Aircooled67: December 2009

The man who got me back into aircooled VWs - Will Torres.

This is a tribute post for Will Torres - fellow VW enthusiast, past college classmate, fellow industrial designer, and one of my best friends. Will was a huge influence for me getting another aircooled VW. It's very possible that if not for him I'd not have bought my current '67 Beetle. Will and his wife Monica came up for thanksgiving. Will and I hadn't seen each other since 1995 when we graduated from the Art Institute of Pittsburgh. Currently will has a mid 80's Vanagon (which he drove to Atlanta from the Tampa area) , and a clean red 1972 Super Beetle which is really sweet I must add. Will is very meticulous, thorough, and detail oriented when it comes to working on cars - specifically VWs. SO the day after thanksgiving, Will and I decided that we needed some "garage time" working on something...and that something was my Bug. We didn't have anything in mind so we started looking around the car and Will decided he was going to help me out in the battery compartment area beneath the rear seat. Will did a great job making everything clean and we even made some minor improvements.

Here's will sorting out what's needed to be done here in the battery area...

Here's Will working on the battery area and I'm cleaning up the battery hold down bracket preparing it for fresh paint.

Will and I are hard at work to get the task at hand completed. Here's me laying down some self etch primer on the battery hold down bracket. We noticed it wasn't even being used and just laying on the floor under the seat.

The hard work paid off. Battery wires were cleaned of over spray, terminal connection insulators were added to keep any contact with the seat to the battery. Also note the freshly painted gloss black battery hold down and new clean hardware.

We also noted the dome light not working. After fixing a faulty wire connection and adding a new connector and bulb the dome light worked great.

Hangin' out with my fellow VW buddy Carl at his home shop

Another great thing about being in a car club is that one of them is bound to live nearby and when it's VW guys they're quick to call each other up and find any excuse at all to get together and hang out with their V-dubs. Carl invited me over and helped me out with some adjustments on the Bug. While I was there I got to check out his son's Baja Bug that he was changing the brakes on. That Baja had a lot of trick parts including a bus trans and a one off custom built shifter mount and shift linkage tube mounted in place. Neat! I also got a ride in Carl's sweet 1776 powered Bug complete with DVD player and surround sound. Nice ride! Once it started getting late we finished up playing with the timing on my bug and I headed back to the house a couple miles away. After I get back from my trip to China in a week Carl offered to help me convert my Bug from points over to electronic ignition - Can't wait!

AirCooled Addicts Meet at Fox Pizza - Nov. 19th 2009

I'm a little behind on the updates so here's a few photos from the meet out at Fox's Pizza a couple weeks ago. My bug wasn't quite ready to hit the road for the meet so we took the Mustang and my daughter and I snuck in. Reason for not bringing the Bug is it had a bad coil. But part of what makes this VW club great is the people. Gary Kohl brought me a used coil and sold it to me very cheap and it helped out. Lately I've been able to go out and cruise in the bug again until all my new ignition parts show up. We had fun though checking out all the cool stuff and eating lots of Pizza. Here's a few pics I took as well as some of Gary Kohl's pics.

This is one of Jason's Bugs. Matching luggage and cooler with nice patina!!!

Check out the killer single Cab!!!

Nice black oval window! If I remember right it's a 1958 model year and it's still running 6V too!

Me in the blue shirt on the left, showing my first piece of VW artwork to Carl, Jason, and the guys after we got our fill of Pizza. They approve - Cool!