The Beginning

Four years ago I sold my Westfield SE. As my thirteen years of ownership had progressed I'd spent less time driving and more time tweaking. After four years of cold turkey I realised that the desire to tinker with cars wasn't going to go away - I needed a fix.

Luckily my neighbour had an old VW Beetle in his garage. Built in 1968 and parked in 1984. It hadn't moved since.

The initial inspection was promising. Bodily the car seemed quite sound (better than expected). The interior was dirty but didn't smell musty (a few too many spiders for my liking though). The engine looked not bad - well it had oil in it. I decided to go ahead with the purchase...

Today I did my first few hours of labour. I decided the first task should be to get the bug rolling. Given that she has been stationary for 26 years it's not going to be a simple case of letting off the handbrake and giving her a wee dunt.

As she was sitting on her rims I decided to see if the tyres would hold air. Amazingly they did. Not only that, after filling them with air they didn't explode.

Next was freeing up the rear wheels. Removing the rubber plugs from the backplate revealed a rusted mess. Enough rust for a small rust avalanche. No luck backing off the brake shoes then.

Over the previous days I'd been spraying the hub nut and wheel bolts with WD40. This had paid off as they all came off quite easily (kneel before my four foot lever) and I hadn't given myself a hernia. I thought the massive torque applied might have broken the drum from the shoes but no such luck.

The hub puller I'd ordered turned out to be a few millimetres too small. I tried a few minutes with a soft faced hammer but each hit only resulted in a small rust shower. I dropped the car and decided to try again later - when in possession of "the right tool for the job".

I turned my attention to the engine. "Will it turn?", I wondered. A few seconds with a spanner on the dynamo showed it wouldn't. Spraying some light oil into the cylinders would probably be a good idea (though not as effective in a flat four as with other configurations I'd imagine). Therefore I turned my attention to the spark plugs. But they didn't oblige by turning to my attention.  After liberally spraying the plugs with WD40 I headed home for a glass of wine. I actually fancied a whisky, but am currently without. Another item for my to-do list.