The Baja Bug project started as the simplest rig we could think of to pull behind the fire truck. We bought it sight unseen (as usual) on the basis of the color scheme and the notion that it looked about right roughness wise. We didn't want something too prissy, but at the same time, we didn't want to do a bunch of body work. From the pictures it appeared to be in that rat-rod seam of rough and ready. Supposedly the engine only had 400 miles on it, but when it arrived and the hauler said of course it didn't run and who was going to help him push it into the shop, I had a few concerns.

To make the first long chapter short, that little bugger just wouldn't run right no matter what I tried. Both Mick and I had VW experience and Mick's son, Jim was still resonably fresh since he owns a drag bug of some sort. Mick still tinkers on a "Thing" as well. So we just kept adjusting stuff and kept getting our collective self esteem lowered one notch at a time. The basic issue was that there was a huge flat spot in the progression phase from idle to accelleration. The engine just coughed and died whenever you did anything but nudge it forward. We tried everything including replacing the carb with a brand new weber 44.

On the trip around the American West, we occasionally had to settle for a top speed of 17 up hills and about 55-60 on the flat if you took forever getting there. Come to a hill and it was over to the shoulder in second gear! Yet the bug never entirely let us down so there's that positive spin.

Here's a picture of the Bug being pulled somewhere out there on the tip. It had the look we wanted.

After the trip was over, it was time to pull the engine and rebuild it carefully. Before the rebuild there was only about 85 ft.lbs. of compression, which led me to think something was wrong fundamentally - maybe the original claim of a rebuild was a lie or maybe the rebuild was blown somehow. We should have taken pictures of the engine in pieces because these little air cooled motors are a maze of small stuff. But the bottom line, when I had crawled up the learning curve on VW technology and modern rebuilds and so forth, was that the original rebuilders had put in all new parts - crank, rods, case, cylinders, pistons but they'd made one mistake. The head spacing between the piston at TDC and the top of the cylinder was too large to run correctly without a supercharger. I had the cylinders milled off and removed the spacers between the cylinders and case to achieve about 80 thousandths of head spacing rather than about 140 thousandths (volks folks call this measurement "deck height"). Compression came up to 105 ft. lbs, which is where a VW is supposed to be if you want to run it on regular fuel and a carb.

On the FIRST reassembly of the engine, I wasn't carefull enough to notice that the milling job didn't seat that well into the heads - the cylinders needed a little bevel. As soon as I cranked the engine, I could hear pressure pissing out around the head-cylinder mating surface.

Out came the engine again and this time, I carefully beveled the cylinders and mated them to the heads, performing a leakdown test to insure that the heads fit tight.

At ths point, I was really pumped and figured the job was a lead pipe cinch. On reassembly and reinstall, the engine had no compression problems but, gol dern it, the flat spot hesitation was almost as bad as the day the little POS arrived at the shop. As I write this, I'm resolved to get serious about the carburation. The intake manifolds don't come with vacuum ports so I'll have to drill one or understand how to take an accurate vacuum reading from the Weber. I've ordered an appropriate Weber tune up manual as well - my old Weber manual focused on side draft Webers of the type the Lamborghini used. All I can say is ... more later.....

This is a shot of Dylan doing some final torquing before the engine went back in a second time. For those who care, what we've got is a 1915 CC engine, new Brazil case, 110 cam and supposedly a bus tranny. Haven't had any tranny problems yet so I haven't dug into the details on that component.

Once the engine is purring like it should, we'll start to tackle the roll bar and seat belts. Recall that we're THINKING of creating a real off-road capable bug. But the going better start getting smoother or we'll both be dead before we tackle the suspension and the rest of the SCORE list of car requirements.

This saga is a pitiful one. It turned out that our engine just would never run properly with a single carb in the center. Finally, out of frustration we bought a set of dual carbs, split so one sits over each manifold. This completely solved the hesitation issue. We took the car to the drags in May of 09 just to see what would happen. Although we were afraid to really punch it, we got er up to about 70mph. Somewhere between the run down the strip and the tow home behind the fire truck, a rear brake failed and came apart inside the drum. This destroyed the components on that side. So, we installed a set of disc brakes on all four wheels. The components were so poorly crafted however that the job took forever and had to be redone several times. The calipers didn't fit inside the wheels, the brake lines didn't seat in the new master cylinder. Just everything conspired to frustrate the install. The job is done now but the brakes are still a little spongy and only one emergency brake is working. I'm guessing that one rear caliper is put together wrong from the Chinese factory where it was made. There's no schematic and no parts sheet. The main lesson learned is to avoid Chinese parts wherever possible.

This last shot shows the brakes (and our drag number 195) but doesn't show the carbs. Who cares. See one little POS bug seen um all, I guess.

You, dear reader, might be able to tell that this project is SO OVER in my little limited-time-left-on-earth mind. After letting Dylan drive the bug around the neighborhood a few times, I wanted to turn to some other frustration. Of course, we've solved about every system failure that can exist on a car this primitive. It turned out that Mick's son Jim has a father in law who has a bug that needs a motor and Jim can use the disc brakes maybe someday. So, we dropped the hammer on the bug and sold it down the river. Got the original purchase price minus a couple hundred. And that's not counting all the fun we had with the car. I will say that it never completely let us down when we really needed it and that's nothing to sneeze at in this business.