In September of 2009, I purchased a 1972 VW Super Beetle from a young couple in Portland, OR. Her name is Betty. She's a Marina Blue girl in sore need of some cosmetic work, but she was running. With her came almost her entire history of work in the form of receipts (really interesting to read!) and a couple of books on keeping a VW bug running. From the receipts, we are guessing that she has upwards of 300K miles on her.
We spent some time cleaning out our garage and creating a workspace. We then set about exploring all that Betty had to offer. Poor girl needs help!
We removed a few pieces and researched a few supply spots, and then promptly moved on to other pursuits. Both my husband and I run a small farm, work full-time in the high-tech industry and compete in triathlons, so spare time is non-existant. Where I thought I'd find time to restore Betty is beyond me.
Anyway, fast forward 18 months and you get to today. We are currently working feverishly to get our house ready to go on the market. The plan is to move to a farm a bit closer to where I work and with a bit more land than we currently have. As part of this process, we were going to sell Betty. I was to buy some oil (all of hers has leaked out) and see if I could get her started. If so, we'd sell her. If not, we'd sell her for scrap or junk her.
A couple of weeks of planning to do this but never actually getting it done, started me thinking. I don't want to sell Betty! I promised her that I'd bring her back to life and I don't want to break that promise. The thought of scraping her after all her history really didn't sit well with me. Since one of the houses we are looking to buy has a HUGE shop that would be a GREAT place to rebuild a VW bug, I convinced my husband to give me another shot at restoring her. At least, that's the plan. I'm going to start with an engine rebuild and then go from there.
This blog will chronicle my journey. It should be interesting as I have ZERO experience working on cars. I know how to change a tire and check the oil...that's it. I am fairly mechanically inclined, so I expect that I'll do ok as long as I do my research and ask a lot of questions of more knoweledgable people (like my husband). We'll see. Misadventures and all...Betty will live again!
