Like Father...

Oliver and Dudley made friends quickly. Ollie is a natural behind the wheel-- even at 17 months!

Boot Snaps

Here is a picture of 1 of 2 convertible boot snaps I bought from Chuck's. For some reason, there were two missing--one from either side. Based on what I saw, it appeared they had been missing at least since the last paint job.

Antique Plates!

Purchased on ebay--1971 VA Convertible Plates.  Now to register.  But I hate DMV.

Dudley with his new (old) plates

Seat Belt Struggle

A three day Easter weekend, so I decided to do some hard core Beetle work.  Earlier this week I order $100 of parts from Chuck's Convertible Parts--lots of odds and ends for the interior.

The first undertaking was replacing the rear seat belts which looked like they had seen better days.

Old Seat Belt Set-up

Old Seat Belt Seat-up Under Rear Seat

Ugly Long-ass Bolt

Turns out that this was much more difficult that I originally planned.  I got the two female ends of the seat belts out no problem, but the same bolts that held those in also held the rear seat back.  When I removed the bolts, the metal pieces on the seat backs that the bolts went through contracted.  Long story short, I couldn't get the seat belts and rear seat to bolt back onto the car.  I wound up going to Lowe's to get a longer bolt, but it totally looks like shit.

Oh well, I replaced everything, wiped the rear seat off, and put it back on.  Everything looks nice, but knowing that wack bolt is under the seat bothers me.  I have a topic on theSamba forum right now to get some help.

New Rear Seatbelts!

To the downtown mall!

Who's that little man trapped inside?

Weekend Warrior

So this weekend the sun was out, and even though it was a little cold, I decided to do a little minor work on Dudley.

First I replaced 3 of the hubcaps as they had a bit of corrosion.  I still had a few nice hubcaps left from my days with Bernie, so I shined them up and popped them on.  They look nice on top of the beauty trim rings!

New and Old

New and Old

I also tried to work on the dome light, buzzer, and door switch.  So far that has been a hideous disaster, but more on that later.

Old Tail Light Housing Seal

I also did battle with some West Coast Metric taillight seals I purchased on theSamba.com.  There wer many challenges associated with this silly little job that I had done before.  First, I had to figure out the best way to unbolt the tail light housing from the car.  I couldn't find the right socket for the socket wrench, but after much trial and error, I got it.

Then I got beside the car and found that I couldn't get to the nuts from the side.  I'd have to get under the car.  This required me to jack the car up.  Fine, I did that, got the car up, managed to get the taillight housing off, and then I mislabeled the colored wires.  Ugh.

Then my battles began with the taillight seals.  I hear WCM is quality, so I didn't get too bent out of shape when I found that the seals didn't fit the housing.  I spent an entire evening getting those seals on, putting them in the dryer, pulling, stretching, massaging, only to find the next morning that they still weren't on well.  Oops, I put the left seal on the right housing and so forth.  Goddamnit!  The next morning, this seals peeled right off.

I tried to stretch and lube the seals.  Nope, that didn't work.  Finally, Sarah suggested that I boil and stretch the seals.   Good idea!  That let me stretch the seals just enough to get them on the housing.

Boiling the WCM Seals

New Seal Mounted on Tail Light Housing--Done!

License to Plate

My 3rd set of plates for Dudley.  Dammit.

Oh no.  I just wasted an incredible amount of money.  First, I went to DMV to register Dudley and purchased black and white antique plates.  I received them in the mail yesterday.  I went to put them on yesterday, only to find that the holes on the plates were too small for Dudley's front license plate holder.  To make matters worse, these stupid plates didn't have to bottom holes I needed to mount the EU plate. Ugh.  Sooo, I went to Lowe's and purchased two drill bits for metal as well as four nuts and bolts.  Long story short, I widened the holes, drilled new holes and successfully mounted Dudley's new antique plates.  Then I made a big mistake--I went on theSamba.com and ebay to look for VA plates from 1971.  Oh dear.  I found some!  Low price!  I made an offer and got them for $27 total.  Apparently, if you make an offer, you wind up buying the plates if the offer is accepted.  So there's no going back.  Okay, no big deal.  Until I won another set of antique plates for a convertible.  Dammit.  This must be about $100.00 in plates!  Ugh!  I already put the $27 plates on theSamba.com.