Luxobarge wrote: ↑Tue Apr 02, 2024 8:13 am
Happy Birthday mate!
Good updates, keep 'em coming.
Thanks!
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In spite of my having picked it up basically as a bit of fun, not really expecting to do a huge amount with it, the Trabant as of yesterday has formally clicked over a thousand miles since it arrived with me at just before Christmas. I hadn't expected to find it getting so much use. I honestly can't see that changing either...
Not a huge amount to report today, just had a couple of half hour chunks free.
The tail light backing plates now both match (and also match the headlight surrounds which were painted yesterday).
My intention is to use that slightly lighter cream colour for the bumpers in due course as well. They're just in white primer at the moment. Though I'm torn on the bumpers somewhat anyway. This car would have originally had the chunkier, square profile type fitted originally which I personally think suits the car a bit better. There should also be an air dam behind the front one which is designed to keep road spray off the carb and alternator (also hides the heat exchanger a bit). That in particular just looks a bit odd with the older style bumpers. It's a low priority job though and would basically be something I looked at if a set turned up cheaply and within collection distance. Paying several hundred quid for a new set just makes no sense. It would be nice, but it's nowhere near that important to me, not worth spending actual money on.
Have been to the post office today to see whether we could get the tax changed to historic, but as I had pretty much expected it looks like I'll need to contact the DVLA directly regarding that. The only date which their computer brings up is the 1999 import date, and there's no option available to them to change the tax class. Sure that will be a barrel of laughs to sort. Will need to wait until a day where I'm feeling particularly patient.
Later on in the day (right before the rain reappeared) I got the front mud flaps fitted. Not least because I was fed up of them getting in the way in the garage. If they're on the car they can't be contributing to clutter!
They will come back off so I can rust proof the wheel arches properly, but it's just four bolts.
I did find some crispiness on the offside front sill bottom which will want sorting at least before next winter. It's about as easy a repair as you could ever ask for though, pretty much all flat and easily accessible. Especially as removing the adjacent carpets and such is a 30 seconds job in this car - and removing interior trim is usually about 90% of the time sink on jobs like this. I'm not really bothered about this, it's just par for the course on a car this age which hasn't seen major work before. This actually looks like an old patch which has reached the end of its life. It will all be sorted properly in due course. Driver's side in the same area is pretty much spotless at least.
Having had a bit of a better crawl under the front/middle of the car, it does by and large look really clean. The frame itself is also way chunkier than I'd have expected on a car of this size. I meant to grab a couple of photos but apparently forgot. If the weather cooperates tomorrow I'll try to grab a couple.
Speaking of photographs, I've caved. As a few relations sent gift vouchers for my birthday, I used that as an excuse to order a proper film scanner, so a Plustek 8200I SE is now on the way. This seems to get very good reviews, pretty much all the criticisms I've seen in reviews is actually pointing at the bundled software (a pretty old version of Silver fast) which I won't be using anyway as I'm already set up with VueScan. Hopefully should be here on Friday.
I took quite a few photos at the show on Sunday using the new (to me) EOS 40D - and discovered that the CF card slot in my card reader doesn't work as one of the pins is broken...I imagine somewhere in my room there is a card with a pin stuck in it! So I'm now waiting on a new one of those to arrive, as I don't have a USB cable for this camera. Curious to see properly how those came out though - there's definitely a learning curve involved in learning to drive that though. It's quite different to any other cameras I've used regularly.