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Rocan

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  1. Rocan

    Sidetracked for Good Reason

    By Rocan,


    Sidetracked for Good Reason
    Since I last posted, a lot has changed. I bought a house across town from where I was living in my last post, and that took over priority. I also switched jobs- I am now working for a composite wheel manufacturer as one of the product design engineers, expanding my carbon fiber knowledge well beyond what I expected I would know at this point in my life. esecarbon.com  for those interested.
     
    Most exciting, I fulfilled a lifelong dream of building a proper garage of my own that will eventually house Rocan Motor Company. Despite not being totally done with the garage, I could wait no longer and decided 150ft of extension cord would do for the moment in getting back into the Euro 02. 
     
    1200sqft of room for activities! I've come a long way from doing subframe swaps while laying in the gutter on a Brooklyn street. 

     
    I ordered about $1000 worth of panels from Germany and started stripping things down further. Every commonly rusted panel is rusted, as well as the DS subframe mount, but my outlook is "I've dealt with worse". Some progress pics below. 

     
    I missed how simple this car is to work on after messing about with my TDI for so long. Check out that OEM "floorvent" option! 

     
    The fun usually starts after you strip things down. 

     
    Lots of porosity hiding. The entire panel will need replacing. 
     
    That's all for now. I've got to button up my TDI over the next week, so updates may be a bit delayed - it was due for a timing belt, ac compressor, and while I was in there I replaced the high pressure fuel pump with a more reliable version. The 02 should move quickly going forward. 
  2. Rocan

    A long time coming!

    By Rocan,

    Hi all! It's been far too long since I had a notable update for this build. 
     
    Long story short... I was living in Socal for the past three years. About a year ago I planned to bring the 02 to socal after having a friend do the rust repair. Due to some unfortunate circumstances he wasn't able to work on the car for about the half of a year it was with him. I began planning to ship the car over anyway, and the day before the delivery was planned my girlfriend expressed her desire to move back to the East coast. I figured, sure, why not, CA is nice but far too expensive. I redirected the delivery to a friend's place in New Jersey for storage. Fast forward a few months and now I am living in Central NJ. For the first time in my life I have my own garage and a place to work on the car. It's been in my hands for about a week now and I've slowly began to dissasemble, document, and formulate a plan. 
     
    The rust is in all the usual places, but thankfully I've caught it before the point of no return. It will need a lot of work and I plan to completely gut the vehicle in order to completely erradicate the rust. Although I have driven the car in the past, it will be down for a while until I get all of the rust and bodywork sorted. My plans haven't been decided yet - it's very original in many ways and I have reason to believe the milage is very very low... As in the 29,000 miles on the odo might be correct. 
     
    Here are some pictures and some findings. Most notable finds include the following:
     
    - Original spare tire in excellent shape, a radial too! 
    - condition of the trunk: all side panels are present and the tail light covers are not broken at all.
    - a load of faded nudie pics under the rear seat 
    - a hamburg city map from 1990-1991 stuffed in the rear door card, which validates the previous owners story that he bought the car in hamburg in the early 90s and drove it to Italy prior to exporting it to the US
    - Blaupunkt stereo is likely original 
    - I'm very certain I have the original plate for the car, so long as oval plates were still in use in 1974
    - "how to import your car into the us": guide from the early 1990s
    -Extreme irony in the form of the passenger rocker patch panel being made from a sign that reads "free consultation" 
     
    I will post updates as they come. 
     


     










  3. Rocan

    Introduction

    By Rocan,

    Noticed my Blog wasn't showing up until I added an entry, so I copied the description to here. 
     
    After sitting for most of its life its time to give this gorgeous low mileage example a restoration worthy of the record books. I purchased this car from the second owner. He bought it back in the early 80s while living in Germany before driving it to Italy where he lived. When it came time for him to move to the US he had trouble selling the car and decided to bring it to New York with him where the car ultimately sat until it could be legally titled once it was 25 years old. By then the owner had swapped in us market side markers and an American speedometer as requested by the DMV at the time. The odomoter reads just over 30,000 miles and from my overall inspection of the vehicle I believe it to be accurate. Being a North East car that sat in a mechanics backyard for a number of years a full restoration is in order and will be completed using many connections I've formed with some of the best automotive talent in the USA. Today marks the official project start date, and the car is headed to my good friend Matt's shop, Beaver Built. The project begins with major surgery- rust repair. At least one subframe mount will need to be cut out, and many more spots including the usual suspects will be discovered and fixed as the project progresses. Following rust repair the car will be shipped to me in California where I now reside and be stripped to a bare shell for a clean start to a very lengthy project. I have some very wild engine plans but the car will retain a very mild appearance with practicality improvements integrated as cleanly as possible. 
     
    Be sure to follow my Instagram for more up to date updates @rocanmotor as well as my friend Matt's shop @beaverbuilt for all the nitty gritty. I'll keep this post updated as much as possible.
     
    I apologize to all my 02 friends here for my long hiatus... Between starting my career and making a few big moves in the past three years I've had to put the 02 projects aside for a bit. I've worked on some stuff in the meantime but I've never really been happy not having an 02 in my life.
     
    Let the fun begin. 


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