Today's Progress on the Car

Today Steve and I had another day off together.  We decided to remove the motor from the back of the bug.  Then came the transmission.  We are currently working on removing the tire mounts too but decided to call it a day before getting them off.  Here are some photos of our progress.  You'll note that there is pretty much nothing left of the original car that is actually intact.

 The motor and the transmission

         a different angle

                

  inside the transmission: main shaft and throw-out bearing

                                 

                                          cooling fan

            

   the flywheel, that one's for you, Grandpa!

   

                                      

                         the engine and transmission, separated

 all the pieces

                      

                      transmission and rear axels

Shiny Black Metal

Today Steve and I had a day off and chose to be productive.  We re-finished the front end assembly by cleaning it up and painting it. It looks so much better now then I ever thought it could.  

Steve and I ground off the unwanted pieces from the front end and prepared it for painting.  I have learned that painting helps keep the rust away while we are working on it, plus it looks really good in the mean time. We used a couple of different tools.  One of them we call "the spinning wheel of death".  The spinning wheel of death attaches to the grinder and is made of wire and when turned on, scrapes off all the unwanted paint and rust.  Unfortunately, when the wires give up, they become dangerous projectiles.  One of them flew off and embeded itself in Steve's leg.  Nasty little boogers. Don't worry, no photos of the injury. (Don't worry, only a flesh wound!)

I gave the painting a whack.  Steve took pics of me and then I changed my position and almost fell over while moving and of course he took the picture at just the right moment to capture my downfall! Oh well, at least I didn't get wires in my flesh! :)

Here are the pics of the finished product for today.  You'll notice in the last photo, I put one of the shocks removed from the donor car next to the front suspension to show the difference between what it used to look like and how it looks now. I'd say we made quite an improvement.  I'm proud of our work today and I hope we get a chance to work on it again very soon, hopefully tomorrow night.