I actually had dinner the other night with one of Elvis’ doctors and I asked him point blank, ‘Is Elvis really dead?’, without any hesitation he said ‘Hell no, he works at a Wendy’s in Kentucky.’ I laughed, but he didn’t….that got me to thinking .
My dad died and I have been so busy dealing with the estate and getting his house ready to put into…[Read more]

VDO has 2 available , FOR vw. One goes in the head of the dipstick, the other goes in the oil drain plug. Some folks will drill and tap it to go into the sump instead. It’s just a small brass piece with a small button on top. Price a while back ran around $30 for the drain plug one. They should list them on their website. There are VDOs in the…[Read more]

Oh yeah,
I heard from Elvis tonight. He agrees that you should put ‘er back together and run ‘er down the highway
Thank you,…Thank you very much!
Rich

James, Buddy,
Don’t make us resort to a “TD Replica Intervention”! There is a point where you have to put the car back together, get behind the wheel and DRIVE!!!!
The seasons, like our lives, are short. (This is the best I can do for an inspirational speech. Other members, with eloquent words of wisdom and motivation, please step up to the…[Read more]

Oh I’m not in a hurry . If this were my only car, I might be.  If anything I have more patience than hubby does. It’s not all that big a project really, not like a metal body in the same shape would be. We have plenty of spare parts out back, we sorta collect bugs lol! But no, no discouragement here. He’s said he’ll get the engine running this…[Read more]

Purplemyth ; So you have a project, look how much fun you are going to have. I had just as much fun rebuilding mine as I do driving her . some time I think I had more fun , each time I solved a proublem I felt good and looked foward to the next . 6 mo. of trying to get it the way it should have been when built, mine sat for 22 years in a barn…[Read more]

Thanks, great advice. I’ll take back my new Fram filter and get the WIX.
I have not discovered exactly what locked up the engine. It is totally free now and I can hand turn it without problem. The odd thing is one evening I could not move the crank at all, I laid under the panless engine and stared at everything. For fun, I reached up to give it…[Read more]

Not to change the topic of this post, but there is absolutely no comparison between organic and synthetic oils.
If you are rebuilding your engine and starting fresh (new pistons/rings/bearings) Royal Purple has a break in oil available.
You can switch from organic to synthetic oil at any oil change. All of the old myths about synthetic oil are…[Read more]

I don’t know much about the synthetic oils. Maybe I should use that in my engine when I put it back together. It sounds to be better for the engine. Do you need a special filter for synthetic?

Sorry guys,
I meant to reply to Rich, and my brain must have slipped into neutral and I forgot. I have left the engine open. It bugs me that I do not have an absolute answer to why the engine locked up, and why it suddenly wasn’t. I have cleaned up everything, repainted the pan, put in a new oil pump since the engine was open anyway. Yesterday, I…[Read more]

Yeah, around here, there are alot of ‘oh I wish I had this at home instead of it wasting away in the junkyard/back fields’ cars. But we have way too many as it is. Can’t afford to do them big projects anyways. This one though is doable fairly easy.  Would be much easier if the almost new frame with new pans under a dune buggy had a current title.…[Read more]

Yup…they’re just VW Beetle lenses. I’ve used CIP1 too and they’re a fine air cooled VW parts vendor.
 

Yeah…what happened? Larry Murphy and I were wondering about that when I was in NC a few weeks ago?

Dan R probably has most of the solution. These Chevette radiators are very small and require a “focused” amount of air passing through them. The fan is pretty far away too. Making a shroud will GREATLY improve the cooling. I love the 5 gallon bucket idea.
Another cooling fan idea is a shrouded electric fan mounted in the “puller” position. A…[Read more]

purplemythGOOD LORD!!!   Now that’s a project!  Reminds me of when I started my ’53 F100.  Holes in the floor?  Ha!  What floor!  Is that wiring or some science experiment gone wrong?  Afraid to remove too much rust in case its what ‘s holding it together?  Now that’s fun!  (like I’ve said elsewhere on this forum, I am a twisted individua…[Read more]

(fixed my spelling, I scrapped off the strips, old keyboard)Here’s a few pics. More loaded in the photobucket though. will leave it this way.it looks so bare now.today would be a good day to work on it, won’t be as hot, but I’m to the point it needs stronger backs than me. I will get it up on blocks though just to have it level and get the rotted…[Read more]

Bookends! Great cars!
Head on over to the Car Registry and post the requested info!

Very cool  Ringo!I’ll be making a chiropractor appt early this month, and I’m sure he’ll ask, ‘ ok. what are you doing now you are really tweaked’ um,,, just cleaning, I swear!!!! He knows better. Took the grillS, both of them off. Going to use the original one, it just won’t look right with no chrome on the bottom. So we’ll paint it with the…[Read more]

Widetrack;Now that’s a good idea, a spare!  I’ll have to give that some thought. One for me and one for the wife,  hmmmmm.Nice rides.  Welcome to the forum.Ringo

Purplemyth;Welcome to the group, as far as car nuts go, if you shook this forum hard you’d get a whole tree full of nuts coming down.I got pretty lucky with my Duchess but other cars in the past have often left me wondering what the hell the previous owner was thinking.  At least parts are available, so have fun and post more pics.Ringo