VolksRide

Headliner: Rear Window progress

2006-05-22T10:53:00.000-04:00

Ok, this time I think I have the rear window 90% cut out and 99% past the idiot (I screwed up again) stage. Installing the rear fabric is by far the most nerve racking thing one could ever endure. It feels like you are pissing away $120 per try. In the past, I lost $700 dollars from a hole in my favorite worn out jean pants pocket, but something about failing more than three times on a $120 headliner was way more fustrating . At least I live in hope that one day I will find my $700 lost four years ago in some weird hiding place in my apartment. Yes, I still pray for my money! :-)

The last remaining peice is clamping the lower section to the window ledge. I was getting to close with my cuts so I left the shop for the day. Also, the most important thing that helped me out this far was having a second pair of eyes (which) was the only brian. Evidently, my eyes and lack of a brain helped me fail two tries ago by myself.

More to come next week. Wish me luck or send me $120.00, I'd be trying once more if I do... :-(

Headliner: Install update - Failed

2006-04-30T17:25:00.000-04:00

Today was my second attempted to install my headliners. I used a tutorial off the web that gave the wrong instructions and left out an important step in its documentation. I figured I can fail 5 times before it cost me more attempting than having it done professionally. The prices I have been getting for the install in the North East is roughly $600. The way I figure, this is my project and I would really like to install the headliners perfectly myself. I am ordering my third kit today (sux!). Once I have completed the project, I will write a complete update on the process which will include photo, so that others can learn from my experience and not by three headliner units.

General: 1958 Peanut turn signal Installation

2006-04-17T12:52:00.000-04:00

Just when you thought most VW parts were interchangeable, some install will completely reminds you that they are not. I purchased a nice set of chromed peanut turning signal from a VW show for my 1958 project. Although the Hella lenses were pretty cracked up, the chrome was in great shape. I purchased it from one of those guys that have everything setup completely and nicely with a yellow or green price tag strapped to it. I am sure those type swappers exist in every Volks show across America. Presentation = more money. :-) This also translate into an easy installation process. Fortunately, I bumped into the #1 price negotiator on the East coast, my friend Bob. He talked the vendor down from $75 to $50 dollars because of the cracky Lenses. So, I took them back to my lab, replaced the lenses with my original non-cracked pair and tried to assemble them to my car. The bolts were too short and after one hour of trying to push the signal down so the screw could catch underneath the fender, I stood up and check my original turn signal and I noticed the post were about an 1/8 of an inch longer. So, I swapped them out and mounted the signals. At that time I noticed the wire connector was different as well. The older one had a screw in wire apparatus vs the 1963 version that had a prong for clipping. So, basically I purchased the chrome for $50. I already had the seals and plastic. The moral of the story is, make sure you review things carefully before purchasing things from at swap meets. What you think you are about purchase, might not be what you need. I think swap vendors start as people who purchased a whole bunch of parts the thought they needed, but found out it was not applicable. So, if you never want to have a surplus of parts that do not work for you, make sure you select carefully. Ask question and cross reference with people in the Auto Show, their cars are already done.

General: Help with choosing a Logo

2006-03-29T00:40:00.000-05:00

vs.

Which of these logos have the most appeal?

Headlights: Seeing with both eyes

2006-03-28T15:37:00.000-05:00

I have finally received my replacement H4 headlight beam for my Bug's left eye. When my car was at the last shop in New Jersey, I guess someone walked in and stole the EMPI H4 light that I slated for my project (-$15.00, just the chip of all lost parts there). I purchased a replacement and installed it. Now my headlight restoration project is complete. My car now has two eyes to see with.

General: The VW Beetle Lab is Ready

2006-03-18T21:57:00.000-05:00

I am completely situated into my new space. Today I focused on getting my Beetle Lab cleaned up, organized and ready for the work ahead. All that I need to do is finish painting the table so that grease will not make the top look too messy and also take my radio and a clock. It feels good having my personal workspace. While this may seem trivial to those who do not live in NYC, but trust me, living in New York and having a garage is a rare experience.

General: The Sleeper's Sleeper

2006-02-26T18:10:00.000-05:00

This weekend, I move my 1958 bug to its new home in Valley Stream, NY. Finally, my complete project has been moved to New York. No more driving to New Jersey on Saturdays to work on my ride. My last arrangement was very complicated, as the shop was open only on Saturdays. During the work week, I could not make it in time to work on my car for 1 or 2 hours a day. Also, paying $6.00 day for Holland Tunnel fees was killing my pocket no matter how much efforts I put on my car. My project has been running for almost 4 years because of this arrangement. Sometimes I was only able to work on my VolksRide 1 time per month, but I was still paying a regular monthly holding and shop fee. Let just say, it has added about $8k to the cost of my project and I am glad to be in NY, even if it is not in Brooklyn. Who would have ever guessed that moving to NY would be cheaper, saving me $1,116 per year. So now the Sleeper can sleep like a New Yorker. :-)

General: The Homeless VolksRide

2006-02-12T19:47:00.000-05:00

I am looking for a new home for my 1958 project. Yesterday had to be one of the most disastrous days of my life. It was not of global proportion, such as the destruction of the World Trade Center, but on a personal level, it was indeed an act of terrorism. Had this been pre-911, I would have found myself at the Promenade in Brooklyn gazing at the glory of Lower Manhattan's skyline to calm my soul after what happened yesterday. Over the past few years, I have been working on my car project in rented space across the Hudson River in New Jersey. I rented shop time from a VW specialist who has been working on VW's since not long after the social program Kraft durch Freude (KDF) had been adopted in Germany. Four year ago, when I purchased the car, I went on a quest to find as many NOS (New Old Stock) parts for my project as I could. Everyday, I had searched the web for people parting from their precious holdings of New Old Stock parts. Three years ago, I found a completed NOS set of rubber floor mats for my 58 project with the correct VW part number on them (113 863 712A). In the past, some of my parts came up missing, which slowly increased my overall fustrations. These were parts that I took off the car 2 years ago. They had been shuffled around the shop or lost only because the owner took the small boxes (while I was away for one month) I was using to hold my parts to complete his own personal storage agenda. He wanted to store his shop parts in an uniformed wall of Natural Springs water boxes - Go figure! If that was not enough, when I seen one of my rear NOS mat hanging across a latter cut in half, I fell apart. I few off the handle. Bad words had been exchanged and out of pure emotion, I announced that I would be leaving the shop. Thank god for Craigslist, I have found private garage space in less than 24 hours. The deal is not final, but I will hopefully have a private space for the same price, minus paying Holland Tunnel fees when I return to New York City. Some times bad thing happen for a reason. I'll have my own key and can work on my project more often than Saturday. Rock onward, minus the NOS part.

General: Website Lettering Design

2006-02-08T11:01:00.000-05:00

I am trying to come up with a kewl theme for a Vintage VW Site that I'm building. I am artistic, but I have never been able to mix my artistic talent with technology. I suck at Photoshop and GIMP. I might resort to the old fastion illustration way and then scan it in. Let me think about that one. I am willing to pay someone $50 dollars to create me a slammed Beetle that could hang off the left side of these letterings. What type of service do you think most VW sites are lacking? Please do comment.

Headliner: Screw up

2006-02-08T00:12:00.000-05:00

The last picture shows how I cut the fabric. The fabric was not set up correct for the bottom. Trying to get the whole cut before it was glued at one end makes matters difficult, if not impossible to get a smooth finish.

Headliner: Install failure - Wat da fau?

2006-02-06T12:04:00.000-05:00

On Saturday I made a crucial mistake in my headliner install. I had finished installing the padding, but I made one cutting mistake on the rear window piece. I am going to contact my vendor to see if I can buy only a replacement rear window piece or if I will have to repurchase the whole kit. In either case, I have up to four times to completely screw up. The kit cost $98 plus shipping. The cheapest install price I had received for the install was $500. I will upload pictures later and I'll explain my mistakes. I will be a professional before this is over. The old saying is true, an education always cost money. :-) The vendor said they do not sell pieces of the kit, but does sell the cloth by the yard ($34 per yard). All I have to do is send in a swatch sample and they will send it to the manufacture for a match. This is going to prolong my project, as the rear pieces must be installed first. The vendor is Wolfsburgwest. They are awesome to deal with when you have a problem.

General: The Original

2006-02-02T11:35:00.000-05:00

Now looking back on my dear car before I started the restoration project, I feel it would have been OK had I left the car ratty (Rat Rod). It blended in nicely on the streets of Brooklyn. It already had its share of traditional NYC bumper and body dents. I think I might leave my Oval window Rattish. Rat cars are becoming increasing desirable these days and definitely cheaper. :-)

Exhaust: The Hunt

2006-01-31T14:46:00.000-05:00

I am looking for an exhaust system for my Type IV engine that would fits under the standard rear apron tail-pipe cut-outs.. I found one online, but I think the manufacture is from Europe. The system is expensive and costly to ship to the USA. I am looking for a good'ol U.S. of A reseller of this form factor. I would hate to have to do what I did for my BRM, order 80 of them for cheaper shipping and become a supplier to the U.S. for about 2 months. There is another company called A. C. Industries that has an exhaust configuration for the type IV engine converted for a Type I car. I was thinking about this using twin quiet pack mufflers. This does not have a stock look, so I am still searching.

Pan: Dropped Nicely

2006-01-30T21:24:00.000-05:00

All the planning paided off. This is dropped quite nicely.

Pan: Custom Front Beam

2006-01-30T14:29:00.000-05:00

These are my custom shock towers. The front beam has been modified. The Beam length has been reduced three inches to accommodate my dropped spindles that lowers the car 2.5 inches. The beam is fully adjustable, which can dropped the vehicle another 3 inches in total. To compensate for the lowered vehicle, the shock towers have been completely removed and redesigned. The height of the towers have been raised two inches above stock to increase or preserve the shock travel distance when the car is lowered by the adjustable front-end. If you have ever been to a Volkswagen show before and you managed watched people drive in with their low-riding show Beetles, you can not help but noticed the heads of the drivers bouncing around after encountering the slightest bump (pebble) on the road. This modification was made to eliminate this problem. If you know my height (6'2"), you would understand why I don't want my head bouncing around in my bug.

General: The Work Zone

2006-01-29T02:59:00.000-05:00

This is my new office called 58 Work Zone. A headliner installation is notoriously known to be the most difficult part of a VW restoration process. I spent a total of 5 hours today on my knees inside of this car. I went to Circuit city to purchase sound insulation for the roof and doors. This was the biggest hassle of my day. There are two major products in the car audio industry to keep your car from rattling when music plays. They are Tsunami and Dinomat. I purchased 20 square feet of Tsunami insulation padding 10 sheets, 2' x 1'. After I stuck four pads on the inside roof, I realized I only had 5 more pads remaining. At $133 dollars per kit, I calculate each sheet to cost $13.30. Of course I went back to Circuit City to fight with the manager in the Audio department. There wasn't much of a fight, he opened another pack after I grumbled a little bit. You can see the installation of the pads on the driver's side door of this photo.

Headliner: Rear Padding Installed.

2006-01-29T02:52:00.000-05:00

The rear padding installed. YAH! I can not write too much here, one of my hands are stuck to my forehead making it difficult type home row key style.

Headliner: The Glue

2006-01-29T02:48:00.000-05:00

This is the first hole cut out of the padding. It must be modified to fit the actual size of the window, making sure the hole is slightly larger than the window size to avoid the headliner from lumping up in the corners near the windows. The glue I used for the adhesive was 3M 80. I think the next time I start to finish this install, I am going to buy some rubber gloves. My hands were stuck to every damn thing imaginable. I scratched myself on the ass a few times and had difficulty getting my hands off of it. Anyways, other than that, things are going slower than I thought, but quite smoothly. If you need for me to do this to your car, I'll charge you $60 up to this point (10 percent of $600 is $60) .

Headliner: Install begins in the rear.

2006-01-29T02:38:00.000-05:00

Installing padding for my headliner begins in the rear of my car. I started by cutting a square large enough to cover the back window and side post. I bought about 40 mini clips from Home Depot to hold the felt in place while I measured the approximate size of the padding. The purpose of the padding is to give the headliner body when it is covered. I was told by many people that I should pay a professional to perform this process, but at 26k plus, that is about 18k over my project budget, I think I'll save myself $600 and try it myself first. The most I'll loose if this doesn't work out is $100. I have approximately six times to try before I should have taken this job to a professional. Hell, if all works out, I can install headliner as a way to make side cash.. Hehehe.

The Bug

2006-01-29T02:36:00.000-05:00

I'll begin with the Headliners.