This morning I got an email informing me that my parcel from Trabantwelt had arrived at my local Parcel Force depot and would be released for delivery once the customs charge had been paid, which I could do through their online portal. Details on that charge would be sent to me...in a posted letter. All I needed to pay the charge was a reference number...which was not in the email. Why send me an email telling me you're sending a letter?!? Either include the reference number I need in the email, or just send the letter.
I figured I'd nothing to lose so set off to the depot with my ID and reference numbers to see if it could be dealt with in person rather than waiting for the letter, which I doubt I'll be seeing this side of January.
Thankfully the gent there (who also agreed it's a daft way of doing things in this day and age) was able to look everything up so we were able to get it paid up and the parcel could be released. Even better, they were happy to just hand it over to me rather than having to wait for delivery.
So a happy resolution at least. Even if paying £70 in customs charges on top of a £250 order that I'd already paid £35 shipping on did sting a little. That at least I was braced for.
Oooh, goodies.
The vast bulk of what's in here is door and window seals. I'll maybe get a chance to go after the door seals at the weekend, but the window ones will need to wait a while. There were some smaller bits and pieces though which I could put into play in a matter of a few minutes.
First up being dealing with this aftermarket switch on the dash.
This was for a fog light which looks to have long since vanished, so it's basically just acting as a safe termination block for the wiring at present. It was previously prevented from disappearing into the dash with a very liberal application of electrical tape.
It's now been replaced with something which actually fits in the dash properly.
That is a switch for a later model hence the symbol being in the wrong place and the switch being black rather than yellow or green, but I think you'll agree it's an improvement. Hoping down the line I'll be able to get hold of one that's actually the exact correct type for the car.
I'm unlikely to ever really have a use for a stereo in this car as it's just too noisy. So I had ordered up the factory blanking plate which fills the gap it otherwise leaves in the dash. I think this really is more in keeping with the somewhat minimalist ethos of the car too.
Feels like we're starting to get somewhere now tidying up the interior, if we compare to the day the car was collected.
A brand correct keyring is always a must, where I can find one anyway. When you have too many cars like I do it's also actually helpful in identifying them at a glance from the far side of the table or when fishing them out of a pocket.
Also on the subject of branding, the missing badge on the bonnet has now been reinstated.
Which tidies things up from the front far more than you'd expect. Though I still need to remove and fill the hole left by that one bolt. Now the adhesive holding the bonnet latch assembly to the panel has fully cured it's redundant.
The car was out and about quite a bit today (prior to getting any of the new bits fitted).
Have to say that for such a small and light car she seems far less phased by the wind than I expected, It's been quite breezy here today.
You definitely know it's a breezy day, but I was expecting such a small car to get blown around on the road far more than this one seems to.
Yesterday afternoon another pair of parts I'd recently ordered turned up.
A little modification will needed to fit these as the original lights have the sidelight lamp holder attached to the bracket which holds the main lamp in rather than being separate like on these, so I'll need to snip that wire and add a terminal. Not exactly difficult.
Once these are fitted there will be no further need for ugly stick on beam deflectors or shenanigans with the lights being aimed stupidly low to avoid dazzling oncoming traffic. We'll see what the voltages actually delivered at the headlights looks like, if it's a bit feeble I'll look at installing some local relays to take the load off the switches etc. Though the wiring all seems reasonably substantial looking so hopefully it will be fine.
