Further technical preparations

As part of the further travel preparations, there was still a lot to do. Many repairs, installations, theft protection, other features... Everything was solved very pragmatically, no effort was put into the appearance, the main thing is that it works... Here's just a excerpt:

At the rear, I welded an old fence pillar, hoping that it will prevent the engine from being damaged in the event of a rear impact... Hopefully, I won't need it...

The roof rack came from the dissolution of a plumbing company in Heidenau near Dresden - Many thanks to the boss for the kindness...

The seats are from an Opel Omega B. In contrast to the original seats, they offer general seating comfort, inclination and height adjustment, as well as lumbar support... I got them for a small price from the local junkyard...

After being asked for the umpteenth time if I had something to smoke to sell, I decided to buy four cans of black spray paint for a total of 12 euros on special offer at Lidl and paint over the graffiti... It's actually a shame about the artistically demanding work, but I just didn't feel like getting visited by the drug-sniffing dog at every border control and having to empty the whole car for that...

Then I pragmatically transplanted a great two-stage toggle switch into the dashboard. With this, I can control the radiator fan independently of the coolant temperature. This allows me to manually cool down the coolant a bit more when there is a heavier engine load, such as on long and steep gradients, instead of waiting for the temperature switch to detect a critical temperature and then switch on... I took the switch out of a Robur bus about 20 years ago. A great part, all metal with a cool clicking sound... You can only find such switches with John Rambo in a helicopter to switch on the rotors...

Well, just before it was too late, I decided not to rely on my gut feeling for the brake, but to rely on measuring devices. And behold, the rear brake is pulling to one side, so there is obviously still a repair needed.

The whole thing, taken apart by the already involved Fnark from St. R. in D. on the E. (name changed significantly by the editorial staff) once again confirmed that there is a feeling that there is almost only shoddy workmanship in commercial craftsmanship nowadays. The wheel cylinders were in like-new condition, but if the sealing boot is obviously not properly installed, moisture enters the sealing surfaces and the piston corrodes again over time... Well, in that case, we just replaced both wheel cylinders as a precaution, since everything was already open anyway. Still a shame to have such a job just because of general and obvious negligence...

Other than that, we had to remove the partition wall, cover the interior walls with sheets, install a few secret switches as an alternative to an immobilizer, weld in padlock receptacles from existing stocks on all doors, reinforce the body at weakened areas, install a rear bench seat, and so on...