Take a seat - Part 2

Having filled, sanded, filled, sanded, etc, the seat. It was time to throw some paint on to get things started for fibreglassing. One of the tricks is to get the surface as flat and shiny as possible. Given that the surface was never gonna be that flat, putting on some gloss paint was the trick.

Yes I know, it's bright red.

One of my boys told me it looked really good. It did, from a distance, especially if you didn't look for all the nasty stress fractures.

Basically, having rummaged through the garage to find some usable gloss paint, Killrust red was the best I could do. Two coats of that later and I was ready to start applying something to aid removal after fibre glassing.

PVA is a great mould release agent. It's also cheap and I had plenty of it lying around. So two coats of that are also going on the seat. After this, I'll probably put release wax on too. Basically the more ways you can guarantee the seat won't stick to the resin, the better off you are.

Till next time...

Stolen days - Roadtrip

As I mentioned a few posts back, sometimes my work situation can be very stressful. Other thing being, I only get 4 weekends off a year. There is an upside to the position though...

I can take days off during the week.

With our kids on 2 weeks school holidays and me having had a big few months, it seemed a perfect opportunity to grab my 2 boys and take them off for two days. Initially the plan was to take them camping, but the last time we did that it was a bit of a disaster so I went looking for another alternative. Glad I did now.

[Warning; long post, pic heavy.]

So on monday, after lunch, we loaded up the car and headed off...

NOTE: Loading up the car really means "filling up the oil and checking the petrol". I put nearly a litre of oil in the car before we left as well as topping up the Marvel Mystery Oiler. Then we topped up the fuel and put 34psi in all 4 tyres.

Off down the freeway and then up Lapstone hill... making sure it didn't ping and ending up in 3rd gear, just... almost 2nd. Up through the mountains to Katoomba and to Mt Victoria.

I ended up booking this place on Friday night and very glad I did now. The Victoria and Albert was built in 1914 and is an awesome place to stay. Full of so many cool things...

Old school getaways have been happening in the blue mountains for many years. This recent long weekend was the busiest for some time apparently. Not a great surprise because the weather has been sensational.

Not long after arriving I also discovered the Chef (Roman) was a total guitar tragic. He and I got on like a house on fire. If you're even partly interested in guitars, you'll love the restaurant. However, I had two small boys still full of energy after a long car drive, so we went in search an ATM and some snacks.

Along the way there was of course, some glorious amateur photography thanks to my sons. 

Mt Vic is a beautiful place. So many cool things to see, lots of long streets. A good place to walk off energy and we did just that. After a fantastic dinner at the guest house, the boys went down hard and slept like stones, only waking up after me the next morning around 7:30am. 

Having had a walk and a quick breakfast, we hopped in the car and headed off for Katoomba looking for a phone charger. Basically, whenever it gets too cold, my phone battery goes flat. Topping up the fuel in Katoomba, this car rolled up next to us. A 72' with a few details designed to make it look old. Like mine, it's a daily driver. The owner is part of a web forum I belong to.

In fact this beetle was the second cool VW we'd seen in Katoomba. We passed a nice green ghia on a round about as we came in. It seems as though the mountains are still a place where old aircoolers are liked. No great surprise as I was told later of a community in the mountains who live 1950's style. Weird, but different.

At this point I got totally conned by the two boys. The Edge cinema is at Katoomba and they harrassed me (ok, not very hard) to take them to a movie. I'm glad I did now. The Edge has $8.50 tickets for everyone before 5pm on a tuesday. That's about half the price of anything in Sydney. We saw the Muppets and had a great time.

By the time we got out and got going it was lunch time. We had lunch at Browns Siding Cafe. A great little place just across the railway line from the old Hydro Majestic Hotel. The food is not cheap, but it is very, very nice and the feel of the place is great too.

As we came out from lunch, there was a family with tiny, twin babies eating lunch outside. I decided they'd prefer lunch and babies without a cloud of white smoke, so I rolled down the hill and clutch started the car well past the cafe.

At this point the boys were keen to get out and have an 'inventure' (as my youngest says). We drove back to Blackheath and out to Shipley Plateau to the look out. Most of it was tarmac, but the last 5 Km or so were dirt... and not very good road at that.

The boys loved the corregations, which sort of surprised me. In fact, the as soon as we hit the dirt, the youngest one told me, "now, we're on a real inventure!". The drive was worth it.

The views of Megalong were amazing. 

Coming out was another story. About 200 metres from the lookout, we had to climb a really steep hill the dirt road. I got the car up to about 40mph to make it up. When we hit (I say hit) the hill I realized the road was full of soccerball sized potholes. Great.

Most of my CD cases started falling out of the cargo webbing in the roof and hit me in the head. The car was bouncing all over the place and the boys were laughing hysterically. We got to the end, but I did wonder if anything had fallen of in the process. Thankfully it hadn't.

On the way back from the lookout we stopped at this shed. I though it would make an ace spot for a few pics with the beetle. There is a bit of a story with the shed though. On the road outside the shed stood a real estate sign for the property in which the shed stands.

The shed is the most developed bit of 13 acres that are for sale. Later on we looked at the ad for the land in a real estate agent in Blackheath. The current owner is looking for near on a half million dollars just for a falling down shed and a whole bunch of wild bush. Hmmm.... crazy thing is he'll probably get it.

With that done we headed down to Megalong valley and ended up a Old Ford reserve. A lot of rocks were thrown in the river before we realized the good bushwalks were further back up the road.

I took the boys on a short (15min) bush walk that took 10 minutes. Yes, you read that right. Lots of running away and having to be asked to stop, but no one died so all good. I couldn't help taking this pic with two other modern VWs. How Volkswagen has changed over the years.

I should say at this point, the road down into Megalong is a lot of fun, even in an underpowered car like the beetle. The road itself is in pretty good condition and very windy. It's actually much better suited to a small car like the beetle than the larger cars that most people were driving.

We headed back up to Blackheath and grabbed some afternoon tea then, after looking at a lookout, back to Mt Vic again. My youngest told me, "I'm tired". This is a miracle in itself.  It was still too early for dinner, so we checked out the Imperial hotel for a bit.

Drinks before dinner... yes, they were a little crazy after all that sugar.

The boys didn't last long on Tuesday night. Roman served up a great roast pork dinner and after some desert they hit the sack with very little mucking around. I read a bit and then went to sleep early-ish.

Wednesday morning started with a little breakfast, checking out and then filling up. The previous day we'd used just 5 litres of fuel. Again, I was accosted by an ex-VW owner drooling over the car. He was so keen his wife drove off before he noticed. lol. Across the last few days, lots of lot of people have pointed, waved, smiled at and talked to me about the car. It a bit of celebrity all on it's own.

As we left the service station we spotted another nice VW. A late type 3 notch back on classic alloys.

I'd decided to come home via Bell's Line of road. I was a little concerned the road would be too fast and steep for the car, but we did fine. In fact, it was heaps of fun. The road is now 80kmh in most places. I know some sportsbike guys hate this, but it's ideal for the beetle. There were some sections where I had to floor it down a hill to make it up the slope on the other side. A few slopes resulted in 3rd gear, but mostly it was really nice and the car seemed to cope well enough.

We were in Kurrajong much sooner than I expected. I will say though, this is the right way for the beetle to go. If we'd had to the climb the steep sections coming the other way, it would have been too much for the car. As it was the car smelt pretty oily.

After a short bit of sightseeing (you know what I mean) at Nth Richmond, we headed home and arrived by 10:30. The boys were so comfy that they sat in the car playing DSi's for 10minutes.

I consider the trip a complete success. Some quick (approx) stats...
300km
35ltr of fuel
2 ltr of oil
A few hundred bucks
No breakdowns
Fun roads
2 happy boys

The last of those, the 2 boys is probably the biggest success. They're 5 & 7 years old as I write. I know that I'll blink and they'll be teenagers. Blink again, and they'll be men. Time is precious, if I don't steal times like this to spend with them, I'll miss their childhood. I don't want to make that mistake. As Ferris Bueller once said...

"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."

I've probably said this before, but the car is largely flogged out mechanically. Motor, trans, front end, etc, are all not at their best. The brakes, thank goodness, are ok. I've come to the conclusion that buying something old usually means replacing these things, no matter what the previous owner said about they're condition.

Even still, the car is a lot of fun to drive. Really the mountains are ideally suited to car for this reason. 80kmh are about as fast as you can go most places with only one 100kmh section on the Bell's Line.

I was watching Chris Harris on Youtube talk about his old Citroen. He made the point that finding a road to really drive a new sports car fast is nearly impossible now. Where as, driving an old car fast is more involved, easier to do at lower speeds and more fun. This is definitely the case with my car.

I was pondering this as I took in Bell's Line today and wondering what the new upgrades would do to the car. Would they ruin the feel? Would they make it faster past the point of low speed fun? Am I making a mistake?

I've decided the answer is "No". This is because, at the heart of what I'm aiming to do is make the car safer and more reliable. More efficient. The chassis won't be significantly changed. It will just mean I can make up hills without having to down change all the time and hold up traffic. I realized today, mid 90kmh sweeper corner, that the camber compensator I've already added was cheap insurance.

I reckon the same will be said for; disc brakes, a superdiff, more CCs and EFI. They don't change what the car is, they just make it more fun and more safe to drive.

And that's what it's all about. Drivin'

Take a seat - Part 1

With a long weekend... and a shed full of junk it was time to get cracking on some thing before I run out of room to find the car and anything else that's living the shed at the mo. Current count...

Woodwork power tools, 7 bikes, timber, two engines, other tools, seat, fuel tank, car, trailer, engine parts etc, etc.

You get the idea.

So rolled the car out and pulled the back off the seat. The next trick was to pull the seatbase down and see what I was left with. I was pretty surprised how easy to was, really. The cover was harder to get off than the springing. The springing is held on by 11 bent tabs you can see round the perimeter of the base. Here's the exploded view of the base.

When I saw how much springing was inside the seat base, I got a much better idea of A. why the seat was so tall in the car, and B. why I was bouncing up and down so much at khanas. Basically it's designed like a 1950's couch.

Cool if you want to race on couch, utterly rubbish if you want to stay on the seat in a corner.

I decided at this point to throw the old fibreglass seat on top to see what I had to work with. Of course I'm not using this actually seat, it will just be a mould, but it shows us where we're at.

The next trick will be deciding how to attach the glass seat onto the base. I think by law I'm required to have the seat flip forward for passengers to enter and exit the car. The original back adjustment (see round dial on lower right) is still there and works famously, so I may even work something into that and put a piano spring or similar at the front.

In other news, we finally have an engine block, so the 1600 you can make out in the background above will go back to my brother to go in his bus or in his beetle. The specs for motor are current as follows...1585cc (85.5mm pistons). Balanced crank/rod/etc. Lightened flywheel. Stockish cam. Full flow filter and maybe a cooler. Ratio rockers. Stockish heads.

Getting back to the seat, the next job is really fibreglassing. Hmm, scratchy, smelly, sticky fibre glassing.

I can't wait...

Get me outta here!

Just found out some crushing news. For reasons I don't really understand, a very good friend just cut me out of his life. Completely.

Totally gutted.

It's times like this that I just want to climb in a car and drive away, never to return. Told my wife as much. Of course it's not what I will do, but just how I feel.

The beetle is a good car to have on days like this. So I backed it out and went for a drive to try and clear my head.

I live pretty close to a bunch of semi-rural country. There are lots of long, straight roads lined with trees, small farms, fresh air, greenery and not much traffic.

Perfect for a 1950's beetle.

For half an hour I could pretend I was in another place, another time, maybe even another country.

When I came back, I still felt hurt, but somehow things seemed bearable again. Like I could get on with my life and work again.

Thank God for small, aircooled, time capsules.

Fresh air

Dunno if this counts exactly, but I've just come back from 6 hours of road trip.

No, it wasn't in the beetle...

You'll have to excuse me on this one, but I spent the day towing a trailer to pick up parts. The first trip was out to "the farm", a VW wreckers a few hours away. I left the farm with a trans, a fuel tank and an old seat.

The kids left having run around the biggest aircooled wrecking yard in OZ. There are at least 100 cars there in various states of disrepair. It's exceptional.

It's also a very dangerous place for ideas.

It left me wanting a bay window kombi again... oh well. After leaving a $300 video game behind in a country town during lunch (seriously), my sons and I headed to my brother's place. A VW mecca all of it's own. It was supposed to be my niece's birthday party.

However, one of my nephews is autistic and goes crazy at the sight of a birthday cake. So I took him for a drive in this...

A split kombi I've not really driven a split kombi before for more than a few minutes. After which my brother removed me from the freshly restored bus in fear of my driving style. To be fair, I think he was just nervous about his new (old) car.

Today, I went off downtown to pick up a tyre that was having a slow leak fixed.

How was the bus to drive? Hmmm, if a beetle is like driving a steak knife, then a split bus is like driving a bowl of chocolate mousse. My brother agreed.

I don't say this to be negative, but it's just a totally different experience. It's a forward control truck. The pedals, wheel, shifter and handbrake are all at vastly different angles to a beetle, but as well as that, it's just not that precise. I know later kombis are better than this.

Having returned after the "happy birthday" and candles, it was onto the task of raising my bro's 65 beetle.

I wish I could say we got it sorted before I came home, but no cigar. It's still beyond me why people lower (and mod to lower) cars so low that they bash themselves to pieces.

Sure, low looks cool, but it's just stoopid on a real road.

So, having arrived home my garage looks like "the bargain bizarre engine warehouse". Time to sort out the parts and get an engine case down to my engine builder.

Hopefully this one ISN'T full of corrosion.

The point to all of this is, part of the joy of old cars is reveling in the chase for parts, meeting the characters that supply them and taking in the scenery while you get to them.

Today's drive has been hugely cathartic for me.

Close encounters of the bogan kind

As per usual, lots of people talk to me about the car. Many, owned one similar. Lots of others just like it.

And then there are the bogans.

At a petrol station filling up, with the bonnet up...
Bogan; "hey mate, have you found the engine yet?" [laughs]
Me; [Sarcasm] "No, I'm still trying to figure out where they put it."
Bogan; [Mystified] "Have you just bought it?"
Me; "No" [winking]
Bogan; [still confused, gets in 80's mazda] "Seriously though, nice car"
Me; "Cheers"
Bogan; [hangs head out window] "Will it do a burn out?"
Me; [laugh] "mate, it's lucky if it's got 20hp at the wheels"
Bogan; "F#$%! It's as bad as this thing."

Love bogans.

Not enough... or so I thought

I've not had the most wonderful couple of weeks at work. So as usual, I was dreaming about better things and trying to distract myself with plans full of awesome.

Ok, so I was surfing ebay.

I like ebay. But really what's not to like. So many potential projects, the thrill of the chase (Read; auction), cool bits, endless opportunities.

If only my time and funds were as endless. Hmm.

But I digress. I was surfing ebay. I was hankering after a kombi and something like this came up on my feed...

I LOVE low light bay windows.

I personally think they're the coolest thing VW made in a bus. Yeah, I know, split windows are really cool too. But splits drive awful. Really, I like the look but hate the experience.

For quite some time I entertained the idea of talking to my wife about it. Which just goes to show how deluded I was at the time. There are two problems with this...

1. My beautiful wife HATES kombis.
Let me repeat that. She hates kombis. Pathologically. It has to do with a lowlight ute left in our driveway some years back but let's not go there.

2. We have a "1 play car" rule.
When I say 'we', I really mean, 'she'. But it's not a rule I'm unhappy with. It's a good rule. A rule that has saved us from financial ruin and yards full of rusting hulks. Seriously.

I was of course forgetting both these things in hankering after the afore mentioned low light.

Tonight I drove my beetle out to a jam night. Actually, I've been driving pretty much everywhere recently.

It's a hoot.

Sure, I'm still collecting bits and chasing a decent engine case (another story) for upgrades. But in the mean time I'm driving it around running erands all over the place and it's running great.

After the jam night, a security guard came up to me as I was getting the car. We had a long conversation, but basically after finding out the car was mine, he instantly asked,

"Wanna sell it", and that's when I realized.

I realized, I don't want to sell it. I've just got it running properly. It's all ready to cop a substantial power upgrade that will make it even more fun. My wife likes it. My kids like it. It's 60 years old, rust free, original and uber cool.

"No", I told him, "I don't want to sell it".

I also realized, the kombi I was eyeing off on ebay would take six times the cash to even get registered. I didn't have the time for it. My wife didn't have the heart for it. I didn't really need another car. Specifically...

Retail therapy doesn't work, especially with project cars.

So. I'm gonna keep what I've got. Drive it. Enjoy it. Upgrade it. Race it.

And smile while other people change project cars like underwear.