George’s Cars

With all the work on the buggy I forgot to tell ye all that the red 70 beetle is gone to a new home. There was a few jobs to do before it went. The front suspension had to be rebuilt. The previous owner had removed the grease nipples allowing moisture into the beam, thankfully the beam was still solid but the bearings inside had rusted and the front solid was solid. A few new bearings, a few grease nipples and two days got that sorted.

I had some rewiring work to do also, not that there was any major problems but the new owner wanted a few changes so i agreed.

Last thing she needed was a good clean and a polish. She was repaired about 10 years ago so she needed a little freshen up. When she was finished she looked savage.

She hasn’t gone too far, Alma’s sister Amanda bought it as her first car so I’ll see the car quite often plus it will be nice to have another beetle on the roads of Galway as a daily driver.

The last panel for the red beetle was delivered to the paint shop last week. She should be back in about 2 weeks. It would be nice to drive her for a day or two before she goes to a new home.

I haven’t been updating the blog lately because i haven’t been doing a lot of work in the garage lately. Work has been busy and the family has been a bit under the weather so between one thing and another the garage stuff has been put on the long finger BUT i want to start getting stuff done again.

I’m putting this todo list here as much for myself as anyone else, it nice to see these things in black and white, if might give me the kick i need. Right now I want to start work on the beach buggy BUT i have a few other things to do first.

Blue 72 Beetle:

Sort out the interior, fit rear door cards, install parcel shelf and speakers and fix carpet.

I would also like to do the body work on this but we might have to sell it on so i might sell her as is.

Fit heat exchangers

Red 70 Beetle:

This is away getting the bit of bodywork done, when it comes back it needs a new steering box and front shocks, then it will be sold. We have someone interested in her.

71 Bay westy:

Unfortunately this will have to go to make room for the new camper (more on that later)

Rewire front indicators

Order new door rubbers all round & fit

Clean the interior

Recover the seats and door cards

Sell!

New Camper – Hymer B694:

I’ll put pics of this up soon, I want to finish cleaning it before I start showing it off. As usual, the father and myself bought this together.

She needs a big spring clean and all the appliances need a service, fridge, hot water heater, night heater etc etc

I want to have her ready to use so we can go on short notice.

So that’s what has to be done before I get back to the beach buggy, none of them are big jobs BUT because I’m not getting much time in the garage they seem to be taking forever. I’m hoping to finish cleaning the Hymer over the weekend and maybe start servicing some of the bits in her with the help of a buddy Tristan who works with campers for a living. If you need anything camper related check out the guys on Pat Horan Campers

Dad decided to start work on the red bug today so he got the engine ready to pull out and I gave him a hand to actually drop it out. I really don’t understand some people who work on beetles, there were 3 repairs to the accelerator cable, the repair parts would have cost more than a new accelerator cable would have costs. There were so many repairs that disconnecting it was the hardest job we had to do to get the engine out.

Before

After

We found a handy new tool to help. An air jack. Basically you set a bag up under the car connect the pipe up to the exhaust of a car and use the air pressure to jack up the car. Sounds strange but it works and works very very quickly.

Once the engine was out it was easy get on with the jobs that needed to be done. There were two main jobs. First one was to fit the heat exchangers. There was no heat in the car which makes driving it in the winter fun. There were J tubes on the engine so these where removed and stored, I’ll need them for the buggy.

These aren’t new but they came with the car and they seem to be in good condition so we’ll reuse them. I do have new ones in the shed but I don’t see the point in using the new ones unless I know the old ones don’t work. Generally when it comes to parts, good original parts will always be better than pattern parts.

Next up was the fan shroud. Before:

The fan shroud was in good condition but it had no outlets for air which are needed for the heating system. I had a chrome one in the garage so that got a quick polish and was fitted.

It wasn’t all easy, we did come across two problems what will need to be fixed before we can refit the engine. First on was one of the mounting bolts. The threads were in bits, so we need to get a new stud and fit it before we can re-install the engine. The other problem is that one of the exhaust studs is badly bent, I don’t know how they fitted the exhaust the last time. A new stud will cost 1 euro!! I think we’ll replace it!

There are two parts which can go on the for sale list.

The old fan shroud:

Bugpack Exhaust:

Well Alma and myself flew over to Mancherster on Thursday morning to collect the 70 (Red Bug). To be honest it was a fairly uneventful trip, thankfully. We had about a 3 hour drive to the ferry and 7 hours to do it so we took our time, Alma even managed to get some shopping done in North Wales! Having arrived early at the ferry we snuggled up in the bug with large cups of tea and a dvd on the laptop, occasionally glancing out to see if there was any movement.

We got the 21:30 ferry to Dublin and arrived around 1:00. Off the ferry we flew through Dublin (in spite of every light turning red before us!) When we were on the Motorway heading for galway we had a quick stop to don extra layers as we were getting extremely cold by then.

At 3:45 we arrived home, had a cup of tea to warm up and hit the sack feeling tired but satisfied with our little road trip:)

1970 CAL LOOK, BRAND NEW 1641CC ENGINE WITH CERAMIC MONDO EXHAUST, PORSCHE COOKIE CUTTER ALLOYS, DISC BRAKES ON THE FRONT, LOWERED FRONT BEAM, NEW STAINLESS STEAL US STYLE BUMPERS

Nicest thing about this car is the interior. It looks better than it did the day it came of the production line.