Bugblog

I killed more time at the office and whipped up another paint job idea. This one I think I'm gonna go with. I thought about the green and white one a little more and realized that my interior is black, and recently redone at that. So, why not match to that. I saw a pic of a bug painted red and white like the mock up I did here and thought it looked pretty snazzy.

Okay, I'm getting that hose off the main line if it kills me. I squeeze under the car and pull and pull and pull. Oh! Quick side note. Yesterday when I was under the car I noticed a shiny object attached to something up amongst the other under-the-car-parts. Holy crap, it's vice grips! Let me tell ya, I'm impressed. Those things hung on tight and I know I've hit some big bumps since buying the car! Cool, I acquire small vice grips and add them to my collection. Back to the problem. Finally I realize that I could just slit the hose with a utility knife and it should come off since I have to replace part of it anyway. So I do, and man does the gas flow! I had the new vice grips clamped on the hose, but the main line is metal and everything I've read said to shove a pencil in there to plug it up while you work. Well, the pencil didn't fit! So, now, I'm stuck under the car with my finger plugging the fuel line.

Now what?

If only somebody was here helping me. They could go get something to plug the line. Well, I sacrifice more gas as I reattach the old hose. I go upstairs, wreaking of gasoline, and search for something to plug that line. A ha! A cork! Fortunately we had one in a drawer (drinking wine saves the day!). That worked beautifully. I plugged the line with a little more gas lost and installed the filter. Everything is great. Now, the air filter. A lot of what I read says the stock air filter is perfect and just keep that clean. But I bought a shiny airfilter that I wanted to install. I assume the purists want the stock parts kept on the car. (I'm not throwing away my stock air filter, I'm keeping it for restoration time later, if I'm so inclined) That goes on easy and now my car sounds just a little throatier than it did before. Cool.

I found a relatively local shop that sells foreign auto parts and many of them are for old VW's. Woohoo! So, I swung by and picked up some fuel hose and a new shiny air filter. Now, it turns out that the fuel filter should never be installed in the engine compartment.



Well, the previous owner did just that. The thing is the weight of the filter full of fuel has been known to pull the hose off of the carb and thus, spurt fuel all over the distributor and the coil. Well, as you well know, the distributor and coil make the sparks to ignite the fuel within the engine. We don't need the spark igniting fuel outside the engine.

So, in an effort to keep my car from bursting into flame, moving the fuel filter was at the top of my to do list. So, I set to work to move my fuel filter. With my new fuel hose in hand I pulled the filter out, replaced it with one piece of hose (and clamps!) and then moved under the car to install the filter between the main fuel line and the firewall. Now, I don't have any jack stands yet so I'm working in pretty tight quarters. I try to pull the hose off the mainline and find it to be really stuck on there. I dunno what happened, but that thing would not come off. Unfortunately I had to pack up as it was time to go have birthday drinks :)

I set out to fix the passenger side window (again)! I disassemble the door and with some difficulty (I had to nearly remove the vent-window frame) I pull the window regulator out of the door. I try it out, and the crank and regulator work fine. Hmmmmm. Well, perhaps I did something to it when I pulled it out. I reinstall and sure enough the window stops half way up. Crap. I guess I'll go to the junkyard and find one that works and replace it. Otherwise, I dunno what to do with it.

I also pulled the hood off the car to see if I could fix the hinges. What a shock, they're barely connected to the car! I suppose in the same trip to the junkyard I'll look for hinges and bolts for that too.

I then try to remove a spark plug and inspect it to see that the engine is running as good as it should. Damn it. Can't get the spark plug out as I don't seem to have the right size socket. Next weekend should prove more succesful.

First, a trip to the bookstore. I bought the Haynes manual for my car and it's awesome. Step by step instructions on everything.

As I mentioned before, my speedometer hasn't worked since I bought the car due to a broken cable. It turns out there was a spare cable in the back of the car (behind the back seat). So, today I installed that and it now measures my speed perfectly (I think). The only problem is the cable isn't quite right. A cotter pin holds the cable in the wheel and there seems to be no hole for the cotter pin to slip through in this cable. I just wrapped the cotter pin around and around the cable end. That should do it. We'll see.