Mijn 343

Welcome!

The original protective coating is thick, flexible PVC. BIG problem with this material is that once there is a small hole, water may enter between the bodywork and the coating. This creates 'rust pockets' and will end up in large holes.

The best thing to do would be to strip the entire coating, repair the rust holes and then apply a more modern coating (example: low tack wax-based products like RX)


Overall, very very nice car, I like the colour! One thing apart from the ugly wheelcovers; the steering wheel. this model steering wheel only went into production 1-2 years after this car was made. The horn should be operated by pressing the left handle towards the steering collumn, not with buttons on the steering wheel itself.

The anti gravel painting reaches the middle of the doors. It's been sprayed with a darker color, not a very professionnal work to me. I hope it has protected the original painting underneath !

I didn't try the horn actually. I think it works (if not, it would'nt pass the technical inspection) but I don't know how.

It has only 45000 km ! Driven during 30 years by the same person.
Otherwise, the rear parcel shelf is missing.


Hartelijk dank for all your messages !:y:

Welcome here Fran?ois!

Looks like you've got yourself a very nice 343 in a pretty good condition!

Hopefully you can understand some of the dutch language to read the forum, are you also familiar with the english V3M forum?
Maybe that forum is a bit more understandable for you in terms of technical subjects.

I wish you much (driving) fun with your V343.

Wouter76;184276 schreef : Hopefully you can understand some of the dutch language to read the forum, are you also familiar with the english V3M forum?
Maybe that forum is a bit more understandable for you in terms of technical subjects.

There is even a French part on V3M!

^.....:y:

Thank you for your suggestion, I am already a member of V300mania forum in French, but the V300 club is more reactive, may be because... it's a dutch car !

the english side of V3M is a lot more active than the french side:D

Welcome Fran?ois,

Great to see another early 343 being saved.

The English section of V3M is indeed a lot more active than the French speaking section. However for the really early ones (before 1980) the Dutch forum is the place to be.

I already noticed your car on the French V3M and am convinced that your car is not a MY78, even though it was sold in Jan 1978, but is actually a MY77 because of the colour, door handles, interior,.....
I am not surprised reading about the corrosion on your car. At that time (before 1979) French steel was used for the 343, which can rust faster than you can treat it...
For restauration purposes you can basically "harvest" all the body parts (floor pan, (inner)sills, jackpoints,....) from the remains of a later 3-door car (-1991). The doors will be a problem however as they are different from the 1978- doors (the doorcard is mounted in a different way). But apart from that you ought to be able to fix your car.

Can you tell us the chassisnumber of your car? As a lot of things were changed during MY77 because of the urgent need to improve overall quality, it may be interesting to know the actual conig of your car.

I wouldn't consider the early "strap-down" parcel shelf to be a problem; there are probably more of those left than there are cars left.
The steering wheel will be more of a problem however; the current one in the car was used from 1979 onwards, the correct one should be a brown 3-spoke one but finding a good one of those is like looking for hen's teeth. A good alternative may be a black 3-spoke one as used in the 343L (1978 onwards) and in the Volvo 66.
Funny enough there is an identical car like yours for sale on Ebay Germany. Perhaps a suitable parts donor?

Nice DAF 77!
Look alot like this one:
cgi.ebay.de/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie ... 0599890557

Good luck kickin'out the rustdevil.

Thank you for all your advices. I hope that changing the lower parts with parts from another car won't be necessary for a long time. But who knows ?

About the steering wheel, I don't know where it comes from. But I like it as it is. There are some strange things on this car, and I still haven't discovered all of them.

The most important for the moment is to drive it to the South of France, about 600 km by the road !

The German Volvo on ebay is nearly the same :yummie: (with some kilometers more !)