A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, a naive Tatra owner placed his Tatraplan in the hands of his mechanic friends for some general maintenance which ended up stretching out for two years. The details of the saga can be found in this post http://heinkelscooter.blogspot.com.au/2016/10/tatra-restoration.html
We are now at the end of the saga. The gearbox was finally rebuilt and returned to Classic Gasoline for installation in December 2017. I can appreciate the point of view of the gearbox reconditioning service. They did not want to proceed with the reconditioning of a gearbox that was in such poor condition as the end product may not reflect well on them. Their insistence on NOS parts was understandable but the supply of NOS Tatraplan gearbox parts has long since dried up and everyone must live with what they have.
Anyway, what's done is done and that includes the gearbox. When the guys started the reassembly we realized the engine mounts were toast so once again I had to go back to Czechoslovakia for parts. That took a couple more months of waiting.
The engine out and in the shop.
The new mounts finally went in but the clutch was so worn that a new one was required. Fortunately a Volkswagen clutch was fine. The flywheel required remachining.
The rear brakes, which had been damaged by leaking gearbox oil were refurbished.
And finally, after a little over two years the Tatra has finally returned home in running condition. There are still a few issues to iron out and the gearbox will take some getting used to, but I can now drive and enjoy it at last.
After its first long drive. It really is a wonderful, handsome car. I can't help feeling lucky being its custodian.
Just as a point of interest, when we stripped the car for painting we discovered its original colour was dark green, as in this example in Ireland. Silver has become the standard for Tatras these days but dark green is a very nice colour.
For more of Tatra posts check out my dedicated Tatra blog: https://tatrat600.blogspot.com/
