Paint stripper is undeniably the worst invention known to mankind.

Hadn't noticed the message box doodad expired. Now it's back so feel free to post away y'all =)

More progress was made and I am BEAT.

After making a template, I cut out some aluminum stock (in the den... AGAIN.) Sorry boo.


The base of the seatback had a roll to it so I clamped a piece of PVC tube to the table and rolled it a lil. Keep in mind, I have no idea what the fuck I'm doing here so it was just my dumb luck that it worked out PERFECTLY and is beyond me haha...


Duct taped it to the seat base.


Made a lil tool


And marked off where the rivets would go


That's gonna be a loooot of holes


After a few hours of drilling and riveting, I had a nice finished product.


I prepped the backs for a lil patina treatment (will show ya manana) and got to trimming the unneeded fabric frames to clean up the bases with the manliest tool evar; the angle grinder w00t ;)




More updates tomorrow, I'm going to bed.

I'm bored as fook so here goes.

Bomber seats. I am obsessed with them. Pretty much exactly what they sound like, these seats were used in old WW2 bomber planes back in the day. Ratrodders (I shudder when I say that term now haha) often use them in their rides to achieve that "I didn't really want to look polished yet don't want you to know I spent up to a grand on these things that were made last week by a guy in New York" kind of look.

Too new looking but you get the idea...


Ohh, just the right amount of patina...


They're uncomfortable and cold and stiff and possibly fairly dangerous but they also lend exactly the opposite look to 99% of all the show cars today in terms of a finished look. So they're pretty much perfect for Roxy =)

Sooooo, I've given up on the seats I had planned for Roxy which is a shame but I will store them and happily use them when I graduate to Speedsters in a few years.

On to my take on modern day bomber seats.

Take some $50 seats (thanks odj in College Park btw):


And strip the shit out of them in your carport.


Oh snap, speed holes already drilled from the factory! haha


Look at that curve man. DOPE.




Haul them upstairs to the workshop den and start making a template


More updates soon =)

Roxy got a mention here too...

http://www.vwvortex.com/artman/publish/article_2386.shtml

Ok folks, seriously, it was funny at first but I'm not backing down. I'm not going to change it and that's that. For something that I thought would just be glanced over, soon became the number one question asked to me over the past week. Be it from 18 year olds to 60 year olds...


So, um, what's with the PVC pipe?


So here we go. Back in the 40's and 50's they had these things called hot rodders. They were just like us but broker. They didn't have anything like aluminum or magnesium; they had steel. So add steel with salty conditions when running out on the lake and you get rusty, corroded parts that didn't last a season. So ceramic coating started being used. I mean, hell, if it worked for fighter planes flying out in humid conditions, why not try it on some exahust parts for your car right?



They also discovered that ceramic coating was also a a thermal barrier, thus keeping heat within the manifold or header. There are a number of benefits for this. First, by keeping heat within the manifold, you're going to accelerate the exhaust gas velocity which reduces back pressure and reduces fuel contamination due to reversion. This is a performance benefit.

Second, you'll reduce the surface temperature of the manifold. This means if a person comes in contact with it, they are less likely to be burned and leave yummy skin behind. If there is a component close to it, it will not see as much heat as it would with an uncoated manifold. In addition, not as much heat will be radiated under the hood or into the engine compartment. This reduces the under hood temperature which, again, reduces the temperature of surrounding parts, such as, alternators and starters. It also reduces the amount of heat that can be drawn in through a carburetor, which is a secondary performance benefit.





So there you have it. That's all it is. It's a piece of metal tubing that I had coated white, just like the oldschoolers did. It's not PVC, it's not fake etc etc. And at the next show, I'll be hanging a 4mm wrench from the end just so people can clank it to be sure *winks*

And a lil' Dara love...


And her take on Waterfest 14 are ----> here.

So we got a lil' special tour of HQ on friday morning before departing for Waterfest and got to take some pics...

Here's just an average floor that was built but after the concrete was laid, the brass decided they wanted there to be a staircase going through the center of the building through all of the floors.

So they cut a big ole hole and plopped in a staircase. At a million bucks a hole haha

Well, the fire marshall wasn't having it seeing how that would act as a chimney if a fire broke out so the architects then added fire doors to slam down shut on all of the floors to save the building and a massive fan was built on the roof to suck all of the fire out. Pretty schwank if you ask me ;)



On the wall opposite of the stairwell, there will be three of the worlds largest plasma screens showcasing VW history in videos.


Every floor has it's own kitchen...


And you gotta love executives who have CH's as door stops...


Cube farms by Herman Miller.


And lastly, the coolest thing on the top floor was Max. The original star of the current commercials just kicking it oldschool. How sweet is that?

And Rico alerted me to this haha

...lake pipe's back. *winks*

Worked my ass off this morning since the crack of 7am. My neighbour is now plotting my death no doubt haha

Finally got the drivers side dizzy block panel finished, mounted and working. It now hides every single birds nest of a wire that you sort of can't get rid of in MK3's (unless you go all out and hide it in the framerail which I'm not ready to do. I mean shit, this isn't bad progress for a week of busting my arse...

Cleaned up all of the charge piping, wiring, vacuum lines, harness pieces etc etc. Painted every bolt flat black, removed all unnecc. hardware, wrapped the hood pop line blah blah blah.

Then I tackled the weird radio issue so now I have a radio and can rock out with my single working tweeter and big ass sub! I really need to sort out the speaker placement issue when I get back from waterfest. Sucks having a cool sub enclosure but no music to show it off with the stupid door panels lacking speaker holes. I can get them to fit but it would just look lame so I dunno. I'll think of something.

Picked up the seats from the upholsterer after he re-padded the bases and now I can drive without looking like I'm pimping the shit out of Roxy 2" off the floorboard.

Lastly, I went ahead and just dove in after everything was done and fixed the front mount fitment. It was bugging me from day one and honestly looked like shit (thanks for busting my balls everyone fuckers haha). So anyhoo, I drilled out the mounting tabs and spent a good hour dremeling down the rebar about 1/4" on both sides, moved the frontmount up a bit and now it fits like it came from the factory.

It started pissing down rain tonight so no test drive but I started her up and let her warm up for 20 or so minutes. Baby leak on the front of the head which I think is a gasket issue but it' not a big deal. Still worried about coolant pressure but I think it will be ok. I am not ready to deal with another HG being blown =\

And hopefully the kitty liter we got soaks up the oil. I don't need another fine from the condo board *winks* wheeeee

So yeah... I'm going to bed.

me: Wanna see if it's there?
kate: Sure... I was hoping we would go see.
me: That's why I married you boo haha

********

So sneaking up a few flights of stairs, I see this...


Oh my...


Oh yes...




A whole lot of engine, plexi and carbon fiber


Oh and we saw this piece of dung... whatever the hell it is, it sure was ugly.



jg0228: where was that?
JKREW: VW HQ haha
jg0228: oh wow
JKREW: it's gorgeous
jg0228: just parked like that
like its no ones business?
JKREW: yeah, kind of lax about securing a multi-bazillion dollar prototype in herndon of all things
Guess once you come from detroit, anywhere seems safe haha

I just passed it about 45 minutes ago haha




9:11:12 AM solesearch: sitting at work, just finished my pop tart and now I am bored
9:11:12 AM JKREW: HAHA
9:11:12 AM JKREW: got most of the car wired up last night
9:11:12 AM JKREW: this shit is crazy working out in a parking lot. I need an award for "awesomest car built in a carport"
9:11:12 AM solesearch: haha

50,000 hits sometime last night. Thanks for all the support but stop lurking k? Leave some comments, post some suggestions, comment on my wife's sweet hieney or something.

But seriously, thanks *winks*

I have decided to just go balls out and tackle Roxy like a red-headed stepchild and just finish her up. Trying to take about 2-3 hours a night, light and kate permitting, and just hitting one project at a time.

Last week was the beginning of one of the biggest projects I have attempted with Roxy and that was to clean up the bay and showcase her lil turbo among other things. I know that it isn't a shnazzy shaved bay or anything but I will try to make it as clean yet usable as possible. (charge pipe was removed for another reason to be shown later of course. *cough*

Can you say clusterfuck?


Especially this lil birds nest I like to call the "wire pit of doom"


So I bought 1000 zip ties haha


And then started to trace out a cover panel for the left frame area


And placed my dizzy blocks on the cutout piece of lexan once I got everything all perfect


Ready for paint:


Then it was on to the dizzy block covers and I know I'm gonna get a lot of shit for this one haha

Here they are in stock form. Good old rockford shitgate branding all over the top of it:


I thought painting them flat black would be enough:


But fuck that. I'm not giving them any free advertising... so I sanded the logo off and filled the rest with body filler.


Skidooooch...


4th of July yo. Time for a lil' r n' r with the wifey...

We drove on down to the chesapeake shore for a party at Sean from 4Induction's house...






Ed and his kick-ass kids...


Boo taking shots of the fireworks:




xoxo


p.s. Thanks to all for showing us a good time, feeding us awesome food and giving us some snacks *wink* at the end of the night ;)

Ooook, back to work!

So after looking at the wires that came from the fusebox, I noticed that a lot of the harnesses went over the edge of the frame to the left and just generally looked ugly hanging there and what not. So throwing caution to the wind, I cut the shit out of several fairly large harnesses and extended them by a foot and a half so that they could now go over the right edge closest to the fender, under the frame and then up and around some of the coolant tubing. All hidden to anyone peering into the bay.

This is the point my brain nearly imploded...


Oh and I took the VR trim pieces and wet sanded them entirely smooth, getting rid of all the plastic casting seams and painted them flat black...


I'll stop here just because it's hard to sum up the sheer pain in the ass it was to clean everything up and I feel that photos will be the only way to do it justice. I'm waiting on two other dizzy blocks for the battery relocate and some more wire sheath (I ran out) and will post a final product asap. I learned so freaking much about my abilities once again and am especially happy that I found a power outlet 20 feet away from my carport near the khoi pond (SCORE!) so I was finally able to break out the soldering iron all weekend.

Then it was on to the interior of Roxy...

Look at all that crap just laying around back there dude.


So I went to Depot and got a big ass hole saw and got to cuting up the interior of Roxy:


More wire extending:


And soldering


But it all came out AWESOME. Took me weeks to source some proper government grade, computer case wire sheathing as well as some shrinkwraping to give everything a "better than OEM" look.


Finally made my way to the rear of the car. The taillights had several nasty plugs thrown all over the rear of the car and in any other ride where there were trim panels and crap, this shite would be hidden. But nooo, I decided to go with the gutted out racer theme and now I have to come up with some creative ways to hide those damn wires.


So I extended the main harness by a foot or so so I could hide everything. This meant...

cutting it in half, slipping some wrap on it and soldering it back:


Viola


***********************

So that's it. That was my weekend in photos. I really can't express how good I feel about being so productive with Roxy. I really owe a lot to Kate for letting me just go in my own little world and doing my thing. The coolest part of it all is that I live in this condo development which touts itself as a "wildbird sanctuary" which basically means we have a shitload of bird feeders around the property. But, it's really interesting hearing over 14 dozen different birds squaking away over the entire weekend while you are stuck in the trunk of a GTI with the doors open. It's a new kind of maddening indeed.

This week will hopefully bring the end to all of the crap I started this week and pics will follow.

Oh and p.s., what do you do when your wheels don't fit the adapters?

You get a big ass bit and drill the shit out of 'em hahahaha *winks* Teaser like whoa...

Working on Roxy every night this week. What started with wrapping her charge pipes with that nasa gold shiz turned into me removing a headlight and bumper, all of the wiring in the bay, extending said wire by a few feet, re-running the wire under some frames, cleaning up other wires, re-running a new 0/1 gauge battery lead, fixing some bad grounds, adding some block trim pieces, adjusting the front mount and thats just mon-today.

Waterfest is in two weeks and there is loads of shit to be done. See you there bitches.