DDK - Die Deutschen Klassiker

This will be a long post...

Some of you have seen my other post a couple of weeks ago when looking for somebody to take on a refresh of my car, I did get some very good advice both on that thread and via pm’s, thanks all! However, I’ve slightly changed my approach as I realized that I’d most likely be without car next summer if doing a proper refurb at one go, so this is what I came up with... pretty optimistic I agree but a good (competent) mate has promised to complete the job, good thing he’s got plenty of space and 2 car lifts at his house.

1. Today Vacation for next week approved 
2. Friday Getting the car to Sweden, 1030 km from Zurich to Kiel, board ferry to Gothenburg. Will be rather cold as its too smokey with the heat on so not really one of those summery drives
3. Saturday Drive 130 km from Gothenburg to Mellerud, hopefully no snow as my +15 year old tires of Nankang's finest won't be the most grippy
4. Sunday Strip front/rear suspension
5. Monday deliver the removed bits and pieces for blasting and coating
6. Tuesday Pull out engine and gearbox, remove whatever need to be removed for repaint of engine bay as at leat the engine bay is going back to Tangerine at this point (mate will bring car to painter aft my departure).
7. Wednesday-Thursday Spending time cleanup and coat various parts of the chassis where the suspension components go back. Collect suspension from blasting/coating.
8. Friday Start assembling bushes shocks etc
9. Saturday Fly down to Lugano for a well deserved dinner/pissup with wife and good mates 
10. Mate to complete everything else that I've messed up or overseen until Summer 2015 

Some prep work done the last couple of weeks, yes I know clicking the buy button is the easy part...
- All rubber bushes from Elephant Racing
- Front and rear Bilstein B6 sport dampers
- Front Alfa 75 (Brembo) alu callipers sent to classicbrake.co.uk for refurb, these are “supposed” to be a straight swap on the struts with small caliper mounting ears, has same piston diameter as the originals but has bigger swept pad area. I’m aware of the non-originality but a) I was running out of time to get a set of 3.5” struts (would have preferred 3.2 Carrera caliper/disc b) they do look pretty period c) they were cheap enough

Still to do
- Buy drop link bushes
- Buy f/r flexible brake hoses (where can one buy good quality rubber like ATE?)
- Buy complete set of hard brake lines, thinking steel for originality, any reason not to?

Just thought I’d put the plan in writing as a push to myself to get it finished before summer 2015. Anyway, I’m sure I’ve overseen a lot so please don’t be afraid of enlighten me.

Now that is what I call a vacation! sounds great! car looks very nice too.
best of luck
Will

Sounds like a plan!

Best of luck Magnus and hope it all goes swimmingly!

Thanks for the "good lucks", I'll most likely need 'em... It's certainly my type of vacation, not so much my wife's but she approved for a week as long as I'd join for dinner the following saturday, so a deal was done .

Nothing like a bit of pressure

Good luck with it all Magnus . In a strange way it looks really good with the non s bumper in primer against the other paint. So is the plan for the whole car to go orange at some point ?

Go go Magnus!

Thanks! Yes all car is supposed to go back to orange at one point but I think it's a bit too involving for this winter. I keep telling myself that if I can limit it to getting the mechanicals sound over this winter I'll be able to use over the summer. I guess one never knows just how involving things will be until its all ripped appart... It won't help that I'll be based in Dubai from Jan on either, maybe paint the next winter...
Cheers

Vacation update

Arrived in Sweden in a pretty dirty state


Proper clean before pulling things apart


Stripped, didn't hide too many surprises


Parts sent off for blasting and coating today

Thought I'd mention that I'm looking for one rear bushing holder for the front a-arms, I've posted pics of the part I'm after in the wanted section.

All things are not really on track as one could expect with such a tight schedule, the powder coating company experienced some trouble with their blasting equipment so those parts will arrive on Sunday, which means my mate will have to assemble it all by himself.

I have got some parts back (parts which the powder coating company wouldn't touch) from blasting and coating in 2-pack, the finish is ok concidering they're a company usually doing agricultural stuff.


Also got some stuff back from the zink plater, looks really good to me, now I just regret that I didn't clean and sent off more stuff.

All 4 corners have been prepped and coated


New turbo tie rods has been fitted, anyone who can direct me to an adjustment procedure of the rack? I've not opened up any of the 2 covers yet but I expect some shims or adjustment nuts for the pre tension??

Some positive news,
- New Bilstein shocks has finally arrived, front yellow and rears green for some reason that I think have to do with the 12mm lower mounting on the rears...
- New Bosch F/R brake hoses has arrived and a full set of ready made steel brake lines for 45 EUR must be the bargain of the year.
- All the parts are back from the powder coating company who's normally producing towing systems for cars and trucks, apparently 10 dips in different baths are included before the coating itself. They did a quad bike some 10 years ago for me and it's stood up very well with none of the common peel/flaking usually associated with powder. That it all came for the price of 2 bottles of whiskey didn't hurt either and it somewhat offsets the cost of the (in my world) expensive elephant racing bushes
- 2x new rear wheel bearings has arrived
- 4x new drive shaft boots has arrived, I'm gladly letting my mate clean the joints and do the assembly. Its fair to say that this is not something I miss from my days as a car mechanic

And some less good news...
- The steering rack couldn't be refitted as I realized the the rubber coupler was a bit worn so have ordered a new one today.
- I ordered the wrong rubber bushes for the front camber plates so new ones has been ordered, the incorrect ones for pre -70 cars will come up in the for sale section at some point.

The back end is pretty much ready to go together, but I'm back down in Swissy so mate has to do that when he's got a moment, only waiting for some hand brake cables. Front end to follow in a week or two.

Tell you what Magnus your shell looks bloody solid which is even more of a great result

Magnus that's going to be great; so nice to see a deep maintenance project documented. Gives hope to the rolling resto cause.

Tom, yes the shell is pretty solid and that's the reason that I bought the car in the first place, I realized that my budget didn't stretch to a healthy E or S so prioritized body before nice MFI engine... I only had to weld 2 coin sized holes in the front left inner wing before coating it with under seal, used 16 packs of that grey stuff for the 4 corners but really need to find something cheeper but equally good before doing the rest of the floor. Maybe next year...

Andy, yes there's still hope for the rolling resto's, I wish I'd been in a position to do it in a more proper way but I'm not. At least getting the underside in shape now will let me use it for a few more years without much further degradation.

Still dreaming about a more peppy engine and fresh tangerine paint, maybe there's still time

Cheers