Bavarian Syncro fire truck

RainierSyncro · Posted: Fri Jul 18, 2014 10:20 pm Post subject: Bavarian Syncro fire truck

Picked up a German Syncro fire truck recently. I thought maybe some of you out there might be interested in seeing a German Feuerwehr van up close. I used Busman.be's services to make the deal with the seller, pick it up and drop it off at port. I had a customs broker handle the paperwork on my end, so I didn't have to even think about customs. Now the van is sitting at my friend's shop getting all the cobwebs blown out.

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Here are some pictures and comments on what I got. A very quirky van.

The pictures below were the ones used in the Mobile.de ad of the Syncro. This website is the crack cocaine for Vanagon nuts. Weird, unheard of van models and strange variations. There are usually 35 to 60 Syncros for sale and lot of them ex-military, or ex-government. Take your pick. This one van was interesting. A 1988 ex-Munich police van then handed off 5 years later to a local Bavarian fire department. Hey look, a diamond plate interior and no glaring rust areas. Five small pictures to make a decision on. I went for it.

Busman heads out to Kiel, Germany to pick it up. It's been for sale for a while. The seller and his wife were having a baby, so maybe that's why we got a 500Euro price reduction. Busman handled the paperwork on his end and drops it off at Zeebrugge, the largest roll-on, roll-off port in Europe. At this point, Busman is out of the picture. I now deal with the shipping company. The van gets a spot on the Wallenius-Wilhelmsen ship, the MV Fedora. The van took a nice leisurely 30 day cruise across the Atlantic, through the Panama canal, and then up the West coast to Tacoma.

At the port of Tacoma, I had to pay a guy $50 to escort me onto port property. He drove me about 300 feet past the gate to my van (easy money for him). The longshoreman told me to hop in and drive it out of there. Pushed the clutch in and grabbed the stick. I pulled it out of the floor. It had broke off and the base and a very crude repair was made years ago to fix it. Busman mentioned that the shifter felt loose and I guess the port people snapped it off. Nobody's going to know right? Called a tow truck and hauled it to the shop. Got a big thumbs up from a Westy owner who passed us. He was going to the same place. He opened the gate for us to the shop.

At the shop, we finally got a good look at what I had bought. The first thing on the list was the broken shifter. A used one was at the shop and installed in 15 minutes. Time to take it out for a quick spin. Threw a fire extinguisher on the passenger seat and drove off. Shifted nice, but had a heavy clutch pedal. Sounded rather quite inside considering all that aluminum diamond plate everywhere. While going up a hill, I was losing power. Had to keep downshifting. Started to smell something burning. Time to hightail back to the shop. Looks like the clutch was fried. Maybe the port people trying to get on/off the ship without a stick and roasting the clutch perhaps? Anyway, it was about as far as I wanted to drive it without a check-up. Did a tune-up and an oil change. Ran much better. Still more engine work and general checking around is in order before doing some daily driving. Still need to get a title and plates. The DOL wants me to have the German title translated. Here are some pictures of the weird/cool features of this Bavarian fire truck.

Probably the first thing van people will notice is the roof vent. An aluminum cap covering an electric fan. Not sure if it sucks air out of the van or in. We can't find the switch to turn it on yet.

The roof has a lot of holes from light equipment and antennas that have been covered with plates or rubber grommets. There are two yellow roof mounted lights that are activated by flipping on the emergency blinkers.

A super heavy duty trailer hitch was added.

All the fire department decals were stripped off. The ones on the door were not peeled off but sanded down. What it was suppose to have on the door was "Freiw. Feuerwehr" With the coat of arms of the town below that and then under the crest, the town name. In this case, it was the town of Syrgenstein. About 80 miles NW of Munich. I plan on trying to put the decals back on the door.

Up front inside. Dark brown door cards. They will replaced with ABS panels. The seats look like they are from a 90's van. Nice to have the adjustable armrests.

The instrument panel is as basic as it gets. A km speedo on the left and a blank dial with a gas and water temp gauge on the right. These will be swapped out with a US speedo and tach. The mileage in the German ad said it was 114,000km, not 146,000. I guess there was A LOT of test drives from possible buyers. I'm thinking the red light in the middle might be an indicator that the blue lights are on. Who knows?

The dash is the early style metal one. Most of the switches were removed. There is a cool light above the glove box. Just flip the silver cover up and the light comes on. The van comes with a gas powered rear heater. The switch for it is next to the steering wheel. I'm planning to replace the Swiss cheese dash with a later one. The center of the dash has a cool labeled instruction of "do not use on dry roadway, steering limited". Then there's the classic "Achtung!". Those items I will not remove.

The van is not a walk-thru. There is a wall behind the front seats. As you can see, the van use to be white. It got a cheap Das Maaco paint job. At least they sprayed the door jams.

Up above the seats, the headliner has two zippers stitched in. Open them up and you get access to the wiring to the light equipment mounted on the roof. Since that stuff is gone, there's nothing up in there any more.

In back, there are two rows of olive seats and one horribly cobbled together folding table. The rear facing seats are going bye-bye along with the table.

Above the seats are two lights. These don't work.

Below the rear seat the gas powered heater. Check out the diamond plate floor.

Up above the seats is no headliner. The ceiling is lined with thin fiberboard painted white. There is a strange slide out section that goes to a hole in the roof. An access panel to plug into a roof mounted antenna?

Super basic 14" wheels with hubcaps soon to be 16's.

The aluminum plate interior panels don't rattle much, but the engine access cover doesn't fit quite right.

Big rubber mudflaps added.

Oh yeah, forgot to mention that all the red inside the van was painted on with a brush. Yuck....

More information as it comes in. Next week, the van will have a new clutch and fuel lines. One step closer to a daily driver.

Zeitgeist 13 · Posted: Fri Jul 18, 2014 10:33 pm Post subject:

Man, that diamond plate interior is da shitz. Too bad it isn't a 1.6TD. Fun project
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Steve M. · Posted: Fri Jul 18, 2014 10:38 pm Post subject:

Hey you got it!
It looks so utilitarian it's great! The roof top vent fan is going to make people drool...
Congratulations Big Time!

ak_runner · Posted: Fri Jul 18, 2014 11:35 pm Post subject:

looks like a fun rig. FYI you can drive the van with a broken shifter in a pinch, all you need is a pair of vise grip pliers and a screw driver. The pliers hold the broken nub of shifter up above the floor and you use the screw driver shoved into the end of the nub as a shift lever. It helps to have long arms but it does work, I drove our Westy Syncro 125 miles to get home that way once. The shifter has a weak point that causes them to break in one spot because VW dimpled the lever with a screw that holds the ring above the spring there.
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Merian · Posted: Sat Jul 19, 2014 11:44 am Post subject:

The roof top vent fan is for drying out your lederhosen.

RainierSyncro · Posted: Sat Jul 19, 2014 2:14 pm Post subject:

The main reason to get the van was the diamond plate interior and it's history. My mechanic said that the van was originally a diesel and then converted to a 2.1. That might explain why the motor is so much crusty/rusty/dirtier than the rest of the engine bay.

Steve M. · Posted: Sat Jul 19, 2014 6:10 pm Post subject:

you can find blanking plugs for the m/t dash switches either at home depot, lowes or Ace hardware, (saw them there this morning).

CHARLIE-DONT-SURF · Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2014 2:51 pm Post subject:

Got a control panel I removed from a T3 ambulance. Will have a look tomorrow, sure I still have the fan switch on it Wink

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dipple · Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2014 4:10 pm Post subject:

Looks like the odometer is accurate. It only has 5 digits so 114000 kms would make sense with one roll over (assuming it has only rolled over once). I have seen many km speedos with only 5 numbers on the more utilitarian syncros. The 6th red digit is for partial tenths of a km.
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RainierSyncro · Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2014 10:04 pm Post subject:

Dipple, you're right! I can't believe I didn't notice that! I thought the cluster was super basic, but this makes it even more bare bones with a 5 digit odo. Now the question is if it's been rolled over once or twice? I'm sure I'll find more weird sh!t once I start digging around some more. The main thing is getting it to reliable daily driver status and then I can sell off my '90 GL.

danbar · Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2014 10:12 pm Post subject:

I'm stoked to see this thing is in Seattle. Nice find. It's crazy how many cool ex-working rigs there are in Europe.
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Tristar Eric · Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2014 10:27 pm Post subject:

Nice fire truck! front locker bonus!

Looking forward to seeing it in person some day, always wanted one.
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IdahoDoug · Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2014 11:54 pm Post subject:

Interesting that there is no hole for an antenna on the front. Probably with a radio delete for a utility class vehicle the hole is deleted as well. Cool that VW did not handle that with a plastic body plug or similar - the total delete makes it a unique body panel instead.

That roof vent is tasty. It cries out to me as the solution for a permanent and effective ventilation fan for camping that I have been casually looking for - heh. j/k - I'm sure from the looks of the motor it would run my battery dead while camping in, oh, 45 minutes!

Great rig.

DougM
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SteveMc · Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2014 7:08 am Post subject:

CHARLIE-DONT-SURF · Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2014 11:11 am Post subject:

Has the roof fan got a light in the middle of it on the inside of the van?

Also IIRC , the inner section/inside van bit twists to stop wind notice/cold when driving.

Just about to have tea, will upload a pic of the switches later Smile

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RainierSyncro · Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2014 1:01 pm Post subject:

This is hilarious. You guys are spotting stuff on my van that I haven't notice yet. I hope to get it on the road for more testing this Thursday. Still have to get a title and plates for it.

Here's a picture of the vent from inside the van. It doesn't look like much. The gap between the roof and the fiberboard panel is filled in with cheap foam weather seal. A 4x4 LT owner mentioned to me that his rig has the same fan and that it will both suck in air or blow it out. The van is about 20 miles away, so I can't dig into it more.

CHARLIE-DONT-SURF · Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2014 4:03 pm Post subject:

Here you go chap.

Removed from a danish Ambulance with a Dehler roof and a Hitop sliding door.

Mounting plates for switches have oe part number

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minimart · Samba Member Joined: June 05, 2013 Posts: 71 Location: Qc

RainierSyncro · Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2014 10:26 pm Post subject:

Minimart, my Google translator says that "lenkeinschlag begrenzt" means "sterring angle is limited". The only decals I want to put back is the door stuff. Here's a picture of the Syrgenstein crest. I'll have to e-mail my German friend to confirm. Decals are easy to have made and are affordable.

The switch plate looks interesting, but I'm confused on how it's suppose to work. Lots of things attached to it. I think I'll take off a roof panel and find out where the wires go.

CHARLIE-DONT-SURF · Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2014 1:43 am Post subject:

Ambulance was fibreglass lined with no rear windows so panel went onto a large flat panel and not the dash.

Happy to take the fan switch off etc and put it in a jiffy bag Smile

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Bavarian Syncro fire truck
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