It is really fun seeing you applying western rigor and principles to a Trabant engine. My grandfather had one (combi), used it to carry up to 400 kg of stuff in it an on top of it (making any hill a major challenge). What I can tell you for sure this is not how you do authentic Trabant repair. 1. The natural state of the Trabant is broken. A trabant should be fixed only when it is 100% unusable and only to the point of barely working. 2. Wipers, lights, exhaust, electric starter are all capitalist inventions not necessary to a real comrade! A real Trabant man knows how to push start a Trabant and jump into it while it is moving. 3. You only fix the Trabant with your friends, whilst drinking heavily! This is part of the reason for owning a Trabant! 4. The ONLY adequate spare parts used for a Trabant are well aged parts off an other Trabant! 5. The proper way to make Trabant gaskets is with a pair of scissors out of cardboard or aluminum. 6. All things on the trabant can be held together with steel wire (including wheels if they decide to fall off). 7. Premix must always be made by eye, never by any form of measurement. If you can see the car behind you, you need more oil! 8. You should never be upset when a Trabant breaks down (see first bullet point). Anyway, congrats on your enormous amount of patience! I am sure it is going to work for a few days and break again soon after.
This may sound like a joke but this guy's actually right in almost all of the points. Only point 8 is untrue. A broken car is always upsetting. Especially if it breaks down on some village road in Bulgaria during vacation trip abroad.
"5. The proper way to make Trabant gaskets is with a pair of scissors out of cardboard or aluminum." Not for head gaskets, in America we use the "Green Acres" method taught to us by Zsa Zsa Gabor (It has to be authentic, she's Hungarian). ruclips.net/video/5ae4NDjHr4Y/видео.html
I know it's a joke comment, but an electric car of the era would have to be shock-full of lead batteries and would only struggle to carry that dead weight on a few dozens ofs kilometers at city speed. The Trabant was a people's car so people living in the countryside would want better range than the 50 km that most electric cars of the 50's and 60's offered. Also, I'm not sure that the GDR power grid could have handled millions (they sold 2.8 millions of them, I mean, regular petrol Trabant )of electric Trabant being plugged to recharge all night.
@@andreim841 sure. Trabant, Wartburg, IFA-Trucks, Ikarus-Busses, for example. I wouldn't call that original Hungarian, but they're (except Ikarus) east German and very well integrated in HU (ok, there wasn't an other option at that time).
Yay! Hubnut and Aging Wheels featuring each other in their videos! If more channels do this, you can team up! Like the Avengers! Ok, that was a bit silly, sorry...
My uncle used to have a Trabant 25 years ago, he used to work on it a lot and I helped as much as a 5 year old could while learning stuff about tools.. this series is bringing back some nostalgia to me, thank you :)
As an old mechanic I have a hard time watching some U-Tube guys work, by I rarely ever cringe watching what you do...except for pulling the trans to the crank-case with a power tool. OMG never do that, always do it slowly by hand. You can break an ear off the trans case as easy as that piston ring cracked. Can't wait to see 'er fire up!
Never a dull moment. One other question. Are you going to shoot a new "Take Off" scene with the Trabant once done? Love the progress. Thank you for your videos.
Have to agree here Robert. Your old videos with the original take off scene and the new improved launch sequence after the rebuild for all future videos
I remember watching it when it came out. Now i rewatch the whole series and it's got to be one of the best aids in restoring my own engine, alongside service book and asking friends how did they do some things. Thanks for sharing all of the knowledge i need
You can turn hardened steel or lathe or mill . You just need the tools and knowledge for it . Or you can make a new hardened steel sealing part. If it doesn't work like this , give the part to ED to bring it to Hungary. I live in Romania about 200mile from Budapest . I have a machine shop. PS : if you say that you can't make it or fix It you are not a machinist ( but the price to repair can be more than just buying a new part)
Yeah, I was going to say you might need to run the machine slower, or if hard enough inserts made for it, but turning hardened parts is not that bad. Before I switched jobs I did it regularly.
as nice as it is to watch certified mechanics tear into cars and repair them with knowledge and the right tools. it is nice to see another average joe who is as DIY as myself do it. and folks, if you are mechanically inclined enough, you can do many repairs yourself. if you dont feel confident and dont have enough to just buy all new like the video maker here can, take the blasted thing into a mechanic. most shops will work on a part for you, and most will like the fact youve done the hard work of tearing it out. because if any have learned watching these videos, its the tear down that takes the longest.
@@Colaholiker write it down as the swiss are doing it: Scheisse They don't really use the ß. A really nice German swear word to begin with, in every dialectal region it's heavy in usage. Great choice!
Watching this series from east Germany must be like if you where watching a german guy rebuild a american engine. I love the dedication you spend on this car.
not really, watchin ga german try to work on an american car would not involve phrases like "i just bought a new one because they're cheap" it woudl also involve a lot more swearing.
Robert, thank you for continued progress on the Trabant. I was in Germany in 1987 and spent one day in what was East Berlin at the time. I saw these cars all over the city. This brings back great memories.
I will probably die before ever seing one, but I really like the "Rebuild the Trabant engine for the masses". Working with the car engine on your lap is amazing.
I've rebuilt quite a few jet ski (2 stroke) engines and always used over-sized zip ties to hold the piston rings in place while mounting the cylinder heads. Works like a charm!
I had never heard of a Trabant before watching this channel. Now I know that I don't want one. However you are a very interesting person. I still have no idea of how I found this channel but I'm glad I did. Thanks for posting...…………….
*Loving your videos! I'm from Poland, so used to see this car often, but that was years ago. Now I can't wait to see this Trabant running! It brings back memories!*
I live in Eastern Europe. When I was a kid, Trabants were pretty common, along with Dacia, our national brand. Although my dad never had a Trabant, I remember the times when I'd help him rebuild the engine of his car. Fascinating stuff.
I live within an hour of you, it's always cool to see someone close to me doing stuff like this! I'd love to come out and check out your collection one day.
I still see a Trabant from time to time. It's either some Trabant enthusiasts that let me know that with stickers on their Trabants saying so, or ancient couples from some nearby village driving here for shopping. Hope you'll take yours to the rallycross track again, to compare the experience with the previous one.
In the air-cooled VW world... Using permatex 3h is the sealer of choice. It does not harden, doesn't clog oil galleries and cleans off easily. Its a bit late now but may be handy next time you have to take the engine apart (because we all know there will be a next time!) Love your work. Keep it up. www.permatex.com/products/gasketing/gasket-sealants/permatex-aviation-form-a-gasket-no-3-sealant-liquid/
Back when I was in highschool my german teacher always talked about a trabant he bought in germany and always wanted to import but couldn't because of government regulations. That's been so many years ago I'm curious if he ever got it stateside under the 25 year rule. He had a huge collection of cars and used to race in the great race every year.
While watching you do this project, I was amazed at just how fun it is to watch and listen to someone ELSE find constant little problems, quirks, mis-assemblies, wtf's, aarrgghh's, and where the heck did that roll off too's. I hate working on cars. Every car seems to have different socket and wrench requirements. Some even have metric AND standard AND torx ON THE SAME CAR!
One thing you can do when putting in the little clips on the pistons, is to stuff a rag inside the housing. So if you drop one of those clips they don't fall inside the engine. Which is a pain in the neck. Ask me how I know ;D
Thanks for the fun! BTW US mechanics call the Gudgeon pin a wrist pin. (never heard a wrist pin called a Gudgeon pin) I have pintle and Gudgeon pins on the rudder of my sail boat. I learn something new every day.
I once had a 1965 beetle with a 6 volt system. Long and short is that once that engine is out replacing the generator is an extremely good idea. They really don't hold up very well at all
Robert, have you been introduced to Loctite, specifically the blue nut-lock? Much preferable to lock-washer stuff. And ... anti-seize for steel-aluminum thread interfaces, like sparking plugs (UK-ism there). Caution: red Loctite (for studs) and green (sleeve-retainer) NOT to be interchanged with blue, for hopefully obvious reasons. Wanna see this beast on a dyno.
I just want to know are you going to turn the pit into a workout area? That way you can beef up and be able to lift the Trabant engine and transmission together effortlessly
If it helps, a tip for fitting gearboxes in any circumstances, get a couple of bolts with the correct thread for the crankcase, cut the heads off and cut a slot across the end that's left to take a flat blade screwdriver. Wind these studs into the block by hand, slide the gearbox onto the studs and into place, fit remaining bolts, remove the studs and fit the last two bolts. These studs will help take some of the load, help with alignment and generally make the job a doddle. :)
I am sorry to hear that you got the crankshaft from Hungary, because the reconditioned crankshafts here are literally garbage. There are maybe 2 workshops who make acceptable parts, everything else is only good for being a paper weight. A few years ago I had to change my crakshaft 5 times within a 2 years period, because something always happened with them, in one case it literally came apart in the middle (where it should've been pushed together like hell - well, not this one). So the 2 workshops with good quality are called "Mihályfi" and "Nyitrai". Everything else is a huge gamble. The grooves at the rotary valve surface are not necessarily a problem, the valve and that surface will wear together very quickly and it can still function, and the oil also behaves as a sealant. What you should really check is the "thickness" difference between the inner (next to the bearings) and outer arc of that surface. If the outer one is significantly larger than the inner, then it's worn, regardless of the grooves. By the way, here's a video on how to fix the grooves at the rotary valves' surface: ruclips.net/video/uDzKJYq-ERQ/видео.html
You might want to find another machine shop. (3:25) Turning a hardened bearing is difficult but not impossible. They just didn't want to do it. A cylindrical grinder could have knocked that material off in 15 minutes. Not many shops have those grinders but they do have electro-discharge machines (EDMs). An EDM (wire or conventional) could have burned that excess material off in no time. I did that kinda machining in the aerospace industry for 40 years. Almost every job required thinking outside the box.
I mean, he could have roughed it out on a bench grinder, and had a shop put it on a surface grinder for about a minute until flat-ish. It doesn't need to be turned at all....
For future reference ThreeBond 1211 is the best rtv to use when mating the two crank cases together, and you never want to just glop a whole bunch on since when you squeeze the two halves together some will inevitably squeeze into the crank case of the engine. It can cause problem later if you have big clumps of rtv in the crank case area, can clog the ports or get stuck in things. Anyway thats just some things I've learned from rebuilding 2 stroke jet ski engines that appear to be very similar in design.
Watching him rebuild the engine and assembling the Pistons, especially putting the Rings in place, it reminded me how a friend of mine "repaired" the Piston on his Jawa 250cc motorcycle. He too had to take off the cylinder head and replace a piston, can't recall why though. In any case, while he put the piston back unto the rod, he dropped the piston-rod CLIP into the casing, well he thought that it would fall unto the lowest point and cause no problems, so he took another clip , put that in its place, finished the the job. Since the Jawa was also a communist-build two stoke bike, it had a kick-starter, he tried to start it, the engine run a couple of seconds and went out with a *BANG* . Literally we could hear how the piston came to a grinding halt because somehow the ring he thought would just lay *low*, was ejected into the the Cylinder-head and between it and the piston. He had to replace the head a couple of weeks later, since it took quiet a time to get a replacement. "Never leave any washers or rings inside the casing of engine" was a very harsh lesson he learned the hard way.... The Jawa was one motorcycle most people in Austria wouldn't want to be found on it..
@@agingwheels The translation is perfect. It's a thing we say whenever Hungary is mentioned in a video or post that is not hungarian. I don't know who was the legend who wanted to sell his boiler, but since that everyone wants to sell theirs. :)
@@agingwheels It is an old joke, here is the solution: knowyourmeme.com/memes/bojler-elado Kovács dies. His widow asks the best friend of the family, Szabó, to request an obituary notice but a short one so it would cost less. Szabó goes to post the obituary notice and dictates the following text: "Kovács died." The administrator looks to him surprised: "Is it that short? The price is the same up to 5 words." "Alright fine: Kovács died. Boiler for sale." Greetings from Hungary :), I love your channel :D
Try saying 'megszentségteleníthetetlenségeskedéseitekért' :D.Once you can say that, you are an officially approved Hungarian speaker. Also that Trabant will be one of the few left that have actually been cared for.
It is really fun seeing you applying western rigor and principles to a Trabant engine. My grandfather had one (combi), used it to carry up to 400 kg of stuff in it an on top of it (making any hill a major challenge). What I can tell you for sure this is not how you do authentic Trabant repair.
1. The natural state of the Trabant is broken. A trabant should be fixed only when it is 100% unusable and only to the point of barely working.
2. Wipers, lights, exhaust, electric starter are all capitalist inventions not necessary to a real comrade! A real Trabant man knows how to push start a Trabant and jump into it while it is moving.
3. You only fix the Trabant with your friends, whilst drinking heavily! This is part of the reason for owning a Trabant!
4. The ONLY adequate spare parts used for a Trabant are well aged parts off an other Trabant!
5. The proper way to make Trabant gaskets is with a pair of scissors out of cardboard or aluminum.
6. All things on the trabant can be held together with steel wire (including wheels if they decide to fall off).
7. Premix must always be made by eye, never by any form of measurement. If you can see the car behind you, you need more oil!
8. You should never be upset when a Trabant breaks down (see first bullet point).
Anyway, congrats on your enormous amount of patience! I am sure it is going to work for a few days and break again soon after.
You win the Internet today!
This may sound like a joke but this guy's actually right in almost all of the points. Only point 8 is untrue. A broken car is always upsetting. Especially if it breaks down on some village road in Bulgaria during vacation trip abroad.
"5. The proper way to make Trabant gaskets is with a pair of scissors out of cardboard or aluminum."
Not for head gaskets, in America we use the "Green Acres" method taught to us by Zsa Zsa Gabor (It has to be authentic, she's Hungarian).
ruclips.net/video/5ae4NDjHr4Y/видео.html
Then jalopy is sure the virtual experiencie of the trabant ownership.
AndiB, point 5 … aluminium ?? you decadent westerner …. haha
Wow he actually pronounced Budapest perfectly.
Also bojler eladó!
A surprise to be sure, but a welcome one.
hogyé adod a bojlert?
Yeah, that's what I noticed too. Nice of him, many Americans just don't give a f***
@@neubauer.p Egy tucat nem lopott dugattyúgyűrűért viheted!
@@Orcman666 adok érte egy zseb szart, de ez a legjobb ajánlatom :D
"Looked as though it had been slightly on fire at some point"
That's Tavarish's mating call
looking at the size of the starter motor makes me question why they didn't just make the trabant electric.
It would be faster but starter motors overheat quick
a starter for this engine is made cheaper if it doesn't have to be engineered as compact as newer starters
older starters were direct, they have planetary gear reduction now, so smaller motors
Newer starters are cheaper to build, only reason they use them @@9102jack
I know it's a joke comment, but an electric car of the era would have to be shock-full of lead batteries and would only struggle to carry that dead weight on a few dozens ofs kilometers at city speed.
The Trabant was a people's car so people living in the countryside would want better range than the 50 km that most electric cars of the 50's and 60's offered.
Also, I'm not sure that the GDR power grid could have handled millions (they sold 2.8 millions of them, I mean, regular petrol Trabant )of electric Trabant being plugged to recharge all night.
Imagine the customs be like...
"sir, what do you carry in that heavy bag?"
"ah, just a new Trabant crankcase"
lol
"Gut'n'tight" Yes, that's a wonderful measurement. I love that.
Weird when an American orders parts from my home town, Budapest.
It's usually the other way round. :D
Well, hungarians do know to make a Dollar (or some Forints) out of their heritage.
Snap - a heritage brought by germans. Always those germans...
@@BreakingBrick Germans and Hungarians share no heritage...
@@andreim841 sure. Trabant, Wartburg, IFA-Trucks, Ikarus-Busses, for example.
I wouldn't call that original Hungarian, but they're (except Ikarus) east German and very well integrated in HU (ok, there wasn't an other option at that time).
I thought is there something weird, as i saw is there a f*cking magyar rendszám on the index picture. 😂
@@andreim841 Was the Austrian/Hungarian thing not near enough?
WAIT DID YOU SAY ROTARY
Rotary valve* it is a two stroke and the fuel and air enters the crankcase when the rotary valve opens as it is not a reed valve or piston port engine
rotary valves are powerful and compact compared to normal piston valves, but less durable and reliable
(RX8 happy noises)
The most anticipated series on RUclips of 2019!!
Great stuff. Can't wait to hear that little motor run. What a lovely T-shirt. ;-)
Yay! Hubnut and Aging Wheels featuring each other in their videos! If more channels do this, you can team up! Like the Avengers!
Ok, that was a bit silly, sorry...
What? Hub Nut and Aging Wheels in the same room? What Is this, a crossover episode?
@@pepitosbazzeguti1073 I recorded a live stream today in an Aging Wheels T-shirt.
My uncle used to have a Trabant 25 years ago, he used to work on it a lot and I helped as much as a 5 year old could while learning stuff about tools.. this series is bringing back some nostalgia to me, thank you :)
There is supposed to be a grunt before you say "click!"
And you can't forget to engage your safety squints.
AvE has created new vocabulary
Love this! Good und tight!
@Paolo G Bolts, but you're right.
Even the slightest grunt will either snap or strip the screws
As an old mechanic I have a hard time watching some U-Tube guys work, by I rarely ever cringe watching what you do...except for pulling the trans to the crank-case with a power tool. OMG never do that, always do it slowly by hand. You can break an ear off the trans case as easy as that piston ring cracked. Can't wait to see 'er fire up!
yes ive seen damage from power tools, people need to get back to hand tools for the feel
very true interlink
How about hammering the bearing and pulley on the end of an unsupported, pressed together crankshaft.
@@jusb1066 damn right they do.
@@jusb1066 My current engine rebuild was disassembled and reassembled using all hand tools. I can't imagine using a power tool on your engine.
18:44 AvE torque technique applied, well done.
* The looks you get from a non mechanic when they hear you grunt and say "click, Been say'n it since the mid 70's.
Thanks for the video Robert, always nice to watch and I also like your dry sense of humor!
Robert is both a goof and entertaining.
Never a dull moment. One other question. Are you going to shoot a new "Take Off" scene with the Trabant once done? Love the progress. Thank you for your videos.
Have to agree here Robert.
Your old videos with the original take off scene and the new improved launch sequence after the rebuild for all future videos
He'll not want to wear it out by thrashing the old car like that!
I remember watching it when it came out. Now i rewatch the whole series and it's got to be one of the best aids in restoring my own engine, alongside service book and asking friends how did they do some things. Thanks for sharing all of the knowledge i need
140 likes and 0 dislikes. Everyone loves your car!
Anyone that dislikes this is a low life troll
@Rex Gustavus Adolphus I am a West German Citizen with a VW (Passat not Beetle) and gave Thumbs Up Nr. 593.
829*
@Rex Gustavus Adolphus the wars over buddy, we can all go home now they say.
1.8k likes 4 dislikes
You can turn hardened steel or lathe or mill . You just need the tools and knowledge for it . Or you can make a new hardened steel sealing part.
If it doesn't work like this , give the part to ED to bring it to Hungary. I live in Romania about 200mile from Budapest .
I have a machine shop.
PS : if you say that you can't make it or fix It you are not a machinist ( but the price to repair can be more than just buying a new part)
Yeah, I was going to say you might need to run the machine slower, or if hard enough inserts made for it, but turning hardened parts is not that bad. Before I switched jobs I did it regularly.
CBN insert ar for hard stuff.
Gone are the days of a proper machinist in America. Most are button pushers and computer nerds.
A grinder would have done the trick... with a belt sander for a nice finish.
Thank you for taking g the words right from my mouth lmao
Have been waiting for this so much :)
how the fuck did u post that comment when the video was published 50 minutes ago? :p
@@Henge2000 patreon?
That wait is nothing compared to how long people had to wait for the Trabant back then :D
I have to tell you, your channel is one of my favourites on RUclips. Keep it up, cpt Bob! Greetings from Italy 🙂
as nice as it is to watch certified mechanics tear into cars and repair them with knowledge and the right tools. it is nice to see another average joe who is as DIY as myself do it.
and folks, if you are mechanically inclined enough, you can do many repairs yourself. if you dont feel confident and dont have enough to just buy all new like the video maker here can, take the blasted thing into a mechanic. most shops will work on a part for you, and most will like the fact youve done the hard work of tearing it out. because if any have learned watching these videos, its the tear down that takes the longest.
If he is done with the car, he will be able to speak german fluently!
I just hope the FBI ain't arresting him for socialistic tendancies :P
@@desroin only if he manage it to speak it with saxonian, thuringian or other mid-german dialect.
You mean: able to swear in German fluently.
Americans learn "Scheiße" pretty fast. Even if there is a character they don't know inside. :o)
@@Colaholiker write it down as the swiss are doing it:
Scheisse
They don't really use the ß.
A really nice German swear word to begin with, in every dialectal region it's heavy in usage.
Great choice!
Watching this series from east Germany must be like if you where watching a german guy rebuild a american engine. I love the dedication you spend on this car.
not really, watchin ga german try to work on an american car would not involve phrases like "i just bought a new one because they're cheap"
it woudl also involve a lot more swearing.
Finally! It’s adorable little heart is back together
I lost you for a while. Then I got a RUclips recommendation for "Rebuilding the Trabant's Engine" - I subscribed immediately. I am now whole again.
The great deal of sarcasm really makes the videos.
I love that there's a secret network of Trabant owners across the world, bending over backwards for one another to keep the cars running.
Robert, thank you for continued progress on the Trabant. I was in Germany in 1987 and spent one day in what was East Berlin at the time. I saw these cars all over the city. This brings back great memories.
I will probably die before ever seing one, but I really like the "Rebuild the Trabant engine for the masses". Working with the car engine on your lap is amazing.
I've rebuilt quite a few jet ski (2 stroke) engines and always used over-sized zip ties to hold the piston rings in place while mounting the cylinder heads. Works like a charm!
Your videos are the only ones I dont skip ahead to find the interesting bits.
The camera work in this was on point! Great job man!
not only have I not seen a Trabant up close, but prior to finding your videos, I'd never even heard of one before.
Love this.
Were the washers that fell out of the crankshaft assembly at 6:30 important? Sorry if I missed something.
Those were just shims to hold the rotary valves in place. Nothing important
Was wondering the same. The washers probably were there to temporary hold the "rotary valves".
Was also wondering - lol :)
I had never heard of a Trabant before watching this channel. Now I know that I don't want one. However you are a very interesting person. I still have no idea of how I found this channel but I'm glad I did. Thanks for posting...…………….
*Loving your videos! I'm from Poland, so used to see this car often, but that was years ago. Now I can't wait to see this Trabant running! It brings back memories!*
Polak, Wegier, dwa bratanki, i do szabli, i do szklanki!
That Trabant is going to be looking good with a new set of jugs! Good to see you back turning wrenches.
I got an ad for swedish ebay right after the broken pistonring.
Do you mean blocket?
@@davidhansson7041 i mean tradera. Used to be owned by ebay but when ebay and paypal split, paypal got tradera. Blocket is nothing like ebay.
Oh, okay
I live in Eastern Europe. When I was a kid, Trabants were pretty common, along with Dacia, our national brand. Although my dad never had a Trabant, I remember the times when I'd help him rebuild the engine of his car. Fascinating stuff.
I have a really stressful day ahead of me at work and seeing this video pop up cheered me up immensely. Always look forward to new uploads from AW.
Ed is the man, coming to US to send it. Really a nice guy!
I don't have a Trabant and don't want one. But for some reason I love watching your videos. Keep up the great work!
I learned a lot from rebuilding my Trabant engine when I was 16, my first car ever :D
That VinWiki sticker fits so well height-wise on the table.
I live within an hour of you, it's always cool to see someone close to me doing stuff like this! I'd love to come out and check out your collection one day.
Im pretty sure the arrows on the pistons have to point towards the exhaust side of the engine at 10:59
Why?
@@ilijazivanovic3698 Because the piston pin is not centered in the piston, it has a small offset to reduce forces on the cylinder wall.
Well thanks for going through the trouble of rebuilding rather than replacing. It is cool to see the insides of that!
I still see a Trabant from time to time. It's either some Trabant enthusiasts that let me know that with stickers on their Trabants saying so, or ancient couples from some nearby village driving here for shopping. Hope you'll take yours to the rallycross track again, to compare the experience with the previous one.
Can’t wait for part 4!!! Live on little trabbi in America
“Now we’re ready for the marriage ceremony! Hopefully” great video robert
I was anticipating someone saying "LS swap that pile!" However, I will break the mold and say, Briggs and Stratton that pile! Good luck with it!
In the air-cooled VW world... Using permatex 3h is the sealer of choice. It does not harden, doesn't clog oil galleries and cleans off easily. Its a bit late now but may be handy next time you have to take the engine apart (because we all know there will be a next time!)
Love your work. Keep it up.
www.permatex.com/products/gasketing/gasket-sealants/permatex-aviation-form-a-gasket-no-3-sealant-liquid/
All the German engines I worked on called for green loctite.
All hail to the... fearless Trabant mechanic! My hats off to you! Oh, I don't have a hat...
Back when I was in highschool my german teacher always talked about a trabant he bought in germany and always wanted to import but couldn't because of government regulations. That's been so many years ago I'm curious if he ever got it stateside under the 25 year rule. He had a huge collection of cars and used to race in the great race every year.
I still cannot believe how much I enjoy watching you work on a car 😉
Yay... you have one of Ian's Tee shirts on... Go HubNut.. (Phil - UK) ..
While watching you do this project, I was amazed at just how fun it is to watch and listen to someone ELSE find constant little problems, quirks, mis-assemblies, wtf's, aarrgghh's, and where the heck did that roll off too's. I hate working on cars. Every car seems to have different socket and wrench requirements. Some even have metric AND standard AND torx ON THE SAME CAR!
13:48 "That's one ringy dingy. That's two ringy dingies." Who's old enough to remember Lily Tomlin on Laugh-In?
Jim Fortune All of us retired guys, that's who!
Nice job.
New shiny bits are always a spirit lifter.
That is until you break it and have to wait 3 weeks for a new new bit.
One thing you can do when putting in the little clips on the pistons, is to stuff a rag inside the housing. So if you drop one of those clips they don't fall inside the engine. Which is a pain in the neck. Ask me how I know ;D
Thanks for the fun! BTW US mechanics call the Gudgeon pin a wrist pin. (never heard a wrist pin called a Gudgeon pin) I have pintle and Gudgeon pins on the rudder of my sail boat. I learn something new every day.
I once had a 1965 beetle with a 6 volt system. Long and short is that once that engine is out replacing the generator is an extremely good idea. They really don't hold up very well at all
What a good feel to hear Hungary from a guy living in the USA. Just to be sure: I am a hungarian guy!
Click, Ohhh no!!!!
Yes i heard that many times, knew what was going on right away lol.
Robert, have you been introduced to Loctite, specifically the blue nut-lock? Much preferable to lock-washer stuff. And ... anti-seize for steel-aluminum thread interfaces, like sparking plugs (UK-ism there). Caution: red Loctite (for studs) and green (sleeve-retainer) NOT to be interchanged with blue, for hopefully obvious reasons. Wanna see this beast on a dyno.
I just want to know are you going to turn the pit into a workout area? That way you can beef up and be able to lift the Trabant engine and transmission together effortlessly
Great stuff.
I’m a little tired of watching LS motors come out of crates.
Now I know what makes a trabant tick, or more correctly ‘tack tack tack’.
I see you using AvE’s torque spanner...
If it helps, a tip for fitting gearboxes in any circumstances, get a couple of bolts with the correct thread for the crankcase, cut the heads off and cut a slot across the end that's left to take a flat blade screwdriver. Wind these studs into the block by hand, slide the gearbox onto the studs and into place, fit remaining bolts, remove the studs and fit the last two bolts. These studs will help take some of the load, help with alignment and generally make the job a doddle. :)
I am sorry to hear that you got the crankshaft from Hungary, because the reconditioned crankshafts here are literally garbage. There are maybe 2 workshops who make acceptable parts, everything else is only good for being a paper weight. A few years ago I had to change my crakshaft 5 times within a 2 years period, because something always happened with them, in one case it literally came apart in the middle (where it should've been pushed together like hell - well, not this one).
So the 2 workshops with good quality are called "Mihályfi" and "Nyitrai". Everything else is a huge gamble.
The grooves at the rotary valve surface are not necessarily a problem, the valve and that surface will wear together very quickly and it can still function, and the oil also behaves as a sealant. What you should really check is the "thickness" difference between the inner (next to the bearings) and outer arc of that surface. If the outer one is significantly larger than the inner, then it's worn, regardless of the grooves.
By the way, here's a video on how to fix the grooves at the rotary valves' surface:
ruclips.net/video/uDzKJYq-ERQ/видео.html
You might want to find another machine shop. (3:25) Turning a hardened bearing is difficult but not impossible. They just didn't want to do it.
A cylindrical grinder could have knocked that material off in 15 minutes. Not many shops have those grinders but they do have electro-discharge machines (EDMs). An EDM (wire or conventional) could have burned that excess material off in no time.
I did that kinda machining in the aerospace industry for 40 years. Almost every job required thinking outside the box.
I mean, he could have roughed it out on a bench grinder, and had a shop put it on a surface grinder for about a minute until flat-ish. It doesn't need to be turned at all....
You forgot piston return springs. :)
A Trabant a legegyszerűbb a világon.Nekem is volt 2 darab,és jelenleg is van egy .Imádom,az egyszerűségét.
Robert you are such a tease
I was surprised that you didn't paint the exhaust shroud before replacing it on the engine. Great channel!
It probly doesn’t matter being that is such a low horse power engine but you should have had the flywheel turned at a machine shop
Always respect teachers that show their mistakes. Great video.
OPA
i see a vinwiki sticker on the corner of your bench
:D
It was great seeing you at Cars and Coffee. I didn't even know you lived in Missouri!
9:09 Gesundheit?
Correct german terms are: "Passt, wackelt und hat Luft", "Handfest" und "Mit Schmackes!"
I believe he said "Gut und Tight"
It's not gesundheit, it's good and tight.
Crazy_Borg i think the joke went over your head...
Jan Ferenc gut und tight ist gut genug!
@@Cristobal_Ygnacio_Arriaga Looks like it. A phrase that would be absolutely fitting however is "nach fest kommt ab." After tight comes off.
I really can't wait to see this thing on the road again to see the difference in how it drives.
Ladies and ladies, it is time to break 60 mph in the trabi
For future reference ThreeBond 1211 is the best rtv to use when mating the two crank cases together, and you never want to just glop a whole bunch on since when you squeeze the two halves together some will inevitably squeeze into the crank case of the engine. It can cause problem later if you have big clumps of rtv in the crank case area, can clog the ports or get stuck in things. Anyway thats just some things I've learned from rebuilding 2 stroke jet ski engines that appear to be very similar in design.
continuity error.
Smoking is cool changes to HubNut, in a blink of an eye.
Congratulations Robert. You win 1 Million Bundesmarks for that assembly!
Robert inserty thingies into other things in the society for putting thingies in other thingies.
Watching him rebuild the engine and assembling the Pistons, especially putting the Rings in place, it reminded me how a friend of mine "repaired" the Piston on his Jawa 250cc motorcycle. He too had to take off the cylinder head and replace a piston, can't recall why though. In any case, while he put the piston back unto the rod, he dropped the piston-rod CLIP into the casing, well he thought that it would fall unto the lowest point and cause no problems, so he took another clip , put that in its place, finished the the job. Since the Jawa was also a communist-build two stoke bike, it had a kick-starter, he tried to start it, the engine run a couple of seconds and went out with a *BANG* . Literally we could hear how the piston came to a grinding halt because somehow the ring he thought would just lay *low*, was ejected into the the Cylinder-head and between it and the piston. He had to replace the head a couple of weeks later, since it took quiet a time to get a replacement. "Never leave any washers or rings inside the casing of engine" was a very harsh lesson he learned the hard way.... The Jawa was one motorcycle most people in Austria wouldn't want to be found on it..
I'm seriously going to buy you some GearWrenches. Watching you use take those Craftsman things off and on each bolt drives me nuts
That tool you made is beautiful. You made it for free and it got the job done
Bojler eladó! (If you are hungarian you understand)
I'm not Hungarian, but Google Translate tells me you have a boiler for sale. Either that's a bad translation, or you're very excited about a boiler.
@@agingwheels The translation is perfect. It's a thing we say whenever Hungary is mentioned in a video or post that is not hungarian. I don't know who was the legend who wanted to sell his boiler, but since that everyone wants to sell theirs. :)
@@agingwheels It is an old joke, here is the solution: knowyourmeme.com/memes/bojler-elado
Kovács dies. His widow asks the best friend of the family, Szabó, to request an obituary notice but a short one so it would cost less.
Szabó goes to post the obituary notice and dictates the following text: "Kovács died."
The administrator looks to him surprised: "Is it that short? The price is the same up to 5 words."
"Alright fine: Kovács died. Boiler for sale."
Greetings from Hungary :), I love your channel :D
Érdekel a bojler. Bakkecskére cseréled? :)
8:05, best line ever! torque the engine down to 25 ft lb ft, which is just about what it produces itself! Great stuff.
You should build a wood deck in that hole before you fall and get hurt
This is right up there with Ed March for the 'can't wait for the next episode' factor. Really looking forward to seeing that car go.
Try saying 'megszentségteleníthetetlenségeskedéseitekért' :D.Once you can say that, you are an officially approved Hungarian speaker. Also that Trabant will be one of the few left that have actually been cared for.
Liked for the Hubnut T shirt!
How many people in the States even know what a Trabant is, let alone an Invacar!
That should be his next car!
"Ed" is a typical ancient Hungarian name
this guy needs his own chat show ! I love this youtube channel !
0:33 Im from hungary😂
I like the Trabant episodes. I see forward to hear the engine running again.