Club 80-90 Forums

Hey all!

I'm new to this forum so apologies if I'm posting this in the wrong location, feel free to correct/berate me. A little background first: I'm from the UK living in Austria, learning German but not so good yet. I hope you don't mind me posting here rather than in some Austrian forums. Me and my wife have been looking for a T3 Synchro for a while now, but we're not having much luck.  Just yesterday one popped up locally so we went to visit it and it appears to be in pretty great condition (in our novice view) apart from a few little things. I was hoping I could get a little bit of advice on what we are looking at and if it's worth the investment with maybe some super average costs for the necessary repairs. Of course the prices will be a little different here but we're just looking for ballpark figures.

The van is a 1.9 DG 57kW, former fire fighters van, owner selling because he's got a few vehicles and not using it. It's apparently been kept inside almost all of its life. It's being sold at a garage on behalf of the owner. It's registered as a historic vehicle and has a good year left on the MOT with no reported problems at the last check up. The bodywork and underside seems in really good condition, we just have a few concerns with the engine area. The mechanic also said that the starter motor needs replacing. We will hopefully test drive it in the next few days. Anyway, I will attach some pics. Would be great to get a few opinions from the experts here. Anything at all is appreciated! And lastly, we're super excited to become a part of the community!

Many thanks,
Aydin






 

The rust looks to be the exhaust heat shield and weather shields, they aren’t part of the structure and and removable ( screwed on) and replaceable

Thanks Mocki, I amended the post and attached instead of externally linking. Nice thanks a lot davidoft1 I guess that is good news for us. I will take a look for those parts and see what comes up!

Agreed - mainly the tinwear.
You could remove, rust-treat, paint with high temperature paint and refit.

It also looks like the top coolant pipe is pretty corroded (pictures don't usually differentiate between mild surface rust or deep pitting,.
It is the pipe that goes between the water pump and the right cylinder head.

They are still readily available from the likes of Brickwerks, Heritage etc.

Again not an MOT issue, but worth changing if it is pitted, before it perforates and sprays out a fine mist of hot coolant.

Thanks Robsey, then it's time to try haggle the price down 

Mmmm I'm a sucker for the ex service vehicles from the one exterior pic, I'm all in

We just bought it today, it had a few repairs done and we also got the price down quite a bit. Super excited!

Enjoy your new van! 

Your fire vehicle has a fire hazard.
Get new petrol tubes and remove the petrol filter in the engine bay. 1st photo.
It should be by the petrol tank .
In the engine bay they have been known to leak and cause a fire.
Good Luck and welcome to the club.

This guy has loads of spares for sale over on the t25 Facebook group including engine tinware.

David.