Ok Serious Issues

So anyone that has heard about my Baja plans I am sure would think that I have issues. Because even though my last post stated that I changed plans again, I have yet changed plans another time. So the body in the last post that I bought was for the doors only and was considering to use for my Baja I decided against it because it was a Super Beetle and the fire wall layout was different and took away from your leg room. I didn't like that. So I decided to sell it. The cool thing about it is that I bought that body for $100 and I sold just the roof section of the body for $100 and scrapped the rest and actually made money. I still have the doors too. I don't think I need them at this time but I still have them if I want to sell them and make more money.

Well I was getting restless and Lindz kept supporting me in getting a running bug and work on it while I could still drive the Baja around. So I did it. I found a Baja without a motor and picked her up. I also sold my Malibu so now this Baja is my daily driver.

I have since been working little by little on the bug. The first task was to install the motor that I had from my original Baja project purchase.

It was pretty simple to install the motor. There were electrical obstacles to overcome but it was a good learning process. I have already been in the dirt some so the motor is dirty.

The other items that I have done was to install the racing bucket seats, put on the new rims and tires, and hook up most of the gauges.

I am still planning on using my original '76 pan. My cousin and I are going to redo all the brakes and I also got a new 3" body lift that I am going to use to get a little more room inside the Baja. Once complete I will swap the body onto this pan.

That is my current update. She is a blast to drive!

Change of plans, again!

First off I would like to apologize to my cousin and brother in laws who have helped me thus far. I might be changing my mind again. So I was trying to find different doors that had wing windows. A lot of people said that the single windows look better and that I wasn't wise getting rid of them but I really like the wing windows and their functionality. So after searching for a couple of months I found a pair. Unfortunately they were still on the body and the seller wanted to sell everything all together. I got him down to a good enough price that I could almost scrap the body and get my money back for everything. But the body is in better shape than my other one. So I am going to swap them out to see if this one will work. The only thing is that it is a super beetle. I have researched and hear that they work on standard pans so if this works then I will try to sell the other body. Here are picts of my progress today.

Stripping!!

UPDATE: So I decided that I wanted to strip the body down to the bare metal. I big effort with a grinder. So I had an idea. I enlisted my brother-in-law Jared to help and in return he would get the mere pleasure of working on the baja (which he was very excited for), I will teach him how to drive stick, and I will help him on his bug when he gets one (because I know that he will get hooked on bugs and get one for his first car after working on mine). So here are some progress pictures of the stripping.

Day 2

Scotte and I worked on the bug some more today. It was all stripping paint and welding up some holes in the front. We looked like smurfs from stripping the paint since the sweat and hair trapped it onto our bodies. We still had issues with the welder but got the job done. Well not all the welding was complete but at least what we wanted to accomplish for today. One quarter panel was sanded and ready for paint. Just have the rest of the body to go! I have learned that stripping paint is not the funnest thing to do. It just gets exciting to envision what it will look like. I think I am going to paint the baja silver. It was between silver and metalic blue like my last bug. But Silver hides blemishes and scratches better and since it is a baja those are inevitable. So for now the plan is silver. Here are pictures of todays efforts!

Baja Update

Ok so let me update on the baja. Everything in the blog thus far has been sold except the motor. As I was getting into the project I realized that I may never finish the bug when something happens and I have to sell everything and not even have the joy of driving it. There was so much work to do I feared I would put all this time into it and not even enjoy it. And the kicker that set this off is that I started to find a lot more rust than I wanted to repair and it was in places that it wasn't even worth repairing. So I sold everything and started to look for a running bug that I could fix along the way. Well I needed to sell the Elantra to get $$ to buy me something. It took about 6 weeks to get the car sold. As I was trying to sell the car I found this baja on craigslist that was a great package. And to everyone's shock it was another project. Meaning it isn't even running. But the package pretty much came with everything and just needs to be put together. Seriously it had so many new parts. Like I always do, I got in the I have to have it mode where that is all I think about. So the moment I sold the car I called the guy up and made him an offer he accepted. Two days later I brought everything home.

First Day Working

So Scotte and I started working on the baja today. We didn't get much done because the welder wasn't woring properly. We just got the front bumper sanded down. It was rusty. And started to strip the paint with aircraft paint stripper. Not much but we have started. Here are some photos.

The Power!!!

So this last weekend I purchased my motor for my baja. I got it for a great, and I mean great price! It is a 1835 cc and I am way excited. I am not quite ready to put it in and get it running, but I needed to buy it before my friends son bought it. Here it is.

Bug Update

So I made a little more progress this weekend. Only worked a few hours. I have been busy with other projects in my garage trying to get it ready to work on my baja. I first added 5 more wall outlets since the area I am going to build the baja had none. Thanks Fulton Homes! And then I built some shelves and a workbench out of wood.



I know I still have to organize everything on it. Then I built a platform on wheels so that I could put the shell on it and roll it over the pan so I can get all the cars in the garage.



I know it looks funny but it works great! So today we were able to finish taking all of the tar insulation off the pan which is not any fun. Then we took the front beam assembly off (I am going to get a custom linkpin front end that are widened with taller towers)



And then we took off the motor. I think I am going to try and sell it. I am not sure if I can get any money for it. I do know it is not seized up at least.



So I think I will finish getting the pan stripped down so I can get it stripped or sand blasted so I can repaint it all. Then Bugzyla here I come!