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Starting with this year the Vehicle Inspection and emission control will be one license here in germany. Since we are a family of 7, not including dogs and other animals, our main 'car' was an older Mercedes T1, something like this but in green (pre-owned by the then 'green' german police):

120px-Mercedes_T1_front_20080214.jpg

Even the mechanics are okay, the emission values are too high to visit the inner city of for example Frankfurt.

 

As always I curse the politicians: A two seater Dodge Viper or Lamborghini will produce a lot more emission per person even it is slightly under the limits per car. Somehow the politicians forgot in their law that driving 2-3 cars to transport our whole family will produce more emission than putting all in one mini-bus. A minivan with the cargo room filled with a third row of seats will leave no room for dogs or suitcases. They should have done the emission law with emission per passenger and not per car.

 

So if the 2-yearly vehicle inspection says no to the emission and refuses a new license we will need a new transporter :Just_Cuz_21:

 

Alternatives: Claim the transporter as a bus. But then you need a bus license to drive it, different insurance, yearly and more expensive car checks, ...

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Heart breaker. GB used to be full of vans and minibuses of this model. Reliable.

 

Laws are not made for ordinary people, even the laws for businesses and food producers are made for large organisations and take no account of the differences relevant to small and family concerns. So many small businesses destroyed by Brussels legislation which is irrelevant at their scale. :)

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We could keep the van if we claim that it is a bus. The problem is: old german driving license allows to drive cars and small trucks up to 7.5 tons and 9 people. But if you do the driving license for a bus to transport people you will get the new european union license which overwrites the old german license. So with new license cars are only up to 2.8 tons, car license does not include a scooter or tractor (unimogs are licensed currently as fast tractors below 7.5 tons) anymore, ....

I have no trouble, I got the whole licenses at army up to 1500 horsepower and 100tons. But my wife has just the old car license. It was enough for up to 7.5 tons, but not if the van changes into a bus politically.

 

So it is either a new van or doing the license. And the license is time eating... driving classes, 40 hours truck drives with a teacher, learning transportation laws, 6 weekends red cross training (at least this she wouldn't have to do, she is a doc), ...

So it would be like 200 hours driving training and lessons and about 5000 euro costs and just to drive the same car she did for 6 years now.

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Yes. I had a bus drivers licence (p.s.v.) till recently, but too much hassle to renew it these days, and I felt it was time to quit. But the car licence took you up to more than 9 people in GB - I think it was 16 ... but it is 12 years ago and the memory is not too clear on this matter now. If you made the mistake, as I did, of converting to a minibus a van of more than 2.5 (?) tons it became heavy goods and the rules were different.

 

But our daughter learned to drive with my 12 seater, and drove the 16 seater. She took a psv licence with the 12 seater to help me out, and that gave her up to a 35 seater, at the time. Later they removed the limit. She was only 16 and we found that the insurance at that age for psv carried no extras for age where a car did! I don't remember the old licence being good up to 7.5 tons though.

 

Do you not have to install fixed seats and have a different vehicle test if you go for psv (sorry, bus status) on the vehicle.

 

I see you talking of "horsepower". That calculation seems to vary between different countries. The French have the old 2cv (2 chevaux ... horsepower) and my current car is rated 6 or 7hp here, as was my Ford Transit van. I had an old 26hp 8 seater once which weighed 2.5 tons and was big ... an old chauffeur driven hire car of the 30's. Even the enormous old racing cars of a hundred years ago, Mors, Napier, were only rated at 100hp by British standards. So I have difficulty conceiving of 1500hp!

 

I don't know what the ratings are in the US, but they are different again.

Edited by Bondbug
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1 PS is like 735 Watt.

PS = Pferdestärke = horse power

 

Biggest I drove myself at army:

Crash_5_a.D_Y-587851.jpg

1500 horsepowers license was planed for tanks with mounted jet engines to blow out burning pipelines.

 

In gemany you can drive a car with 17 if you have an adult controlling. That's why I have my signature. My daughter drove Porsches, Mercedes and Lamborghinis but isn't allowed to drive a VW Beetle yet.

 

Speaking about insurances: An oldtimer will be always at 100%. A newbie starts at 175% and goes down to 30% if he drives without an insurance case for 20 years. So I keep a Citroen 2CV4 (we call them Ente =Duck) and a VW Beetle, both more than 25 years old. Big Barn :)

So she will pay the first years just the 100% till the insurance for a normal car is below 100%. The Citroen is very low on taxes because its small engines.

Edited by chattius
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Starting with this year the Vehicle Inspection and emission control will be one license here in germany. Since we are a family of 7, not including dogs and other animals, our main 'car' was an older Mercedes T1, something like this but in green (pre-owned by the then 'green' german police):

120px-Mercedes_T1_front_20080214.jpg

Even the mechanics are okay, the emission values are too high to visit the inner city of for example Frankfurt.

 

As always I curse the politicians: A two seater Dodge Viper or Lamborghini will produce a lot more emission per person even it is slightly under the limits per car. Somehow the politicians forgot in their law that driving 2-3 cars to transport our whole family will produce more emission than putting all in one mini-bus. A minivan with the cargo room filled with a third row of seats will leave no room for dogs or suitcases. They should have done the emission law with emission per passenger and not per car.

 

So if the 2-yearly vehicle inspection says no to the emission and refuses a new license we will need a new transporter :agreed:

 

Alternatives: Claim the transporter as a bus. But then you need a bus license to drive it, different insurance, yearly and more expensive car checks, ...

 

Is your bus a diesel?

 

I ask because of how resourceful and self sufficient you are at home. There are a lot of BIOdiesel technologies in the news these days, and even guys recycling fryer oil into usable Diesel fuel. I hear that along with being petroleum free they have great emissions properties. I could see you brewing up some vegetable based home diesel in the barn to keep all the farm equipment running.

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Love it Loco. I can just see Chattius pouring chip fat into that whopping great thing in the picture above. If there is a way of making it work he will find it.

 

I take it Chattius that insurance does not work same in Germany, otherwise you should get all your kids bus licences. May be different now in GB, but Jenny was only 16, bus licence, and no mark-up on insurance ... though that was my minibus insurance which any bus driver could drive my vehicles on.

 

Perhaps you should become a minibus business and claim back tax on the losses!! And one overall insurance policy!

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INSURANCE

Here you need a car license to get a bus license. A car license is 18 years, 17 years if you drive with an adult on the other front seat. Busses are always at least 18. The license would be needed to drive the bus not to own it. And bigger busses are 21 years if they have the weight of trucks.

For a car, you can either

allow your kid to share your insurance, but then her insurance reduces only slowly

use a low powered car

use a car older than 25 years so insurance is fixed at 100%

use a camping mobile, again fixed 100% but bigger engine = bigger taxes

 

Old Citroen 2CV4 or something equivalent is normally best. 25 years old, engine volume is below half a litre (volume and dirt emission define taxes). Or the quarter litre engine of the BMW in my signature. But our BMW Isetta is currently driven by my niece. BMW Isetta are nicknamed Knutschkugel (something like petting/kissing bubble) because it is barely enough room for 2 persons and you sit very close together.Isetta_dwergauto.gif

 

BIO FUEL

One reason for the Mercedes T1 was its old engine. No modern TDI, CDI, GDI, or whatever... Once the engine is running I can remove the battery and it is still running -no electronic involved. So its quite easy to run it with rapeseed oil. We have Rübsen and Raps which look nearly the same, colza and rapeseed?

I think UK, USA, France uses more Colza.

 

I have even a diesel motorbike which I use when I drive to work. 1.3 litres rapeseed oil per 100 kilometres. Frame from an old enfield made in india (500 euro) and a modern diesel engine added (800 euro), 1 year work with a friend (we build 2) and small pieces and paint another 500 euro.

The tractors and unimogs can eat rapeseed oil anyway.

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Or the quarter litre engine of the BMW in my signature. But our BMW Isetta is currently driven by my niece. BMW Isetta are nicknamed Knutschkugel (something like petting/kissing bubble) because it is barely enough room for 2 persons and you sit very close together.Isetta_dwergauto.gif

 

I always liked the refrigerator-door of the Isetta. :D

 

Hell, if they re-built it again with modern accomodies like air-condition and throw in some air-bags for protection, I would probably buy one too. *g*

Edited by czevak
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Yes, Iso in italy was building scooters and refridgerators. Isetta means little Iso and was licensed by BMW. There is a joke that an Isetta was just 2 scooters welded together and put into a refridgerator and then some windows cut into the sides ....

 

Driving an Isetta or a 2CV4 is way more relaxing than driving a Golf. If you drive a countryroad with just 80km/h to watch the countryside and sit in a Golf people behind you will use the signal horn and show you the middle finger when passing you. If you sit in an Isetta or a Duck the people smile and wink when passing.

 

I got my Isetta nearly 13 years back. A man died and the woman, who had no kids, asked me to help her to move to her step-daughter in another state. The Isetta was used as a container for garden stuff and heavily rusted because it stood unused for nearly a decade in an allotment(?) a bit away from the house. I got it for free and it took me a summer to make it drivable again and a winter to have it look good, rotten seats, canvas top, ...

 

But even there is a wave of retro design: new Beetle, new Fiat 500, new Mini, ... I doubt that a new Isetta will fulfill modern crash tests because of its design.

 

Seems at Sacred2 and in real life I do the same, experiment and try to make stuff running:)

Edited by chattius
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OMG Chattius I haven't seen an Isetta in 50 years or more. There was a Messerschmitt as well which was similar ( slightly larger I think), and I have a feeling there was a third. The Bondbug was the racing style version of the old Reliant three-wheelers when they were bought up by Bond who made invalid cars.

 

I remember the Indians were still producing the Enfield some years back and I have a feeling that there was another old 30's model still in production there, but I may be muddled.

 

Trouble with the 2cv is that it runs on Super, and heaven help you in France if you try to change the engine they love with its distinctive noise. Pity - it is a magic little car - all those dead simple gadgets.

 

I think there is a vacancy here for someone like you. The local garagist is trying to retire. He is the old type who likes to strip things down, and will repair anything that comes by, even old British vintage cars. Any time I have a problem, mechanical, bodywork or blacksmithing I go talk to him. He loves problems.

 

Where do you store all this stuff?

 

P.S. The only thing that troubled me with the Bond was overtaking heavy goods/artics in heavy rain. Like driving by radar.

Edited by Bondbug
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Where to store the cars

Our main-barn (Schuppen) close to the house has 4 floors above the cellar. The floor above the base floor (1st in german counting, 2nd in other some other countries) is sturdy enough to hold cars. Just use a winch and 2 planks. Then there are 2 barns (Feldscheunen) we are no longer using and which hold the tractors, unimogs and such. They are like 150 metres away from the house with a pond between (in old times for firefighting).

 

Schuppen is like a barn but to store machines and carriages.

Scheune is a barn to store stray and hay.

Feldscheune is a barn for stray and hay but away from the main houses (risc of fires) in open field (Feld).

 

My family were carpenters and not exactly farmers. The farmland was used to feed the horses needed for the wood transport and enough food for the families. With Trucks and unimogs the horses and with them the farmland was not needed anymore.

 

Citroen needing Super

Super and normal fuel is same price in germany, so several fuel stations stopped selling normal fuel already.

 

Enfields

My grandpa in law(?) uses to say: speeds up to 110 are easy in repair, brakes, engines. But each 10 km/h above 200 doubles the trouble. There is a small company building diesel-bikes about 50 kilometres away:

462-scrambler-rechts.jpg

I saw one of her machines and when asking about the price I decided to do it myself. The engine used is a diesel engine from a ship, normally used to drive a winch. The grandpa of my wife was state champion in motorbike cross country with sidecar, so I had professional help. A cousin of my wife build a similiar bike and we exchanged experiences. But an Enfield is really easy to repair and work with. Same for the engine which was designed for winches on yachts, designed to function even if the next mechanic is weeks or an ocean away.

 

Messerschmitt

It was called Schneewittchensarg, coffin of snowwhite (laying in a glas coffin in the faerytale).

180px-Messerschmitt_Kabinenroller.jpg

Kleinschmittger

One of my teachers had one of those, 1/8 litre engine. To drive backwards you had to leave, lift the car and turn it.

220px-Kleinschnittger.jpg

Goggomobil

800px-Goggomobil_(2008-07-12)_ret-kl.JPG

Even Gogo is well known in this forum, it is only a rumour that the Goggo was named after him. Watch the Wackeldackel (dachshund as a bobblehead) in the rear. One of them still exists in a neighbour village.

Lloyd

180px-Lloyd-lp-300.jpg

The Leukoplastbomber. Leukoplast is a adhesive tape used in medicine and obviouslly to repair this car. It was made from wood, so my grandpa told me that people owning one were rather visiting him (as a woodworker) than a mechanic to have it repaired.

NSU Prinz and TTS

800px-NSU_Prinz_TT_1.jpg

A NSU TT was my first car, I bought it 4th or 5th hand with my first self owned money. It had a 1 litre engine in the back and was easy to tune. Mine was around 110 horse powers at a weight of 700kilo. Terrible quick little devil on countryroads through the forest, where top-speed is nothing and acceleration everything. You could open the engine cover and had a rear spoiler and better cooling :P A this age I would have told people crazy who would have said that I later would study mathematics. I liked to work with my hands and calculations were just to make my car faster. Steppenwolf, born to be wild

Edited by chattius
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Yes. What a set of pics. My first car was a 1931 Morris 2 seater rated 8hp compared with your TT rating of 110. Wood frame on metal chassis. Managed 40mph (65kph?) on good days. I once made the mistake of adjusting the cable brakes before I loaded the car ... and it wouldn't move ... chassis had weighed down on the brake cables. Cost me £35, which as a student with no grant was my limet. Great little car though Chattius would have converted it into something of racing class.

 

My garage m

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  • 2 weeks later...

800px-Karjalohjaja_häkäpönttö_2.4.2010_003.jpg

 

I wondered if I should get creative and build something similiar: gasification of wood. Heat wood that much that it transforms to gas.

 

But it seems that it is forbidden nowadays. I remember that similiar stuff was laying around a lot when I was a kid. People got creative when there was no fuel available in WW2 but a lot of wood and seem to kept their builds in case the cold war would change into a hot war again.

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My garage m

 

! Just spotted this. I wish I had a quid for every time my big clumsy hands hit keys I don't know about and posts these unfinished posts without my knowing what I have hit.

 

However to complete the comment .....my garage mechanic used to say that every time I tried to repair a car myself it was worth £100 to him in extra repairs.

 

And those were the days when cars were built like tanks and I knew my way round the large straight forward mechanics. Blowing fluff out of carburettors, adjusting tappet rods, repairing fan belts, resetting the timing, mending radiators and rad hoses ... child's play. There was a starting handle in those days ... absolutely essential for turning the engine for certain bits of maintenance.

 

But I do not recall ever seeing anything quite like that pic Chattius just posted. Mind you it hardly looks like a WW2 vehicle mate!

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Well its an Audi 80 it seems, so definitly post war.

 

ural-holzvergaser.jpeg

opel-1.jpg

bad32.jpg

c-holzvergaser-andi-dinkel.jpg

 

The second picture is a car build with the thing already in. The bike with sidecar is self made, the Opel had it as a AddOn-Kit, same for the tractor. I remember that this AddOn-Kits were still in several barns in my childhood.

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WOW! Gotta have one - that sidecar job. Where? Where? Neat job for home-made. (makes note to discuss possibilities with old-fashioned garagist) :P

 

Great for long drives in cold weather.

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The swiss are even more crazy, or very strong to keep this beast in balance:

32966_holzvergaser_motorrad_titel_220.jpg

 

Without joking now, I was planing to really build a wood gasification engine some years back. But then to heat our house. The idea was to use the heat for heating (obvious) and use the gas to drive an engine as a generator for electric power. We live outside village with power lines above ground. So a lot of blackouts at storms and branches hitting the cables. So having an emergency power supply was one of the ideas.

But the savety laws and some calculations convinced me that it would be cheaper to buy a real product. Individual savety checks, chimney checks, gas exhaust checks were far costly than the money you save when doing such a heating system yourself.

There is a do-it-yourself in a german thread, using a 2l Ford engine to drive a stationary generator.

http://www.holzgibtgas.com/viewtopic.php?t...asc&start=0

 

engine with generator

bhkw06.jpg

 

heat exchanger (pipes left) and gas filter (black barrel in front of engine)

bhkw12.jpg

 

wood gasification system with a big tank for wood pellets mounted above. A savety valve to burn away gas if necessary (most in front)

bhkw.jpg

 

And then the needed changes to make all this legal: isolation to prevent damage to people touching, coverings for moving parts, all electrics properly connected in a box with savety switches, ... Add that we are surrounded by forest so eve nstronger rules would apply in our case.

bhkw33.jpg

 

Short, it was cheaper to buy a system. But since we have our wood for free it is like 8000 litres oil saved an average year and electric power is more or less free in winter. In summer is less heating, so less power.

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You guys are awesome. When I wake up early morning, it's the threads from these public sections that I dig into. I've been guilty lately for the ultimate sin...reading someone all the hard effort that someone puts into a thread, and not showing by respect by posting.

 

Apologies...here I am...and I want to also post supporting sentiment for you chattius regarding your family's dear machine. Always bites me when administration over admins and strange things begin to happen regarding what has been working for so well and is so sensible.

 

I'm just wondering...if you tell them your story and show them the math...would there be a chance of them making an exception for you?

 

;)

 

gogo

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Enfields

My grandpa in law(?) uses to say: speeds up to 110 are easy in repair, brakes, engines. But each 10 km/h above 200 doubles the trouble. There is a small company building diesel-bikes about 50 kilometres away:

462-scrambler-rechts.jpg

I saw one of her machines and when asking about the price I decided to do it myself. The engine used is a diesel engine from a ship, normally used to drive a winch. The grandpa of my wife was state champion in motorbike cross country with sidecar, so I had professional help. A cousin of my wife build a similiar bike and we exchanged experiences. But an Enfield is really easy to repair and work with. Same for the engine which was designed for winches on yachts, designed to function even if the next mechanic is weeks or an ocean away.

 

Hi the frame is an Enfield could I get a little more info on the Diesel Motor or the company doing this, love this thread on all different vehicles.

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@Groosum

Manufacturer page of the Sommer 462 Diesel-Bike

PDF with all the technical drawings and data of the engine

 

The engine used is from Hatz ,a 1B40. I added a link to the data sheet. If you want another language than english visit the www.hatz.com. Hatz builds the water pumps we use at THW and firefighters. Hope I could help.

 

@gogo

We will keep our old beast and my wife will try to do a bus license. The problem is mainly shopping at the inner cities like Frankfurt where 'dirty cars' are no longer allowed. So we would have to park at the suburbs and use train/metro to reach the inner city. If we visit Frankfurt then it is mainly for shopping clothes. Our oldest daughter is already at 190 centimetre and shoe-size of 46(german size), which is 11 UK or 13 US(women size). So no chance for her to find any good looking stuff in her size for a 14 year old girl. You need a bigger town to find this.

Edited by chattius
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I'm just wondering...if you tell them your story and show them the math...would there be a chance of them making an exception for you?

 

:)

 

gogo

 

I would seriously doubt it Gogo. I have worked in this kind of administration. These guys are scared of any come-back if they depart from what are known in GB as "deemed-to-satisfy" specifications. The possibility is there but it is a brave man in admin who will give serious consideration to such things.

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  • 4 weeks later...

We encountered a stupid phenomena the last days:

The secondary street close to us is under repair because of massive frost damage from the hard winter. So all the traffic is using the parallel 3rd order road. The problem is that we have to get on this road from our farm road with our van:

 

If the average speed on the tertiary is between stop and go and 5 miles an hour there will be a friendly person which stops and let you in.

If the average speed on road is between 10 and 30 miles an hour every driver is the opinion that there will be stop and go soon and that an another driver -but not himself- will be friendly. Waiting up to 10 minutes sometimes to find a hole.

If the speed is 40 miles an hour and higher there will be holes automatically.

 

My wife got her bus driving license finally and now we consider to turn the stupid law into an advantage. Nearly allways we use the van is to bring and get kids to school/kindergarten. So we now have a 'bus', we do transports for school, so it should be a schoolbus by law. I will ask the authorities for a schoolbus outfit: Schoolbus with blinking lights will have right of way before other vehicles (without warning lights) on 3rd order streets and lowers.

 

The big problem in our area is:

There was and isn't an autobahn in west/east direction. They were never build before re-union. And the ones planed after re-union were blocked by nature protection laws and high costs because of very hilly terrain. So the secondary has more cars per days than several autobahns, but is single tracked.

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