"do it or do not do it - you will regret both"

 The tap arrived today and I promptly put it to work.  After a handful of cleaning sessions and running the tap through the threads with lubricant - I was able to get the bolts into the subframe without incident.  This is good news - I don't have to drill out threads or drop the subframe. 

Now just waiting on getting the spring plates re-plated so I can put this thing back together.

In the meantime - I'll work on finishing up the wiring and getting the things I took apart back together, installing the engine, etc.  I can run the engine without the rear suspension fully installed.

“Once you hear the details of victory, it is hard to distinguish it from a defeat.”

 A small amount of progress this weekend with a couple of setbacks.  The headlights, indicators, sidemarkers and all related wiring is installed.  The fuel pump is installed, the fuel safety relay is installed.  I stopped short of installing the fuel tank and the front bumper.  I need to get fuel hose for the short run between the fuel tank and the fuel pump.  I wound up pulling out a NOS right front indicator housing because the one on the car was different from the left side - and due to a modification - would have required a different bulb.  I'm all about simplicity so I pulled it out of the box and installed it.  The ISP West front indicator rubber seals went on rather quickly once I swapped the wire tails from the NOS pieces that had shrunk too much to install.

I've ordered a new tap to check one last time if I can simply clean out the existing threads on the torsion bar cover plate before I drill out the threads and use through bolts.  The main reason behind this is because the use of through bolts requires dropping the subframe to get them installed...which, of course, is a gigantic pain in the ass and will slow the progress considerably.  I've already pulled the trailing arms off of the subframe so it'll make removing the transmission that much easier if it comes to it. Once I've run the tap through the threads and figured out which direction I have to go - I'll just move forward.  This car has to go back together very very soon.

Speaking of slowing things down - the very local plating shop decided to try and charge me $500 to plate two spring plates so I canceled the job.  The spring plates are now in need of a new shop to get the job done.  I can't really finish the rear end until the spring plates are re-plated.  I do have the ride height dialed in so the swap should be quick once the good plates are back from plating.

A period of darkness is essential in order to expand personal awareness.

Today was semi-productive.  I took the spring plates to the plating shop, wired the fuel pump, installed most of the safety relay and put the engine back together.

I have a few more wires to attach before it's done.  For simplicity's sake, I left the lead for the CHT off this time around.  I'm not 100% convinced the start up is going to be leak-free so there's another chance that I can install it later.  All of the other leads are run and prepped for installation.

Small amounts of progress in the right direction - that's all I can ask for at this point.

Progress is man's ability to complicate simplicity

 In a roundabout way - I got the car on 4 tires today.  I put everything together so that I could figure out if the spring plates are indexed properly.

It's a minor victory but it was nice to see that I managed a win today.

Additionally, I realized where I fucked up my rear caliper installation and have made a couple of changes to prevent it from happening again.

This is, eh...the 2nd time the car has been out of the garage since we bought the house a few years ago.  

Engine dude showed up right after I took this picture and confirmed the oil cooler was leaking - handed me another one and went on his way.  I didn't do a lot with the engine today because I was focused on figuring out the suspension situation.  The fan shroud is back on and the pulley is back on - I should be able to get the rest of it put back together tomorrow.  I'm also going to attempt to get the fuel tank situated and the fuel pump installed and wired up to the safety relay.

The car is back on jack stands with the rear end pulled out in preparation for the drilling out of the chewed up spring plate cover mounting holes.  The nuts will only go on with the subframe out (one major downside) but I've got a few other things to get done first - like have the correct spring plates zinc plated.  Once they're done, I will swap them out with the set on the car (they're rusting) and put it back together one time.  Brake lines are about all that's left on the list of things to do on the rear end.  I've got the few front end things to do and finish up the wiring.  In spite of appearances - I'm making some progress.  I won't be done before the end of the week though.  There are a few things I can do while I wait for the spring plates (like the entire front end and the wiring).

When the fight was over, nothing was solved, but nothing mattered.

Today was not a great day, productivity-wise.  Got a sick kid at home and 40 things to get done this week...hard to focus.

I did pull the oil cooler and found oil pooled up underneath and the mount area very wet with fresh oil.  I cleaned the oil cooler out and removed the black paint from the exterior.

I called several local radiator shops and none had any interest in pressure testing the oil cooler.  The engine builder came by after a text conversation and picked up the oil cooler to test it and/or replace it.  Hopefully, tomorrow will be more productive and the engine will go back together.  I would like to get it in the car so I can finish up the wiring and get the suspension set properly.

I spent the better part of an hour trying to get NOS front indicator housing seals on the car in an attempt to get something accomplished today.  In the end, I gave up because they'd shrunk so much that they would not go on the car.

Tomorrow, I will attempt to get the spring plate covers mounted on the car so I can install the other trailing arm and brake assembly on the right side.  Once that's done, I can circle back and figure out brake lines.

The end goal is to get the car on 4 tires...I may need to adjust my approach to get there.

This car is far more frustrating than fun.

It is getting back up that defines your character

Mixed bag today.

Found a spring for the thermostat flaps, cleaned and painted the actuator rod and got both of those installed.  Replaced the tin on the right side of the engine.  Things were going well at this point.

Then I removed the spark plug wires on the left side to get the CHT wire installed and found both spark plug ends broken off - there are no pieces anywhere so they were installed this way (they're also different colors).

More shitty engine builder corner cutting. 

The oil cooler was wet with oil - no soaking wet but would easily stain a shop towel with oil.  Not sure if this thing leaks or if it just got oil on it.  I don't trust it - so now I'm on the hunt for another one.

My rebuilt engine is in a different array of pieces because I cannot trust anyone to do the job properly.  No one can seem to replace broken parts or make sure shit works before it's put on an engine.  Just slap it together and hope for the best!

The one guy I thought I could trust has fucked up multiple things on one engine.

Jesus.Fucking.Christ.

Hope is tomorrow's veneer over today's disappointment.

 Spent a solid 30 minutes removing the top tin from the right side of the engine to get to the thermostat lever and bracket.  Odd, that the closer I am to this car  going back together, the more pieces I have to remove from the engine to get there.  At the rate I'm going, it'll be a long block in a couple of days just so I can fix minor shit that wasn't done right.

I am now held up by a thermostat linkage arm (that's not on the engine) and a spring that may or may not be at the builder's house (more on that later).  If I can fix the linkage and get the spring - I'll get the tin back on and get closer to installing it.

My final days at the job that's consumed the last year of my life are coming - two more to go - and then I've got a week to figure some shit out on this engine before I start the next job.  I'll drive this car someday.  Maybe.

To a failed experiment, the failure is unforgivable

The engine came back today...and I noticed a few things right off the bat that I wasn't exactly thrilled about.  The carb linkage was on backward and there was a mechanical fuel pump installed.

I pulled the fuel pump and replaced it with the block off plate shown here - and then I noticed the center mount for the thermostat flaps was not mounted.  This is a MUCH bigger issue because the whole fan system has to come out to fix it.

...so that is what I wound up doing.  Removing the pulley, shroud, fan and shroud - all to flip a bracket around and install it properly.  Not hard, per se, but super fucking annoying.

And then I found that the thermostat flap spring is not installed.  And the rod is installed backward...so the right side tin all has to come off so I can fix that as well.

I flipped the carb linkage around so that it's mounted in the correct location.  I didn't get it all back together because I had to finish some other stuff around the house.

I should have more time to get shit done on this car in the coming weeks - I recently quit the job that required me to be on call 24/7 with super long hours and a ridiculous commute.  I have five more days of stupid, a week off, and then I start a new job with no weekends, no on-call horseshit, and normal hours and a significantly shorter commute.  My goal is to get a lot of this shit done in the week that I'm off.  I should be able to get the wiring finished and get the engine in the car (and running).  I'm not going to fool myself into believing that I'll have it all knocked out and done because, let's face it, that's not how this car works.

“He had to pause for his usual misgivings.”

 Today was semi-productive.  I ran the wires for the oil pressure, oil temperature, a spare wire and the CHT.  What should have taken an hour - wound up taking me 4 hours because I got interrupted by phone calls from work.  A lot of calls.  27 calls in total.  Once I realized that I wasn't going to get a whole lot done, I aimed real low and just finished the wiring.  The center heat tube is a great conduit for wiring to the dash.

I ordered new trim rubber for the electric fuel pump mount and a new brass nipple for the fuel pump so that I won't have to use an adapter.  I ordered new Swayaway axles...some things to look forward to, I suppose.

The engine should be back in about two weeks - that should give me enough time to get the other trailing arm installed and checked out.  I think I can get a nut on the back of the bolts and that'll do it.  I'd like to get the rear of the car sorted soon.  It's not hard - just time-consuming. 

“Doesn’t everyone have at least two opposing natures warring inside them?”

 Another month goes by with zero work completed on the car.  Simple shit seems to take months to get resolved because other pieces of 'life' get in the way of working on the car.  There's always other stuff to get done and the car just sits.  I used to wonder how people could own a project car for years and get nothing done on it - it's SO fucking simple...but now that it's happened to me - I get it.

I had to order a new CHT wire because the original one was too short - something that I should have caught before it was too late.  I pulled the other wires out - now I need to fish them all back into the car to get a step closer to being ready.  

Asked around about using through bolts and installing nuts on the back of the spring plate/torsion bar area - seems like it's a better solution than using a time-sert so that's the route I'm going to take for now.

All I lack now is time.  I have plenty of parts to keep me busy.

"Success breeds complacency. Complacency breeds failure. Only the paranoid survive"

 

Haven't accomplished much in the last week - I picked up bronchitis and a sinus infection and have spent much of this time dealing with feeling like shit.

Today, however, I picked the old harness up off the floor to see if there were any OG wires I could salvage (not much) and made note of the condition of the harness and reason why I chose to remove it:  loads of cracked wires.

With all of the electrical tape, cracked wires and bare wire I found - it's somewhat surprising this car ran at all.

Once I've recovered from this illness - I'll be back at it to get the wiring finished so I can move on to the next part of getting this car back on the road.

Like a rainbow in the dark

It's been about a month, here's where my free time has gone so far: The kid got braces, the fox that lives in the drainage ditch is back with three new pups (distracting but interesting to watch), we found an old 1966 newspaper with a VW ad in the classifieds stuffed into the wall of the bathroom we tore apart (good news is that it's now nearing completion), we sold a bunch of random stuff that was crowding the garage, got my 2nd COVID vaccine (and did jack shit that weekend) then I went to New York/New Jersey for a week for work.  Came back and fixed a leaking shower valve, installed a hitch receiver on the daily driver for my bike rack...and, two days ago, I finally started on the wire harness install on the VW.  Work has been a real fucking treat - my evening commute usually means I'm either too tired or too apathetic to do anything when I get home so 'projects' only happen on weekends - and replace working on the car.

In the spirit of transparency - it took me two days of laying on my back, removing the steering wheel and two of the three gauges to get the basic part done.  Seems damn near impossible to get anything done on this car without taking five other things off first.

I have to run wires for the accessory gauges from the engine bay, install those gauges and install the electric fuel pump and safety shut off relay.  I guess that'll take another day of me sitting on the floor of the car, scratching my head, mild swearing and a couple of light bulb moments until it's done.  At least I feel like something was accomplished.  For now.

The engine should be coming back shortly - I'd like to have this part done before the engine returns.  I'm almost ready to put the left front fender back on the car but I'm waiting for warmer weather so I don't break the brittle fender beading.  Front fender goes on, front harness gets completed, lights go back, bumper goes back and two big tripping hazards are back where they belong.  I'm trying to finish things from the front to the rear and, so far, it's kinda sorta working.

Drilling out the stripped threads for the right rear suspension is still on the list but I hope to knock that out soon-ish.  I'm trying to stay focused on the wiring task because it's so fucking tedious and if I get distracted by something else - it may be a while before I come back to it.

"It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see"

 

Yeah - so absolutely nothing has happened in the last several weeks that's related to the car.  There was a brief warm weather period that I was unable to take complete advantage of while it was here...the car is in nearly the exact same condition it was three weeks ago.

The hall bathroom was torn up and is now being rebuilt, the roof was replaced, the soffits and fascia was replaced...I drove for 4 hours to buy a new mountain bike.  I sold my old mountain bike.  Bought a new helmet, organized the basement a little, built a few new Lego sets, went on a couple of bike rides, did a bunch of shit for work over the weekends.  Did not work on the car.

I don't know what that says about my interest level in the car but I suppose that'll work itself out in the near future.