First Post - Intro

So this will be the location where I post my updates of restoring my High School car "Hubert", a 1973 Volkswagen Thing or Type 181.

My love for Volkswagens started a long time ago. My second car I ever owned was a VW Beetle, or Type 1. Her name was Samantha. She had a lot of issues early on, and being a young kid not knowing right from wrong with cars, I didn't take care of it like I should've.

This car, Hubert, was a gift from my mother. Was looking at it in the Wheels For You, a locally published classified that only lists cars and I seen it in there. I was working down town, just a couple blocks from my mother's work. After a few days of drooling over the picture in the classified, my mom decided one day we should go over there after work and look at it.

When we arrived at Burt's Auto Sales, he was already closed. We decided to look at the car anyway! When we pulled around the lot to where it was parked, I was disappointed to see an 'In Transit' sign already in the window. Only after walking around the car at least twice did I notice the transits had my mothers name on it. At this point I was too excited, and then she handed me the keys.

Hubert was going to be his name, kinda of a nerdy name but with the added touch of kookiness.

Me and Hubert just a couple months of knowing each other.

After examining Hubert a little closer a few times I did notice that the paint job that the dealer told us he put on the him, had some bondo work. That's to be expected with something like this.

After moving out of the house and into a different town, we had put Hubert into storage a couple of times. He was not fully ready anymore to be on the road. He had some mechanical issues; I tried to replace the existing exhaust with one that would have been stock on him in '73, a set of dual headers that exited through the bumper. When removing the old exhaust system, as anyone that has worked on old dubs knows, I had rusted studs on the heads that would end up breaking off. This prevented me from putting on the new mufflers until I could re-stud or replace the heads. 

All of this was put on hold for family. My wonderful wife and I got together freshman year, April 4, 1998. We graduated and moved in with each other on graduation day. Got married that Christmas Eve and had our daughter the end of the following October. After this we bought our house the following November and have had a rough ride with jobs and other cars. Our son was born in May 2009, he has Down Syndrome, had to have open heart surgery the following August, near death scare October after that. It has been one heck of a ride.

So here we are, Me with a job that I can support my family. Two vehicles that will be paid off soon that are mostly dependable (no thanks to a local dealership). And finally I could get my Hubert out of the hole he has been sinking into located in my back yard. He had a cover on him but it deteriorated to the point that the fall storms had left shreds in the yard. He had rodents living in him and under him, the tires were flat and front drivers wheel was seized.

You can see the neglect, never again.

I got the garage cleared out of recent project items and made room for him, by the way he is only 12' by 6'. Pulled the mini van in the back yard and grabbed a tow rope and drug him up front to get him into the garage. He was dragging that tire the whole way, I had aired up all the tires and used the steering lock to help me steer him up front. 

When I got him in the front, I jacked up the front tire and removed the drum which was filled with rust. Cleaned out the rust and cleaned off the brake shoes, put it all back together. 

Ready to put away in garage for winter work.

While doing all of this I had a steady flow of cars driving by the house that were very intrigued by what they saw. Even the neighbor across the street was asking "What is that?", after replying "VW Thing", she then asked "Whats it for?". I explained to her its a very fun car and I drove it in high school.

Well in the following posts you will see the steps that I have taken to get Hubert back on the road and loved like was was back in the day. I already have the content for at least two more posts, if you have any questions for me or suggestions  please leave them in the comments below. Feel free to look me up on Google+ or Facebook, even twitter (usually only use it for weather reports).