GUTEN TAG
Posted: Mon Apr 14, 2025 6:08 am
Greetings y'all,
my name's Greg and for a long while I've been happily stranded in a country with plenty of mountains, which considers itself to be the heart of Europe. (Austria) Plenty of mountains leads to a notable need for affordable off-road vehicles as snow overhere during the Winter months is measured in feet not inches. As such, plenty of old (and newer) Lada Nivas and Suzuki SJs in all shapes and forms and now that a significant portion of them have rotted away also a metric ton of Jimnys and the like are present. So what do you do, when there are plenty of good offroad vehicles to choose from? Exactly, you buy an absolute sh*tbox of a 410 and for the very brief period of about 14 months, rebuild the lower ten to twelve inches of the car, so it passes the equivalent of an MOT.
Guess you guys like a bit of visual stimulation, so here goes:
1) right when bought - doesn't look too shabby, eh? (Yeah, I got fooled as well - spotted two or three small holes, nothing a bit of the magic electrical hot glue can't fix, eh?)
To be fair at this point I thought that the bigger issue were the facts that the previous owner had an old dog, which might have been a bit on the "leaky" side and lived on a farm, so everything was really, really full of dirt.
2) You guessed it, it was rotten as all hell. But at least one guy must have been QUITE the plaster (i.e. bondo) artist.
Also I am sure he really loved pastry - a croissant perhaps?
... and perhaps stacking sheet metal.
And more croissant-style, repairs. (That last cut, until I figured out what was going on, ate through angle grinder disks, like the cookie monster goes through the proverbial cookies...)
3) You know what happens then.
4) yes ironically, I had to search my computer for some pictures of the completed Suzuki...
So why did I join overhere? Well to be quite frank with you, given the strict laws on modifying vehicles in Austria and Germany, most of the guys tend to be a bit of the rivet counting variety and I'd consider myself a bit more of a practical person. So the stock seats had to go and make room for a pair of nice ones out of an older BMW and I couldn't care less, if the sidemarker lights are the right ones for the era of the car or not or whether I have to modify the loom to fit a more modern alternator, because I want to have lights, wipers AND the heater fan running on full speed and still have my battery charged.
Cheers,
Greg
my name's Greg and for a long while I've been happily stranded in a country with plenty of mountains, which considers itself to be the heart of Europe. (Austria) Plenty of mountains leads to a notable need for affordable off-road vehicles as snow overhere during the Winter months is measured in feet not inches. As such, plenty of old (and newer) Lada Nivas and Suzuki SJs in all shapes and forms and now that a significant portion of them have rotted away also a metric ton of Jimnys and the like are present. So what do you do, when there are plenty of good offroad vehicles to choose from? Exactly, you buy an absolute sh*tbox of a 410 and for the very brief period of about 14 months, rebuild the lower ten to twelve inches of the car, so it passes the equivalent of an MOT.
Guess you guys like a bit of visual stimulation, so here goes:
1) right when bought - doesn't look too shabby, eh? (Yeah, I got fooled as well - spotted two or three small holes, nothing a bit of the magic electrical hot glue can't fix, eh?)
To be fair at this point I thought that the bigger issue were the facts that the previous owner had an old dog, which might have been a bit on the "leaky" side and lived on a farm, so everything was really, really full of dirt.
2) You guessed it, it was rotten as all hell. But at least one guy must have been QUITE the plaster (i.e. bondo) artist.
Also I am sure he really loved pastry - a croissant perhaps?
... and perhaps stacking sheet metal.
And more croissant-style, repairs. (That last cut, until I figured out what was going on, ate through angle grinder disks, like the cookie monster goes through the proverbial cookies...)
3) You know what happens then.
4) yes ironically, I had to search my computer for some pictures of the completed Suzuki...
Cheers,
Greg
