"My tool is too big to fit into these crevices, so, instead, I have to use my fingers...and it's gonna be a lot of work!" "Heavy breathing is a requirement." I'm sure she (the Trabant) appreciated it, because she's glowing...
A bold move! 😅 The factory paint is an alkyd resin based (if memory serves me well) single stage paint (what I also used to paint the stairs in my house) 🤣. All I dared to do was a wax by hand with old fashioned hard car wax. The colour on yours is called "Papyrusweiss", Papyrus White. The metal strips you can get very shiny with a polish as well. I'm restoring my Trabant since it has rust in some nasty places. Also upgrading the brakes to Golf 1 and Polo 86c disc brakes. No more hassle with leaky brake cylinders.
The black headlight rims was a very common way to “pimp” your ride in the GDR. I have a “modernized” wartburg and they painted it blue very rough and then painted all the chrome parts black.
hand sanding tip: always apply pressure and move in one direction with the abrasive, going back and forth or in a circular pattern will always leave swirls and scratches
Also alternate perpendicular directions when changing grits. That way you know when you have worked enough which each grit. You simple sand until the previous direction marks are gone.
Yikes 400 grit! Way too coarse for wet sanding, 1000 or even 1500 is a good starting point. That’s funny you went cheap with a terry cloth, then you are later using synthetic clay and and a festool polisher… great mix of very old/cheap and advanced/expensive
I can almost hear the Trabi: "Oh jaaa, das ist gut, keep on zhe Arbeit auf mein Motorhaube" Oh it also says: "Baaaaazmeeeeg de jó", 'cause it was bought in Hungary, and has learnt Hungarian.
It's too late now but I learned from vice grip garage that it's best to do your test applications on the roof preferably near the back or the middle so that any mess ups you have are less likely to be seen though your car is only 4 ft tall so it probably didn't make a difference.
About the replaced driver door and rear panel… I know a story why that might be: Friends of me that grew up in the GDR (east Germany) also had a Trabant when they were young. One day they drove it out of their garage. Unfortunately, there was a big nail or screw sticking out of the wall. The Trabant got stuck on said nail and when they kept going, it ripped a big groove into the whole body panel and door. No kidding, these things are really fragile.
@@deepakmenon7733 Yup. I think its a great idea to show appreciation to anyone who does their job well - especially if it benefits and improves my life in some way - regardless of how much they get paid for it. (And if they depend on tips, a good tip should be part of that appreciation.)
The headlight bezels bother me somewhat, but I understand why you had to change them. We used to have a Trabant in the same colour, we sold it about 16-17 years ago. It makes me so sad that my father didn't keep it, I would love to drive that car now.
Robert: "I'm concerned that washing my Trabant will take all the paint off, because it's so thin" Also Robert: "I'm going to sand the paint with 400 grit paper!" I do like a Trabant video on this channel though. any chances of some more Trabant driving videos? Even mundane journeys would be fun to watch
Duroplast can easily take that kind of punishment. It's not like metal that would dent from this. Not to mention, it already came out of shape from the factory.
I purchased one of those “IX” kits a little over a year ago. Nice package, easy to use, impressive results. Only thing I didn’t much care for was being on their mailing list and then getting incessant emails encouraging me to purchase MORE of their product… which for me is a total non-starter, seeing as, A) ceramic sealant lasts quite awhile, and doesn’t require frequent re-application (so no need to keep buying it); and B), of the 6 vehicles I own, only two of them (both motorcycles) have paint jobs worthy of such a product. 🤷🏼♂️ Sorry, AvalonKing… thanks anyway.
Sorry for that! We've adjusted our mailing a bit at the beginning of the year. We are honestly just trying to stay in touch with our customers as we continue to grow. At least you know we are there for you if you need it!
@@AvalonKing a bit late but may I recommend a dynamic mailing list so that people can choose what emails they like (marketing, review, follow-up, tips and tricks, notices etc.) And maybe even let them say how often they'd prefer to be mailed, this should improve post purchase satisfaction
I have an idea for the trabant, remove (as in pull off by releasing a tab or such) the driver side wiper arm and reposition it down further to a desired spot since its an older splined system that has no required nut, this will vastly improve the visibility while still letting it wipe enough in your line of sight. Also* you can do this to the passenger side too
And then it would stop it's stroke near vertical leaving you blind to the left. Plus the right hand blade would have just a tiny overlap with the stroke of the left, way down by the dash. Maybe the wiper motor needs a longer arm?
If you have a pre-1997 Jeep Wrangler or CJ, the wipers sit at a 45 degree angle on the windshield. You don't even see them while you're driving. They're not thick enough to really block vision anyway.
So the deal with the windshield wipers and why they’re so easy to remove is that a really common thing in the 80s was to steal anything cosmetic like that from parked cars so people would remove their wipers, then when it rained they would all stop in traffic and run outside to reattach them
I watch an Aging Wheels video and it makes me feel balanced out after watching a Sara N' Tuned video. Both channels are incredibly creative and informative; both channels are on completely opposite sides of the car care spectrum.
Seeing the pictures of the Trabant’s towing on Twitter, I expected to find out the detailing somehow made the 6-volt electrical system inoperative. That Voodoo Ranger is a good IPA!
That would mean dropping in a VW engine and upgrading the instrumentation cluster. You’d get a decent car out of it. Would it be worth it to upgrade a Trabant?
the headlight thingies do bother me a bit. Makes the car look like it was ever worth something. That just doesnt feel right. Going by the video title i imagined much worse for the paint. Thought you'd keep finding spots of thin paint all over the car by going through all of them. so that is a pleasant surprise. Always glad to see a video of yours in my notifications!
Having mis-coloured and unmatching panels is the proper way to have a Trabant. Ours in Poland also had headlight bezels that were a different colour from the rest of the car, because one time the brakes gave out so my dad had to use the parking brake when pulling into our below-ground garage. He didn't quite get the timing right and crashed the car into the back wall, damaging the headlights.
Lovely video! Fun yet educating. Thanks a lot, Robert. I was reserching where to get some 6 volts relays for my 1962 Porsche, and found out that Trabant used 6 volts electrical system right up until 1983! Isn't that a fun fact? Most other cars switched to 12 volt 20 years before. So I bought some new old stock east german ones. A nice addition to my west german built 356.
Great content! I did once the same as you, but i started with 4000 grit+soapy water in spray bottle. Fine cut buff and polish and the result was like a mirror. And it was done on a 67 Opel Kadett with original paint. Got the tip from an old painter.
On oxidized aircraft paint I typically start with 3000 grit wet/dry sandpaper wet and then go to Meguiar’s Ultimate polishing compound with a random orbital buffer. When sanding, the noise the sandpaper makes while sanding decreases as it smooths the paint.
I would say I feel guilty for laughing when you talk about your tool being too big and having to use your finger, but after the bus stuff bareback t-shirt, I feel like I'm in good company with my 12-year-old boy sense of humor!
I got some rubbing compound my old man got from his work before he retired that they used on the aircraft. It's called "Perfect--It 3000" Rubbing Compound 06062 by 3M, and it is AMAZING. You coulda skipped all these steps with this stuff. It's expensive but worth it.
@@Kevin75668 Sadly I kinda bastardized the pads I got due to the fact I didn't realize they were motorized sanding pads at the time, and simply the fact I didn't have anything to fit them. But I can DEFINITELY see them being phenomenal for the job in the hands of somebody more competent hahaha They kinda break the traditional rules of touching up paint. When he said he used 400 or 600 grit (I can't remember) sand paper on his paint, I legit cringed, like: "Jesus Christ, why??" I've been spoiled by having cheap access to 3M's magnificent professional paint restoration system (pinky swear, not sponsored, it just works different.)
I’m an Australian Hungarian who is very proud to see the flag on the number plate and also pleased to report that I rode in a Trabant on a visit back in 1988.
Holy cats my dude! I know you said you “don’t know what you’re doing”, but starting at 400 grit had me cringing like crazy. A wet sand on a single stage could’ve started at 1500 or 2000. Well anyway, hopefully other folks learned not to do that lol.
My granny had a yellow trabant, on of my fond memories as a little child to play with the magnets that were stuck on the seats. But what magnets you might ask? Well, it had a clever DIY built immobilizer utilizing a tic-tac box, a magnetic switch and said magnets.
The Trabant looks so nice! Glad it's getting some TLC. Do you plan to get the original paint matched at any point for where it's burned through / mismatching door / details? Not sure if there are some rules here about what you do and don't do with a classic car, so I apologize for any ignorance on my part.
You aren't a detailer until you've accidentally buffed through the paint on something then had to cover it, hopefully without the owner ever knowing. And, if you're the owner; all the better.
Reminds me of when I tried to wax a car that was rattle can paint job. I stripped so much paint and it looked worse. I learned that soap and water is all I can do for poor paint jobs and just deal with it.
The spots that wore through on the hood were very triggering for me. The quick cuts of before and after were very satisfying. The black headlight trim change is so nice. That is all. Loved it.
I've never been so enthralled by a sponsorship plug. Not clash of clans or some garbage like that but a product thats actually pertinent to the video. Awesome job as always AW!
I wouldn't say they didn't care, Trabant is just a result of making a car in what used to be three different factories on different ends of town and then trying to squeeze out of them 10 times more cars than they ever produced before the war. It's more of that they just couldn't.
Ah the (not so) good old Trabant. My Grandpa had 2 of these and had to wait around 12 YEARS for the second one to be delivered. That was an event for the whole family, back in around 1987. Wir hatten ja nüscht. 😄
Marvellous! When I polished my blue Simson Schwalbe the polishing cotton ball became blue as the scooter itself... Cool video with a nice guy and a cool car. Thanks!
On very oxidized single stage. I recommend Meguiar's #7. The Mirror Glaze. What you do is, before you do any aggressive methods, you essentially condition the paint. You grab a cloth, squeeze out a generous amount, and just cover the entire car, and you leave it for a day or two. Depending on how dry it is, do it again. For the most part, that's all you need to do. The glaze fills stuff in, and the oils in it have a capillary action that revitalize the single stage.
Growing up in East Germany, I never once saw one with the headlight bezels painted black. So, it looks strange and unoriginal but I appreciate you showing the Trabant some love! Love the videos!
Little side note: the shade of green on a Trabant is "Tschitscheringrün" or tschitscherin green. It is described as any kind of "more or less green" and not really defined
Ordered up some ceramic coating bits with your link solely due to the wonderful absurdity of treating your Trabant to a coat. Brilliant. Well done sir.
That weird moment when a normal Aging Wheels video from two days ago is somehow funnier than any "April 1st joke" video i've seen today. Amazing work my dude.
11:57 Just to let you know that the ceramic coating will also darken down those bumper sides as well, where they are faded black. Just a PSA about it. 👍😁
