Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.

After several months of planning and many routing changes to avoid surprises, the outer rocker channels, seat knobs and a few other panels are in route from Germany-expected to be out for delivery on Monday morning.  This is a deal that's more or less been in the works for three months and it's nice to see it come to a conclusion.

I discovered through a WTB ad posted by an acquaintance that the NOS wiper arms I have are becoming harder to find.  Makes me wish I'd bought more than one pair when I found them...because I can't find them anywhere now.

I'm going out West tomorrow to look at this car:

It's a 64 N model in rough shape.  The driver's side floor is gone, the fenders are all rusted through, the rear bumper is from a Ghia (second car like this), the rubber mat in the front is missing and it doesn't run.

Fortunately, it's got the original engine, sitting on an original front beam with stock wheels and most of the glass is original.  I'm hoping that the heater channels are together enough that I can have the fabricator replicate them.  I don't have the tools or money to invest in learning how to do it, although I would really like to know...sometimes, you just have to accept a limitation and move on to the things you know.  I'm hoping to strike up a deal with the owner and then go back next weekend and pick it up.

I am being very realistic about the possibility that I'll drive out there and we won't strike a deal...it's a zero sum game in the end-the money I spend on this car will be recovered, but if I don't wind up with the car, I can just use that money on pushing forward with the pieces I have at this point.

I have the Monday bird in hand, while the Sunday bird stares at me from a distance...time will tell if I catch that one as well.

Background Tune: "Breakers" by Local Natives

Distractions and delivery

I picked up the first round of goods from paint/powder coat yesterday...it gives me a good place to start with the assembly process.  I have a few more things to get worked out before I can really get into putting things back together but it's nice to see some progress.

Given that they're piling up in the garage, I'm going to work on getting a transmission rebuilt and returned-it'll get four transmissions out of the garage and keep the pace going.  I've now got three dual relief engine cases and I'm expecting that one will have a problem, leaving me with two good cores.  The engine build discussion will happen later this month.

The pan is going to be next as well-I have to get that part of the equation solved so that I can get it back up on tires as planned.

I spent the majority of the day today working on eliminating an annoying static problem in the Speed3 go away.  It was only affecting the rear speakers but it was driving me nuts.  I wound up removing 40% of the dash, the center console and most of the side panels.  I moved two grounds and replaced all of the connections for the grounds just to cover as much ground as possible while I had it all opened up.  So far, so good...I hope the issue is gone so that I can focus on getting to the other two things I want to finish on the car (rear hatch lights and rear reflectors going back in).

The next VW part is going to be to get through the parts that are left from the 72 and get the garage back to its previous state of organization.  The body work has to wait until the rockers and heater channels are sorted out.  That means that the pan and body will probably make two trips to Tom's for work.  Maybe I can get the body panels worked while the body is there to reduce the time for the future body work.  I'll have to see how this all pans out.

A day of clearing out...

I posted an ad on Craigslist late last night for free scrap metal to get rid of the rusty car.  We don't have a truck-otherwise I'd have taken it myself and pulled some more money out of the car...but I wanted to get it out of the garage.  I'm ready to move on to the next phase.  In less than 8 hours, I received over 75 emails.  I replied to two and one of those two showed up at 5pm to pick it up.

The guy showed up in a truck and loaded 85% of it himself while waiting for the dude with the trailer.  He made a joke about how we could tell he wasn't 100% Mexican...something about how he'd have fit the entire car in the bed of his truck and having his entire family with him in the back seat-watching him work.

There are a few pieces remaining-I have to strip the doors for a few parts and the hatch.

It's coming together...and going back to 'normal'.

A day of action...

Craig came over after work and we jumped into getting the car apart...

The front beam...top bushing arm is completely rusted out.

The left inner fender well

More detail of the spare tire area...this car was barely together.

The car basically broke into two pieces after the hood spring was removed.

This is what the garage looks like for now...the scrap metal will be gone within a couple of days.

From the door...

It was a super productive day-now the car is in pieces and the useful parts are stripped from it.

Digging for gold...and finding rust.

Craig and I went to pick up the 72 Squareback I bought this morning...as soon as we got it off the trailer, it started coming apart.

The car actually photographs well, but closer inspection shows the ravages of life in the Midwest-there isn't a solid panel on this car-they're all rusty.  None seem worth saving.

See what I mean?  At first glance, the car looks fine...other than being a 'fat chick' late model Square. It looks like you could jump in it and drive it.

Craig checking out the new project.  This dude is down for anything that involves demolition...if you look close, you can see that none of the panels quite line up and the front bumper isn't quite right.

We started taking the interior out of the car-slow start because it was wicked hot and humid.  The goal was to strip the car as quick as we could while saving as much as possible to sell and recover the cost of the car and the trailer rental.

Closer inspection of the front trunk.  That hole got much larger without much effort.  The front fenders are rusted to the bolts/inner fenders.  They will not come off the car via the bolts.

The right side...the fuel filler door doesn't latch closed and the 'guts' were siliconed to the fender to make up for the missing collar.

The spare tire carrier tray thing was so rusty that it fell through the lip that's supposed to support it.  I'm not sure how the spare tire stayed in the front of the car.

It's worse in person than it appears in pictures.

We charged the battery to see if we could get the car to start.  The battery was dead, wouldn't hold a charge and wasn't connected correctly (loose connections).

This was the interior of the car 90 minutes after we started.

Notice the hole in the floor under the driver's seat...

Hood is off

Still doesn't look that bad, does it?

One example of 'close up' being far worse than far away.

Found a wasp's nest in the right rear fender well, complete with one resident who was doused with liquid death.

The hole in the floor got larger when it gave way...

We finally got the battery up to 14.1 volts and turned the engine over.  It would have started if not for the fuel leaks at the injectors.

This picture shows (sort of) the fuel spilled on the tin after two attempts to get the car running.

Then we had to scramble to get the entire contents of the car off the driveway and into the garage because of a fast moving and very intense thunderstorm that moved into the area.  We cleaned up and took the trailer back, then went to eat dinner (we skipped lunch). 

The rust bucket stuffed into the garage, all wet, as the rain came down.

When we came back from dinner, we did a little more work on the car-but it's still on four tires.

After work on Monday/Tuesday, we'll work away to get the car torn completely down and gone by the weekend.  So far, the only good metal I've found is the dash...everything else is either bondo or rust.

Right in my own back yard...

I struck a deal with the seller of a 72 Squareback in Berwyn and I should be picking it up tomorrow morning. The engine supposedly runs and the transmission is good. Craig and I are going to pick up a trailer, get breakfast and go get the car. We will spend the rest of the day tearing the car down-keeping the useful parts and making a pile of scrap. I'll have some pictures to post tomorrow once the car is here. My goal is to get the parts I need/want, sell the rest, scrap the metal and come out at zero. The local show is in a few weeks, so there's a venue where I can sell some of the other parts...

This is going to be interesting...

We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand

I went to look at a parts car after work today-with the hope that it would be in good enough condition to buy and get donor steel from it to fix my car...but no such luck-the car is completely rusted through in every possible corner and every panel I touched. There is only two other cars I'm aware of that are semi-close that could be used for panels. I might drive down on Saturday and check them out since they're both in the same place. After that, I may be resigned to having to fix what is there.