May 8th; It Runs! (sort of)

After many hours of doing something the wrong way for two hours, and then doing it right way for one hour, the engine completely wired up, belts cinched, and the right distributor cap in place (vacuum advance).













Because the fuel line was not yet connected, we once again ran the engine from a plastic gatorade bottle.

The important thing is that the engine is running inside the car!

March 20th - May 1st: electrical (ugh)

Due to the fire, most of the wiring harness was burnt up pretty bad in the engine compartment. I was able to find a super accurate wiring diagram online, and traced all the wires back into the front of the car to figure out what was what.













This was very intimidating project to start; and while it took a really long time to get everything straight, I couldn't have done it without the help of Bruce at Tassi's in Colma, CA.

When I asked him what kind of gauge wire I should be using he seemed to know my situation instantly.

Bruce: "Did it catch on fire?"
Me: "Um... yeah. How did you know that?"
Bruce: "I can tell you're trying to do this right, come on down
I'll give you what you need."

I went down to his shop and he did exactly that.





After running all the wires where they needed to go, my friend John and I spent a couple days and a few beers trying to figure out which wires went to which lights, and which lights were burnt out, and which wires weren't making the right connections...


When we first started, the turn signals had been melted together with the starter! So as tedious as the process was, it was very satisfying to get everything where it was supposed to be.

March 19th 2010: swapping engines

It's amazing how scary easy it is to take an engine out of
VW, I loosened up four bolts, and that thing dropped right
down...















I found a generous fellow in Oakland named John who was willing to help me install an engine he had recently rebuilt.

He even ran the engine for me right there on the sidewalk using a gatorade bottle full of gasoline!













Few hours later we had the the engine bolted in, and I was beginning to formulate a long list of things I would need to pick up to get this thing running (voltage regulator, generator, etc)...

March 16th, 2010: surveying the engine damage

As you can see, the fire lasted long enough to really melt some metal components!
Don't even get me started on the ash tray of a battery, that thing was terrifying...