Date: Sun, 9 Jul 1995 13:16:49 -0700
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From: nrubin@s1.csuhayward.edu (Martha Rubin)
Subject: I finally got a VW Thing ('74)!
Some of the more observant of you will note that my .sig has been altered for
all time. I've changed from a VW Thing "wannabe" to a real owner! The story
of the acquisition is not really bus/van-related, but it IS vw/vehicle-related
(especially in the case of one emergency item, which may end up helping some of
you one day), so I'll include the tale below. A special thanks to those of you
who've kindly noticed my desire for one of these vehicles over the past several
months, and have called several of them to my attention when they saw one for
sale :)
----
About 3 weeks ago, a friend of a friend of a friend of a relative of a friend
called to let me know of a 181/Thing for sale. The seller turned out to be the
son of a man who owns a junk/salvage yard in the worst part of west Oakland,
CA. Before I go further, I should perhaps explain that this son is a heroin
addict.
I immediately wanted to go check out the vehicle, but it was a Sunday, so
getting a mechanic's opinion wasn't possible. Wanting still to get an
objective 3rd party assessment of the mechanical and overall condition of the
car, I phoned Bradley Prunehead from our vanagon.list, telling him of my
plight, then finally threatening him if he didn't go check out this vehicle for
me, I would withhold beer from him at the next outing. As you might guess,
this ploy worked immediately.
We checked out the vehicle and were totally creeped by it. It had an amateur
camouflage spray-paint job, missing things here and there, filthy, oily, dirty,
grimy, disgusting in and out. The underside had rust, plus big glops of gluck
hanging down. No one was able to figure out whether this was mutiny on the
part of the undercoating, or the original pans trying to escape (newer badly
fitting ones had been welded (and I use the term loosely) in over top of the
holes, although I still haven't figured out what the previous owner found to
attach them to.
The junkyard wanted $1500 for this car. All body parts were there, didn't
appear to have been in an accident, and further it was the unusual Acapulco
model (sort of like a surrey with fringe, no windows, open air version for
fair-weather areas - a VW version/option of this car). Both Bradley and I
thought this was way too much for the car considering the amount of work that
would have to be done, but I didn't give an answer on the spot.
Late that evening, as promised, I called the contact person to let him know of
my feeling that this car was more than I could tackle. I said I felt I either
had to pay more getting a vehicle in far better shape, or pay a lot less,
getting a total junker, so that the low price would allow me to afford to get
things done on it I wouldn't know how to do.
Turned out when I phoned this guy that he was sleeping, and didn't have much
recollection of the conversation by the next day. In the meantime, he'd looked
under the car and seen the rust I was complaining about, and said they'd
decided on that basis to lower the price to $700, and was I interested in that
event. I said I'd think about it.
After consulting around (including with the Trim Shop, a VW Thing speciality
place in Phoenix), I decided that in fact their original asking price of $1500
was not so unreasonable after all. The Trim Shop told me that ANY Thing in ANY
condition if it ran (no matter how badly) was worth at LEAST $1500, and that I
should grab it while I could, especially if it was the Acapulco.
Here is perhaps the best place to explain the condition of the mechanics of
the car: there was oil and filth everywhere. The car was filled with perhaps
a dozen empty oil containers, funnels, and leaks visibly pouring out of the
engine. When I test drove it, I had the feeling that it might explode any
minute, and oil was leaking out everywhere into the engine cavity and on to the
street). With all this in mind, I called up and said that I felt the car was
"worth" $500 to me, and that that was my top/final offer, but that I also
required a smog certificate and a clean title (i.e., not salvage or junk).
Amazingly, they accepted my offer.
Because of a variety of complicated reasons, and because of this seller
person's drug problems, I had to pick up this car in the middle of the night in
that awful neighborhood. Needless to say, this was an almost bigger task to
tackle than how to restore a car in trashed condition: How was I going to get
there in one car but back in another? It wasn't safe to leave a camper on the
street there. Would I even "survive" in that area of town at that hour? How
was I gonna get this car back to my house with both me and the car being alive?
What to do?
Suddenly a light bulb went on in my head. I tracked down Bradley's work
number and found him there. Without explaining everything, but promising him
an adventure that might possibly include some igniting, smoke, or even
explosions, I persuaded him to meet me there at the appointed hour. We agreed
to turn on our CB's to channel 19 in case of an emergency.
Bradley beat me there by about 2 minutes. We banged on the junkyard sliding
metal door and woke Jeff out of his stupor. I'd completed the paperwork,
including transfer of currency, smog certificate, pink-slip, etc.) earlier, and
now all that remained was for J. to bring the Thing around on the street in
front. It was decided that Bradley would leave his '66 kombi parked on the
sidewalk, he would drive the Thing back to my house, and I'd follow right
behind in my '81 westy - again using the CB's for communication (his is
portable). For some reason (I can guess), it took Jeff an unearthly amount of
time to manage to find the car in the junkyard and figure out how to drive it
around the block, but during this period Bradley and I sat in my westy and were
treated to an unexpected entertainment show watching (behind locked doors of
course) the drug and prostitute traffic on this block. Do you know that there
are people who live and work in old industrial buildings they don't have to pay
ANY rent for? In the case of one interesting call girl, Bradley was somehow
successful at managing to guess precisely how many minutes her clients would
stay in the warehouse with her before they emerged. :)
About this time, fearing Jeff may have "forgot" to fetch the car, I was kind
of beginning to look around for possible weapons to use in self-defense, and
rather lamenting the fact that neither of us had a sub-machine gun. Just then
J. emerged with the sputtering, coughing Thing. Bradley just sort of shook his
head, rolled his eyes, threw on a jacket (because of the Thing having no
windows or real top), and hopped into the driver's seat. I said I'd follow
closely behind with my tool kit.
It wasn't until I suggested taking a fire extinguisher that Bradley's eyes got
a sudden inexplicable look of at once simultaneous happiness and
lack-of-control. This look of hysteria/delight/expectation/hoping/thrill has
been noted by some of us in the past at vanagon camp-outs, and we've come to
associate it with his arsonistic behavior. Bradley didn't seem to think that
my smallish fire extinguisher was of any value whatsoever, and with sudden
great enthusiasm he decided to bring along is heavy-duty one (why is it not
surprising that he carries a professional model? :)
So, we're driving along the freeway chatting on the CB, me looking at the rear
of the Thing to see if it all looks in order. We'd brought and added gas (cuz
it had almost none), and some oil just in case. Suddenly, B. asks me if I
notice anything coming from the rear of the car. Even with the wind rushing
loudly by his ears in the open air (this car looks sort of like a golf-cart), I
guess he'd thought he'd heard some familiar sound he didn't like. I said
nothing yet, but that I'd keep watching.
All of a sudden great puffs of smoke start to emerge from the air scoops on
the rear sides and from the engine compartment. He immediately takes the next
exit, which is fortunately right there (Old Tunnel Road near the Caldecott),
jumps out with the fire extinguisher and fearlessly pops open the rear hatch
lid of the engine compartment. He's nearly asphyxiated by the smoke, but
prepared with the extinguisher, although didn't have to use it. When the smoke
cleared, he saw what he thought he had heard earlier - a broken fan belt :(
At this point, I thought I detected a little disappointment on his part that
there hadn't been an actual fire, but I bit my tongue.
I shuffled thru my tool kit and found something in there I've been carrying
around with me for nearly 20 years - a red plastic emergency belt. It's sort
of looks like a long red raspberry whip, but smooth, no spirals, round, and has
a connector on one end. You simply cut to the desired length, insert the
connecter, and this is supposed to suffice as a belt (not just fan but anywhere
you need it). Bradley knows these type I engines well - he deftly maneuvered
this red plastic thing and the shims to fashion the thing into an actual
operating and correctly adjusted fan belt.
However, during the installation, we noticed why the original belt had
probably broken in the first place, and that was because of it's being in too
close proximity to what looked to be a housing of perhaps an accelerator cable
- bent out of location, and too close to the belt. B. felt because of this
situation that the same disaster would likely recur, and that the red plastic
substitute belt would wear thru immediately in the same fashion. We decided to
let the car cool for another 10 minutes or so, and then try it again.
At this point, Bradley asked me if I cared if the engine blew up. This ought
to have been my clue. I said that I didn't care about the engine, because it
was probably on its last legs anyway, and also that we could get towed if
necessary by the AAA. I told him to worry about himself first, and the
vehicle/engine last of anything. If we could just get the car to within either
4 miles of my home or of my mechanic we'd have it made. With a look of sudden
sheer inexplicable euphoria, Bradley headed back into the driver's seat of the
Thing. It then dawned on to me to wonder which would be more dramatic:
watching a car catch on fire, watching an engine explode, or watching B's
response observing either of the two above situations he'd been able to
cleverly engineer into happening.
Somehow when he got back into the driver's seat, I guess his multiple
personality syndrome took a shift to my advantage. Thank god! As mysteriously
fast as the pyromaniac side of him had appeared, that "person" equally quickly
decided to submerge, and the responsible driver (?) reappeared. He informed me
that he'd decided to turn off the engine and coast down the small hills
whenever possible to save the engine. We stopped as I recall a time or two to
check to make sure the red plastic emergency belt replacement was doing its
job.
The whole thing took about 3 hours, but somehow we managed to nurse that Thing
into making the trip home without blowing up. In retrospect, I think Bradley
ended up a bit unfulfilled. There had been only smoke. Billows, admittedly,
but no honest flames, explosions, or molten magnesium. Alas, I guess those
will have to wait until the next vanagon camp-out. The end result is that I
have a Thing sitting now in my driveway. It's a year of solid work I'm
guessing, and that's with professional help.
The moral of the story, however is not just for Thing owners, but for all of
us - I highly recommend carrying one of these emergency belts and a fire
extinguisher at all times. That is, unless you think you can't control your
multiple-personality-disorders :)
/martha
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