My Pendulum Swings Again

I have a lot of hobbies, but they don't consume all of my time. I tend to swing from one hobby to another. All I was thinking about three years ago was my VW Beetle. Last year I was knee deep in pinball repair, and the Bug was all but forgotten. Does that mean I should sell my car? Heck, no. I'll come back around to car repair. I'll just need something to spark my VW interest again.

For example, I wasn't aware of this, but I had begun to get tired of fixing pinball machines. I finished a restoration in July, and didn't even blog about my "new" Zig Zag machine. I guess I didn't want to think about pinball anymore.

That's when my hobby pendulum changed directions.

The spark was a birthday present. Daphne gave me a three-month subscription to Vinyl Me, Please, a record-of-the-month club. As soon as I dropped the needle and heard that funky bass line on July's record, a re-release of 1973's Betty Davis, I was hooked.

It wasn't long before I was digging through my old collection of LPs searching for something else to play. That's how I rediscovered my vinyl collection. I had forgotten how much I liked playing records. 

My first LP purchase was the soundtrack to the 1983 movie Christine (George Thorogood and slew of 50s classics on that), and I bought quite a few records during the rest of the 80s. I switched to CDs in the 90s, but I still enjoyed buying records at thrift stores and Half Price Books as an adult. The record shopping stopped when Charlotte was born. It wasn't a conscience decision; I just didn't have time for new music anymore. 

I have learned a couple of things since then.

1) After looking through my record collection, I have discovered that a lot of the music that I was buying in high school and college was total junk didn't age well. 

2) Records have become a hot commodity. You can forget about going to Goodwill and finding anything except Eddy Arnold or Ray Conniff. That bone has been picked clean. That doesn't matter, though. There are record stores in town that have quality, used records. You can even buy new vinyl recordings.  It is unreal to think that I can walk into Barnes & Nobel and walk out with a brand-new record by The Replacements. I feel like I'm riding in the time machine with Marty McFly. 

But that trip in the DeLorean isn't free. These new records are luxury items that cost anywhere between $20 and $50. I can't be making impulse buys for that kind of money, so I started doing some research. I have read Vinyl Me, Please: 100 Albums You Need in Your Collection, and I'm two thirds through 1001 Albums You Need to Hear Before You Die. 

1001 Albums begins in 1955 with Frank Sinatra's In the Wee Small Hours and ends in 2005 with the White Stripes' Get Behind Me Satan. Both books are intelligently written and insightful. YouTube is also great resource. Not sure if you're up to the challenge of listening to Captain Beefheart? Search "Trout Mask Replica full album" and find out. (I wasn't ready for the Captain, but I have listened to more than 30 artists that I didn't know existed. )

For the last four weeks, I have been playing pinball, surfing YouTube, and listening to music in my basement. My hand tools have been asleep in their toolbox beds, and I haven't watched a movie on DVD or Blu-ray this month. The Beetle has been consoling the pinball machine project in the garage, There, there. Don't take it personal. He'll work on you again. I promise.

It's true. Like Arnold, I'll be back. But for right now, I have to go back downstairs to listen to Marvin Holmes & the Uptights. 

I'll write about this record soon.

Shine On

I enjoy collecting old stuff, but I don't restore anything. I just try to make whatever I've found better. I like to take something broken and make it work again. If something is dirty, then I want to clean it. I enjoy removing surface rust, and I like to polish what's dull into a shine.

The coin door on my Teacher's Pet pinball machine is a good example of how I work. The eBay seller ranked the coin door's condition at a 5 out of 10. Here's a picture from the listing.

I cleaned the painted surface with a couple of SOS pads. I don't think SOS pads get enough press in the hobbyist world. The steel wool does a great job at removing deep seeded grime, and the soap keeps the surface from getting scratched. After being scrubbed, I used a cleaner car wax to give the old paint some sheen. Here's what it looks like now. 

I don’t repaint most of my projects. I think an imperfect, polished surface looks pretty good if the chrome near it shines. That's why I replaced the bolts that hold the door to the cabinet with new ones. I also let the coin slot, the coin return lever, and the coin return door spend a few days in the tumbler. 

This part was all but black before.

The Schwinn bicycle that I rescued is another example of this idea.

I think the chrome distracts you from the scratches in the paint.

The bike is currently hanging upside down from the garage's ceiling, but you can get the idea.

Then there's my Bug: shiny paint and shiny chrome. It doesn't seem to matter if the original paint is pitted, chipped, and scratched. Few people notice. They just see the shine.

I don't think I'll keep these things forever, and sooner or later I'll sell them. The next person will have the opportunity to keep them original. Old stuff is only original once.

Influential

I bought the Hot Rod 1984 Annual at a convenience store while my family was taking a summer car trip. Few purchases have had such an impact on me.

I didn't know this at the time, but I was about to become a big fan of "how-to" articles. There are many of these step-by-step features in the '84 Annual.

Here's Charlie Hayward's tale of rebuilding someone's else project car into his "Heartland Express".

Charlie used the all important "parts car" to bring his 1937 Chevy back to life.

I haven't had a lot of car projects, and we have no room for a "parts car", but I have used this idea so many times. For instance, I've rebuilt more than one bicycle using "parts bikes" purchased from thrift stores. You save so much money on parts, and you can donate, recycle, or hoard what's left.

Although I was six years away from owning my own Bug, I thought I knew how my car should look in 1984 thanks to Ron Cogan's feature on Cal-Look Bugs. Cal stands for California - where this style originated.

I did update my VW with a "modern" side mirror in 1990. You can see the mirror in front of that skinny kid in the white shirt (The skinny guy wearing black is Rob Moeller.)

I also installed black fender welting like the article recommended.

Thank goodness I didn't have enough money to follow the rest of the Ron's advice. My car still wears the original chrome side trim, chrome hub caps, and chrome bumpers. Back then I thought I was supposed to modify everything. Now I like VWs in stock form. I installed an original side mirror when I replaced my rusted driver's side door.

Those two articles are great, but they aren't the reason my '84 Annual is so dog-eared, creased, and torn. It's in that condition because I have read Bruce Caldwell's "Build A Low-Dollar Street Machine" more times than I know. I've read those 20 pages at least twice this year. Why spend so much time reading an article that's 31 years old?

Well, for one, I admire the article's construction. Bruce's piece is a combination of two styles. One format is straight story-telling: prose broken into nine sections with titles like "Wheeling and Dealing" and "Finding the Basic Car". You could read this text and walk away with a firm grasp of Bruce's project.

The second style is a sequence of 99 pictures with detailed captions. If you only looked at the pictures and read the captions you would still understand all the work Bruce and his friends went through to get their improved project car back on the street.

But what's cool is how well the two formats compliment each other. Yes, the topics overlap, but each format contains information not found in the other. You have to read the text, read the captions, and look at the photographs if you want the whole picture.

I use this technique when I teach literature. Anytime I can find a visual compliment for a reading I show it. I'm not talking about reading Harry Potter and then watching the whole movie. Anyone can do that. I like finding visuals that make my point in a different way. For instance, when teaching about an internal conflict in "By the Waters of Babylon", I'll show a similar conflict in the surfing documentary Riding Giants. Same information; different format. Works really well.

Another reason I have read this feature so many times is because the information is still useful. When the floor beneath my Bug's battery rusted through, I referenced this section of the article for help.

Then I made the same repair on my car. I used an old license plate because I didn't need that much metal, and I knew the plate wouldn't rust.

I love the attitude expressed in caption 66: "It doesn't look as professional as a factory-style repair panel, but the seal is fine and the cost was low. It sure beats dragging your feet on the ground."

When all I could find was a black seat cover for my red VW seats, I took Bruce's advice again.

Before:

 
I used a spray can of red vinyl coating to cover the black.  Like Bruce's car seat, the color didn't exactly match, but it was at least in the same ballpark.

After:

I think the biggest reason I keep rereading "Build A Low-Dollar Street Machine" is that I practice what the article preaches. The Cal-Look Bug pictures were all taken inside a shop that specializes in VW repair, and some of the work done on the Born Again Street Rod was farmed out to specialty shops. That's fine if you can afford to do that. But for a guy who doesn't want to funnel the family savings into his own hobby, the Low-Dollar Street Machine is the way to go. Bruce shows you what can be done at home with limited cash and a standard set of tools. Hot rodders have been into DYI and recycling long before hipsters made it cool, and this article hits that ethos right on the head.

Like the article's construction, Bruce's goal also has two components. The first is to build a dependable and respectable street machine, the second is to do it under $1000. Even in 1984 money that's a tough nut to crack, but they get it done by buying a parts car, joining a car club, hitting swap meets, reading the classified ads, selling everything they don't use, and doing all the work themselves.

In those regards, not much has changed since '84. Instead of classified ads we have craigslist and eBay. Good deals can be found on both sites - try misspelling your key search word and you might be able to find deals others cannot.

Instead of joining a club, you can sign up for a forum that's dedicated to your project. I'm a member at thesamba.com (VW Beetles), schwinnbikeforum.com (Muscle Bikes), and most recently pinside.com (EM Pinball). You might be surprised how nice folks treat you if you are polite. When I broke a drop target for my Royal Flush pinball machine, I bought a new one that didn't match the rest.  I then asked on the forum if anyone had a vintage target for sale. Two guys offered to to send me one, and neither would accept any money - even for the shipping. The target arrived from Pennsylvania two days after I sent "Boilerman" my address. Take that, Amazon.



As expected, there's a lot of car advice in this article, but there are also lessons that can be applied elsewhere. "Concentrate on making the car safe and functional first." This is the first step I take with all of my projects.  I make sure the brakes work before I do anything else to a bicycle. Being able to stop is more important that being able to go. When I brought home a broken pinball machine I didn't even try to play it until I had the right fuses installed. A game that plugs into a wall socket is a game that can start a fire.

"If you make some mistakes on a low-dollar car like this, think of mistakes as valuable experience, not a big financial loss." I don't have any high dollar projects, and I do all of my own work, so this is a mantra for me. Instead of beating myself up when things go wrong (and they always do for awhile), I try to point out what I learned, and I promise myself not to make the same mistake again.

Here's some other lessons I've learned from the article and projects that it inspired me to try.

You don't have to spend a lot of money to have something that you are proud of.
When you do things on a budget, you'll always have more time than money. You have to be patient.
You don't shed tears and blood when you buy something off a shelf. You'll probably shed both when you build it yourself.
If you do the work yourself, then you can afford to purchase quality parts.
Buy the best tools you can afford.
A working, imperfect project is much more fun than a pile of shiny parts.
When you start a new hobby you'll be amazed at how little you really know. It's okay; everybody started at that same place.
There are a lot of nice people in this world. You just forget about them because they don't make the news.
It's okay to ask those people for help.
Never start a job after 10 pm.
Walking away in frustration isn't admitting defeat. It's called "forming a new plan."

I know I'm forgetting a few others. Maybe I should read "Build a Low-Dollar Street Machine" again to see if I can find them. That can't hurt, I'm looking to start a new project, anyway.

I've been searching craigslist for a vintage "motercycle"...

Bug Update: Tooting Your Own Horn (Don't)

Two years ago I wrote a post about working on my Bug's horn, and I ending the post with, "...so excuse me while I brag a little."

You know what? The horn consistently worked for a few more days, but it's been nothing but trouble after that. Occasionally the horn sounds when I press the horn button, but often not. Sometimes it will work in the morning, but it's silent in the afternoon. The horn won't beep at 50 mph, but it will beep at 30 mph. I've cleaned the contacts on the steering shaft with sandpaper, scrubbed the wire connections with steel wool, and I smeared dielectric grease on both ends. I still get the same results. It doesn't make sense. But I think I know why the horn is such a pain. 

I bragged about how well it worked. 

Charlotte, the Greeks called this "hubris", and the word means excessive pride or self-confidence. I call it "bragging".

There's a fine line between bragging and humor. When the three of us are shopping at Target and Daphne says, "Char and I are going to go look at dresses. Where will you be?" If I reply, "I'll be in the Beauty section... where I belong," that's humor. When the three of us are shopping at Pet Smart, and I tell someone we have the prettiest dog you've ever seen (she isn't), then that's bragging. It doesn't matter if we think our dog is pretty; it's an ugly comment to make.

But bragging isn't just ugly; it causes you trouble. The world has a way of dealing with you when you brag about yourself. It might not happen right away, but you can bet trouble's coming your way. 

However, I can't fix my horn by simply admitting that I was wrong to brag. The world doesn't work like that. I still have to fix my horn problem, and I think I did. 

While researching the hard start relay on my Bug, I discovered that people have used relays to get their horns to work. The idea is that the relay can boost what little electricity is getting to the horn. I was curious if I could make my horn more reliable, so I bought a 6-volt relay from Amazon.

link

The most helpful wiring schematic I found was created by Samba member, Glutamodo. link 2

Even the most basic schematic can confuse me, so here's my version.

I mounted the relay right behind the horn, and I tried to keep the wiring as neat as possible.

We have an old tube of clear silicone sealant in the garage, and I used that to help weatherproof the connections. 

For now, my horn is much louder and its pitch is higher, but I have no idea if it's more reliable. Time will tell. But I have to believe that a louder horn adds some safety value.

And on that note, here comes the ironic ending:

Bug Update: Band-Aid Solutions (Part 2)

I removed my battery's old positive and negative cables last night.

Apparently bolt-on cable attachments can get sketchy, so I ordered some new, one-piece units.

Check it out, you can kind of see the license plate I used to patch my batter tray. Now that's a band-aid fix. I tried to really clean up the area where the negative cable strap (silver) connects to the body. I used a wire brush that inserts into a cordless drill, and I could see a big improvement.

I've been learning a lot about the Bug's electrical system, but I was stumped when I discovered this connector. It's mounted under the car near the starter, but it doesn't appear in the wiring diagram.

I wanted to pull the wires off so I could clean the connections, but the wires were stuck. My guess was that they were rusted. It's been my experience that yanking on old wires usually results in something getting broken, so I wanted to identify this part before I broke it. I asked the people on the Samba forums for help. I was quickly told it's a "hard start relay", and it's also known as a "band-aid fix". One guy commented that my hard start relay is a sure sign of a poorly maintained car.

Here's the deal on these relays. The battery in an old Beetle is located under the back seat, and the ignition switch (where you put the key) is near the front of the car. This means electricity has to travel along one long wire from the battery to the key, and then to the starter's solenoid - which is in the back of the car. That's a lengthy loop, and there's a lot opportunity for an old wire to build up resistance. One samba member compared the wire to a garden hose and resistance to kinks in the hose. The more kinks (resistance) in the hose the less water (electricity) comes out. A hard start relay allows the electrical current from the battery to travel directly to the starter solenoid, and the loop is avoided.

Most people call this a band-aid solution because it allows a car with allegedly "dirty" wiring to start anyway. They stress that if you properly clean all of your connections and grounds the relay is unnecessary. Supporters of the hard start say that using it lessens the load on the ignition switch, and it's a better option than having to service 50-year-old wiring.

Two of the female connectors broke when I tried to clean my relay, so I decided to test how "clean" my electrical system is. I removed the relay, and climbed behind the wheel to see if the car would start. I turned the key and... nothing. There was no response from the car whatsoever. It was dead.

I then cleaned the relay's posts, I cut and crimped new 10 gauge wires, and I returned the relay to its place.

My car started as soon as I turned the key. What to do?

Let's examine my options. I could strip the car electronically and install a new wiring harness because people I have never met think that's the "pure" way to go, or I could keep this relay (which is clearly manufactured by Volkswagen) on my car and go on my happy way. Looks like I'm a starter relay kind of guy.

While we're on this topic...

Charlotte, this is what I want you to learn. Most of the comments in the forums about hard start relays are negative. That doesn't mean most people dislike them, it means the most vocal group dislikes them. Please don't feel that you have to follow the loudest or most popular opinion in the room. Weigh your options and go with what works for you. Keep this in mind when you're hanging out with friends, using social media, and watching or reading the news.

Also, the guy who commented that my car was "obviously poorly maintained" wasn't being constructive. He was being unkind to make himself feel better. Making cruel comments is his band-aid solution. Tearing someone down so you can build up yourself doesn't work. You can't heal your cuts by wounding others.

Even though you are only four, I have known for years that you have a huge heart, and unfortunately that heart will be an easy target. You feel rejections and criticisms so deeply, and this scares me. When I read about a child who committed suicide because they were bullied, I tear up and my stomach knots. Maybe some of your heart came from me.

This is what I want you to know. People will try to hurt you. They won't hurt you because there is something wrong with you. And they won't do it you because you did something wrong. I have found that people are most likely to want to hurt you but because you did something well, or you did the right thing. Nothing brings out the worst in some people than watching others working hard and achieving. These people are called haters, and you'll just have to learn to ignore them and their actions. That's an easy sentence to write, but it's not an easy skill to learn. You have to practice. As Mom and I are raising you, you are going to hear us saying phrases like these over and over.

"You shouldn't care what people who act like that think."

"You're a Monson, and we don't act or talk like that."

"Do what's right, not what's popular."

"Don't gives up! Charlotte Grace Monson can handle anything!"

That might get repetitive, but I don't care. More than anything I want you to work hard and do the right thing despite what others say or do. When you grow up and become really good at this, you'll know that there are people who are against you, but you'll embrace the fact that you are nothing like them.

 

"A man with any character at all must have enemies and places he is not welcome. In the end we are not only defined by our friends, but by those aligned against us." Frank Kelly Rich

Bug Update: Band-Aid Solutions (Part 1)

The roads in our neighborhood are pretty smooth and straight, so when the Bug's front wheels started vibrating at 45 mph I wondered what was going on. I consulted John Muir's "Idiot" book.

I found this.

That's exactly what I needed to know. The dampener is just like a shock absorber, except it's for the steering wheel. Here's a drawing of the steering dampener and its location. It's the fifth one down.

But wait, is it spelled "dampener" or "dampner"?  That might seem trivial, but it you use the first spelling for a search in TheSamba.com forums you get 100 matches, but if you use the second spelling you get 221 matches.

Neither spelling will help you buy the part from Wolfsburg West. They spell it "damper".

Spelling aside, most of the advice given on TheSamba states that replacing the steering dampener is a "band-aid" fix. People will tell you that if you're feeling shakes in the front end you've got bigger problems than the dampener, and your new dampener will only mask this larger problem until it wears out in six months.

Maybe that's true, but I ordered a new one anyway. John Muir was an aerospace engineer before he wrote his "Idiot" book, so I think I can risk testing out his theory. On Wednesday and Thursday night I sprayed the old dampener's nuts and bolts with Kroil penetrating oil and just let them soak. On Friday night the old dampener came out without much trouble at all. 

The old one had no resistance left; I could move the bar back and forth as if it was a slide whistle. It looks like this is an original Volkswagen part. This thing could be over 50 years old.

The job was pretty straightforward. I didn't even have to put the car on jack stands.

The steering felt much better on the test drive, and I'm pleased about that. This might be a band-aid fix, but I have no doubt that the old dampener needed to be replaced.

The people who take the time to offer tips and advice on internet forums are an invaluable source of information, but sometimes you just gotta go your own way. More on that in part two.

Bug Update: Out with the Old, In with the New

My shipment of new parts from Wolfsburg West arrived yesterday, and as soon as I had time I popped the hood open on the Bug and got to work.

Here's the old fuse box before I removed it.

To get the old box out I had to cut one wire, and I ended up replacing one female connector, but other than that it was a straight-forward job.

A couple of posts ago I wrote about using Gorilla Glue to hold the far left terminal to the fuse box, and I have to say the hold is rock solid. I twisted and pulled on the terminal once I had the box out of the car, and it wasn't going anywhere.

The problem is that I have no idea what electricity would do to the chemical makeup of the glue. For all I know it would melt, or worse emit a poisonous gas when heated. Why take the risk when a new fuse box is only 20 bucks?

Here's my newly installed fuse box. I first disconnected the battery, and then I labeled the wires before I started yanking them off. With the help of the metal clip, the box snaps in place.

I briefly considered buying a used fuse box from a Samba seller in order to keep the Bug as original as possible, but that's silly. It's like buying a used light bulb - it can't be useful for much longer. Besides, the original fuse cover keeps everything looking authentic on the inside.

The trouble with Wolfsburg West is that their minimum shipping cost is $10. It doesn't matter if your part is only a buck, you're going to shell out ten more to get it. To save money I buy parts I know I'll want in the future, even if they'll sit on a shelf for awhile.

When I bought the Bug in the early 90's it didn't have sun visors, and I bought a new pair from JCWhitney. They were cheaply made, and there was no way to anchor them to the support bars. As you drove, the vibration of the car would cause them to slowly descend until they were in your way. All you could do was push them back up and wait until they got in your way again.

Last year I rescued a used pair of visors from a junked VW, but I didn't know the padding inside of them had rotted. Any time you squeezed the visor it would cough out a spray of putrid grit and dust. I ended up tossing them away.

So for this Wolfsburg West order I threw in a pair of new sun visors in my online cart.

I think they look pretty good, "A visor for a visor!" (Sorry. I taught Romeo and Juliet for 13 years, and sometimes I can't help myself.)

I'll get to that headliner sometime...

Link to Beetle Junkyard