New Cart Part II

Since Sunday I've built Bug Cart II and tonight my two brothers came over and helped me move the Bug onto it. It's a far simpler design than the previous one and was cheaper and took less time to build. Although I mentioned in an earlier entry about using pneumatic wheels I ultimately went with a set of 5" hard rubber caster wheels from Harbor Freight.

Overall dimensions are 6.5' long by 4.5' wide by approximately 10" tall. I've posted a page with details of the design for anyone looking to replicate the design.

Swingset

I'm going to go non-VW for a moment to talk about what I've been doing the last few days.
I spent Thursday and Friday afternoon along with most of yesterday putting together a new swing set for my son. I've been looking forward to this pretty much since the day he was born four years ago and finally decided that this was the year for it. I wasn't looking for anything fancy but wanted something that would last. After some looking around I found the kits sold at Lowe's that include all of the wood precut along with all the needed hardware to put it together. For just under $500 my son now has this to play on:



It took far longer to put together than I thought it would and I've been popping ibuprofen as I hurt in my places than I can count. (My wife says this is because I never exercise these muscles. I say there's a reason for that and it's called massive amounts of PAIN.) But seeing my son's face light up when he saw it for the first time and watching him play with it all weekend made it well worth it.

Bug For Sale

I've finally put the brown Bug up for sale on TheSamba, Craigslist, and RichmondDubs:
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/detail.php?id=936661
I still wish I didn't have to do it. I had high hopes when I brought the car home in 2006 but I need the space in the garage. And the money from the sale will help towards my other Bug too.

New Cart

When I originally designed and built the cart two years ago for the Bug's body to sit on it was done in such a way that it could roll over top the Bug's pan given the limited space in my garage. Now that I'm planning to sell the brown Bug and free up space I'm looking at redesigning the cart to a far simpler design that sits lower to the ground. After looking at some designs online I think I've settled on something like this. (Link to TheSamba.com forums.) The only changes I'm going to make to it is to lengthen the sides so there's no overhang of the heater channels and also place larger, pneumatic wheels on the bottom to make the cart slightly higher. Those wheels will also allow me to roll it out into the yard if need be. (Since there's no driveway attached to my garage, just grass.)

Spring Cleaning

During the winter when it's too cold to do much I have a tendency to just toss stuff in there everywhere just to get it out of the house or wherever it's coming from. Then come spring I finally go out there, sort everything out, and clean up and organize. Since the weather suddenly turned nice last weekend I've finally been able to get out there in the last few days and do just that. (Which between that and the weather change I'm suffering horrendously from allergies right now.) I can't stand working in clutter and need to have organization. I've shifted a bunch of stuff to the shed and am hoping ultimately after a major clean up in there that I can finally get my riding mower in there too leaving the garage to be Volkswagen only. I especially hate the grass and leaves that the mower tracks into the garage. I'm constantly sweeping to get the stuff out.

The next step now that I've cleaned up is to rebuild the cart the red Bug sits on so I can move it in order to get the brown Bug out once I sell it. As it is right now the way both Bugs are in there it's impossible to get the brown one out without moving the red one first. I'm hoping to have that done over spring break in a few weeks. (A perk of working in education.)