'69 Beetle

[Kerry P]

I guess I've been a good boy. For my birthday a few weeks back my Wife found a '69 Bug. It was almost 800 miles from home but we took a chance based on the photos. We've been burned buy this sort of car purchase before but since it was close to her family we decided to take a chance. The little fellow turned out to be rust free as promised and the only thing that doesn’t look new is the transaxle case. It made the drive home just fine but soon afterward it demonstrated a problem that is not uncommon among Bugs. It locked up in two gears at once during a third to second downshift. Fortunately it was at low speed and the car just skidded to a stop. As cyberspace predicted the bushings for the internal shift mechanism had a bit of play. To make future service easier I made the rear apron removable. This allows the engine to pull out straight back without the typical wiggling and lifting the car's butt way up. Also added a Scat shifter while it was apart. I encountered the issues that internet haters predicted about the shifter but the recommended fixes made it work very nicely. It seems that these cars a very polarizing. People love them or hate them. I hear a lot of "WHY?" as well as "WOW!"