What did you do to your volkswagen today?

Thanks Eric.

I guess I'll be skim coating and blocking for the next few weeks. I wish I'd never taken my stuff to those people. I'd have been better off stripping the parts and coating them myself. Not to mention the money I spent for nothing. (Actually less than nothing) The parts need more work now than when they started on them. Live and learn....

Not as festive as Garys Bus, but.....



Added a little Christmas Spirit to the Bus. Our new family tradition (1st Christmas with our Bus) is to cruise around and look at lights.

Changed the oil, adjusted valves, tightened belt, drove to work.

Narrowed the front beam 4" and put the adjusters on. Not a show quality job but it will work for now.
Waiting on the upper balljoints to finish the front end.

Got the door locks working in Ashleys car.

Hauled pallets and logs around the yard in the bus.

Ya know, I really love VW's I havn't been home in nearly 3 months and my bug has been sitting, well early this morning with MUCH antisapation i woke up went out put my new battery in, cranked it up and with no hesitation fired right up!!! drove it around went and filled the tank, put air in the tires, because sitting for that long does somethin to air in tires but it drove like it's only been a day or two , for some reason i just cant stop

Drove it to work, noticed that it was pulling to the right a little but didn't feel too bad. Got here and checked to find a flat front tire, tire is pretty much ruined now. It is holding air but the side walls are shot. I have zero $ right now after Christmas and all - does anyone know of a cheap place to get some 135, 145, or 155/15s? The used tire store I usually get tires from doesn't have those sizes.

Over the weekend I straightened my rear fenders as best I could. I skim coated and blocked what I couldn't get straight with panel beating. Shot some acid etch primer on the bare spots. I had to temporarily bolt up the fenders to work them. They did not want to conform due to warp-age from blasting. I never did get all the fender bolts in, but just enough to work them. When it comes time to permanently install them I'm going to need a second person to help with alignment of the holes.

Cleaned up the engine compartment, And installed my Christmas gifts on the Bus. (Chrome Dipstick, Oil Cap, & Window Ventshades) Pretty Cool Gifts from my mom...

Replaced Seal reinstalled flywheel(Thanks Eric went real easy!), Changed to the old but good throw out bearing, Adjusted beat the crap out of the Empi header to make it fit better, repaired - straightened breast plate tin, Reinstalled engine, drained that oil-fuel mixture!. Still have the fan shroud and intake to install, deck lid.

I still need to decide what to do about the intake.

Pulled Dads car off the pan. Cleaned out the bolt holes in the heater channels. Getting everything ready for the shell to go back on when I get back from skiing. Hope to be driving the car next week.....may even have it at the sonic if I get all the parts in time.

Sonic or bust!

One of my fenders, the passenger front, after being blasted revealed it was full of rust holes and beat up pretty bad. I had bought this fender from Joey at All Round Resto's. I called Joey and told him I would like to exchange the fender for a better one and he said, "Sure if I have one." He did and was gracious enough to swap with me. Nice guy to do business with.

Today I chiseled the hood seal strips off and ground the flats clean and etch primed the area. I'm going with the Mexi-beetle hood rubber. I'll probably do the engine cover seals as well. I'm glad I took the old rubber retainers off because they were hiding rust underneath them. They must trap water as evidenced by the rust.

with alot of help i got the windsheild put in, thats a pain in the ars, but its in

tried to mock up my recently narrowed beam, to find out that we welded the adjusters at too much of an angle and there is no turning back.


I will have to get a stock beam for now to get it back on the road. Lesson learned....If you want something done right, do it yourself!!!!

Started work on the relacement passenger fender. Didn't want to sandblast it, so I wirewheeled the whole thing to remove the few remaining patches of paint and all the rust. Took a while because my wirewheel is about 5 years old and on it's last leg. Need to get a new one next time I'm out. Also, finally got the lock out of the convertible glove box door I scored the other day. Now I know the code for it so I can order a key! Finally, I dissasembled the 68 speedometer I bought the other day. Reset the mileage on it to match my current speedo and cleaned it up. Didn't get a chance to put it back together yet, wanted to paint the needle, but need to get some off-white paint first.

It suxs that I am only posting in here for work I am doing on a friends vw and not mine!!! But anyway.... Got the engine back together again after a mishap with a bad jug, running great! Bled the brakes and adjusted, new axles put in, new accel cable, rewired it for a stock generator vs alt and the charging system is now working!! Hope to get the rear cage on it today and the lights wired up then can call my friend to pick it up so I can get back to work on mine!!!!!!!! Thats my project which was put on hold stuffed in the back.
A few pics of his ride...

Took some rust off and put a new steering wheel on!

Billie came by my shop this evening and brought me a narrowed, adjustable front disc brake beam he built for me. We pulled my old one and installed the rebuilt one. Tomorrow we'll finish up
with shortening the tie rods and putting the steering box on. I'll have to order some soft brake lines and new tie rod ends. Also a new steering damper my old one is shot. Also some GR2 KYB's for the front end. My old shocks had to be cut off due to rust seizure.

Finished the speedometer today. I didn't take any pictures before I opened it up, but it was in pretty crusty shape.
I disassembled it, reset the odometer to match my current one (added a hundred miles since it may be a while before I get the sending unit), put in new gels, and painted the needles.

I usually just glue the new gels to the back of the speedo face, but this time I used the notebook divider thingys. Since these are stiff, I decided to put them back in the rubber boot. I scuffed up one side of the color tabs, then cut them to shape and inserted them in the rubber boot. Still seemed a little to opaque, so I cut another and inserted it on top of the other one. So each one is actually two layers. I put a bulb in and tested it and it looks great.


Finished product

Looks good Eric!

Thanks Bryce. I can't tell you enough how much I truly appreciate that door. Me and my Dad put it on this afternoon. I'm adding to the deer thread as I slowly get it back together. I posted a little bit about my work the last two days. After the 10th I'll get into the cutting and welding.
A small update here:
new post in deer thread

Well Billie and I ran into a slight snag yesterday finishing up the beam install. We shortened the tie rods...no problem. When we went to re-install the tie rods it appears I have the large type rod ends and the spindles Billie put on the rebuilt beam accept small rod ends.

Billie cleaned my steering box while I shot the breeze with an old friend and former employee in my guitar shop. I finally had to be rude and return to help Billie. After the steering box was cleaned I shot a quick coat of fast dry gloss black lacquer as well the newly welded tie rods.

Billie offered to swap out my spindles from my old beams. What a good guy....because that is more work for him but he is a man of his word. (Rare these days) He didn't want to leave me without a steerable vehicle. I told him to come back at his leisure to do the spindle swap.

I ordered two GR-2 KYB's shocks last night. I will order a new steering damper today along with a new rubber speedometer hub seal and dust caps.

Woooo-Hoooo, finally finished my friends baja, now time to start back on mine! Cleanning the garage tonight and de-greasing the tools and will move the DC out into the work bay hopefully tonight! Wish I would have gotten pics of the baja before he took it, i took it thru some mud to test and it was covered!!!! He is taking it thru the woods tonight so might can post some pics of a sh!t brown bug tommorow!!!

Now that I can start back on the DC looking for a set of 15X5 raised white letter tires. anyone know of a source or have any?

went to the pull-a-part and got what i thought i would need for my manual swap in the rabbit. get home to find out i have to swap the steering rack to. . oh well there only 20 buck and i have new tie rod ends.

Billie and I ran into another snag installing my new front end... the inner wheel bearings were too small to fit my original spindles after we swapped them out so I could use my tie rod ends. We made a parts run to Advanced Auto Parts in Dawsonville on Hwy 400 and picked up some new inner wheel bearings. Went back to the shop and they fit fine. Next we hooked up the soft brake lines to the calipers. Then re-installed the shortened tie rods. Then we bolted on the wheels so we could let the rack down. We ran into a clearance problem with the inside of the wheels. I'm trying to decide now whether to have the backside flat of the wheel welded up and then machined flat to add about a sixteenth of an inch or put a hub centric thin spacer on.

None of this is Billie's fault because neither he nor I knew that the front end he narrowed was an early '68 and my bug is a late '68. They look identical but there are slight differences.

Billie has really been the good guy by sticking by until the end. I offered him money for all of the extra trouble and he has refused to take it. He has disassembled and rebuilt one front end. Now he has disassembled two more front ends and assembled the parts of both disassembled front ends into the final product. He has made three trips from his house to mine and several trips to the hardware store and the auto parts store with me.

Billie has offered to help me finish the install when the rest of my parts arrive. We have to weld on the steering damper bracket. Install the new shocks. Also set the toe-in after we finally bolt the steering box down. Also I need to pick up some longer bolts for the top two bolts that secure the beam and install those.