Yes the paint match is a bit off, but I think it's fine - especially if I match both of the surrounds and maybe the bumpers to be the same it will look far less unintentional. The steel and plastic panels have faded to notably different shades anyway so things are never going to be perfect no matter what I do unless I respray the whole car. A bit outside our scope at this stage.



Looks far less scruffy than having a chunk missing out of the corner anyway.



Anything else involving paint is going to have to wait a while anyway as it's going to be too cold this week it looks like for anything to cure properly.

Again impressed by what should be a ten minute job actually being a ten minute job. It's kind of refreshing.

I hadn't noticed that - looking at a few of the photos I have here I think they may just be a neutral white like the bumpers at the moment.

EDIT: I was wrong, they're just a natural aluminium finish it looks like.


Given there tended to be a bit of a difference between the various materials on the car from the factory, if it were resprayed and everything matched perfectly I think it might look a bit odd actually. So I don't mind there being a bit of a really subtle two-tone look going on so long as all of the various parts involved match each other.

It's kind of hard to tell what colour the car will actually look after it's properly cleaned anyway as the paint is hilariously badly oxidised. I suspect it may well darken down quite a bit when polished.

I doubt I'll end up looking at painting the whole car, it's never going to be a concourse example and so long as it looks reasonably tidy and cared for rather than neglected I'll be happy.

-- -- --

Had another quick win in terms of ticking something else off the to do list this afternoon as this little (surprisingly heavy) box arrived this morning, vastly overpacked in a container the size of a large shoebox.



This is the dip/main beam toggle relay for the Trabant. The one on the car was dead meaning that the headlights only worked on dipped beam.

Simple matter of undoing the two 8mm mounting bolts, unplugging the wires and then reversing the process. I did remove the one bolt that holds the fuse box in to hinge it out of the way just to make access a bit easier. You can absolutely do it without this step but as it takes about 20 seconds I figured being able to see what I was doing was worth that.

The old relay has been unbolted below and was just waiting for me to swap the wiring over - I did this one connector at a time to ensure I didn't get anything crossed over.



Here's what was left of the old one...Not surprising it didn't work.



Quite why someone had dismantled it and completely removed the actuator arm from the solenoid I'll never know.

New one was connected up, bolted in place and the fusebox was re-secured in its correct location.



I can confirm that the headlights now work correctly, toggling between dip and main beam with a very satisfying mechanical "Ka-clack!" noise from the relay when you tap the indicator stalk towards you.



Once the beam height adjustment has been fine tuned and I've swapped out a few blackened looking lamps in the tail lights I think we can tick the lighting systems off the list as done.

Another really quick and simple job which was as simple as it should be. Really helpful that there's such a following for these little cars though that oddball components like this are still readily available. This is obviously at least a somewhat specialised part and while I am sure there's a more modern solution which could be engineered to work, just being able to drop in an original spec part is far easier.

I used a VW Beetle relay on my rewire, because that was the only other vehicle in my experience that used that type of dipswitch. Back in the late 90s Trabant parts were harder to source in the UK than they are now. My only “reliable” source at that time was a fantastically eccentric chap called Graham Goodall, and it would involve lengthy phone calls, the posting of cheques and a fairly long wait. 

Some fancy Western luxury has now been fully installed in the Trabant.





Will have to see how accurately it tracks.

Also found enough of the little plastic clips to properly resecure the little rubber shield over the cooling fan so it doesn't rattle any more.