Have fun!!!

Ghia
http://www.vvwc.ca/albums/album40/Ghia_Designer.swf

Bug
http://shop.volkswarenhaus.de/media/content/bugselecta.htm

Bus
http://www.busselecta.com/bus/

Type 3
http://www.typethreedetectives.com/

Porsche
http://www.busselecta.com/porsche/index.htm

Also an online VW Coloring Book
http://www.pre67vw.com/downloads/files/colouring.swf

.. --> google_ad_section_end -->Dan

Well got tired of the missing door panels so I put them and the new door handles and window cranks back on. Then I was like staring at the dash. Its kinda stock but not really. Like the rest of the car it had been cut and rigged and although it looks stock I know that 4 bolts hold the whole hokey thing in place. Im like.... I can do better than that. One of the greatest things about the 66 is it has been so screwed with I dont feel bad about modifying it (it will NEVER be in a museum unless something really wierd happens). So I pulled the gage cluster out. then pulled the fake original dash panel and started a new one out of wood. I saw this dude on EBay selling a rebuilt and painted speedo head that looked great. I thought to myself, I can do that!! and I did. I like the smiley face, its soooo cheerful, and shouldent we all be cheerfull?? I dare to sit in my car and not smile....double dog dare if you open the sunroof  :) So Im letting things dry. tommorow Ill paint the dash and install it and then install gages and wiring (yea! god Im tired of wiring :(   Anyway its gotta get done sometime why not now.

Oh yea work sucked today. that is probably the real reason I worked on the car with pasion today. I like working on MY car and focusing on problems that dont revolve around some airhead that does not take care of there car and then there whole world comes crashing down when it breaks down.which ends in a hissy and them asking for credit (I aint a bank)

.... But I digress

(dan looks at speedo and smiles)

Everyone have a nice day   : )

Dansam  

Well Ive been a wirling dirvish trying to get the 66 ready for the road. Yes it always drove, even when I bought it but it had (has) a lot of goofy stuff going on. Especially with the electricals. Well yesterday I tore into the rats nest of wires and now everything works. It still aint pretty but those cool in headlight parking lights now work. and the headlights now work correctly, and the wipers park when turned off. And most importantly, WE HAVE HORN!!! So Im going to drive it to work today in celibration. Next issue is making the fuel pump (mechanical one) work again so that the electric one can be an annoying noisey backup instead of an annoying noisey unreliable main pump. Anyway it can be turned on and off with a switch. Then we are on to the carbs which are so close to being right but are not. Hmmmmmmmmmmmm What else. I allready took care of door realignment and seals. got some very cool ass keys from vwkey.com (check em out kick ass guys there!!!). Really I think the snow will be flying soon and it will be time to put the 66 to bed sniff sniff. Till then the rebuild continues.

Dansam

..TR>

 

..P>

8:52 AM 

0 Comments

(Add Comment) |

0 Kudos

Translate

Body repair continues.

Checkout the repair I did today (check pics).... Im real happy with the progress, I repaired the only real body rust I had. Lots of welding and a little patching. No filler used to repair as I wanted some structure repair for the right bottom hinge as well as plugging up a big hole. Check the before and after pictures on the blown up screen and you will see what I mean. Mission accomplished. Time to start really sanding and filling and such. Built the paint booth fan system. Its a large gonzo fan I picked up for 5.00 and built a surround for it that houses a home heater filter. Gotta start on the frame for the booth as well. Still hoping to start shooting it this weekend but we shall see. no rushing!!!! DansAm

Powered by

English

Albanian

Arabic

Bulgarian

Catalan

Chinese

Croatian

Czech

Danish

Dutch

Estonian

Filipino

Finnish

French

Galician

German

Greek

Hebrew

Hindi

Hungarian

Indonesian

Italian

Japanese

Korean

Latvian

Lithuanian

Maltese

Norwegian

Polish

Portuguese

Romanian

Russian

Serbian

Slovak

Slovenian

Spanish

Swedish

Thai

Turkish

Ukrainian

Vietnamese

Well first off the kids and I have come up with a name for the 66 bug.

Ally.......   McBeetle

It was mentioned by the kids that me painting it yellow with a red interior would qualify it for Mcdonalds sponsership (kids not amused) anyway they started calling it the Mcbeetle. I said Ah...... Ally Mcbeetle as it looks so skinny next to the wifes 98 beetle.
HAHAHAHA

Anyway Ally got her first taste of the sand blaster today and I found no less than 6 colors of paint!!!!!!, green (original), white (strange looks original white on roof and rear bumper support and green on the mid body very strange) yellow, red, black. I think it was originally green, and have no idea what the white represents but the white looks very original on the roof and rear bumper frame.

If all goes as planned I aught to be able to  START laying paint this weekend or so. Still lots of work to do before that.

Got the pin out of the door hinge on pass side and put in the new mirror pin (YEA) so that was a big deal today as the door had to come off to do it.

DansAm
 

Well Its been a really challanging (i.e. crappy in business speak) July what with all three of my vehicles in state of repair and such. August has started up much better. The Dune buggy has survived its fuel pump woes and is back terrorizing the neiborhood. The "new" 164,000mile beetle is also repaired. After much backyard diag on my part I finally traced the problem to the MAF sensor that took a poop and was making the poor baby run like it was made in mexico (oops it was!!)  Anyway I ended up starting with the fuel pump and fuel filter as it felt like it was being starved for gas, then replaced a cracked coil (how the hell did that happen its only got 164,000 miles!!) then finally noticed the green stuff growing on the maf and figured what the dillio? SO The local vw dealer made some money off me but not as much as if I dropped it off with the credit card Ya know? Plus look at all the shiny parts!!!!!! :) The Ford van beast is still waiting on its new tranny to be delivered tommorow (I hope) This has been a bad saga in the ford story, only 154,000 and the damn trans takes a poop??? and in the middle of camping season??? NOT COOL. Oh well I got a screaming deal on the trans if it can ever get here (been down 4 freaking weeks now!!!) (((((ZEN PATIENCE))))) oh screw that if it does not get fixed before this weekend Im gunna be a unpleasent dude. Woodward dream cruize rocked as allways. check out the jucy pics. There were lotsa dune buggies and other yummy bugs/busses/sqaures ect ect. There was a SWEET 2cv there that was like all mech new including a brand new frame, but had rat rod type body. I like 2cv's :)  Actually sat in a smart car. Hmmmmmmmmmmm  I like. cant wait to drive this one friends that just got one. I like small cars what can I say. Added a Camber compensator to the rear suspension and I like it. Handles better, straitened out the rear wheels a bit and looks cool, way to go JC whitney!! Since the van has been down the buggy has been seeing lotsa action. I need to clean the pig asap the engine is covered in schmegma!! unacceptable.  Still employed, go figure...     :)

Later all

DansAm

SO this will be a short bitch session, Im sorry. I usually love july, weather is great usually get to fly allot girls in bikini's ect ect...... So the vans transmission blows up and is now being repaired. I am doing the extraction/install so this will only be like 500.00 but its taking like 2 weeks and frankly this is camping season and that is one of the vans main reason for existing. the two vw's are trying to compensate but not well. the 99 vw bug needed a new fuel pump (300.00!!) I installed myself. I  also replaced the fuel filter and have been trying to put lotsa injector cleaner through the system as the veh has developed a low speed, on accel surge. Its better since the f/pump but there has to be little pieces of schmegma in the injectors. luckily it is still drivable and seems to be healing itself slowly but surely. The buggy felt left out and on thursday the fuel pump on that veh self destructed and almost stranded my ass, I got creative and got her home with patience one gives an unruly child (when I wanted to set said veh on fire!!! its timing sux) using gravity to fill the filter then driving 1 mile and running her dry again then waiting ect ect. wife and father in law working out some minor health issues and work has been a drag this month and Im contemplating other employment. Thank the lord the kids are ok, and I gues other than being fat, tired and not looking forward to installing a 100 pund trans Im ok!!!

Come on august!!! prove July wrong.,...

DansAm

When I was a kid tyco was more than just a toy. Kids from all over would have tournaments at each others house. And dont get me started on the TCR vrs Tyco debate (those in the know understand those that dont go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_Control_Racing )

ANYWHO I kept my good cars and even kept most of my track I raced even in collage where I started a mini happining thing involving beer and tweaked cars we had like I dont know 12 racers or so. Ok so for the last 3 years my wifes work has this huge mongo casino night for christmas. And wouldnt ya know one of the events is a winner take all 20.00 cash tyco race. you gotta win at least one qualifiing race to be in the big show at the end of the night. The track is a huge oval with like 8 lanes. Ive won 3 years running :)

So my kids were rooting through my stuff and found the track and asked if I could set it up.....well yea I guess.....  hmmm missing a lot of track from the collage days. Cars looked good though. I went on EBAy and found a HUGE assortment of track for 30 bones delivered. I dont know if Ill ever use it all I only set up like 1/ 3rd and it takes up a large space. Anyway kids are loving it.

Things to learn from tyco or any slot type race (yes I hit the kids up with it all)

1. you can NEVER win the race in the first turn but you could sure lose it!

2. going too fast can be the slowest way around the track (third kid out is car resetter).

3. dont get on the resetters (or any judges) bad side :)

4. Play nice (see rule 3) everyone gets to be a resetter sometime in life.

5. too many straits gets boring

6. too many curves gets frustrating

7. there is a balance between straits and curves that is satisifying

I could go on all night :)  check my pics for slot car pics.

Ok I read alot so if I bump into a great one Ill share. Latest read was The art of racing in the rain by Garth Stein.  Great stuff. I like any book that has racing in it. This book is more of a life story but has some great car stuff and lots of fortune cookie sayings to keep me going. Its about and told by a dog named Enzo (as in Ferrari) anyway It covers his life from a pup to his last dying thoughts and covers about 10 years. His owner is a service writer at a bmw dealer and for most of the book he is also an gifted amature race driver. It follows their life and how his owner goes from a bachelor to a husband then father. Hits on some real hard times ect ect. Anyway its a great read and I devoured it in like 3 days of lunchtime and bedtime reading. Checkitout. good stuff.

http://www.artofracingintherain.com/index.html

DansAm

I get 1 hour lunches at work. Its a nice perk. Makes up for lotsa the other usless crap that goes on that I wont get into right now. Anywho one of the techs at my shop came up to me and asked me if Im interested in vw buses. Well um yea. so he says he saw a bus for sale for 400.00 but it looked funny, like it had been shortaned. "really" says I. Hmmmm a short bus for 400? I was thinkin this needed some investigation. So I said to the tech lets take a look and lunch is on me. So we hopped into a boniville and set off. I really had no Idea where this thing was at. It was in the boonies, almost a 30 min drive each way and Im thinking this was a bad Idea. then I saw the bus. Sure enough it was a shorty. It was a 68 bay window. The rear windows were welded over. the seam around the bus was not done very well in my opine but it was what it was. No engine or trans. Very solid some small surface rust around the windshield but not bad. interior was ok but needed a full makover. paint was goofy all stars and stripes red white and blue. The dude who owned it bought it to make a sign out of it. Now at this point Im interested. but then the downside. No title. Frankly the thing has not had a title for the last 3 owners or so. seems this bus was destined to be a roadside attraction and never to actually run. So I made a mental checklist of what the thing would need and came up with trans 300, my engine -0-, interior 300, paint 1000 (cream on top metalic maroon with gold flakes on bottom), wheels/tires -0- (have a sweet set of 80's gold camaro rims and tires that would look great on it), electrical (what a rats nest) 200, and lots and lots of time and a title that could cost up to 500 to track downa dn get plus the 400 purchase price. Total would be 2700.00 and about 4 months of cut knuckles. and who knows how something so goofy would drive (the wheels are like 2 feet from each other!!!) So Im gunna pass. But it was a cool car and I was only 20 min late back to work :)

DansAm

Ok so I decided to take the kids on a little buggy ride about 35 miles away to this campground we belong to go swimming and maybe a little boating. All goes well till we are on our way home. The skys got dark and nasty looking. Now Im not afraid to get wet, and the buggy has gotten caught in the occasional spit storm, but this was something else. winds up to 70mph, hail (OUCH!!!) tree branches on the road and lotsa other nasties. I woulda run for the nearest cover but we were only like 15 miles from home at that point. The girls and I were still in our bathing suites and sitting on our towels, the girls covered their heads with the towels and I just kinda cupped my hands around my glasses with my left hand while making a brake for it. The hail was the worst. Well the buggy didnt stall or nuthing, just plugged its way on home. Dashed into the garage and was met by my wife laughing at us (she was at home) in that wifely way that says (DUMB ASS!!!) ok im a dumb ass, and the kids were NOT amused and asked when Im building a top for the car, but hey... I got home and all is well. the Buggy handled the wind way better than I did, its actually a very stable ride at speed.

Go figure.

DansAm

Been an expensive month so far. Pappa prez bush's little tax money he gave out is now all gone!! Ive been wanting a nice tv since forever, Im into driving sim gaming stuff and I got all the good stuff (surround sound, ps3, driving rig-strg wheel shifter racing seat set up*see pics) but my TV was like from 92, heck all my tvs are from 92, they were good then, 32-37" and all but not up to todays ps3 system. So I talked the wife (god bless her) into getting me a new 42" plasma panasonic vera system (very very very cool) and it really woke up my system.  Ok in that vein I can finally review gt5 prolog for ya'll. It is a racing/driving simulator and makes full use of my rigs 6 speed gated shifter. thats right folks you can rake her through the gears. So now ya got force feedback that is very realistic. great great great graphics and the shiter and for the first time since the original test drive circa 1987 you now have a real dashboard with working gages (YAY!!!!!!!! THEY LISTEN!!!). I have been bitching about the dash thing since, well the early 90's (god im gettin old :) Anywho it freekin rocks. I can honestly say I feel like Im drving. I mean I can really get in a ferrari or ford gt and drive the wee outa it. Its just soooooo cool. Cant wait till the full version of gt5 comes out (prolog is a taste of things to come next year) Its still the best out there right now for any money. Forza might have been better than gt4 but gt5 wipes it off the matt--- K.O. Advantage PS3---.  In other news I got a new stereo to put in the trusty e-150. its 1995 unit is just a poor excuse for a radio. I found a nice unit that Ill plug in hopefully today. The camping season is almost here!!!! Im all excited about gettin out there and having fun with the fam. If ya aint doing it try it its healthy and fun. Im also having fun flying though the b-25 has been a pain in the ass. I finally got the programming right but the right motor has carb issues so its back to the drawing board with it (new damn magnum 4 cycle 52 motor is a pile of crap shoulda went os. Might still switch to os!!!)  Im still hopen to go to silver lake this year with the buggy (buggy is runnin like a champ). news at 11. Enjoy the begining of summer. Get out the toys. Oh damn I almost forgot! look up swashbot on youtube its a riot. the sad/cool/funny part is I could make one!! I got all the stuff to do it!! Ill play with it when I get caught up with everything else** my cup runnith over.

DansAm

Well the weather is breaking and Ive been putting the miles on the buggie as i can. Im flying as I can. I got lotsa winter projects ready to go up so There are lotsa first flights this season.

Thinking of starting a new project. the Buggy is cool and all. Heck Ive been working on it for 2 years and its kinda where I want it but I have a few complaints. First off the wife hates the buggy and in two years has never even sat in it !!!! . Mostly its a hair thing (girls!, dan rolls eyes) I think she also is put off by the massive amount of ground clearence giving the buggy a decidedly top heavy look (it actually handles very well but she aint buying it) another complaint that is more attatched to the owner and therefore more of a valid concern is the no top issue. This aspect is a duel edged sword. I love the out there feeling you get in the car (like a motorcycle) but Its getting old worrying about the weather before I go. Plus its a bear over 60 in crosswinds (like a motorcycle) The buggie is stable but I get moved around alot. And both I and the wife and the kids are ready to take a saw to the side of the thing to have doors. I really really miss doors!!! When I was like 70 pounds less this was not an issue but even my svelt daughters who take dance and are pretty flexable hate getting in the thing. I miss doors.

 I was thinking a regular type 1 sunroof car made into a street machine would be nice. I dont really off road the buggy much anyway. Then I could have a thumpin system and would gain another two months of vw bliss and hey I could lock the thing up when I parked it!!! ANYWAY I put it on Samba for money or a cooly type 1 trade and we shall see what we shall see. Im not dying to sell it or nothing and Id love to make it to silver lake at least once while I own the thing. we shall see.

I saw a 63 that was real nice, also I saw a doable 69 sunroof. I also have a friend pushing a super stupid clean 74 sun bug standard that Im not in love with but its just so damn solid, with some 66 or older front fenders would look cool. And then there is the 70'ish camper I saw the other day (had a 71 bus once, life in the slow lane. but still fun in its own way, love the steering wheel baing so bus like :)  Anyway as always when I get near the end of a project I get itchy we shall see if that itchieness turns into a new project vw or if I just focus more on my planes and getting some off roading in with the buggy. After all I still love the buggy I just always look torwards the next project..  

DansAm