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the other engine was in it and i asked the guy i bought it from if it turned over and he said yes . that may have been an exaggeration. one guy i know said it's probably a bad rod. so then the plan was to get a bug engine at half the cost of overhall and fix original later on. when bug engine blew it the plan became fix bug engine then fix original. so today today today i will drop the bug engine, begin to tear it apart and find out what i goofed up and try to put it together right. yes, beyond that is the original engine. that project is getting closer and i want to do the clean room rebuild perfect. every day i try to push that car forward and learn more, but it is slow and really i'm just stumbling along

so the bug engine is out and apart. i checked the the cam and crank dimples and they were right so that's a relief, the oil leak was under the oil plate gaskit where i tried to trim the goo and pulled a little chunk out. i spent two days scubbing the case and the pistons and cylinders to get all the dried goo off. i'm going to put it together again in the next few days. i bought a 3/4 inch drive breaker bar and a gland nut socket, just under $50. that's from reading vic's admonition to steve about the 1/2". if i'm going to do more of these i have to invest in better tools

here's two h-irider bugs out on the pole line road across the street from the shop

So a simple oil leak repair? That's good. Sounds like you are getting close.

Nice, gotta love Baja Bugs!

so i've failed at least twice since last post to get the crank and case to go together. i've got it cleaned up again to try another time. i'm learning a little i think. if i try just one more time it could all work great. we will let you know

soap, water and compressed air

i broke a piston ring, so i'm hung up again. enhanced learning experiance.

yes norm thank you for your kind note. little box came with the new rings, so i'm slowly creeping forward

yes i failed again to get the bug engine to run. trouble with the distributor drive, then i dropped a washer down the case. so i have another opportunity to practice engine assembly. disappointed. doesn't matter. it is only a stone to push up the mountain

i was down and dejected so i broke out a new white t shirt with a pocket and that helped me.

i bought the distributor drive puller tool which allowed me to install that drive piece, in the right place. i've spent two afternoons setting my valve clearances and discovered the little baffles between cylinders are missing so i will take the heads off and do it again. i'm feeling more confident

so the heads are back on, torqued, the rockers are gapped, the distributor drive in correctly i think, today install the oil pump and more i hope. engine installed by tomarrow. i hope. really, i bit off more than i can chew. if this is 2016 and i bought car in 2003, then i've been working on it 13 years. my vision is to cruise down the road with my elbow out the window but that hasn't happened. what has happened is that i've sat with my car and little by little i have brought it from apart to together. it drove once. i think it promised me it would run again if i spent more time and money on it. i see now that to work on the car is a luxury of discretionary time. so many competing obligations. and it is like walking into a dark room. i don't know how to rebuild an engine, i don't know how to replace a floor, i don't know how to fix the electrical and the mistakes and goof ups just make me sick. and, it is still so dirty. if i can get past this engine rebuild the thing to do is to build a rotisserie, move my tig machine from the house to the shop, go over all the welds i did on the floor, strip the paint, bondo the repairs, put in the fresh headliner, the new windshield. i think about it every day. i work on it every day, my wife lets me use whatever time or money i need. i am hopeful

You are clearly learning the magnitude of a project like this. If you fail to look at it from a project management standpoint, the repair will take forever and you will repeat yourself many times over as you are doing.

Bro, you need to start making lists. Detailed, bite sized lists. One list is for what it will take to get the engine running. another list for the body, one for the interior, etc. etc. Put them on 3x5 cards and then you will be able to mix the order up so that you can work in order, not just randomly. You will soon find that some items need to be completed before others to do the job right.

Break your lists into sub lists if you have to. Make the steps so bite sized that you can knock items off and feel a sense of accomplishment.

Lastly, before you do a single item further, you need to read, then read some more. It is my opinion that you cannot successfully restore a car without reading volumes of information. Volumes. Not pages or paragraphs.

Putting a bug case back together is actually child's play. This is not a knock against you, but if you are finding it hard, then you are not reading enough. Watch videos and read. All the info is there.

You can do this, just get organized and make the lists manageable.

Stick with it!

You really should run that engine outside of the car to make sure everything is 100% before installing. It may save you a lot of time!


I know how you feel regarding competing obligations. Now that Spring has arrived I am having a hard time staying focused on the car with such an overwhelming to do list around the house and property. I actually wish Winter was another 8 wks so i can justify more shop time.

M Penta wrote:I actually wish Winter was another 8 wks so i can justify more shop time.

Bite your tongue!! It is still mud season so perhaps you can take solace in that (I'm a flatlander but my mom is from West Cornwall)