OK, guys, I’m wanting to share my excitement and enthusiasim.  I am having the car checked out at a local VW garage and they tell me is has an almost new looking GEX engine, size unkown.  It is reported to be running smoothly with no oil leaks.  I going to put new tires on it as the shops says the old ones have cracks in their side walls and I don’t want to make that trip on those old ones.

I have a question about cleaning the wire wheels/covers once I get her home.  I want to keep them shiney and clean.  Will I be polishing each spoke?

and do I need to make a change in my profile or settings?  I am not getting e-mail notices that there are new additions to this post.

Here is finally a picture of the old girl, taken somewhere along the road in either Oregon or northern California last month on the way home.

Thanks for your comments.  She looks great with a 2MB cell phone camera.  Up close and personal, I’ve discovered middle-age cracks and chips in the fiberglass that I would love to get repaired. There is more rust than I anticipated on the chrome from the steering wheel to the wire wheel covers and bumper to bumper, so a bottle of chrome polish is getting used, but it might be faster for me to just order replacement parts, if I can find them, like the wheel covers.  There be a lot of spokes that need rust remover.

The “engine doesn’t turn over” comment was misleading, I see.  I apologize for any confusion.  Sometimes the starter would spin, but the engine wouldn’t engage.  Other times, the battery was dead and nothing turned at all. The points were gaped, the timing was reset, and the carburetor was adjusted, so it seems to be running well again.  The oil leak was at least from one of the valve covers, so I changed the rubber gaskets to the premium cork ones from Germany.

I think the battery was getting drained because my voltage regulator became unfastened and may have shorted out when it fell down on the fan housing, draining my battery more than once.  We installed some rubber gaskets for the voltage regulator attachment points, and I tightened the sheet metal screws again today.

I got thumbs up, tractor-trailer honks, and waves, at least once per day, and at most stops I made along the way.  Just yesterday, a friendly lady with 2 kids in her car stopped on the freeway to offer me a ride when it broke down yesterday evening.  She told me was a “cute car”.  My girlfriend thinks this is a masculine car, but I keep referring to it as a “she”.  On a test run today, as I got on the freeway, the car just passing honked and gave me a thumbs up.  She is definitely a slower cruiser, comfortable on city streets at speed limits, and the freeway at about 55-65.  I pushed her to higher revs and faster speed on my journey, but I don’t think I’ll do that again.  I have my Honda S2000 for that need.

Thanks for the pressure washing tips.  I don’t take my other cars to the pressure washer, so I was just going for the degreaser stall to do the engine.  I’ll do it by hand now, as I don’t want to damage the fiberglass any further.

This is a life-long desire, fueled by a book I read as a 12-year old in school, called The Red Car.  I purchased a new copy of that book and took it with me to read each night on my journey as I went to bed.  I don’t think I could have kept or refurbished a real MG TD or TC, and buying one in rebuilt condition was out of budget, but the VW engine is something I’m not afraid to do regular maintenance on, as I’ve owned a VW bug as my first car, and the price was attractive to me at the time, even though it wasn’t red.