Birth Certificate

A few weeks ago I finally ordered the Bug's birth certificate from the Volkswagen AutoMuseum in Wolfsburg, Germany. (After meaning to do it for years.) It arrived in the mail today and is one of the neatest additions to my collection of items related to the Bug. Definitely well worth the $50 or so it cost to get it. I've scanned and posted it to a new page in the "Everything Else" section of the website.

Now I finally know the exact day the Bug was built along with what it came with from the factory. Despite it saying under Options that two of them can't be identified I've since found out through research on TheSamba.com that the M290 code was for rear mud flaps and the M691 code is something 1973 specific but I can't find anything else about it.

I told my wife that I wanted to frame the certificate and hang it up in the living room. Despite arguing that the Bug is a member of the family I was very firmly shot down on this. It will however go into the Bug's scrapbook for eventually display when she's done.

Black and Gold for the WIN!

Totally non-Bug related post here but as a three time graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University I am beyond proud of my alma mater after seeing them advance to the Final Four of the NCAA tournament. GO RAMS!

Sawhorses Part II

With help from my two older brothers the Bug is now up on the sawhorses giving me the space to address the rust and rot underneath. I'll be posting some additional photos soon in the Body & Paint section.

Sawhorses

When I built the second cart last spring to replace the original one I didn't take into account that I would need to be able to access the underside of the body to address a few issues before it goes back on the pan. Namely, repairing the front rusted out front firewall and dealing with surface rust underneath the front luggage area. I didn't want to build yet another cart so I bought a 2x4 Basics sawhorse kit along with the lumber needed, and built those instead figuring I can use them for something else later. All told I spent about $50 for all of it. Assembling it was pretty easy although the angles of some of the screws caused a issues making sure they went in without cracking the wood. My two older brothers will be coming over later this week to help me move the body over and I'll go from there.

Spring is Coming! Spring is Coming!

It's slowly but surely been warming up the last few weeks. While there have been some cold days here and there (and down in the 30's most mornings) it's been in the mid-upper 50's most days and even in the 60's quite a few times. It was a brutally cold winter with one major-ish snow storm a week before Christmas (Central Virginia missed the major, repeated snow that nailed the northeast thankfully) and I'm very glad to see it warming up. I haven't done much on the Bug in months but I've finally been able to make some progress recently.
The garage received a major clean up and I'm in the process of selling off pretty much everything I won't need to complete this project. It's giving me an infusion of cash to spend on the stuff I do need as well as clearing out clutter and freeing up additional space. I finally POR15'd the rear end of the frame last week. (For some reason I didn't do this when I did the rest of the pan but I can't remember why.). I'm also starting to price out getting the body stripped and painted. I view this as the biggest obstacle to making progress and am determined to get this done this year even if it's the only thing I end up having money to get completed.