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Part 11 - Reality rears its ugly head |
Its been a while since Phase 1 of Project Hole-In-One was declared
officially over, and work slowly trickled to a halt as long-term unemployment crept into
my life. Luckily, by mid-July I was back at work, taking calls in a financial
services call centers. That lasted exactly two months before my career went full
circle and I returned to my old job at Skip Barber Racing School. From having all
the time in the world to work on the car and next to no money to work on it, I went to
having funds but not the time to work on the car. Add to this the
ubiquitous rally
car project, club responsibilities, vacations, and our family's latest acquisition, a 1968
Fastback from fellow club member (and Project Hole-In-One nose contributor)
Chris Fox, there hasn't been a lot of free time to work on the car. |
Priorities, priorities... |
FINALLY, with a
little money to play with and the other cars coming along nicely, I decided to start
looking at getting the bodywork done and Project Hole-In-One painted. While killing
time during lunch the other day, I decided to take a fresh look at the condition of the
Golf's shell. From various installments of this project, you'll remember that there
are several small areas of rust/rot that need to be addressed on the car. Looking
around underneath the passenger side of the car, I found the biggest cancer hole to
date. Right around the front jack point, the floor had rotted away. Only VW's
urethane-based undercoating prevented this from showing up earlier.
Incredulous, my first reaction was to find another shell to
bolt my mechanicals and interior into. At the end of Phase 1, the car
was mechanically about 95%, with only a new A/C compressor and a couple odds
and ends separating the car from mechanical completeness. |
Nice what a little
undercoating will cover... |
After
browsing eBay motors and VWVortex's classified sections for new shells, and finding nothing to meet
my now stringent requirements, fellow club member and new vice president Rob Brainerd
e-mailed me, offering to weld up the holes in Project Hole-In-One. Having another
nearly identical Golf nearing completion at the chassis shop, and a vintage VW awaiting
its turn at the body shop, another Big Swap is more than I can stomach at this point.
So it is decided. Once I get the rally car (or as I like to call it,
the "Evil Twin") back in my possession, I will make arrangements to have all of
the various holes properly patched.
The next installment of Project
Hole-In-One will actually take us back to the mechanical side of things. Collapsed
lifters are a common problem with water-cooled VWs, and the noise they create can be, in
the right (or wrong) company embarrassing and maddening. Project Hole-In-One suffers
from the embarrassment of noisy lifters. Part 12 will address this easy repair.
While we're at it, a new VW Motorsport performance camshaft will be included, just
because we're in there.
I promise, Part 12 won't take nearly as
long as Part 11 did. |
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