The Restoration ...

One of the biggest areas of contention is the engine. THe one I received with the car was frozen. I had a mechanic do a basic overview of it. He let me know that it could be rebuilt, but with my level of knowledge and the condition of the engine, I would be better off searching for another one, from a cost perspective. That is when 47-year-old me learned that VW engines are significantly more than they were when 22-year-old me had his last VW.

I reached out to our old family mechanic, Phil. It had been awhile since I had talked with him. We talked for about 2 hours with discussions ranging from current books he was reading, to how life was treating us both. While he has been out of the VW repair game for several years, I knew that he had all sorts of parts laying around. The conversation moved to engines. Phil has always been a weird comedian. His humor is very dry at times, and he can be a bit abrasive. But, his heart has always been pure gold. 

Phil joked around about being old and told me that when he dies, everything he has will be sent to the scrapyard. He said that he would much rather give me an engine, knowing that I will take care of it and use it for my restoration, than have it end up in a pile. He assured me that he would find a suitable motor that could be rebuilt and provide me with years of reliable service. Sadly, that was the last conversation I ever had with Phil. About a week later, my mom received a call from Phil's brother, Stan, informing her that Phil had passed away. A kind and caring heart that was lost way too soon. 

Phil had amassed a fortune in vintage VW parts over the decades. Stan was overwhelmed with the amount of stuff in the yard and outbuildings. On September 10, I had the bittersweet task of going to Phil's and picking up the motor. Stan, who's heart is a warm as Phil's, said he wanted to honor the promises made by Phil. He let me go through the entire property. It was like walking through a massive junkyard of vintage VW. There were two split-oval bugs, vintage glass everywhere, transmissions, speedometers. It was endless. I encouraged Stan to bring in some experts that knew vintage VWs and get a true assessment of what he was sitting on. I strongly encouraged him to avoid scrapping.

September 10: Carl came with his truck and trailer to pick up Eleanor and move her to her restoration home for the next several months.

September 12: Today is the first true day of the restoration. I handled pulling most of the stuff off the car and we got it to the point where we could lift the body off the pan (although we saved the full separation for another day).