Big Announcement

Lithuanian Flag

I have a really cool and really big announcement for any of you who have been following my blog. I have decided to serve a two year proselyting service mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (The Mormons) to which I belong. I will be teaching others about my beliefs as well as serving the people in my area. I have been called to serve in the Baltic Mission. This includes Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Belarus. Four countries next to Russia. I will be speaking Lithuanian and will be mainly serving in Lithuania.

I will be leaving February 26th. So only a few short months. I will not be updating my blog for the two years I will be gone, but don't worry I'll let you guys know when I get back, and I won't be abandoning the blog. I'll still update some more before I leave. I have to get my bug ready for my absence. My dad is going to take it for regular drives so it doesn't end up sitting derelict for two years. I'm getting ready to do a full tune-up. Any way, just a heads up notice for February.

I am really excited! Lithuania is an awesome country with cool traditions. Doubtful I'll see to many air cooled VW's while I'm there but one never knows. Its going to be a great experience though. I'm hoping while I am there I will also be able to pick up some Russian, as they speak that as well. In fact at one time the whole area was under soviet rule. Lithuania has some interesting history. I may post about some of the stories I'm finding out before I leave (even if it isn't VW related). If you have any questions about my mission call or anything let me know in the comments below and I'll get back to you.

Early Christmas Present

My mom gave everyone in my family an early Christmas present. We each got a unique ornament, and of course mine is a VW Bug. It's awesome, I've wanted one for a while, but I guess I'm just too cheap to buy myself one. And it looks great on the tree. This is the first year I've ever had a real christmas tree, it's great! The smell is wonderful. It's worth the mess of needles. My Christmas has been going great, plenty of snow. (It's fun doing donuts in a bug in the winter) Any one have any cool vw ornaments? Merry Christmas

La Grande Edition

All right so I finally decided to do a write up about something I found out about my car after I bought it. Originally I bought my car because i wanted a super Beetle, the sunroof was a plus and I like the Fuel Injection because I thought I wouldn't have to do much with it. Wrong! But that's a story for another post.

After I bought it I posted pics of my car on thesamba.com and immediately I had someone post a reply saying something along the lines of "wow that's a great car! did you know that all 1975 supers were La Grande editions?" I was surprised, turns out my car is a relatively rare model. There weren't very many of these special edition models produced.

These La Grande Beetles were produced as kind of a farewell to the super beetle as all super beetle sedans were dropped after 1975. (the convertible ones hung around until 1980). They were meant to be a luxury edition of the Beetle and originally they were really quite nice, they were no Cadillac as far as handling but as far as Beetles go they were nice.

They came in three colors a metallic blue, metallic green, and a metallic harvest gold. The paint was a very nice elegant metallic shine. On the rear deck lid there was a La Grande Edition badge. Also included on all models was a metal sunroof from the factory, and optional at the dealership were pop-out rear windows for more air flow. The interior was a bit nicer than the base model standard beetles as well. All the vinyl trim was leather grained with corduroy inserts. It also came with a wood grain dash insert. The gold bug had a brown interior, the blue bug had a blue interior, and the green had a matching green interior. The steering wheel was also upgraded to a soft "comfort" grip instead of the hard plastic ones.

The car itself had a few upgrades aside from aesthetic ones. For the first time VW introduced the fuel injected engine to the Beetle and it was a standard feature. So in a way it was nicer than a Cadillac as on Cadillacs Fuel injection was still an option. And the Super Beetle also got a rack and pinion steering so that it was easier to steer. Handling was still the upgraded McPherson suspension that all super Beetles came with. With all of these features the La Grande was a really nice car to drive.

My car was originally the harvest gold color which is the color of the bug in the pictures I have shown in the article. And I found out that in the US that is the most rare color. Most of the ones distributed here were the green or blue. The gold ones were distributed some in Canada. But at the end of the year VW still had orders to fill in the US so they build more of the gold beetle to finish out the sales and because of this there aren't that many gold bugs. So mine is a rather rare model. Unfortunately everything that made it a la Grande is gone. The plaque, color, wood grain dash, steering wheel. Someday I may restore it to its La Grande glory, especially since its so rare. But for know I'm just trying to keep it running. My car doesn't drive as well as an original la Grande since its 40 years old and hasn't been cared for properly in probably the same amount of time. But its a work in progress.

Any one out there have a special edition model they want to share? I would love to hear about it in the comments.

Finally a Stock Steering Wheel!

As you probably know I used to have a 1974 beetle. It had a funky tiny little steering wheel with a broken horn button. And I was always on the lookout for a stock steering wheel. Took me a little time to find out that VW produced a new steering wheel in 1972, the modern style steering wheel. But in 1974 they changed steering columns small the old steering wheels no longer fit. I learned that the hard way,  a guy was advertising a steering wheel a while back as a 1973 and up, so I bought it. And it didn't fit at all. So I sent it back and kept searching. And searching. I was never able to find one that was reasonably priced and in good shape while I had my old car. I was able to find plenty 1972 to 1973 steering wheels, but for some reason 1974 and up wheels are harder to find. 

Then I get my new super beetle and it's old wheel was terrible, it was a cheap after market one that really didn't fit well. And the norm would beep whenever I took a sharp right turn. It was embarrassing, and I got a lot of crab for it from my friends. Finally thought I found a stock steering wheel online. I love it! It looks so much nicer, and I can actually see my speedometer, I don't have to look around the wheel to see my speed and fuel anymore! And I think stock usually looks better than aftermarket anyway.

Stuff I found at the car show

One of the things I love most about going to VW shows is sifting through parts at the swap meet. You may go with something in mind that you want to buy, but you never actually know what you will get until you're there. This year I was hoping for a steering wheel and the knobs for the fresh air control, what I came away with was different. I ended up finding a decent pair of rear grab hand
Es and coat hook, this car and my old green one didn't have them, so it was nice to be able to put those on. Slowly I'm trying to put this bug back to stock.

The other thing that I found is a vintage VW dealership accessory, a leather shift knob, you could either get it with the Wolfsburg crest or the VW shift pattern, I was lucky enough to find this one foronly $15. It is perfect, it looks brand new, so now I have three Vintage accessories for my car, the shifter, the center console, and the pop-out rear windows. I love finding things like this.

What cool things have you guys found sifting through piles of parts and junk?

Last Call 2013

 
Well the car show was last Saturday. It was awesome, I met a lot of really cool people. I'm planning on writing a post up about one guy, I wish I had thought to get a picture with him, but I did get a picture of his car. He is the original owner of a 1973 sports beetle. Really cool story. I also bought a couple things at the show for my new car. I'll post about those too. But anyway here is a video I made of some of the pictures and video clips I took at the show, hope you like it. Let me know what you think.

Well, its been a while. and I kind of left you hanging, but I'm still her, and so is my new bug. I have been working on it quite a lot and I thought I would finally share that with you guys. I've been doing a lot today to get ready for the last call VW show tomorrow. I guess that's what inspired me to finally post my updates to my bug. So here goes:

When I first got the car the brakes, front bushings, and ball joints didn't pass inspection. So we got the new bushings in no problem. The ball joints were really tricky. We found that you have to have an adapter for the ball joint remover that exactly fits the ball joint or you will not be able to get it out. Luckily autozone has a kit for rent that fits perfectly. So that wasn't so hard.

The brakes on the other hand were an absolute nightmare. It took me forever to finally get them adjusted right. First off I was told the cylinder was leaking, so I replaced it. Then as I tried bleeding the lines I ended up having to replace all the wheel cylinders. I finally got them bleed but the brakes would not work. Me and my dad worked forever on those brakes bleeding and bleeding and the brakes wouldn't work. Well come to find out the leak was still there. It was actually the $5.00 brake switch that was leaking. Well I replaced that and the brakes still didn't work right. I thought I had bleed them enough and I could not get them to work. I thought my new master cylinder was bad. But luckily before I replaced that again. I talked to a guy in my neighborhood who works on old VW's, and he said to try bleeding again, and bleed it through all the way. I decided to try it and I bleed and bleed and bleed and bleed each wheel cylinder. Finally I got the brakes to work, 3 weeks later!

I was finally able to get in registered! That was an exciting day. I've also been batling the Gen light for the alternator. It keeps coming or randomly but the battery still amintains 13 or so volts. At first I thought it was the fan belt. So I replaced that but I forgot to tighten the pulley all the way down. The next day I drove to a friends house and while I was on the freeway the fan belt slipped and wore a hole through the vacuum line next to the belt. I tried repairing it with tape but the belt wore through that too. I stopped at another friends house on the way home, I was dropping him off. And luckily his Uncle who was a mechanic was there and he helped me fix the fan belt using the only tools we could find, a pipe wrench and a screwdriver. Later when I got home I tightened it up properly and replaced the taped up hose. But hey, the pipe wrench and duct tape got me home.

The rest I've done to my car has been pretty simple. I fixed the trunk lock, replaced the missing antennae. I couldn't figure out how to get the plug to the radio so I drilled my own small hole it would fit through and custom made a grommet using bits of whatever I could find and it worked out well. It is really exciting having an AM/FM radio and cd player with a hookup for my Ipod. I loved my old car but its radio was pretty sad. I added arm rests to the door panels and cut the whole for and hooked up the interior lighting. I also put in a stock rear view mirror. They guy had an after market one that attached to the windshield but the problem was he had it so high up, I couldn't see hardly anything out the back window. I also made a speaker shelf for behind the rear seat. You may also recognize some parts from my old car that I moved over, front seat belts, center console, drink holder. I also cut and fit wood paneling for the drivers side out of some leftovers the previous owner had from making a wood panel for the glove box.And then the latest thing I added, today, is the new floor mats. With winter coming up I wanted something to protect the carpet and these were $11 at Autozone and then I cut them to fit. They turned out pretty good. Now I want to get a new trunk liner.

Then today I also washed waxed and vacuumed the car to make it look good for the car show. And my parents were nice enough to let me keep it in the garage tonight so it stays nice. I'm excited for the show, and I still owe you guys pictures from the last bug show, but I'll get them to you eventually.

New Floor Mats

The Arm Rests I installed

Here's the stock mirror I put on

The wood panel for the drivers side turned out good.

I also added a bit of interior lighting

Recognize these seat belts from my old car?

This is the speaker shelf I made.

The center console from my old car.

One of the new bushings we put on.

the new, already rusty, master cylinder.

Here is the replacement vacuum line.

I spent some time researching to put the vacuum lines in the correct places.

New antennae 

Here is where I fed the antennae line to the radio.

Here is how the trunk looks now.

I also found the old jack for the car and greased it, so it works great now.
I also bought a lug wrench so I can change the tire if need be.

My current project is to hook up the stock washer bottle to and electric pump.
This one also came from my old car. I don't know why they had a super beetle pump my old car.

The cup holder fits better in this car.

I also fixed the oil light on the dash, the sensor was bad.

Looks good all polished up.

Clean interior.

I love the modern dash board.