Heidi the bug

Long time no see

Brian — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 00:11:37 +0000

So quick little update. The latest decision has been to turn Heidi into a down and baja bug. It will take a lot less work (aka money) and will be just as fun. Only things I’ll have to do now are fix some of the rust, paint the pan with some bed liner (cause there’s nothin’ finer than bed liner), replace the brake and fuel lines, upgrade the brakes them selves, get an engine, probable a bored crate, some off-road wheels, big old truck tires (big for a bug) and a decent paint job. Not sure if I’m just going to do a basic redneck paint job, or if I’m going to make it quasi nice. I had the thought of a Harlequin paint job.

One step closer to separation

Brian — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 02:19:32 +0000

Well I am one step closer to taking the body off of the pan. This afternoon I pulled the fuel tank out. Surprisingly it wasn’t to terribly hard to do. The lines that were connected to the tank weren’t dry rot that I could tell and came off with just a little motivation. I’m sure that I’ll eventually end up replacing all the lines for the filler and evap system eventually anyway. If anything most of it will have to be taken out so that it can be painted. Or at least covered up

Right now the plan is to paint her Chameleon. Not sure exactly which flavor, whether blue-green-purple or what, but right now I’m really digging this gold-lime-green color. I think she would look pretty snazzy with a cool paint job like that and a slightly larger than stock engine. Even just the paint job would be cool though Who knows, she may still end up just plain old VW orange.

Windows VistaW

Brian — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 01:27:15 +0000

Well all of Heidi’s windows except for the passenger door are taken out. The windshield, back quarters and back window were all fairly easy since the seals were quite dry rot. It took maybe half an hour to get all for windows out. Then about that much time to get the window out of the drivers door along with the vent. Eventually I’ll pull the regulator out and see if it’s worth saving or if I’ll just replace it with a new one. All depends on how rusty it is since it wouldn’t be that hard to lube up. Tomorrow, passenger side window. Then I can get them all cleaned up again Hrm…maybe I could put em in the dishwasher…haha no probably not. I’ll just bring them inside and grab the Windex.

Bath time!

Brian — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 21:47:19 +0000

So this morning after washing Christine’s car, I decided I would get the shoes out of the remaining wheel with brakes. So I crawl under Heidi, adjust the stars for the brakes so that the wheel won’t turn at all. Throw on the monster socket (36mm!), the 18″ breaker bar, a 36″ pipe and go to town. Pull on it a little and nothing…ok no big deal. Hop on the pipe, give a couple good bounces and crack! Yay it broke loose! Proceded to take the castleated nut off the rest of the way, take off the wheel, adjust the starts so they weren’t pushing on the drum and pull it off. Then pulled all the shoes and springs out, strapped down the parking brake cable, threw the drum back on and wala!

Now it was time to was abotu 30 years of dirt off of her. I put a couple of boards out in the driveway to stop her on. Gave her a little push and walked her down the drive way. Blocked up the wheels and grabbed the hose. She looks much happier now without all the dirt and muck living on her. I pushed her hood and deck lid down, opend the window vents (since some water got inside), closed the doors and went off to the mall.

Now the fun part of everything, getting Heidi back in the garage! It actually wasn’t to bad. She was fairly easy to push up the drive way. Got her in the garage, put the seats back in the garage and called it a day. Now I can pull the bolts holding the body to the pan (and PRAY that they don’t break). Then we can get the show on the road! All this should put Heidi at atleast 6% complete, of not more. Yay!!!

Half the brakes are gone

Brian — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 20:19:03 +0000

Last night I got the drivers side brakes taken apart. The rear was already done, but that wasn’t until after I took the drum off. I wondered why the bolt was so easy to get off. The passenger side will be a pain as it still has the full 250lbs of torque on it. Guess I need to find myself a big pipe. The front brakes were easy, pop off the dust cap, remove the bearing nut and off comes the drum. Well with a little persuasion that is. The bearings in the front wheel seem very good, although they’ll still get replaced when the time comes to do the disc conversion. Now I just need to do the passenger side, get the body off and go from there. Oh and get a title of course haha.

Almost have a title

Brian — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 00:03:34 +0000

So today during lunch I went to visit the friendly State DOT office. Surprisingly I’m not being sarcastic, they actually are really nice up there. So I turned in the papers that I had, they typed up a letter for me to get my bond and off I went. Once I got back to work I started searching the yellow pages to find a bond place that WASN’T a bail bond place. Lucky for me, there is a place in town that does just Surety Bonds. Called them up and it will be $125 for the bond, although I’m not sure if she thought I said $115 instead of $150. Either way, after I get the bond and take it back to the DOT, I can get a title for Heidi.

So with any luck, tomorrow at lunch I’m going to go to the bank and get money for the bond, and while I’m there also get money to pay for the yard work. Yay progress

And her butt is off

Brian — Fri, 22 May 2009 15:52:02 +0000

So since today is a nice day off, I decided to finish tearing Heidi’s butt apart. I got the driver side fender off last night as well as the bumper, so I tacked the other side today. Sprayed some more WD-40 on the bolts to hopefully keep them from breaking, which yeah who am I kidding, a good bit of them still broke. While the WD-40 was soaking in, I decide to try and get the dent out of the roof from where a tree branch decided to leave it’s mark. So I crawled in and pushed up with my back, here a big pop and got out to see if I made any progress. There was still a big part of the dent left so I got back in and stepped back a little, push again with my back and BANG! Hrm that musta done it, got out and no more dent! Well there are still a couple tiny little ones, but they are no where near like the gigantic punch bowl of a dent that was there in the beginning. There are pictures below, I used some gallery thingy in wordpress so they look kinda funny, but if you click on them they will take you to full sized pictures. Enjoy

One step closer to a title

Brian — Wed, 06 May 2009 22:40:22 +0000

On the way home from work today I stopped at the VW dealer and got Heidi appraised. He wrote down her information and then asked what I was thinking, $100, $150. I said about $100, probably not even worth that in scrap though. Then under comments he wrote “Vehicle is in a very rough condition”. No surprise she’s been in a field for years. But either way, with luck I am on my way towards getting a title for Heidi. We chatted though for a while about what I had planned for it and he gave me the name of a guy in town who does a lot with old VWs and can help me get some parts that I haven’t been able to find. Deffinately a nice guy.

A quick update for this afternoon. I got the passenger side fender off. Wasn’t to bad at all, of course there were only 5 bolts holding it on but oh well. None broke and only 1 retainer came lose. I think I would call that a great success. Now only 2 fenders to go and other various items left to take off. Then I should be pretty darn close to taking off the body. Guess I’m going to have to get thinking quick as to what I’ll do with her, wheter it’s baja or classic. But there is still plenty of time for that, not like I’ll have the pan done by the end of the month or anything haha.

The tear down begins

Brian — Sun, 03 May 2009 20:07:36 +0000

So this afternoon I went out and started doing some dear down on Heidi. The inside is completely empty now, well as far as seats and trash go that is. While cleaning the inside out I discovered a few different items. I found a funky clip on tie, as well as a yellow sock, both of which made their way into the trash along with the exploded kleenex box. I also got the front driver side fender off as well as the front bumper. When taking off the bumper only 2 bolts broke, one for the turn signal and the other for the fender, 2 retainers decided not to retain anymore and came loose from the front end, and when taking off the bumper 3 bolts broke. When undoing the passenger side of the bumper, all of the bolts except one broke. Was kinda annoying, start to pull and snap! Start to pull snap! Oh well, the bumper is off and since I may be going Baja, I don’t be using those same mounting holes anyway.

Nothing new

Brian — Sun, 03 May 2009 02:35:48 +0000

Just a quick little update tonight. Nothing has changed with Heidi; I haven’t had a chance to do anything this past week. With some luck tomorrow I can get the rest of the back seat out and do a little more cleaning up. With a lot of luck, I can pull her out of the garage and give her a spray to clean some of the yech off. Next step then will be to start pulling body panels off and work towards getting the body off.

And as you can see, I found a poll plugin and I’m testing it below, so go ahead, make a vote.
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For those of you who don’t know what a Baja bug is, here is a picture of what Heidi could become…