A bit of time was spent today dollying out some of the dents in the hood (or bonnet), amongst other areas on the car. Its starting to look better.. but will no doubt require a final thin layer of body filler to fill in any impurities.

Well I finally found it. I have been looking for a car like this for months and months, years and years... and I've finally found one and laid the money down for it.

The car is a 1971 Standard Beetle. Manual with a 1600cc, and not too much rust. It isn't running right now.. but that might be because of a lack of fuel, amoung other vital fluids.



Today we started to disassemble the car in the driveway into bare form. Bumpers were removed along with seats, and any remnents of the interior, and any previous owner installed amenities. We will be pulling the body from the pan in the next few days and begin restoring the chassis.

Stay tuned.

There is no compression what-so-ever. Sure.. I can feel air getting pushed and pulled through the engine, but there is no sealing for compression, and there is no combustion. Looks like I'm gonna take it all apart again.. the good thing is.. these engine can be taken apart and put back together in like half an hour.

Just got done rebuilding the Scooter engine. It was pretty straight forward and only took a few hours. The new crankshaft is in, along with the 80cc kit (72cc). Just waiting on the carb rebuilt kit. Hopefully that thing will fire up and be ready to ride tomorrow!!

I bought it broken, so it will be the first time for me since I seized the engine up trying to start it last time.

I finally am able to say the car is running fine and without hassles. I have almost put 200 miles on the car since the new radiator went in with no overheating, and no leaks that I can see. The car actually has a bit of A/C charge left in it to, so the air is cold when I need it to be.

The O2 sensor went out.. not sure about which one yet. Probably the one on the manifold, because that is cracked. It could just be the crack that is causing a poor O2 readout.. who knows.

Put the TYCs on it. They look amazing, especially with the amber bulbs which I didn't have / try on the R/T. Also installed an Iceman intake / battery tray, booger bushings (thanks Jeff/Tony), and a radiator from the R/T...



The battery connections are having problems. I know the battery has a charge but I cannot get it to do anything but click (jump starting works, and it runs fine once its started).. I've had the terminals off a few times now, cleaned everything and tried to seperate them. I cannot get it to make a better connection than what it already has. The nuts are pretty well rounded off... can I get new hardware? Or should I try some new connections?

I put a non-holy radiator into it, and I might have botched that up. I am noticing a bit of a drip from where the lower radiator hose goes. I'm not sure if its the clamp being too loose or the hose being punctured minorly... probably have to replace them both. Its okay... I'll be a radiator/coolant champion soon.

The car has been having some problems with overheating. It all started when the return coolant line from the heater core popped off and drained the radiator all over the engine. Luckily I had the tools to secure the line and enough fluids to fill it back up.

I thought everything was fine, but today coming home the temp gauge spiked up. Hopefully its nothing bad.. I've got a new coolant temp sensor to check that its not just a defective one.

Well... the brake line must have collapsed because the caliper has seized. The pads were pressing against the rotor on one side and heated the brakes up pretty good! Looks like the car will be getting new calipers, rotors, pads, and lines soon! Luckily.. those things are pretty CHEAP!

Got the 3.0L intake on the car today. It was trickey.. I don't see how people can just cut the battery tray and get this thing in here. It doesn't help that the filter was like 2" in Dia better than the inlet. I ended up taking out the driver side radiator fan, and just putting it in the front there (off towards the battery tray a bit too).

Took a bit to figure out why the car wouldn't start / get power. Had to redo the connections on the battery a few times till I realized the ground to the core support wasn't hooked up! Doh.. I sure hope this car doesn't gets ALL of its ground from just that little strap to the core support.

The car has a bit of a high idle (~1200 RPM). The IAC might be bad, because I can't seem to notice any vac leaks.

Ran a bit of Seafoam through it.. gonna let it sit til tomorrow and we'll see how much it smokes!

Also.. ordered a set of window stabalizers and a new driver side window track.

Gonna need to look up a new Bobble strut (the engine has quite a bit of movement), and I don't know about the other mounts.

This car is gonna be great.. Quiet. Reliable. (I hope!) Smooth. (the ride is amazing). Working A/C! Factory CD player.. Lights.. etc! I don't think I could let this one go!

Put on the UR (okay.. its a Cosmos) UDP on today with new belts. What a pain in the ass..

The actual removal and install of the crank pulley was easy. Getting the PS belt on tightly was impossible. Its still a little loose, but its as tight as I could get it (and I used the breaker bar in the hole for it). The Alternator was easy.. I'm glad they designed that one better (though it still was a pain!)