My Little Project

This summer I got my hands on a backyard gem; an old Volkswagen Manx (it is made from the frame, engine and steering components of a VW bug, except with a fiberglass body attached instead). My dad, uncle and I picked it up from a friend of ours. I recently have been working on it only to find out that I'm in a little over my head. I'm not a car mechanic by any means, but figured this project wouldn't be too hard with some help from my dad and uncle.

During the summer I worked on getting the interior ripped out.The seats were basically lawn chairs bolted to a bracket, which in turn was welded to the floor (not the safest setup). The roll bar had a slight shimmy to it (not the safest setup either). The floor had a lot of rust, so when I sat in one of the seats, my feet went through the floor and touched the ground.

Even though this VW looks bad, there were a lot of good things about it from first glance. For instance, the windshield was intact, the fiberglass body was in pretty good shape, and the steering column seemed to be alright. However, we still needed an engine. The one we have is so rusted; it's completely beyond repair.

I worked on the wiring, taking the gas tank out, and ripping off the fiberglass body with my dad this weekend. As I took the hood off, I was shocked to see an wiring nightmare:

After we had finished removing the wiring, my dad and I worked on removing the gas tank. As dad proceeded to lift it off of the body, it started leaking rotten gas everywhere. Pretty soon he smelled like a rotten gas tank himself.

The fiberglass body was next on the list. We were unsure of the surprises awaiting the removal. Since the way things were going, my hopes were not that high. My worst fear running through my head was that we were going to find a rusted out frame and broken axles. As we lifted the body off I was stunned to find a really good looking frame and good looking axles. Thank God!

We still have our work cut out for us, but hopefully things will go alright!