It all started in June of 2001. I had a friend that I use to work with at the Chevrolet Dealership Body shop here in my hometown. He has a Dune buggy that he has been working on for several years, and seeing how that he was always working on it I got interested. Anyway, he had come across a 1973 VW beetle that needed a lot of work and when I say a lot I mean a lot. One morning while I was at work he asked me if I could help him unload a trailer with a bug on it. So I said sure. When I got outside I realized that this bug did not even resemble a bug but more along the line of a car that had just been saved from the salvage yard. The seats were stuffed in the windows and it didn�t have any fenders on it. Upon closer inspection I saw that the fenders were inside of it along with a complete set of wheels. There was not a back seat and the front looked as though they had been setting outside for years, well lets just say the whole thing looked really bad. But the body was in reasonable shape. A little rust here and there but over all it looked ok to me, but what did I know. Or even better I didn�t know what to look for.
So we get it unloaded and it sets there for another year, what�s another year, after all it had probably been sitting for years anyway, right? During this time I had left the job and went to work for another company but I was still interested if he was going to do anything with it. I would look at it from the road and there it sat, nothing had been done to it. As time went on I got to thinking about it and decided that I wanted to build a Baja Bug so I went and asked him what he was going to do with it. He told me that he had intended to use it for spare parts for his buggy but really didn�t have the time to mess with it. I asked him if he wanted to get rid of it and he told me that if I wanted it than I needed to get a trailer and he would help me load it. The next afternoon I showed up with the trailer and he and a few of the guys that worked at the shop help me load it and I was on my way. That was in June of 2001. I was so happy my first Volkswagen and on top of that it was a beetle. I had only rode in one when I was in High School.
Now to the work that needs to be done. I started cleaning it up as soon as I got it home. I striped what was left of the interior and removed the seats and fenders, installing them where they actually belonged. I didn�t have a motor, but had a friend that said he had a couple that I could buy and maybe make one out of the two. Remember I said that I didn�t know a thing about VW�s well this was really one of those times. I bought two motors, paid $100.00 for the two and started tearing them down, after two nights of teardown I had two motors that were nothing more than paper weights or scrap metal. They became dumpster material. The right side rear floor pan was gone. And you could see through the left it was paper-thin. The only windows that were left in it were the door windows. As the summer grew to an end I decided that I could not do any more to it until the following spring due to weather and around here we can have some cold winters. This Baja is an out door project. I do not have a shop or big enough garage to work on it in the winter. I bought a tarp and concealed it until the next spring. I searched during the winter to find parts and learn what I could about the Baja�s in general. During the winter I had come across a 1986 VW Golf that another friend had. I did some work and they traded the Golf for money. I then traded the golf for a motorcycle thinking that I could sell it easier than I could the Golf. I sat on it for two months and in May 2002 I sold the motorcycle. Saved the money so I could use it for parts and then found a guy that my father works with and he had three Beetles that he wanted to get rid of. A 1967, �71and a�72 for a very good price. The only bad thing was that the 71 and 72 were super�s and I really didn�t want a super but hey the price was right and I can sell the 73 and get my money out of it.
The 1967 will hopefully be restored to original condition but it will need a lot of work. The motor had caught on fire and burnt most of the interior out of it, but everything was structurally sound. That is another project. Right now the Baja is the main concern. I have now gotten the rear end cut off and the new rear fenders are soft installed. I decided that they should not be installed until I have the rest of the bodywork finished. I removed the pan from the body so I could replace the whole pan. Repaired some rust on the heater channels and front panels and now just about ready for the other pan to put back under it. With it being a Baja I have not decided whether or not to replace the interior. I know that this Baja will be one heated so I can play with it in the winter. I have a motor that will be overhauled this winter. I have already had the case aligned bored and is ready for the rebuild. I will go with the 1600cc case and have it set up for a 1641cc. The next step now is to replace the windows and get the rest of the heater channels repaired, carefully making sure that I have the heat tubes replaced. |
