Unicycle ride: Mr Toads and Hole in the Ground
Last weekend when my cat disappeared I was busy having fun doing some mountain unicycling. I might as well remember the good stuff.
Saturday a group of us rode Mr Toads Wild Ride as a 13′ish mile shuttle. I think it was my fourth time riding this trail (hopefully by writing it on my blog I can keep track better). Here’s some info here on singletracks about the ride. It is one of my all time favorite rides in California. It is very taxing on the body, and tough to ride all the way up. This was my first time riding it on the geared 24 mountain unicycle, and it was totally fun to blast past the easy stuff towards the end — nice and curvy with a few bumps and tough parts mixed in every now and again.
Nathan got a great video of me doing an epic crash:
It hurt a bit, and I ended up bending the neck of my frame about 10 degrees back. I also bent my handlebar! On the ride: Aaron, Jason, Nathan, Geoff F., Bevan and myself. We carpooled up in double priuses.
On Sunday we rode “Hole in the Ground”. Bevan captured a map with his iPhone 4.
It was about 13 miles, with lots of up and down. It feels as though you are climbing the whole time. This ride was epic; it started hailing, then turned to light rain, and later was snowing a bit. Nathan had a good fall and hurt his shoulder and fingers a bit. John Foss also came for the fun. This was my second time riding the trail; I rode it last year at muni weekend; both times on my geared 24.
This weekend I’ll be going to Vancouver for some more epic unicycling at the “VanUni” muni weekend.
Missing Siamese Cat
Please help!
My cat Piper is missing. She is a siamese, with white snowshoe paws. She is a polydactyl (extra toes) and is fixed. She comes to the name Piper (when she feels like it).
She was last seen the morning of Saturday, August 28th at our house in the Santa Cruz mountains off of Hutchinson Rd. Louise let her out for the day and she never came home. She may have gotten taken by someone, or may have wondered too far from home and gotten lost. There is also the possibility that she was injured by another animal, or car.
If you see her, or have seen her, please call or email me! corbin at corbin’s treehouse <dot> com. I miss my cat dearly.
Plug Bug: Speedometer Repair
The speedo in the bug was broken. Ed, who I bought the car from, said it was just the cable that needed replacing and that he had replaced it a few times. I suspected something else must be wrong if he had to replace it more than once, and when I stuck the new cable in the speedo I realized it was really tight to turn (almost too tight), which would cause it to break the cable at the wheel (where it was broken). The speedometer also had some moisture in it, making the glass look a little foggy, and the turn signal indicator area looked dirty. So, I pulled it out and took it apart:
I added some WD-40 in two places, shown with the screwdriver:
That made it start working again like a champ. I also wanted to reset it back to 0 miles, but that looked more difficult to do, and I didn’t want to break it.
Replacing the turn signal area wasn’t too hard:
I cut a new little area out of some plastic inserts I got from an office supply store and stuck them in. I now realize I should have put two layers in, as it is too bright. Here you you can see me using the old one as a template taped to the back and cutting it out with an xacto:
With the glass cleaned, it looks like new:
I also polished all the grime and old fake chrome off the steering wheel and put it back together. It looks great installed again in the new dash:
Weekend Fun and the Zip Line
What a fun weekend! It started out at 10 am with a mountain unicycle (muni) ride at Soquel Demo Forest. Jason, Aaron, Chris B and I rode up Highland to drop in at the top of Soquel demo and hit up Braille Trail. Kevin was a little late, and without cell reception we didn’t know he was going to arrive, but he fortunately caught up. Chris had to leave early to hit up a kid’s birthday party, and oh man, did he miss out!
Since we are all cell phone junkies we all captured some nice little video clips and uploaded them to You Tube.
Me on the log bride:
Aaron and me riding and falling on a log:
Jason on another log bridge:
Me doing a high speed launch:
Afterwards, we all went back to my house. We were going to drink some beer and then Jason was going to fix his handle while Aaron and Kevin helped me wrench on the car. Then, I had an idea: Zip Line! Let’s get it going again. The gang was on board, so we found a sweet spot and set it up. Long story short, it was a TON of fun! But, it still required you to brake a lot with gloves and you couldn’t just free fly down without hitting the ending tire/tree way too fast. My neighbor had a great suggestion of just putting it higher in the tree and having it sag in the middle. Then, you could drop off at the middle and pull the pulley back to the start. So, today I spent most of the day rearranging it higher in the tree, and it works even better! You can now zip down hands free. I still need to make a better launching platform, but it works (albeit a little scary your first time).
Original platform from yesterday below, and new one above.
I actually put it another third higher in the tree, but realized it was way to high and hard to launch from, and I had to move it down lower. Notice that I still need to build a bridge, and I want to extend the launching platform to make it easier to launch from (and safer).
Here’s rather crappy iPhone 3Gs video of the experience (warning: load!). You can tell when I hit the tire at the other end.
The iPhone records fairly good quality videos, but it does a poor job of uploading them to You Tube.
Overall, a very fun weekend. And Louise came home from her Aerial Silk trip to Colorado! Unfortunately she left again to go to tahoe with a friend (hence, I’m on the computer…)
Plug Bug: Window / Door Restoration
I needed to replace the seals in the little vent windows and put in a new handle. This involves pulling the glass out out of the vent window channel and riveting on a new handle. It turns out it isn’t easy to do. I had found some general vent window install steps on the BugShop, but he used a screwable “Workmate” table, which I don’t have. So, instead of doing it with a proper jig, I figured I could muscle it in. I did go ahead and use the bandsaw to cut out the profile of the vent window in some MDF and screwed it to my work table:
I figured this would give me a good surface to push against. It turns out, it kind of worked. I used a lot of soapy water sprayed from a little spray bottle, and that really made it nice and slippery. I sort of pushed the vent window in and worked it until it was fairly well seated. I would alternate from using the jig (as seen below) to pushing down on the metal part with the glass on the table.
It was tough, and I had to remove the glass once and try it a second time, but it did work and eventually got it together:
After the window was in I used a sharp Xacto blade to trim the excess seal off. The next tricky part was how to set this rivet hinge:
The normal rivet gun doesn’t work with this style rivet, and I think there is a special tool that you can use to sort of compress the revet into the right shape. Basically, all that needed to be done was to have the bottom of the rivet widened so it wouldn’t fall out. I looked around my shop and realized I had a little punch that had an angled end which would widen the rivet as I pushed it in. So, I flipped the window upside down and put the head of the rivet on a piece of metal (specifically, my vise head), and hammered it in to make it widen out. In the end, the flare out isn’t perfect, but it holds really well, and isn’t something anyone will ever even think to look at. And I didn’t have to waste any time figuring out what tool I would need to buy to get it done right.
After the vent window was back together, I did the following install:
- Outside window scraper with the metal trim — unfortunately, Brazil made as I didn’t search around and find a higher quality German made one
- Vent window
- Install the clips for the felt window channel
- Inside felt window channel
- Inside window scraper (really crappy quality — I’m not happy with it). This was a pain to get in right, and I ended up accidentally scratching the inside of my door a little bit (doubt!)
- Install the window. You don’t have to take out the window channel — just undo the bottom bolt and pull the window runner out a bit so you can slide the window up underneath it.
The window rolls up really tight. I wish it was easier to roll up, and I’m not sure why it binds so much. I think it is the crappy inside window scrapers, which didn’t want to seat or install very well. I was tempted to use the original ones, but the rubber was ripped and torn in a few spots. It also might be the new felt window channels — they are pretty tight. I’m hoping it will wear in with some time and become easier to roll up and down.
I tossed on the brand new side door panel to get a feel for the finished door and it looks GREAT!
VW Bug Restoration Links
General Tips on Restoration
Classic VW Bugs - http://www.classicvwbugs.com/restotips.htm – Lots of videos on how to do various restoration items.. This is where I first learned how to install windshield, and he gave a great tip on using weed whacker wire.
The BugShop: Project ‘57 – http://www.thebugshop.org/goresto.htm – Lots of general tips as someone restored their bug.
Online Stores
California Import Parts (cip1) – http://www2.cip1.com/ – Fairly cheap prices on parts, with free shipping on lots of small parts when you order over $100 worth of stuff. I bought most things through these guys. I would also call them up and ask them a few questions, and they were always quite helpful. Ironically located in Canada, despite the name. Sometimes you can fiend % off coupons on the web, or via email if you are on their mailing list.
California Pacific / JBugs – http://www.jbugs.com/ – Lots of great interior sets and parts. This is where I ordered my complete interior set from. I highly recommend their Interior Restoration video, as it was essential to my interior install. Located in California.
SoCal Imports – http://www.socalautoparts.com/ – Generally a little better prices, but the website is lacking a lot of information. This makes it difficult to really know what you are buying, unless you know exactly what you want. The pictures and textual descriptions on cip1 made me lean towards using them instead of SoCal Imports.
Coker Tire – http://store.cokertire.com/ – Whitewall tires. You can also buy them from CIP1, but they are more expensive from CIP1. Ironically, from Coker tires with CA tax and slightly higher shipping (from Fresno, which is obviously closer than Canada), the price came out to be identical to what I would have paid at CIP1.
Retail Stores Close to Home (Santa Cruz / San Jose, CA)
Bugformance – http://bugformance.com/ – Super knowledgable and friendly staff. I bought a few miscellaneous parts from them, including a new windshield. I took my transmission in to possibly get it rebuild with a higher gear ratio, and the owner (Gary, if I recall right) recommended I just give it a try first.
Plug Bug: Battery Delay :(
Well, the project’s batteries are going to be delayed. I checked up on the battery status, and it turns out there was a mishap with the order – Evolve Electrics goes through Alliance Batteries, which orders them from China. Something went wrong, and the right ones weren’t ordered, so I’ll be waiting 10 more weeks from them. That is going to set the project back a bit, but I still have a bit more restoration work I can do in the meantime.
Again, I’m getting 48 Thundersky 200Ah batteries: http://evolveelectrics.com/Thunder%20Sky%20Lithium%20Batteries.html — definitely not cheap! The advantage of these cells is that they are the same size as the 160ah cells, but I haven’t seen a spec sheet that states the exact size, so I’m leery about building battery boxes for them without actually having the batteries on hand. Justin, from Evolve, checked with Alliance and said they are H 279mm(10.98″) W 182.04mm(7.17″) T 70.6mm(2.78″) — I’ll probably go off that info in building the boxes.
I’m also still waiting for my Netgain Controller and pedal. It should arrive soon – they were on backorder due to Netgain loosing a supplier for one of the parts in manufacturing them.
Plug Bug: Headliner Install
I was really nervous about installing the headliner. I heard it was really hard to do, and frequently didn’t come out right or required a second headliner due to the first one getting messed up. Because of that, I ordered the “easy install” single piece headliner, as opposed to the “original install” headliner that is more difficult to go in. I’m okay with not having a 100% original look, and heck, the car isn’t going to be 100% original due to my tweaks and electric conversion.
I ordered all my interior parts from jbugs.com. Originally I thought I was just going to toss on some new seat coverings, but the rear seat needs new foam, and I figured I might as well do it all at the same time. I also got the JBug’s video on how to do a VW interior restoration — it has been incredibly useful!
I thought it would be easiest/best to install new foam, but in the end, I wish I would have left the original foam in. Here’s some of the new headliner foam that I glued in:
Here are the pillars, which are the first part to do on the interior. you can see the new foam I glued in too:
After the pillars are done, the headliner can be installed. The headliner has some metal things that go back into it (I used the original ones) and let it all stick up top:
The front was then glued in, leaving a curve on the edges for the front pillars to give a nice finished look:
The sides above the door were done next, which involves gluing and turning the edge over into a little gripper:
The back was then pulled tight and glued in.
The final part, which was the toughest, was gluing the back edges down, but it turned out pretty sweet:
Well, the final final part was gluing the part in below the rear quarter window, but that was pretty darn easy.
Plug Bug: With the hood
I ordered the wrong seal for the hood, but I finally got the new one and stuck it on. The car is looking great! It looks really high in the rear since there is no engine or batteries in; those will make it sit lower. The front is lowered, but it will also sit lower when there is weight in it. Obviously I need to deal with the rims still..
CIP1 sent me two right hand tail light seals, so it took a while to get the other left side. They eventually got it to me (after accidentally sending another right seal), and were really great and helpful to work with (especially Megan who I owe a big thanks to for getting it straightened out).
Plug Bug: Luggage panel replaced
Note: this post is out of order; I did this quite a while ago, but our internet (Surfnet Wifi) has been down at home.
The rear luggage floor, behind the rear seat, was rotten with rust. I didn’t want to replace the entire panel ($200) as I figured it would be a pain to spot weld it in. I thought it would be easier to just weld in a new piece of sheet steel, and save some money. I also had plans of widening the rear area about 2″ to fit in more batteries. It turns out I couldn’t do that, and we’ll see why below.
At lunch during work Shane came with me to Sims Metals in downtown San Jose and we picked up some stock. I found some outdoor 16 gauge steel, which is much cheaper than new sheets. Unfortunately the piece wouldn’t fit in my car, and I wanted it kept larger than 4′, and their clean cutter cuts a max of 4′. I had the guy torch cut it, and it didn’t warp it too much. I always prefer to drive the Prius over my truck. The truck gets 10 mpg and the Prius gets 47 mpg. I drive 40 miles each day (to work and back), so driving the prius is less than one gallon of gas (~$3) while driving the truck if 4 ($12). That makes a trip to sims cost even more if I have to drive the truck, so I avoid it if I can. Anyways, the piece fit:
I tried to cut out the old junk with the jig saw, but that wasn’t getting me close enough to the edge:
So, I ended up using the grinder to cut it out:
Now, I wanted to widen the area to fit more batteries, but taking a close look at the wheel wells meant I would have to cut into the metal that appears to be partially structural, so I opted to not do it and deal with the battery location problem when I get them.
I cut the new piece with the jig saw and then tweaked it slightly with the grinder until it fit just right. I tacked it in with the MIG welder and then welded it all around to keep the water out.
