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Date:         Tue, 25 Jun 96 23:50:45 -0500
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         "Randall Carpenter" <carpe003@maroon.tc.umn.edu>
Subject:      '72 Westie, getting started

Greetings, I must admit first of all to being a lurker for the past few weeks. I have enjoyed all the give and take. I'm in the process of doing a restoration on a '72 Westie. I am a partner in a local movie theater in Minneapolis and one of our workers let me know he had a bus he wanted to get rid of. It was in his neighbors garage and now his neighbor was selling her house. Bus has gotta go. I offered him 300 buck and he said O.K.. The bus looks solid enough. The motor (looks to be 1600cc) has no compression (planning to do rebuild), has some rust on rocker area, and the inside looks real good. What I plan on doing is to take a couple of years and strip this machine to the nuts and try and do it right on everything. I had a great '65 Beetle 20 years ago that taught me a lot. I picked the bug up cheap enough and I thought I had a real deal when I saw it had new heads and cylinders. The first time I took it out on old highway 9, knock, knock, KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK. #3 rod bearing. Drove it 20 miles like that. As it turns out the PO had just done the top and I'm sure the old mains were leaking like sieves. I got the Idiot book, tore down the 1200cc and did it right. When I got done that motor ran like a watch. That 40hp pushed me around just fine and got 40mpg on a good day. The time came, though, that I tired of freezing during the winter. I got tired of not being able to use the radio and the headlights at the same time (6v.). I said to hell with it and sold it to some punk kid who obviously didn't love it like I did and got sick to my stomach watching him drive "my" car away. Maybe it will be different this time? Maybe. I'm sure I'll have plenty of questions. Later I'll tell you how the wife feels about all this. Ouch!

Like my Mama always told me, "If your head is wax, don't walk in the sun." Randy Carpenter carpe003@maroon.tc.umn.edu '72 Westy


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