Major Surgery

Over Thanksgiving something got into me. Where I had l been looking at the "heap on saw horses" for months wondering what the next step would be, suddenly I knew what I needed to do. With a little time off work I fired up the compressor and broke out the air chisel again. I was able to get the spare tire well out which was something I had started drilling out months ago. It went so well I just kept going. Before long both heater channels were out. I couldn't stop there. I examined the rear shelf panel and decided it could come out without the entire car caving in. If taking the rocker/heater channel out didn't cause the car to implode nothing could (actually I've mounted some temporary bracing into the door openings to maintain integrity).

In the photos you'll see the new and old rear shelf side-by-side. What a difference. I've also included before-and-after pics of the old shelf area from inside the car. The shelf also forms the firewall seperating the engine compartment from the rear of the passenger compartment. By lifting the engine hood up you can now look through the entire car, front to back, from the outside. What a sight!



In preparation for the Christmas holidays, when I hope to get lots of work done, I kept getting things ready. I removed all of the front brake parts (shoes, springs, cylinders, adjusters, lines.... the whole works). All there is now is an empty drum, bare backing plate, and axle bearings and seals. I spent days trying to do the same on the rear but could not get the rear axle nuts off. If you know V-dubs, you know these can be hard to get off under good conditions. What I have here is far from good conditions. I tried an impact wrench and broke three breaker bars (my old one, it's replacement, and Pat's ... I have another replacement now as does Pat) after soaking them in penetrating oil. I tried heat and beat the stew out of them hoping to knock something loose - No luck. After church today I went back to compressed air and a cut off tool. Once I got sections of the nut cut out and a few slices into it as well, I was able to get a chisel and hammer to turn it. Much to my surprise, once the nut was off I found that the threads on the axle looked great. I had half expected the nut and axle to be "welded" together with rust. I ran out of daylight (thanks to a washing machine that decided to drain it's wash water all over the house ... the drain hose popped off causing a minor flood and a major sanctification test for all of us) so I didn't get started on the other side. I did get the brakes pulled off this one side so it's ready for bearings and brakes when the time comes.



Check out the rt. rear brakes when I pulled off the drum. The fronts looked similar. This is another indication of how long this car has sat. With each new thing I uncover the funnier it gets.



Well, Lord willing, I'll have good weather the next couple of weeks and be able to accomplish tons. I have a garage and attic full of parts and time off work. The only thing to slow me down now is the weather and my own ignorance. I watched a lot of this kind of stoff get done years ago but have never done it myself. As Tammy's cousin Matt said this weekend (keep in mind he's a bodyman and makes a living doing this) "you may have never welded before but you'll know how when this is done." Matt's also given me some tips on body filler and sanding. He approved of the paint colors we're considering only because they are light colors and light colors hide imperfections well.... that was encouraging. Hope to keep you updated over the next couple weeks. Pray!

A New Addition To The Family

No Tammy's not pregnant and we haven't been back to China. We have been visited by the VW stork however. He delivered this sharp looking 1975 Super Beetle a couple of months ago. The real story is that this purdy little bug was out on a corner for sale just a few blocks from the house. We watched it for a few weeks (actually thought it had sold at one point when it didn't show up for a while) but I guess it was meant to be. Thank you Eddie for test driving with me (between the two of us you know that car didn't stand a chance). The car looks great, especially from a distance. Up close it's got some rust popping up and even a little hole in the roof. This will get cleaned up some time in the future. For now there's no rush (the roof may get taken care of sooner rather than later to prevent bigger problems). You can see in the photos there's also a dent in the left front fender (it came that way). I'll do what I can to hammer that out after I've gained some experience on fraulein. It's obvious someone went through this car at one time and did what I'm doing to the other. The inside is very clean (new dash, headliner, stereo & speakers). The carpet and upholstery appear to be original or older replacement that lare in good shape (the sun has eaten a hole in the top of the rear seat though). The outside sports fresh paint (fresh when the restoration was done), new tires, mouldings and I believe a freshly rebuilt motor. This car drives like a dream. It's fuel injected and pretty peppy. There a sun roof which is real nice (and will be even nicer in the summer when the sun is kicking). Tammy and Jane Ellen are looking forward to driving this one (Emmy has named it "the buzz" since that's how she pronounces "bug"). For Tammy it's only a matter of honing her clutch skills as it's been a while since she drove a stick. Janey on the other hand will be starting from scratch. That should be fun....



A funny story (that wasn't so funny at the time) which reminded me that with old cars like these there's always going to be something that comes up - no matter how nice the car is. Katie had a race in Marianna (an hour-and-a-half away) a week or two after we bought the car. I was leary about taking it this far, and on the interstate none-the-less, before doing more locally to test it out. On Friday night Tammy and I drove to Crestview (half an hour) and the car did great. Come Saturday morning, the day of the race, I talked myself into driving "the buzz". Katie was game too and understood that if something went wrong on the way there she would not make it to her race. We arrived in Marriana and all was fine. Once again the car drove wonderfully. After the race I walked out to the parking lot to warm-up the car (it was cold this day) and saw the pavement was wet underneath the engine. My first thought was that something had gone terribly wrong with my oil change from the day before. Upon closer inspection I saw there was "water" dripping out from behind the engine compartment (this is actually in front of the engine compartment and behind the passenger compartment). It had been raining alot the days leading up to this so I thought maybe the car had stored some water in the body and it was just draining out (no such luck). Katie and I proceeded to drive to the Whataburger in Marriana to meet the team for a post race meal. On the way I kept smelling gas and began to notice my fuel gauge was dropping much faster than expected. At the time we were in stop-and-go traffic. I peered into the rear view mirror only to see a trail leading up to the rear of the car. When we pulled forward, the trail revealed a puddle with another trail following me. This is when I realized we had a gas leak. Did the prayers start then! "Lord just get us to the Whataburger without exploding" was repeated over and over. By the time we got to Whataburger, the dripping water had turned into a steady flow a gasoline (of course I had filled up shortly before we got to the race). I couldn't get near enough to see what was causing the leak for all the gas that was coming down. I called Pat back in Niceville, who immediately stopped what he was doing, jumped into Richard's truck, borrowed a trailer from a friend, and came up to get me (thanks brother). Together we loaded "the buzz" on the trailer (ask me later and I'll share that experience with you) and toted it home. Turns out the fuel line, which is metal from the gas tank (in the front of the car) switches to hose in order to go from the driver side of the car, over the transmission, to the passenger side of the car, and clamp to the fuel pump (the pump is in the engine compartment but has a tip sticking through the firewall for the fuel hose). This hose was a little too long and was thus laying down on the transaxle and a sharp edge there had worn through the hose. It was an easy fix and we've been back on the road without a problem ever since.