DDK - Die Deutschen Klassiker

hi folks

I've had a PPI done on an 1973 2.4T I've been having a look at, seems in pretty good shape but I'd appreciate any thoughts you had on the following comments that were made - I'm a bit of a beginner here!

1. Apparently smoke comes from the dashboard when the lights are turned on! I don't know how much smoke so I'm going to get more detail, any ideas on what this might be, plus whether it sounds serious/expensive to fix?

2. Headlining is in poor condition - this is cosmetic, but would it cost a fortune to replace? I think I've read this is a big job.

3. Rear roll bar links worn out - what does this mean? expensive to fix?

4. Rear heater flaps not working + rusty. From what I've read, this is a pretty common complaint? If the only consequence is heating not working then its something I could tackle over time.

thanks for any help you can give

Damian

Hi Damian, welcome to DDK!

smoke comes from the dashboard

Normally considered a bad thing Clearly a short somewhere with the potential to set fire to the car... The fuse should take this out so maybe an overated fuse has been fitted to get round a problem for the MOT or something?

Headlining is in poor condition

Yup , purely cosmetic. But to replace it you need the front and rear screens out. I did mine myself (never having done it before) and it came out OK. Follow the instructions in the Haynes Restoration Manual (not the workshop manual) It would be expensive to have this done professionally

This is as I found it after tking the headlining out:



And this is just after I put it back in. The worst of these creases came out with a hair dryer.

Rear roll bar links worn out

Should just be the bushes. No big job. Potentially the pins on the trailing arms are worn as well, but changing the bushes should fix it well enough to get you through the MOT and you won't notice it when driving.

Rear heater flaps not working + rusty

They all do that sir... Easy enough to fix and you don't strictly need to buy new ones if they are not too bad. You can just strip them down and repair / repaint.

Overall only the smoke would worry me, and whatever it is it wil be easier to fix than rust (as long as it doesn't torch the car first! )

Damian, welcome etc...

It's worth checking if the smoke and lights are related or coincidental and what sort of smell was associated with the smoke (plastic burning, oil burning, etc).

It's a long shot, but my car used to have smoke emerging from under the dashboard which turned out to be an oil leak and the smoke was burning oil dripping onto the heat exchangers and coming in through air vents. Clearly, depending on the way in which this was discovered in the PPI, it might simply be a coincidence that the lights were on.

An oil leak might well be a whole different problem to resolve (not necessarily difficult to resolve, but very different).

Good luck.