Intro to this forum

[pat7582]

Good Evening All,
My first posting on this forum, I usually post in the 58-67 forum. Wrecked my 66 about a year and a half ago. Only had liability insurance on it so I have to fix it myself. Not going to have the time until I retire. REALLY miss driving a VW, funnest cars to drive in the world with the exception of Model A Fords. Am purchasing a 1970 standard Beetle in Sacramento. Will pick up the car on Monday and drive it home (to Virginia). Will try to post about the drive home with an I-phone. Not sure how to post pictures. If someone can give me a tutorial, I'll try. Will be under the gun to get home within a week (have to get back to work on the following Monday). Taking a bunch of tools and parts.
10 years ago I bought the 66 in Fresno and drove it back. Saramento will be a little farther, and in the winter, so it will be an adventure. Hope the thermostat works.
Heard the term "fat chick" on the 58-67 forum, used in a derogatory way. I'm thinking the term might really become a term of endearment before this trip is over.
Wish me luck. Thanks/Pat

[Buggeee]

Good luck Pat! Congratulations on your new bug. . Looking forward to pictures and updates so I can vicariously experience the adventure road trip.
_________________
1966 Sportsmobile Camper https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=...mp;start=0
72 Super Duper http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=672387
(adopted out) 61 Turkis Pile https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=728764

[67rustavenger]

Pat,
By all means post pics and updates on your cross country adventure.
We love these epic feats of bravery!
I for one will be following along. But pics really bring the fans in and help too.
Plus, most of us here cannot read. So images are the key to happiness for us.

Here's the link to post pics. it's real easy, once you get the nag of it.
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/faq.php?mode=gallery#2

Good luck in your travels sir. God Speed!
_________________
I have learned over the years.
Cheap parts are gonna disappoint you.
Buy Once, Cry Once!

There's never enough time to do it right the first time. But there's always enough time to do it thrice.
GFY's Xevin and VW_Jimbo!

[VW_Jimbo]

Sound like fun, Pat! Hope it goes smoothly!

Looking forward to the trip photos and the build story that is coming up!
_________________
Jimbo

There is never enough time to do it right the first time, but all the time necessary the second time!

[AutoMechanic]

Great. Glad to see another Virginia resident on here good luck on your adventure. I hope your new beetle will make it back here with no issues.

[Tim Donahoe]

I drove a new fairly Karmann Ghia (1969) from Indiana to California in the winter of 1970. I had a little tire trouble—got two replaced—and no other problems. Although, I did have a problem while passing through Colorado, at a place called Rabbit Ears Pass. The snow was heavy, and they had cops on the side of the road, making sure that everyone had chains on. I sneaked past them and drove through the snow with no issues. But you might want to pick up some chains, in case you run into the same problem.

Back in those days, every town had a VW dealer. Parts were easy to get. Today, you want to make sure the car you’re buying is in great shape. If not, you may miss your deadline.

Ask the seller if the thermostat is working, and check when you get there that it does. Good tires, spare oil, a few distributor parts, spare belt, and you should be good to go.

As far as the “fat chick” remark goes, I have never heard that term mentioned in local VW circles where I live (and we have tons of VW’s here in Redding). The only time it seems to come up is on the Samba, where some folks with their earlier Bugs seem to think their cheap-ass cars are somehow better than later model cheap-ass Bugs.

Kind of funny, really.

Good luck,

Tim
_________________
Let's do the Time Warp again!

Richard O'Brien

[tasb]

Most California VW owners have no idea what a thermostat is!
_________________
Roads Scholar &
1957 Kombi low mileage 36 hp governor equipped M 178 Slow Drag Winner 2014, 2015, 2018

1965 hardtop Deluxe Microbus owned since 1990 M 620 factory 12 v 1500cc

1961 (October)Single Cab- Road Trip Workhorse

[70 GHIA]

My "understanding" is that the reference to Fat Chicks applies to the Super Beetles as they are a tad wider.

Regardless - have a great trip and be safe!

[Tom K.]

Good luck with your travels. I look forward to your posts along the way. Take a southern route to avoid the white salty roads. You probably can get by without a thermostat. Just nurse it every morning until the engine temp is up and then run it all day.

My greatest wish for you is a functioning heating system.
_________________
'91 Vanagon Westfalia
'70 Beetle Convertible
'71 Super Beetle Semi-Automatic: https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=714131&highlight=
'65 Ghia: https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=762478&highlight=

[Igpoe]

You'll need more than one MASK.

[Zundfolge1432]

I’ve posted a couple of pics here using iPhone. Step 1 take your pics, step 2 sign in to samba. Step 3 go to tool bar top of page click gallery add a photo. Fill in the title and description, step 4 upload to category, see green question mark. Step 5 choose file you will select photo library. Step 6 Choose the pics you want don’t load more a few at a time. Final step 7 hit submit. Now they load you are done.

Now when you make a post after you write something drop down to insert photo from my recent gallery. As you build a history you can can select from show all my photos,

Easy peezy but as you’ll see there’s some old timers here that still use rotary dial phones or flip phones, probably got a VCR flashing 12 am too. A picture says it all. I want to see some rainbows and sunrises on your journey. I hope this helps you 😀 when you master this you’ll be able to post on the fly wherever whatever you are doing. Often times someone will ask a question and I’m able to take a pic and give them a visual answer within minutes. I’m old enough to remember playing pong on black and white TV and we thought that was high tech😀

[pat7582]

Thank you all for the replies and encouragement, I'm at the hotel waiting for the young man who is selling the car to arrive. We'll be going to the bank to finalize the transaction, notarize the documents, etc. Then I'll be getting on the road, heading south to come across I-40 (get your kicks on Route 66). Have long johns packed just in case the thermostat is gone. Also have tools, accelerator and clutch cables, fuel pump, and complete distributor. Will try to post pix tonight. The ad for the car is still in the classifieds. It's the yukon yellow 1970 that was posted on 19 November.

[AutoMechanic]

[irvanm]

Whew, I was hoping you weren't going to head back on I80 thjis time of year. Looking forward to seeing pictures.

[Michael Ambrozik]

It's not really a FAT CHICK as the rear is the same as a STD bug, it's the front end of a super, and they handle better than any std I have been in.

[Tom K.]

Nice looking car. She'll get you home.
_________________
'91 Vanagon Westfalia
'70 Beetle Convertible
'71 Super Beetle Semi-Automatic: https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=714131&highlight=
'65 Ghia: https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=762478&highlight=

[Tom K.]

How are you doing, Pat? Make it across the desert? Hotel or camping site have WiFi?
_________________
'91 Vanagon Westfalia
'70 Beetle Convertible
'71 Super Beetle Semi-Automatic: https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=714131&highlight=
'65 Ghia: https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=762478&highlight=

[pat7582]

Good Evening All,

Sorry for not updating for several days, it’s been a busy time, and I have not had the time to update as I thought I would have. But I do now so let me catch up.

Day 1 continued:

When last I wrote, I was waiting for the seller to pick me up at the hotel and see the car, do the paperwork and get on the road home. I had thought from talking to the seller that he was a young man, perhaps this was his first car and that operating an old VW was more demanding than a modern vehicle. I was hoping that the car was a relatively untouched California, rust free vehicle. It was better than I thought.

The young man pulled up at the appointed time, on time, prompt, gave me a heads up text, all pluses in my book. And more, he was driving his mother’s car and there was a sticker on the back, “Proud to be the parent of an Eagle Scout”, a huge plus, beyond my expectation. I could be certain that the statements in the Samba ad were true, “A Scout is trustworthy…”

We drove to his house, I saw the car from a distance, good looking vehicle. As you Samba folks know a car us usually better in pictures that in person, the description of the car was as stated, there were small cracks, blemishes, just as described. But it looked good, even excellent to me. I got to meet his mother, who was on the title and would be going to the notary with us to sign over the title. We did a check of the lights, horn, etc., all working, ready to go. We didn’t check the oil, nor did I feel like crawling in the street to check the presence of a thermostat (arthritis in the spine). There were also other plusses, he had the maintenance records, going back beyond his ownership of the car. He had kept the old seatbelts and many of the parts he had updated. Had other parts that he had not yet installed.

I had asked him earlier if there were an owner’s manual, he had said no, only some literature on dealers and service information. When he showed me these they were a plastic folder with Niello Volkswagen information printed on the outside and inside was an almost pristine owner’s manual. He had not recognized it as such when he answered my earlier mail query. The front license frame was also from Niello VW. Earlier I had wanted to obtain a 1970 owner’s manual for the car. I had found one in the Samba classifieds, and had even sent a Paypal payment to the seller for the manual. She had replied that in packaging it for shipment she realized it was actually a 1971 owner’s manual and refunded my payment. Now I had a manual in even better shape. This was only the first of interesting “coincidences of the past three days.

Another coincidence was the Bentley Manual. I had wanted to get a 70-79 Bentley Manual because my other car is a 66 and I only have the earlier 66-69 manual. I spotted the later manual for a reasonable price on eBay, but the seller was not accepting anything other than cash until after the New Year. I had decided to wait as it was being offered for a good price. What should be under the hood of the car, but an almost new later manual, tabbed with the work the Eagle Scout had done to the car. I was feeling pretty positive.

We had some time to kill before the notary appointment. So I got behind the wheel and we drove to his grandfather’s house not far away. His grandfather was also a car guy who had a 1950 Pontiac Chieftain in immaculate shape, a 1928 Essex coupe and a limited edition Mustang pace car. His grandfather was a volunteer at the Sacramento Auto Museum, and it was there that he had found the 1970 in the for sale section of the museum. His grandfather knew a little of the history of the car, it had been in one family until the Eagle Scout had purchased it. The widow of the man who had purchased had had it painted in the past and later wanted to sell it, placing it for sale at the museum. I am the third owner.

I wanted the young man to drive to the notary appointment because the car was special to him and I would be driving it a lot in the next few days. The only hiccup for the paperwork was that I had spelled the last name wrong on the cashier’s check, which took some time to straighten out. The Scout and his mom were very gracious about the delay.

Finally, the car was mine and I could set out on the trip home! What a great feeling, to be driving a Bug again, on the open road. Set out south on I-5. The 1600 and taller transmission gears were a change over the 1300 of the 66. I always babied the 66 only cruising at 55. The young man said that he cruised at 65 in the 1970. I found the sweet spot for me was a little slower, but still allowed me to keep up the semis in the slow lane. Importantly, it also had speed above cruising to help adjust to traffic, what a great deal!
The shift linkage rattled a little, but keeping a hand on the shifter kept it quiet.

How great to be driving a bug, and in CA, where I had been stationed long ago. As the miles passed and as I got used to the sounds particular to the car (whistling around the vent window, rattling of the shifter rods, engine sound on acceleration/deceleration, etc.) my mind began to better take in the outside environment, and wander through memories.

As I got farther south the coastal range was on the right with the valley on the left. What beauty, especially as it began to get dark and the clouds turned pink and purple, touching the mountains to starboard and surrounding the moon over the valley to port. We, the car and I, passed Highway 159 at Lodi heading to Hollister and Monterey. I remembered traveling that highway many, many years ago to Monterey after detaching from my first ship. We stopped for gas and my wife asked me to get her something to drink. I returned with two Jolt colas (you remember “All the sugar and twice the caffeine”), wife was not happy as she was nursing our oldest who was four month old at the time. It’s funny now.

Spotting a rest area I pulled off for a bathroom break. The Scout had told me the difference in the door and ignition keys and about the idiosyncrasies of using those keys (I consider those idiosyncrasies to be anti-theft protection). I first learned about the anti-theft protection of VW keys after the first bathroom break in the 66 while driving down Hwy 99 from Fresno taking the car home to Virginia 12 years ago. That car’s previous owner had not told me about the keys and, until I played around with the keys and figured them out, thought I’d have to call a locksmith. Playing around then took so long I had to use the facilities again before getting back on the road. This time was much easier.

I also checked the oil, it was low, so, as I did not have time to get oil before I departed Sacramento, I pulled off I-5 again at the next stop where there was a Circle K gas station. The Scout was running straight 30W, the Circle K had no straight 30W, but I figured it would be better for the engine to mix weights than to run no oil (mechanical genius am I ).

An aside, I noticed when driving the 66 to Virginia long ago, that old VWs are people magnets and everyone over a certain age has a VW story. During that last trip I began asking people about their most memorable VW experience and s writing down those memories. The people with the stories are older now but they are still there. As I was adding oil, an older gentleman, Danny, came up and praised the condition of the car. He still loved the little beasts, and told he had worked at a VW dealership in Huntington Beach as service manager, too many memories to pick out just one. Several young guys also came up to admire the car and ask about it. It occurs to me that these cars are not really ours, we are just privileged to be their caretakers. The cars belong to the memories or the curiosity of those who talk to us about them.

As night fell, the temperature did also. The first time I drove a VW and needed heat was in 1980 during an unusually cold night on the Gulf Coast. It was my younger sister’s 68 and I was driving from Pascagoula to Pensacola. It could have been the Arctic. By the time that short trip was over my butt was frozen, I had shaking chills and my teeth were chattering. I swore I would never drive in a car without heat again. The 66 has a thermostat and the heat works well, but it is Virginia and I don’t take it out on the coldest days (or rainy or snowy days, keep the water and road salt off the well preserved California car).

So it was with trepidation that I tried the heater (still don’t know if there is a thermostat installed). Well what do you know? It worked and the car slowly got warm, and then warmer. And then hot, and finally too hot (yes I had a coat on but it was too hot). I turned off the heat, it was still hot. Finally I had to roll down the air conditioning to get the car cool, but I was happy, very happy. I might not need long johns on this trip after all.

And then the little Debbie downer thoughts began, trying to crush that happiness. They dragged out from some deep memory that I had read that VW heaters were only good for about 40F above ambient temperature. (I don’t know if this is true or not, perhaps the vast knowledge stores of Samba readers can confirm/deny this tidbit of wisdom). I fired up the weather app on the phone, I was in the Madera area and it was 50F. Plus 40 is 90F and that is hot. But the Debbie downer thoughts continued, pointing out that it will get much colder mid-week in the middle of the country, and there is a draft around the radio speaker blowing directly on the driver. Bah humbug to those thoughts. My take away from this is to revel in the happiness of the moment, especially if you have long johns. Also the well prepared Scout had left chemical hand warmers and a space blanket in the glove box. Yes, very happy.

The estimated times of arrival given by the navigation apps for cell phones are based on posted speed limits. I was traveling in the slow lane with the trucks and the overly ambitious plan to make Barstow receded into the late night. I stopped in Bakersfield.

“And the evening and morning were the first day.”

Will try to post pictures later.

To be continued……

[Pruneman99]

Wow sounds like a good start. I don't have a thermostat, but I still get plenty of heat. VW's don't pull heat off the engine so much but over the hot exhaust pipes with heat sinks on them. Even if the engine itself is running cold, the exhaust is hot.

Try to post up some pictures of your journey. It's easy to do right from your phone once you figure it out. Load them to the gallery first. Then go to your thread and post a comment. At the bottom of the text box there is a button to add pictures from my gallery. Hit that and thumbnails of your pictures will show up. Just touch the ones you want. The form will create the code for you.

[pat7582]