to be honest this is kind of just showing off, but i do love my books, even if most of them are in rough condition.

it amuses me to think about some of the distractions i have created for myself. enjoyable distractions that i followed willingly but still things that missed the point. things directly or vaguely related to vw's that really serve no purpose when it comes to actually getting one of my shitboxes on the road.

not much happened but i thought i'd write a bit anyway.

i'm currently trying to flog off a heap of stuff and was supposed to photograph some of it and pack some other stuff to get shipping prices. with the way i have put it off you'd think i didn't like money. :)

i intended to go for a drive on saturday but life (and the better half) had other plans. i did get to drop in to my friend just out of town for a chat, but couldn't stay as i took my 6yo and he went totally bezerk so i had to leave. i was super grumpy over that one.

i went out there agan this afternoon to drop him some bits he needs and pull some bits i need off a parts car. while i was doing so i noticed amongst the random crap under the bonnet, a australian accessory door pull handle. needless to say we struck a deal and it is home safe and sound.

i made a post on a forun this evening that got me thinking about what it was like "back in the day" before the whole internet thing took off and became what it is now for our hobby.  

i first got into vw's about 1995, so not long before the first chat rooms started getting popular.

back then just about everything i did with regard to parts hunting and information gathering was completely different. there was none of this instant gratification available now. well, not to me anyway as i couldn't afford the books, catalogues that would have made it easier... i doubt i even would have thought to use them then. now if i want to know something i just go on the net, and visit the samba if it is general info or occasionally in2vws.com for info relating specifically to australia colours or australian accessories. in most cases the info can be found within a matter of minutes.

Well, my intention of a post a day is taking up a fair bit of time (see previous blog post) - the posting itself doesn't, but I now remember why i don't frequent forums much - you lose hours from your life :)

.

For example - I've just spent about 2 hours reading this whole thread - http://www.ssvc.org.uk/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=39870 which was linked from the DSK forums as a motivation booster. Well all I can say is mad skills, this guy makes my bus resto look like a walk in the park, in fact I don't know why mine isn't finished already. :) If you're restoring or planning on restoring a splitty, this is an excellent resource, for both reference and inspiration.

If I was still in England, right about now it would be spring time, the time of the year where traditionally you would clean your house after the winter. But I don't live there any more, and I still can't get my head around the seasons over here in Oz.

So instead of spring, it's currently autumn, and I have finally got around to doing a little more 'spring cleaning' out in the garage.

what a day. today i spent to entire day catching up with 2 old and one new vw friend. i do basically all of my car socializing (if you could call it that) over the internet, but as i am in sydney on holidays i took a day to catch up with my 2 long long time vw friends and one guy who actually lives 15 min from my place but was down here as well. i originaly wrote this with thier names but figured initials would protect thier superhero identities better, having said that 2 have the same initial so it may get a little confusing.

ahhh two days off, lovely. still only did 1/4 of the things planned but i had some fun playing with stuff..

this morning i picked up a fake hazet assistant that i found a few weeks ago. as i say, you always have to ask.  

Well, things are progressing along at a rather nice pace. The past week or so was spent at home tidying stuff up in readyness for the imminent arrival of the garage, I moved the existing garden shed, and all of it's contents, I made a new gate for the driveway and added an automatic closer thingymajig to it so we don't have to get out of the car to open and close it (the gate - not the shed), cleared the pile of lumber from the driveway, tidied my tools up that were scattered around the garage from various half baked projects and TOOK DELIVERY OF THE GARAGE.

depressingly little happened for a day off.

i gave my one set of moderatly interesting rims a once over with the hose and a stiff brush. i wish someone could give me a definate answer as to who actually made them etc. i believe that they were made by "Neils" in the mid 80's but the name came from an add on e.bay that included a 4 by 130 set. some of the guys other info was a bit questionable so nfi if this is thier proper brand.

Well it's been a very interesting past week or so in our household. Our first child was born, which turned out to be a boy , we had decided not to find out the sex as we wanted it to be a surprise. We thought that as there were few surprises left in life that weren't unpleasant, we would not find out the sex before the birth. Nine months of anticipation was ended when we were handed the little fella - a very emotional moment - especially to find out it was a boy. It was also my birthday a few days prior - definitely the best birthday present I've ever had.

Got a call from the outlaws this morning to say that they had noticed some kind of VW meeting going on at Cross Roads bowling alley, so me and MelleMel decided to jump in the family wagon with little Locke (our newborn) and go take a look.

Well I've been pretty busy with work the past few weeks, the end of financial year meant that I had a lot of stuff to sort out, this also meant no direct work on the Bus or Ghia, but some indirect work has been accomplished. The first thing (and possibly the best thing) is that the planning approval has been granted for my garage extension. Tomorrow I will go down to hand over some more cash, so that they can commence manufacture. This also means that most of nexy week will be taken up with moving the existing shed to another spot in the garden.

The past week or so has been a right PITA regarding the site. All of our merchandising was deleted from our store by some jobsworth at zazzle, who decided that as our site (and also therefore our merchandising) was VW related we must be in contravention of Volkswagen of Americas copyright policy. The funny thing was, that VW actually allow the use of thier logo and name in relation to advertising goods and services relating to them. 'Johnnys Volkswagen repairers - We repair Volkswagens' is perfectly acceptable. Erik (the farkwit at zazzle) failed to actually read the policy, and if he did read it - very obviously failed to understand it.

The past week has been a bit slow as far as both restoration progress and website updates are concerned. The main reason for this is the imminent birth of our first child. Today, should have been spent at the hostpital as it was supposed to be due, but like it's father, it looks like my child has inherited the 'lateness' gene. It's a good job I have a lot of patience :)

Well my plans for extending the garage are about to kick off as I have now finished putting up the new rear fence. The fence needed replacing as it was practically falling over, it also needed to go up before the garage. So with the fence done, I'm now at the stage where I'm ready to go full steam ahead with the garage.

Damnn - I just spent about 30 minutes typing out this blog and accidently deleted the whole thing by pressing the wrong button, I bet it's half as eloquent the second time around. :( I've not long been using a mac - previously I was a (fairly) long time Linux user - and before that a windoze user - so I'm still getting used to the shortcut keys - the one that always seems to catch me out is 'home', somehow I always manage to make the browser go 'back', instead of the cursor, losing all of my hard work in the process. Ahh well, guess that's what you risk when typing epic blog posts - lol.

sometimes in the quiet moments when there is no one around (to tell you perhaps you need to up the medication) you have an idea. this one was inspired by a thread about distributors on the samba. it talked about how the stock distributor car is a limiting factor to the voltage you can run to your plugs. from my VERY limited understanding of electricity a higher voltage = a larger gap the spark will jump. also a fatter spark across the same sized gap (err i think). all usefull if you wantto run high compression etc.

whan i read this i thought to myself, "what about a big cap distributor?" aka an early 40hp distrubitor.thes then lead to the question "could you fit the guts out of a VJ4 BR25 into the big cap body?" giving you a distributor that had the bigger electrode spacing than a stock mech advance unit that is built from early bosch components that are said to be very good quality. this is about as far as the idea got for maybe a year. (to be honest i can't remember when i had the idea but i think saying that it was only a year ago is year generous).

of late the idea had been floating around in the back of my hear with regard to the 36hp challange. the rules in several classes state something along the lines of "must use a bosch distributor and coil". maybe this idea may have a home...

The past week has been pretty busy, I've had to re-enter a massive amount of info to catch up with my book keeping which was all on the laptop that was stolen, and this still isn't going to be finished in time to submit my BAS. Yes I know I should be entering receipts and reconciling bank balances and not typing a blog, as I have about an hour left in which to submit it, but to tell you the truth, I've simply had enough - it can wait - my brain was hurting.

It's amazing how much data you accumulate / use on a day to day basis, this is probably far in excess of normaility for me as I generate pages and pages of code for both my work and stuff like Vdubber. Some of this stuff I have now recovered / re-entered, but some I have simply decided to do without - a bit like a spring clean. Unfortunately, my accounts did not fall into this category.

I've spent a bit of time over the past week or so updating the site code to fix up some bugs and annoying aspects, and have also paid someone to install some modifications - this is a first for me - as i usually loathe to pay someone for anything that I can easily do myself, but time is precious and so it seemed like the most cost effective way to do it, plus a little investment in the website is a good thing.

The biggest news this week is that the oval is now in it's new home. It arrived yesterday after a weeks journey from Caboolture, just north of Brisbane, down to Adelaide where it's now waiting to be turned into a salt flat racer.

The first jobs on the agenda are to sort out some kind of clear coat to fix the paint from rusting thorugh any more - The Adelaide weather can be a little wet at times, and the nice sub burned and faded paint would soon turn into a furry mess. The patina will be staying!!  I also need to sort out a beam adjuster and some moon discs before i will be sending it out to get the roll cage welded in

Next is to assess the state of the floor pan - the battery tray looked to be a little rusty although not too bad, I need to find out what panel work (if any) will be required to make the car safe, this will also determine if I need to split the pan. My original idea was to split the pan, restore the chassis but leave the body the same, but I might have a change of heart and just fix it up as it is. The idea with this car is that it is supposed to be a budget racer, plus I don't relly need yet another another money pit in which to pour cash.

So the initial objective is to get it prepped, whout going overboard.

Pics to follow....

well a hour or 3 in the shed has shown me that it is feasable. making it work with infinately adjustable phasing between the points is also doable but a lot more complex as the extra space needed for the upper and lower points plates would mean that a spacer would be needed to lift the cap. not something i wanted to do as it is getting a little further away from my intended result. being the guts of a BR25 in a bigcap body. all looking kind of stock.

at the moment i'm not giving up on the idea though as well i like adjustability even if i wouldn't have the knowledge yet to use it.

btw for the twin points i was thinking of using GB504's (i think that is the code) what they sell not for 36hp beetle dist's. both the fixed and adjustable would use these.

i was adding a coment to a post pelow and it reminded me of some of the other crazy ideas that have occupied my thoughts over the years.

as mentioned below one was for variable valve timing and OHC desmo acuated valves with different alignment on the valves etc.

another was for cross drilled vented wide 5 front disks with alloy hubs and ring type bolt on disks. think sort of like motorbike front disks on an alloy hub. i do think that this would be achievable and useful.

all in all it has been a good few weeks of playing vw's. everything has been a little crazy buisy with 5 extra extended family members in the house for nearly a week, plus work etc.

last weekend i went out to check out the rolled "62 1/2" on a property out of town. it turned out to be one of the most amazingly killed vw i'd ever seen. dead to the point of the rear swing axles being Z shaped, the frame head being crumpled and even the dash was twisted. all from being rolled, it looked like it had gone corner to corner (aka end over end) as well as normal rolling. i would love to have been the first one to get at the car as it seemed to be really original. aka crashed early in it's life. it had a matched set of continental cross plys (with lots of tread) and a rubber cased battery. if the battery wasn't broken i would have been so stoked as i'd love to have one for "the shed". all in all it was a very strange car as some bits (of those that were left anyway) were near perfect, but others were completely rooted. several of the few bits i scored have already been cleaned and put into the box for use on my 63. others haven't quite made the cut, but they are still the best that i have.

Last night I went along to the Volksenthusiasts club monthly general meeting. This is the first VW club event that I've been to since leaving the UK. The meeting was mainly to go over club business, and discuss organisation for the upcoming Volksfest event on the 19th November. There were a few faces that I've come to know through my VW dealings here in SA, and many new ones too.

Having just joined the club I was unsure of exactly what to expect, but got to admit i was pleasantly surprised at the organisation of the event and the attendance. There must have been some 50 or more people present, many of whom were directly involved with organising diferent aspects of the club or club events.

As far as club activities, there seems to be something going on most weeks, and something for all tastes, from Volksfest to a kiddies outing to the christmas pageant. There's a lot of family based get togethers as well as runs and rally's.

I made a couple of new contacts for parts, and received some very good advice too, so my membership fee has probably already paid for itself

If you're into VW's, and based in SA - I'd reccomend looking into the Volksenthusiasts Club. Well worth the while. You can join by printing out the membership form on thier website - http://www.volksenthusiasts.org.au/

i've been doing reasonable amount of thinking on things of late. specifically a full tilt 36hp motor, but not that much has really happened.

yesterday i did manage to pick up another big cap 40hp distributor. this one turns out to be an australian made one. i say turns out as at the time i had to lick a finger to try and wipe off the grot to even see if it was a cast iron one or not. it was caked that thick in grease, dust and general filth. much to my pleasent surprise it is really nice not the most of the grot is gone. i think that the german one will end up getting chopped as will the aust one is well australian.

i stripped it down and apart from a 2 shims and a fibre washer, everything is great. of course those are the hard bits to get... i only gave it a rough once over, i was at one stage going to strip and paint the body but found (or didn't find actually) the masking tape was gone so that idea was cut short. the joys of having children.

This years Classic Adelaide seemed a bit down on numbers compared to other years, there did not seem to be as many spectators, competitors, and not as many classics. The Green bug of local boys Peter and Adam Debiassi unfortunately withdrew only days before the event with engine trouble. The car suffered engine problems running a hillclimb event the previous weekend, but after repairing the engine, it too suffered with issues, so the decision was made to withdraw. I was really looking forward to seeing how the boys did this year as last years result was a tough one to beat.

The final of the event was held in King William Road, in Hyde Park, with many of the shops staying open for the extra custom created by the event, which kept the missus happy.

The VW stable was represented by a 1960 Karmann Ghia, driven by Rene Felkl of SA, and also by the 550 spyder replica driven by Peter Perrin. There was also a Porsche RSK replica in the thoroughbred touring class. There were plenty of aircooled engined cars with a majority of the entrants seeming to be Porsche 911's which echoes other years. Seems to be that the 911 is the weapon of choice.

This years event also saw tragedy in the death of Gary Tierney and David Carra, in the Kersbrook Reverse stage on Thursday. Thier Porsche 911 RS came off of the road and hit a tree. Both occupants were found dead when the on-course emergency crew arrived. This is a tragic loss, and my thoughts go out to their familys and friends. All cars wore a black tape stripe on thier left headlight as a mark of respect for the remainder of the race.

For those interested there's a few more snaps in the gallery - http://www.vdubber.com/photo/gallery_tag/Classic+Adelaide and if you would like to find out the results or other info you can visit the Classic Adelaide website - http://www.classicadelaide.com.au

if i say man tantrum to anyone here i'm sure you'd know what i mean. the outpooring of frustration when working on something mechanical that just won't go right. whether you suffer from them yourself or just know someone, you'd still know what they are.

i started musing ove rthe man tanti today at work when trying to fix a single lounge seat with a recliner mech in it. it got to the point i had to go for a walk around the corner to the bakery to unwind of i would chuck my version one. to be honest mine are generally rather tame, i've never been one for throwing tools or throwing parts. i liked my tools too much to chuck them and whatever it was i knew i'd just end up making more work for myself. the same with kicking things, i have once or twice but it didn't take long to realize that it really hurt. all in all i'm sure that my tanti's are rather dull, but they do still happen on occasion.

i do wonder though why we do it, why do we express our frustration this way. i just thought that you could make a rather ammusing reality type tv show of candid footage of guys chucking man tanti's in their sheds, there have to be some funny styles out there. i'm sure you could go to any country in the world and hear the thud of knuckles on sheet metal followed by the sound of a dropped spanner on concrete then muttering and swearwords. 

wow it has been  while, not having the net on will do that though.

when all is said and done there isn't really much to report.

of late things have all been house and impending baby with a little work thrown in to pay  for it all. i'm sure that most of you know how it goes.

i had the weekend of vw hunting.

my vw weekend started a week or so ago when a customer at work gave me directions and drew me a mud map to a type 3 (1500 as he called it) out in the bush. i had planned to go and find it this weekend. (i have 3 day wekends every second one for anyone who cares, so tonight is my sunday night)

Yesterday i took a trip to Adelaide International raceway with a buddy of mine to visit the Gazza Nats. AIR is Adelaide's only proper 1/4 mile strip, but has unfortunately not run 1/4 mile races since the late 90's. Having never been there before I was interested to go and see the venue, and to check out the strip.

The strip is quite narrow. It forms part of a larger track that has been used for many different types of racing in the past, including touring cars and drift exhibitions. The strip is currently blocked with concrete blocks preventing use.

The story I heard is that it was bought by Bob Jane, the famous 60's / 70's Aussie race driver and tyre outlet owner, who after carrying out many improvements sought council permission to do further upgrades. The council refused on the grounds that the zoning of the site did not allow what he proposed and so Bob basically closed the site down. This is pretty unfortunate as the one thing Adelaide is lacking is a quarter mile strip.

There are still events held there, such as the Gazza Nats, and some drift expo's, but it has been some time since it has seen serious competition. Currently the Australian Motorsport club is working towards getting the track reopened for drag racing and have some upgrading and reconstruction works in progress. It was anticipated that the track would re-open earlier this year, but so far it appears that regular events are still not back up and running.

Fingers crossed, the AMC can get AIR open and back on the map.

after a lovely day at work, i went up to my grandparents tonight (it's really just my grandmothers now but it somehow isn't right saying that) for dinner with my family and parents. an interesting night. saw some more stuff that i hadn't seen before. aka pictures and things from WW1 that had been my grandmothers aunts and had come to her. there used to be more (most of which i had seen) but she donated it to the AWM. a good place for it really as the people weren't family, just friends of "the aunts". one of them ended up high up in the army in WW2 (and lead 1st div against the japanese at milne bay in PNG). his brother who also sent pics and postcards transfered to the english army between the wars and ended up as some sort of aide to edward the 6th post ww2?

some of the remaining stuff was really interesting, one postcard of a guy in a tent in Palistine i think with his rifle as one of the tent poles and all his gear was fascinating. plus the postcard from one of the guys above sent from london as he was recuperating after being wounded in 1917.

 Ok, i'll have a go at the catch up post.

I have been doing a fair bit of brain work.

Where to start.

NOTE: this is all completely off topic, just a rant and a few points. nothing interesting, nothing VW related.

OMFG. i'm not the type who chucky explosive tantrums when things don't go my way but right now i want to take this computer out the back for a little meeting with Mr Axe. of course i won't, but thinking about it is kind of satisfying, though it also makes me even more frustrated because i know i can't.

this time it was an hour maybe an hour and a half's worth of thinking and typing. i thought to myself i had better save it before the computer dies and when i went to the thing froze up. i feel like banging my head on the table... it doesn't help that i quit smoking again a week ago plus my wife has been a bit cranky for the last week or so (some might even draw a link between the two :) ) on top of that not working is doing my head in, i need the routine, i need to get out of the house every day plus all the psycological things about being a provider (even though i am employed and getting paid, i just don't have a position to go to yet...) .

This is a bit of a catch up which I've been meaning to post...

So recently I've been working on getting the garage finished, About a month back I had a crew of mad Russians with their Bobcat come and level out the area and pour a slab, and since then I've been busy chipping away at putting the rest of it together. It's basically like a massive jigsaw puzzle - the frame bolts together and then the steel sheets are screwed to the outside. There are a few holes to drill to get the girts and purlins bolted on (the horizontal beams on the walls and roof respectively), but this is simply a case of laying them all on the ground and drilling the all at the same time.

Anyhows... Progress has been good, I've managed to get to the stage where i am putting up the corrugated sheets for the walls, and had nearly finished one side when I realised that I had run out of steel. This was not something that I was expecting. I had a bit of a panic - thinking that someone had stole it, when I realised that it was exactly half of the steel - basically one half of the garage. Fortunately I managed to find the delivery note, which did not have the missing parts listed. However, this was only one minor posotive - it had been alomost a year to the day since it was delivered.

I called Olympic Industries on the Monday, expeting to get laughed at. After all, i had signed for it, so surely it's my own daft fault. But, the guy said he would look into it, and anyhow, he could check the photo that the delivery driver took.

So a few hours later, he calls back - 'no problem, will deliver them next time we do a run, oh and by the way - did you also know that one of the end pieces is missing' - cool, all sorted, and there was me thinking the worse.

Ok two blog posts in one night.

This one is more as a place to jot down some more 36hp tuning ideas. Some of these are older and others new or at least new to me.

Ok another installment.

The valve train or the 36hp has come under a lot of consideration. The first area I was looking at is the lifters.

i didn't get out to pick up a tow bar today as i went to the markets and spent my play money. (a spoke shave plane thingy... been wanting one for ages. + an old sidchrome 14-17mm open-open. i thought it was too good a combo for a 50's vw to miss for $5.

i mixed up a batch of molassas 2:5 and dumped some stuff in it, so in a few days i'll post on how it went.

i started cleaning up my shed, i have been avoiding doing it for ages. it is a total pigsty. so trashed. you really don't realize just how much junk you have until you have to try and clean it all up. at the moment a chunk of it is spread over the back patio. yes i'm procrastinating putting it back in tonight, it's still damn cold at night up here. i think i'll just pack up the tools and do the rest tomorrow... still more to come out if i want to do it properly.

i have to make a few decisions i think. there are a few things in there that i don't know what to do with. a 100+ yo kitchen dresser that i started cleaning up a while back (errr maybe 3 or 4 years ago), i realy don't see it getting finished in the next few years, even if i did i don't know where we would put it now. to be honest it will never be much good as it is missing the top half and is very very worn. there are 2 chairs also that i picked up about the same time with the intention of doing them up. i haven't even started them, they are just things to sit boxes of car stuff on. to be honest i should flog them off to someone who will appreciate them. it would clear a lot of space in my shed and make sure they don't deteriorate (aka get bashed or grotty). still i'm a horder and it takes a lot for me to get rid of stuff that i might do something with/has intrinsic value. so frustrating.

i also need to sort out some more storage in there. i think some more filing cabinets if i can pick some up cheap. they are decent for putting smallish boxes in and keep everything neat. some more card files would be great. i have carbs (well 28PCI's) in one double draw set. early distributors in another, well space for early distributors, most are spread about the shed. the card filing cabinets are great for that sort of thing. i could do with a few more for the later stock carbs, distribrutors plus fuel pumps etc. i'm sure i could find stuff to put in a 6' stack of them if i had them. lets see. knobs, handles, switches, globes, gauges etc. rods, rockers, nuts and bolts... they would take a few draws by themselves,  a big stack would be so useful.

no i didn't score a droptank. i wish. i did however get a potential source for all those who want one.

as posted before, on sunday i went to the local markets (i can't believe i forgot to post this then). the usual small town stuff, not much of interest really. there was one ride, i took no notice of it as i think those things are a total crock. of course my wife had other ideas and paid for my son to have a go. as he got on i had a look at it. it was a little carossel (spelling?) thing, that had obviously been dragged about the countryside for years, it had plane/rocket type things hanging off it. my eldest took harry in there for his go, about this time i did a major double take. not one or two but 5 F'N DROPTANKS! i was stunned. it made perfect sense as it looked like an old peice of kit and back in the day military surplus was everywere + if you something to look aerodynamic get something from an aeroplane...  they were well disguised with big holes cut in the tops, plywood seats, plywood wing/fin stubs and lots of coats of bright paint, but they still had the telltale rib around the outside and a filler cap at the top. they were only about 5-6" long so were way to small to make a lakester out of. i chatted to the owner and he was surprised that i recognised what they were. he didn't know what they were off but knew they were worth $ to aircraft restorers in the US.

seeing these reminded that they used to be fairly common when i was younger.

one thing i know for sure, i'll be keeping a look out for any old fair rides just in case. if i'm feeling rich i might ever go hunting. i'm sure i remember bigger ones from when i was a kid (more seats per plane/rocket). yes they had a big hole in one half, but 2 bottom halves put together (and a fair amount of panelbeating) would give you a full tank.

just a quick one.

not all that much has happened really. very little progress on the shed. i did get al little done for my distribrutors. last week i went to one of the local auto electricions to try and find some of the brown sheet stuff that all of the insulating bits in the cast iron dist's.

i took a bit of a proken plate that the dist advance weights slide on as a sample.

he pulled out some thin white sheet he called "insulating paper". i ended up getting about 10 by 50cm of the stuff.

last night i got bored and dug out my modelmaking kit + a good points plate i had loose.

what does this have to do with anything?

well it is starting to turn up here. aka there is starting to be a decient nip in the air. 3000" above sea level and inland means it can get cold up here. maybe not as cold as where some of you guys come from but still single digits celcius during the days and well into the minuses at night. (7 tons of firewood the last year we used wood heating, decent hardwood that burns well).

snow doesn't stay on the ground long but it has snowed every winter i have been up here, last year it snowed about 5 times. when the wind gets up it will cut through virtually anything, be it lined leather gloves or windproof polartech fleece jackets.

Hi everyone, I thought I would start a post on What got you into VW's?

I'll start, well my uncle bought a really nice 58 beetle a few years back, that basically got me started, after that I started searching photos of VW's on the Internet, not long after that I realised I was hooked.
Rusty

well i achieved approximately SFA today. the curse of working retail... 10 - 5 sunday takes the better part of the day away. add a few hours procrastination on top of normal family stuff and it is time for bed with no VW progress achieved.

i do wonder how everyone else organises themselves with regard to thier projects. i have multipule things happening at once. which i work on depends on my mood at the time. probably not the best way to do things.

i have to say that working with quality objects, built to fine tolerances and intended to last (such as the mechanical bits of a vw) is a great relief and de-stress after a day of selling wnd working with crap quality products that you know won't last and some of which you feel guilty for selling. i guess i make a bit of a crap salesman in some respects, today i even told a customer not to buy a product as it wouldn't last (not the first time and won't be the last unless they sack me). i guess there is only so much of your soul you can sell in the quest for the $. 

err... never done this so i'm not really sure what the protocul is for a blog. i guess it'll just be a stream of conciousness thing for a while.

if you haven't noticed, spelling isn't my strong point, and i'm not overly fussed with the use of capitals on the net. i'm sure you're all big enough and ugly enough to deal with that. if not, too bad.

i guess my intention of having a blog is to use it too keep myself motovaited on my projects by posting what i have done on any given day. aka to do something every day. 

i was reading the early 70's book i picked up yeaterday about vw's and it furthered some ideas / thoughts that i have had for a little while.

basically, what is must have been like for people back in the day driving and modifying vw's (aka the 60's and early 70's... even back into the 50's for some)

now is where it turns into a lot of boring concepts written down so i don't forget them.

keep the carbs in thier stock alignment. aka floatbowls to the front. 

swap the throttle shaft on the LHS carb so the long thread is on the RHS.

after looking at a few sites i just realized again, how much i want a kombi. to be specific, a brakelight engine lid model or perhaps in my dreams a barndoor.

i'm not sure what it is but i seem to prefer the look of earlier vw's regardless of the model (the possible exception being type 4's) not nessecerally the earliest of each type but early enough. i guess it is the simplicity of the earlier versions. to be honest a 63 isn't my favorate year (that honor falls to 1956)(though 51/2 is right up there)

but then again i have a 63 and it is a ragtop plus the car has a lot of meaning to me. it is probably one of the first large projects in my life that i finished. i'm using the term finished loosly, but it was running and registered which was a long way from where i got it. since then i have changed and grown up a lot (not that it was hard to mature from where i was) but it still holds meaning.

it's not like i want to spend time with my children...

this is truely getting beyond a joke, if everyone wasn't talking doom and gloom about the economic climate i would probably have quit (or at least gotten serious about applying for other jobs). 

no tangable progress vw wise. spent a little time with my head in the vw suspension suning book. always interesting to read/learn/relearn. i'm surprised with how much i'm forgetting of late. it is probably from underuse of my brain. though on a slight tangent, my typing speed has picked up quite nicely in the last little while.

to start i realized that the brakes will be a bit more complicated than i had thought, so added a comment re this on the previous post.

back to business.

well about 8 this evening after work etc, i donned the thermals, multipule shirts, fleece jacket, heavy beanie plus mechanics gloves and faced... the shed...  in winter...

i picked up some socket rails today from super cheap. is there a single tool in that place that is decient quality? the socket rails certainly aren't.

having said that at $5.50 total for a 1/4" and a 1/2" rail you can't expect too much, plus they will do till i find something better. (they were the only ones i could find anyway)

the 1/4" are basically squared away, though i may get another rail so i can get one clip to put the short expension on the rail as well. the 1/2" inch are partially done, all of the smaller ones are done, plus some of the odd stuff. aka most of the addaptors and plug sockets. i will need to get another 1/2" rail and cut it down to size to put the imperial (sp) sockets on. don't worry, that heathen imperiel stuff is in the bottom of the tool box, away from the proper tools :) . it is odd knowing that my socket set won't be in it's box, it has been in there since i was given it as a combined b'day and christmas present from my parents and grandparents. i kept the tag that came on the present in the box (yes for 10+ years, it means a lot to me).

the most amazing thing happened today but i have no idea why. to cut a long story short i came home from work super grumpy so went and had a sleep, i was woken up by my daughter coming in and saying "mum wants you to come and look at something" eventually i crawled out of bed and marnie was on the computer looking at a beetle in the trading post, and asked me "what do you think?" she said that she even put a bid on one (nfi where as it wasn't e.bay)

i am seriously stunned at this, actually stunned isn't strong enough a word. i have no idea what has changed, i really don't get it but i hope that it lasts. she has always acknowledged my hobby (addiction) and said that she would like me to get my ragtop moving, the funding for it is another story though. she has been saying we need a second car for a while but always said that she thought a cheap newish (10yr old or so) thing would be better than a vw. if you are reading this you probably understand why i didn't agree with this. to spell it out, i think i can maintain a vw with little to no outside assistance. aka for the cost of parts only, plus if looked after properly a vw will only go up in value as it gets older.

some now it looks like my wife has come around to my way of thinking, i don't know what happened but i'm really pleased.

not much happened today, had a staff meeting after work so late home...

finally got the sockets all on their rails (rails cut to legnth etc), i'm not 100% about how i have them organised but the only way to know for certain is to use it a bit. i so want to buy more/better tools for myself. the screwdrivers thati have are a mishmash of various old things that i pinched of my mother back in the day. mostly rounded off and mostly very beaten up. i new set would be nice. the majority of the other stuff is decent but not the screwdrivers. 

i didn't get a chance to do that much but it felt really good to do something.

ages ago i read about fitting early type 3 wide 5 drums onto BJ front ends. (in the speedpro beetle suspension and brake book). i remembered that a guy i used to know worked out that if you used the inner race from a specific set of bearings with the outer from another you could put BJ discs onto beetle linkpin front ends. put 2 and 2 together, you should be able to fit, with the right bearings, type 3 drums on a link pin beetle.

i know very little about type 3's but i do know they have bigger brakes and twin leading shoes on the front. both desirable as far as braking goes.

damn the blog entry that i just typed was so boring that it crashed firefox...

Well I got a little closer to getting the garage finished today - I lodged the application for the building consent. This involved filling in a couple of forms, drawing a scale layout and parting with some cash. Also cleared a bit more of the paving from the area.

You might also have noticed that I have uploaded a new site logo and changed the appearance a little. I'm still playing with the overall visual style of the site - at present I'm going for a clean uncluttered look - I figure that there is a lot of info on the main page and so it doesn't need to be made too overpowering by adding lots more graphics etc. - well that's the theory at the moment. This may change in the future of course - probably when I learn a little more about what makes a good layout.

i grabbed the speedo out again to give it a rough once over this evening, unfortunatly i can't say i got too far, but as i'm not going to open it up i couldn't do it all that well anyway.  just before bed time harry came over to look at the speedo then sitting on the coffee table. he picked it up and i pulled him up onto my lap (just in case). firstly he said various things along the lines of "dad, we've got to fix the beetle", then he just sat there and stared at it only muttering the occasional "wow". he had this look of wide eyed amazement on his face. he looked as if it was the most amazing thing he had even held. it almost brought tears to my eyes watching him.

i share interests and hobbies with both my parients, i really hope him and i can share at least this one.

Well if there's one thing that i didn't expect to happen in Adelaide it was being burgled, unfortunately this is exactly what happened to us the other week. We got home after dinner at the outlaws, we were only out of the house for 3 hours, more or less the only time the house is unnatended lately due to small child taking up most of our time, and when we returned we found the back window smashed and a lot of stuff missing. Whoever had broken in had tried to jemmy every window without success before smashing one of them to get in - talk about determination.

They mostly stole electronic goods, including mine and the missus' laptops, which is not only a right PITA but also meant that we lost a lot of photos. Almost as bad is the fact that i use my latop for work and have lost most of my recent work and all of my book keeping from this year. Not to mention that MelleMel also lost the draft version of the Ezine. What utter *&%kers, especially as they stole the backup drive as well. GRRRRRR...

Anyhows, all of the stuff was insured, so the biggest loss is just the sentimental stuff, but trying to get back up and running again is a real pain. I've had to go out and buy a new laptop as teh insurance company have dragged thier heels a little, and so far it has taken days just to get to the point where I've loaded the software back onto the machine. I've now got to reenter all of my book keeping again - fantastic considering that it's BAS time. Not to mention trying to remember all of the stuff that was in progress and work out some kind of plan for getting back up to speed.

Unfortunately this has meant that the site and projects have taken a bit of a back seat, not to mention that my Dad is currently over from the UK, and I've been busy improving security. Hopefully i should get back on top of things in the next few weeks.

it has been a little while since i wrote here...

not that much to say really. lots and lots of nothing interesting has been happening (as it tends to do when there are responsibilities in life). there hasn't been all that much car progress. a little here and there but nothing noteworthy that i can think of. at least anything reciently... aka that i can think of. i've actually had to work at work lately and i'm not really used to it anymore. aka carry around big heavy boxes the heaviest was 51 kg but most 20-40, unload trucks etc. i got used to being a salesman that sat around and made bad jokes.

i had a day off today after what felt like about 3 weeks... it was no where close to that long but still felt that way.

i thought about doing vw stuff but ended up sleeping on the couch for most of the morning then hung out with my son after lunch. i feel so guilty for not doing anything on the car or much cleaning, but it was so good to be able to just do nothing (well i cleaned up but still could have done more). the girls are back at school so there wasn't the constant bickering of 2 girls a year apart and full of pre/teen attitude. we all played sillybuggers out the back after they got home from school, an excellent bonding day really, so definately not a day wasted.

more "presents" turned up in the mail over the last few days, lovely. i have really become a bit of a period packaging pervert. i am devoloping a "thing" for the packaging NOS stuff is in. aka the lovely plastic boxes that the points and rotors i got turned up in. the makers name and the "made in australia" boomerang symbol  embossed on the lids of some, cardboard tags inside most and paper wrapping holding the plastic box halves together on another. none of this moulded plastic glued onto cardboard or shrinkwrap. these were packed as though they were valuable and intended to be kept safe for long periods if nessecary. you could re-use it for something else if you wanted too. quality.

i remembered that i picked up a couple of key blanks last week. another of the ask everyone things. i was at the local (to my folks anyway) hardwear shop and saw that they cut keys... "got any vw key blanks?" they aren't the lovely HUF or lockwood cut out ones but they are for 6V cars and say "fur volkswagen" so the will do. at $1 ea it was a simple case of "i'll take the lot thanks". that totalled to 4 keys in 2 profiles but i'm sure they will come in handy.

yesterday i remembered that about a year ago i asked a friends dad if he still had the regtop mech his son and i pulled out of a dumped ragtop circa 98/9. they have both been out of vw's for years now. tonight i called him and he thinks he knows where it is so with a little luck it might come my way. i just wish that back then we had cut the roof off (it was damaged but with the $ they go for now it was fixable) or at least pulled the rails that were a little bent. oh well you live and learn. 

now i just need to call a friend and see if he still has the 60's black faced domed glass VDO gauges he got from his dad years ago before he too got out of cars.

edit. gave him a call. no joy.

as the title says i have asomething that i'm working on but only time will tell what actually happens.

i got a call back re the ragtop mechinism, the guy couldn't find it but thinks that it may be in one of 2 steel boxes that have audi engines sitting on top of them. aka he can't check them without a bit of extra muscle.

I recently spent some time in Germany on a buisiness trip visiting one of our suppliers. As I work within the automotive industry I got to spend some time at the Wolfsberg VW plant looking at some of our suppliers installations. Although one plant is much the same as another it was nice to spend some time at the VW plant as I had never been there before. I also took the time to drive to the Karmann factory to take a look, unfortunately I did not get to have a look in the museum (this is only open to employees and I only had a few hours there) but it was nice to visit the place. I then spent over a week at the Audi plant in Ingolstadt where our client was commissioning a new system. Interestingly, at the Audi museum, along with the usual trinkets available in the souvenir shop there was also a lot of spare parts for sale from classic Audis -  mostly trim parts, but also some rare accessories.

i'm a bit of a hoarder when it comes to vw stuff (amongst other things) so when it comes time to sell stuff i find so many different reasons not to. actually getting it up and advertised can be really hard. it doesn't help that there are a few things that i regret selling (actually that is bullshit, out of all the stuff i have sold there are only a couple of things i wish i hadn't).

i'm really good at making excuses not to sell stuff even when it is for my own benefit. (how do you spell that?) i have poked about in my shed and dug a few bits and pieces out but keep finding excuses not to photograph them etc. today i had the day off, i did spend a chunk of it doing stuff for my wife which is a valid excuse im my book, but damn what do i have to do to make myself do this. even writing this is probably to get out of actually taking the pictures so i can advertise and hence SELL stuff. i really do get seperation ansiety (again spelling?).

again nothing to say regarding my project. by the time i had a sleep in (i wasn't going to make the dawn service so stayed asleep as long as possible), went to work from 1 till 5, then to a friends birthday thing followed by picking my wife up from work it is rather late.

at least i did something social (with real people, that i'm not related to), it has been a while.

while waiting for my wife to finish up i read a little of one of my new purchases. a '66 printed T3 workshop manual... it had a section on rebuilding clutch pressure plates which was most interesting as i have some NOS pressure plate rebuild kits but had never seen any info on what/why/how. to me it shows the changes in society. who now would bother to rebuild a pressure plate?

ignore the 25th date, it is just after midnight. so to me it is still yesterday. (how's that for an illogical sentence)

as i expected but hoped would not be true no tangable progress... again.]

got one thing posted off though, plus the postman had 2 presents for me. i love it so much when toys turn up on my day off.

hmmm. if is a little sad that there really isn't differance in my cars from when i started this blog.

i have a feeling that that may change over the next 9 months. marnie is SOOOO hormonal already. i had forgotten how full on she gets. it probably doesn't help that she was taking zaiban (sp?)  when she found out she was pregnant and of course has now stopped. dirty smokers....          ha! spoken like a true ex smoker :) . zaiban made my completely loopy when i took it a while back. it also does strange things to your head when you stop taking it.

i hope that is how you spell opate... it wasn't... fixed now.

the actual work done today was zero but i did post some more crap up to swap. what i'm after doesn't relate to my ragtop project but i never claimed to be well focused. i also bought another thing on e.bay, not directly used but it should be useful.

last night after typing the entry i did go out to the shed and have another go at the nut, still no joy, certainly not for my neighbours . tempted as i was i did resist using the dremel to grind back the tip of the offending bolt, though i did drill into it a little more, more than noisy enough. i do generally try quite hard to be considerate of the neighbours but it was before midnight on a saturday night. we never have parties anymore so they can deal with a little shed noise. i realized that if i had had the money to chase a factory wide 5 drum puller that sold a few months ago, there would be no hassle to this job at all. why is it that the really useful stuff comes up when you don't have the spare $ to go big.

attempt 2, i lost the first one...

of late i have been thinking about the 36hp landspeed challenge. wondering how to go fast on the cheap. as you may have guessed from pervious posts money is always an issue for me, so finding a cheap option is good if it can be done (aka if i try to go the expensive option it won't happen).