Well, no big news yet. I just spent my lunch getting the body up on sawhorses, and started sanding. Should be ready to paint in a coupla weeks. I also ordered brand new taillight, front turn signal light, and license plate frame/light assemblies for it.
OK, looks like this one actually went through. Whew. 1970 Beetle, complete, has just sat for years and years. May need a rebuild, no big deal. Only $600! This is perfect. The reason it is so cheap is because the paperwork is all screwed up, and back registration is about $700. But that doesnt matter to me, im tearing it all apart. Hopefully i'll be making a lot of progress now.
Yeah, this is perfect. And for $600, that saves me a ton of money for other stuff. This really helps a lot.
This bug, a guy bought it as a project many years ago, and he passed away, and the wife just left it. So they can't find the pink, there is huge back liens on the title. So fixing it up isnt even a temptation for me, i dont want the headache. Im going to pick everything off it i can use, and part out the rest.
Well, i survived my grueling day. Rented a car hauler at lunch. My friend happened to sell an old Porsche 924 he had sitting around, and the buyer happened to live just a mile of the freeway in the direction we were going. So we loaded the Porsche and headed out about 5 pm. Dropped it off in Loma Linda, CA, then drove on up to Hesperia and got my bug. We got back to his house about midnight.
The Porsche loaded and ready to go.
My Beetle in its new home, waiting to get torn apart. I'm going to try to get it running as is first, just to make sure motor and transmission are copacetic before i go through the trouble of swapping them out.
And some little parts i got through the mail, new taillights, front turn signals, and a lighted license plate frame.
Thanks! Its getting a bit more exciting now, and a bit more daunting.
The motor is old and dusty, but complete and stock. Oil in it didnt look burnt or have crap in it. I think with a little fiddling it should run fine. Its not seized or anything.
Well folks, you wanna see a happy Phil? This thing had sat for years without running, and i didnt know what condition it was in when it stopped running, so i expected the worst. Hadnt been started in at least 5 years or so.
So, i hooked up jumper cables to my car, squirted a little starting fluid in. At first nothing. took off the distributor cap, and the points werent adjusted right. After that . . .
A little smokey at first, but that might be from years of sitting, and burning off stuff that had collected. Either way, its plenty good enough to use as is. After it ran a bit, no smoke at all came from the tailpipe.
Im one very happy camper. $600 i got a screaming deal.