Wheelin' and Dealin'

Somehow my knack for a deal has rubbed off on Jeremy and he scored these awesome snowflakes for me! They came off a VW caddy. With tires, center caps, etc. all for $200! They were about 3 hours away, but luckily a friend of ours was headed that direction to visit family. So she was able to pick them up for us.

before

They did need a little TLC in the cleaning up department. Which again, I left to Jeremy. Apparently this is what he used, but I can't attest to any of its effectiveness. I'm told oven cleaner works really well on wheels to degrease. So lets go with that.

after

Here's my cabby before with Le Castellets:

And here is after with the Avus (snowflakes):

All in all an upgrade I'm pretty happy with. I'm going to try to tackle a new top and interior this fall/winter. I'm needing a speaker enclosure so I can put the speakers I purchased in. Need the driver side of this piece highlighted in red. Which apparently isn't easy to find. 

Yeay for Progress!

The Cabby is alive and kicking. We were able to get out the bolt by using some drill bits and lots of PB blaster as lubricant. Replaced the bolt and used some JB Weld on the new bolt. It worked great! There is the minor (major) annoyance of the heat shield noise. The clips were rusted so all the heat sheild does is rattles every time I accellerate.

I know! I'll install the radio and drown out the sound! Not so fast... the radio is another issue. Because what is an old VW without issues?  When hooking up the radio it would give power to the head unit at all times. That means draining my battery which is no bueno. The previous owner appeared to have another wire ran and we tried that. It does turn on when you start the car now and turn off accordingly, but my radio doesn't remember the presets and goes into demo mode everytime I start the car. There must be some way to keep a little power running to it for memory purposes without sending it into reset mode everytime the car is off. I should note that the radio is an ooolllld Pioneer head unit back from my days as a Car Audio supervisor at Best Buy. So, circa 1999. Heh, that's a bit old, but top of the line in its day! I has a cool animation of the twin towers on it and some other nifty charachteristics so I would like to keep it if possible. Might have to go back to the installers and get some pointers as I didn't do that stuff myself. I can handle speakers and easy stuff, but the wiring is a bit mystifying.

Other issues remain: The parking brake. It has the cables ran but the lever is all disassembled and probably missing some bolts. I may try to buy a replacement kit or go to the junk yard and try my luck there.

Holding pattern

Stuck right now in the Cabby progress. Its obvious we are missing parts for the parking break and still have a sheared bolt to contend with that we cannot tackle on our own. It is drivable and I registered it yesterday finally. But would like it to be completely sound before I make a work commute. I have no idea what its going to cost to repair the sheared axel bolt. Will have to do some checking around.

NEW BRAKES!

Hooray, they are here and nice and shiny.

I let Jeremy tackle this project because with all the cussing he was doing there was no way I was going to go near those things. The old drums were pretty rusted along with the emergency brake cable. I think what happened was the gas from the old tank was rusted and dripping onto the cables and causing them to rust out. I could break the cable right in two, snapping it like a piece of carrot. Here's a few more shots of what we were dealing with.

How to dismantle an atomic bomb

Or just my radio. The previous owner had some interesting wiring going on in here and so far when you hook up the wiring harnes the radio comes on. Which is all fine and dandy when the key is actually in the ignition. However, this happens with no key. Still working on this little mystery.

Edit: Mystery solved. Apparently most older German cars have this similar "feature." It will require a seperate wire going to the ignition. More fun with electricity!

Yes, I spilled it.

Oil went all over the engine and it smells wonderful.

Look close

That's acutal dirt on my arm.

This is a pirate flag

Because that's how I roll.

Life saver

Jerk

I see you oil filter... bastard.

As easy as it looks. This was not. First of all, its torqued on there pretty hard. Easy enough... I'll just get my oil filter wrench that doesn't work on this vehicle because there is no clearance to move it. Back to O'Reilly's where I'm sure I'm know as the girl that doesn't know what the hell she's talking about. Got a proper filter cup do-dad that fits on a socket wrench and all was well.

Changing the oil

My first time changing the oil. Not too bad. It would help if my pipes were a little stronger so I wouldn't need Jeremy to losen everything for me after I pop a vein in my head trying to get off a bolt.

Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.

Jubilantly, we headed to the gas station with the top down, so proud of ourselves. Filled up the tank, headed home, parked it in the garage and then, the rude awakening. The gas wasn't really leaking from the passenger side, well, it was a little, but nowhere near to the amount on the driver's side! Nothing like a huge puddle of gas in your garage to stink up your entire house and cause a fire hazard!

Turns out, the tank really must be leaking/busted. Good thing I had preemptively ordered one for $169 w/ free shipping from Intenet Auto Part. Hopefully that will be a quick ship so we can get my show on the road.

I made my way over to VWvortex.com to the forums to try to get some pointers on getting that gas tank out of there, hopefully some folks there will have the clue that I don't.

In the meantime, I've created my laundry list of things I would like to do in the short term:

List of things that I want to do to ruin improve my car.

• Fix the emergency brake. - in progress
• Fix the brakes
• Replace the Fuel tank.
• New wipers, in case it rains.
• Rewire the sound
• Install a radio/speakers - sort of getting there, 3 speakers work.
• New top - Black w/ white liner.
• Buff out the paint/touch up.
• Replace the tired tan interior with all White.
• Replace the cruddy tan carpet with Black carpet.
• Paint the wheels - White. short term cheap fix to some ugly finish.
• Install Violet/Purple LEDs.

And so it begins

While I search for my old 81 Rabbit picture, I'll update you on where I am with the car.

We got it up on some ramps to search for the gas leak.

Judging from this, it appeared to be coming from a faulty fuel hose. There were nicks all over it and whenever the car was turned on, it would start to drip. Maybe this wouldn't be a bad repair after all?

We picked up some 5/16 fuel line from our local OReilly's and a few clamps and replaced it, triumphant in thinking: Wow, I just repaired my car for $2 !

Hooray!

Introduction

Hello out there in VW enthusiast land!

Here's some background about how I ended up with a 1993 VW Cabriolet that I plan on putting waaay too much money into.

I blame my 15 yr old self. My very first car was a 1981 VW Rabbit convertible. It was precious and it was a piece of crap. But that car never left my heart. I had my first speeding ticket in it, my first kiss, first fender bender, and at one point a 7ft tall man driving it. It was Cedar Green Metallic with a tan top. And in need of more love than I could give it, so it was traded away after a year. Lost, but not forgotten.

My husband shares my love of cars. And we always discussed picking one up for a summer car/project for me. I had been searching craigslist and eBay for something decent and not too pricey and I would say a majority of those were in the $1500-$2500 range. I did a google search and came across an ad on theSamba.com. 1993 Cabriolet, black, engine runs great, needs gas tank. $500.

I was totally expecting the worst bucket ever with an ad like that and no pictures. Luckily the owner did have pictures and hey, it didn't look all that bad. It was around 100 miles away from where we lived, so we took the rest of the day off, grabbed a trailer from Uhaul and hitched it up to our 09 Ford Flex.

Booty shot:

Front:


/not my plates, so don't even try ;)