My Bus

I started and ran a small t-shirt company around 2001 - 2002 called ZigZag Tees and I got the bright idea that it would be cool to have an old VW as a company vehicle.  Of course there would be the added benefit of being able to play with it as well, what a fun toy!

Somehow, I convinced my wife that this was a good idea and the search began.  I found a picture of a 1967 split window bus on the buletin board of the local VW repair shop, called the owner and found that he had sold the bus but the engine had blown up on the way to deliver it to the new owner.  That deal fell through and he had the bus towed to a local mechanic where it was still sitting. 

The bus looked great but had no motor, I fell in love.  A deal was struck for $2,000 and I towed it home.  After a newly rebuilt 1600 dual port motor was dropped in, (this makes it all sound so easy, I had to install it myself and that is really never as easy as you think it is going to be), I got to drive it for the first time.

These pictures were taken after I had done a lot of work on the bus, new rear bumper, new roof rack, new transmission, lowered and new interior.










We had so many fun times in this bus.








I eventually got tired of fixing the bus and put it up for sale.  After putting about $10,000 into it, I sold it for $8,000.  Nice investment huh?

#'s 6, 7 and 8 ~ Not extremely noteworthy, can't even remember what years they were.

I had a few years of blah when discussing my vehicle ownership.  We had a 92 Honda Civic, it was a green 4 door, nothing special.  We had a Mazda Millenia that we made the mistake of leasing...used...I still don't know why we did that.  I even drove an old 80's something blue Toyota wagon that I had picked up for something like $300.  It was cheap, it ran, I needed transportation and all I was doing was driving the thing back and forth to work anyway. 

See I have the ability to think of a vehicle strictly as transportation if that is all that it is.  Just a way to get from point "A" to point "B."  The bus wasn't that, the bug wasn't that, heck, even the Ford F100 wasn't that.  All of them had personality and I like personality. 

Back to the wagon, let me see if I can find a pic...

Like this one but in much worse shape with all of the paint in a nice oxidized, faded blue.  It spewed oil from day one and I knew it probably wouldn't last long, I was on my way home one day after work from downtown Boise to Middleton where our home was at the time.  I made it to the Nampa-Caldwell Blvd and started losing power, there was a strong smell of antifreeze in the cabin and by the time I reached Midland I started seeing smoke.  Not good.  It died really close to a junk yard and I pushed it the rest of the way, emptied it and left it.  :)

gt

#5 A 1969 Ford F100 - I was taught some lessons with this one

Isn't it amazing how hind sight let's you see all of your mistakes?  I am leaning toward having everyone assigned a crystal ball so we can vividly see the end from the beginning not have to learn evrything the hard way.

Lesson #1 The best looking vehicle isn't always the most mechanically sound.
The 69 Ford that I had actually ran pretty well, except for that one time when it wouldn't idle for nothing.  If you drove it and kept it revved up, it worked great, but as soon as I took my foot off of the gas, dead.  I learned all about points and how they can wear out and have to be replaced and how they won't allow a vehicle to idle properly if they are in bad shape.

Lesson #2 Parent's in Law are very forgiving people
After I bought this Ford the automatic transmission died and I didn't have the money to pay someone to fix it for me.  What the heck, I knew a little something about mechanical work and procedures right?  After all, I did successfully rebuild a VW motor on our kitchen table, totally qualifies me to tackle this.  So I needed to find a transmission, after shopping around it became painfully obvious that this wasn't going to be cheap.  I found a junk yard in Emmett that would sell me a used transmission to install and they would even guarantee that it would work.  So I was like...Cool, what could go wrong?  Yes, what could go wrong?  My In-laws graciously volunteered the use of their garage for the transplant and I went to work.  I got the first tranny (foreshadowing) and after much trial and error, sweat, greasy hands and arms, and some bloody knuckles mixed in, I was done.  I filled it with transmission fluid, and with much anticipation I put it in gear...nothing.  Good thing it had a warranty, I pulled it out again (this was like a 3 hour process for my unskilled hands) and took it back.  They gave me another one, I installed it (another 3 or 4 hours) filled it with tranny fluid, got in to start it and Tracy noticed a puddle forming on the floor.  Not good.  This one leaked like a sieve.  3rd times a charm, I was already into this so far, I wasn't going to back out now.  Back to the junk yard, another transmission and another install (I was getting pretty good at it by now).  This one finally took.  Hallelujah!

Lesson #3 Basset Hounds love to chase Fire Trucks
Baxter liked to hang out with me while I was working on the truck.  I was under the truck this one day and he just took off, flew down the driveway and high-tailed it down the street fast, and I do mean fast, especially for a Basset.  I climbed out to see Baxter keeping up with a Fire Truck howling and biting at the wheels, ears flapping in the wind.  Hillarious.

The 1959 VW Ragtop Bug - (and my kitchen table rebuild experience)

This happened right after my wife and I got married in May of 1994.  I found this 59 ragtop on a dealership lot in Boise and couldn't stand it, I had to have it.  The brick building in the background was our first apartment, actually a 4-plex in a not-so-nice part of town.  Let's just say that people did their fair share of partying and inviting the cops to come say "Hi" around there. 

That cutie in the background is my lovely wife Tracy watering the weeds. :) and check out that Basset Hound, his name was Baxter, we got him from the pound when he was five and he lived with us til he was 14.  The vet said that Baxter was the oldest dog at that clinic, he pretty much headed up the geriatric ward for them.

We had owned the VW for a couple of months and one day Tracy and I decided to take a drive.  We made it out to Ten Mile in Meridian and the engine seized up like Volkswagens love to do.  ....I was really happy about that.... We didn't have very much money so I made the decision to rebuild the motor myself.  I got to know the guys at Bow Wow auto parts really well.  I pulled the motor, I took everything off of it, bought all of the parts and since I didn't have a garage, I put it back together on the KITCHEN TABLE.  My wife was rather supportive, considering.  I installed the motor, started it, and it had a hard time idling, I drove it around the block, and it seized again.  That was a rather low point in my life, I was really unhappy about it this time.

I pulled the motor again, took everything off of it, took the engine case to Bow Wow to see if they could help me figure out what happened.  They blew some compressed air through the oil lines and sure enough, a piece of emory cloth that someone had put in one of the openings during the last rebuild had been sucked in and eventually plugged the line.

I rebuilt it, put it back in, drove it for about 3 more months and was constantly worried that it was going to blow up again.  We had some fun times in this bug, great drives, good memories but unfortunately I sold it.  I wish I still had it, I ran into the guy that bought it from me some time later and he hadn't had a bit of trouble with the engine I had built, figures.

My 3rd car - 1981 Honda Prelude

So I came home from Portugal the end of October, 1993.  I had nothing to drive, no money, and since I hadn't seen my family or friends in 2 years I was pretty excited to spend some time with them.  My older brother was living in Utah at the time and came up to see me as well, he had mentioned to a girl that he worked with why he was coming to Idaho, she happened to be coming up to visit family at the same time so they swapped numbers.

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

I met my future wife on Halloween night, we went trick or treating with my younger brothers and sisters and had a great time.





I got a job, made a little bit of money and started searching.  I found this silver 81 Prelude, it was in pretty good shape, I picked it up for $800 and was back in business.  This car served me pretty well, I dated my future wife in this car.

Image by Baileyusa115 via Flickr

This body style but in silver.







Tracy was still living in Utah, her family was still living up here in Boise.  We long distance dated until Christmas when I asked her to move back to Boise so we could spend more time together.  One of the many trips down to Utah ended up being a little longer than planned, the clutch went on the last day before I was supposed to be back for work.  It was a Saturday, late in the day, so we couldn't find anyone to fix it til the next week.  On one hand, I knew I needed to be back to work but on the other hand I couldn't think of anyplace I would rather be stuck.  $600 for the repair and it was fixed by Tuesday.  It did allow us to spend more time with each other playing around Salt Lake which was really fun.

One last thing, when I sold it, I was able to sell it for $2,000 so even with the repair it turned out well.  And it made it possible for me to find another Volkswagen, this time, a 1959 Ragtop Bug.  This one has a few stories.

Vehicle #2 - 1971 VW Passenger Bus

I must have been pretty close to 17, graduating from Boise High School and ready for change.  The Fiesta had died the previous year and I basically had used my mountain bike as the sole mode transportation through my senior year.  This made dating a little bit of a challenge, as most girls don't like to ride on the handlebars at this age...for obvious reasons.  I did have the use of my mother's brown Ford Pinto station wagon but for some reason, girl's didn't like to be seen in that either, picky, picky.  As a result, not a lot of dating went on my senior year.

Image via Wikipedia

This was the color but like I mentioned, it was the wagon version with a bubble window at the rear quarter, a real looker I assure you!




I started watching the classifieds and came across this 1971 VW Bus close to the north end in Boise off of 27th by main street.  An older gentleman had owned it for many years and it was in beautiful shape.  This bus had the bench in the front with no walk through, a sliding door on the passenger side and a full length middle seat, it could seat 9 and did, many times.  We struck a deal and if I remember right, I think the guy had to let me give him a deposit and then pay it off over the next month, anyway, I was so excited once I finally got it home.  I took everything out of the pockets storage areas, cleaned the entire bus really well and I loved it.  I have a lot of great memories in that bus, my girlfriend at the time made some paisley curtains for the windows, I found a 3/4 length wood slat rack to go on top that had suction cup feet, it stayed up there for the rest of the time I owned it.  I also put a big "The Wonder Stuff" logo on the back window to personalize it a bit, it had the 1600cc dual port motor and I took that thing all over the place. 

This was the right body style but it was a cream color on the bottom and white on top




This one time my brother-in-law and I were up in the foothills above Boise late at night, we had climbed up 8th street and taken a right on Ridge Rd. I had my mountain bike in the back so when we got to the downhill section on Rocky Canyon Rd. we took turns driving the bus behind the other one of us on the bike.  No moon that night and it was really dark so you had to rely on the lights from the bus to see what was coming up.  We were flying down that hill and when you took a turn you couldn't see anything until the lights from the bus took the corner and caught up, luckily neither of us took a spill, really fun though.

I made the mistake of parking my bus in the driveway behind my mom's Pinto on a cold frosty morning one day and had the feeling that I should move it but unfortunately chose to ignore that feeling.  Windows frosty and my mom in a hurry, she backed right into it.  The driver's door and wheel well was all smashed in and I said some things to my mother when I was upset that I really shouldn't have.  Luckily some good came from it, I learned how to do body work (poorly) and my brother-in-law helped me paint it.  The entire bus.

Camping, road trips, cycling excursions, personality, slow and quite unreliable.  I ended up selling this one to help pay for a mission that I served in Portugal from 1991 to 1993 and sometimes I really do miss it. 

So I was out of the country and saw some pretty cool VWs over there, when I got back I bought an 81 Honda Prelude, more on that next time.

How to start a Blog...hmmm, let's go with...My first car

So I am going to start a blog.  You know, the idea of writing on a regular basis for people that I don't know and may never know kind of appeals to me.  I do have some interesting things to say and share...I think, and I happen to be directly involved in an industry that will provide a never ending supply of topics.  The automotive industry, love it or hate it and taking into account all of it's many faults, we all buy cars.  Even if some of us can't buy one right now for whatever reason, we will all still eventually buy one...let's see, how many cars have I purchased over my lifetime?  I am sitting here trying to remember through each one, it's difficult though, I am taking today off from work and my body is telling me that I should still be sleeping, let's see...

Image via Wikipedia

1st was the 1978 Ford Fiesta, mine was white, my parents basically gave me this car, it wasn't pretty and during it's time under my stewardship it became even less pretty.  I remember that it had bad rear shocks so driving down the road was a bit of an experience, at night the headlights would bounce up and down so my friends could tell that it was me coming even at night.  The brakes were in questionable condition and I had to pump them to stop, I'm wondering now why my parents ever let me drive this car.  The ignition switch had broken long before so it started with a screwdriver and the gear shift lever had broken right at the base so there was a little 1 inch stub that poked out from the floor of the car.  Naturally, we put a ratchet extension on that stub and away I went.  I rear ended a big truck in downtown Boise one time when I couldn't pump fast enough and the beautification process started.

After we pushed the radiator out of the engine and pushed the hood back down I attached a well worn, heavily played with He-Man action figure with duck tape as a hood ornament.  He was loose at the waist so when the car turned...He-Man did too, we had many hours of fun driving around town watching He-Man and letting him guide our way.  Man, was I ever pathetic.  Ok, a little story...we used to get quite a bit of snow here in the Treasure Valley and the fine folks at Boise State University would shovel driving paths through the parking lot in front of the BSU Broncos stadium so what you ended up with was a grid of streets with huge blocks of snowy goodness, we would muster all of the awesome raw power that my Fiesta could produce down the shoveled off road and then veer into the snowy square and hit the emergency brake, release the emergency brake and floor it!  Now that was fun, sometimes you could get a really good spin and skid out onto the next "road" and squeal the tires up to speed for the next round.  Ha, that was a blast.  I had a little more to say about my first car than I thought I would and I think I have found how I am going to start my blog.  Check back soon, I will dig into the seriously unused portion of my brain that houses the memories of my second ride and retrieve a 1971 Volkswagen Bus, this one sparked a love affair with VW that I still have a soft spot for.

GT