After reading your message on FB and replied on it
I decided to register to this forum.I'm half way in the 30's and always been a car nut but never had the serious money
Have worked almost 20 years as a mechanic in electrics and mechanical stuff so I'm not unfamiliar with getting my hands dirty. I also own a Japanese classic car which I'm working on it now an then. We wanted to have camper van but buying a "Tupperware" camper never appealed to me. Saw some cool old timer firetruck and VW campers on the internet which had my interest. Then my GF showed a picture of an UAZ 452 and I was again determined to find one . As I got to know this car like 10 years ago while I was traveling in Ukraine and saw one standing in the street. At the time I did looked for one but couldn't find one or lost my interest.
We looked for a long time and didn't find the right one for the right money. Almost "tossed the towel in the ring" until we saw an UAZ 452 from 1968 was for sale in Austria. The previous owner imported it from Bulgaria but couldn't get the car registered in Austria since they rules are really strict. Wasn't sure if we would get it registered in the Netherlands but after it arrived we gave it a try and luckily it worked out .
We gave the car an obvious cheesy nickname Boris
. After we got the license plates and drove around a bit I found out the engine and gearbox was actually in very bad shape. When I test drove the car in Austria I did noticed the oil pressure sensor wasn't working and thought it was broken. Well... It wasn't broken.. the engine was just out of engine oil all the time Refilled the oil and it came out everywhere.... We decided that we wanted to get the new 2,7L injection engine and the 5 speed gearbox.Normally would do all the work my self but since we don't have enough space and time (plus the other car which I'm working on) we shipped the car to a garage in Poland where they are experts Russian vehicles and know all the tricks. Sadly they are very busy and our van is standing there almost a year by now
Hopefully soon they will finish it so that we could enjoy driving around in the quirky Buhanka. Boris back then in Austria
