calipers, hoses, & bloody knuckles

  once i cleaned off 30 years of filth from the brake hoses i saw that they were in fact the originals, and pretty worn out. 

  the cracking wasnt too bad, but i figured i should replace them as a matter of course. Always V-Dub had replacements, and once i bought a genuine flare-nut wrench the unions broke free...

  this is the reservoir from my bleed kit...possibly the nastay-est brake fluid i've ever seen...or smelled. 

  tomorrow: more fun with DOT 3. so far, filling a system that is completely empty of fluid has been tedious at best, especially solo. i bought a pretty cool Craftsman vacuum-pump bleeding kit that makes it a little easier, but its still a very slow process... 

custom 412s

  some inspiration from around the web:     

 

oldbug.com's custom 412

from Total VW/Tom's Type 4 Corner

412 race car from the UK

  i think these cars look amazing once their nose-in-the-air suspension is "corrected" and lowered an inch or two. the last time i was actively working on this car i started working on a modified strut assembly to bring the front end down. i took the stock strut towers from a 2-door coupe i parted out and cutoff the lower spring perch, intending to relocate it about 1-2 inches lower:

 here it is with the weld cut off at the stock location. once the perch has been re-welded a different damper cartridge can then be used (with a shorter overall length to match the reduced effective length of the spring). lowering the rear is a little more complicated, especially you want to avoid cutting the coils. for now i'd be happy just to even up the ride height front-to-back so i can take out the bags of concrete mix that ive been carrying around in my trunk, poor-bastard-style. 

phase 1 part 2

  after spending most of the day driving around for supplies i managed to make some progress on my front brakes before it started raining. the rotors ended up being in much better shape than i thought; no scoring or pitting, just mild surface rust. in fact, the backsides of them were almost rust-free. a few minutes with a brush and a wire wheel chucked in a hand drill cleaned them off well enough, and i didnt even need to remove them. 

  

although still a little rusty, they're both remarkably smooth...a few hard stops and they'll be good as new...

  the remanufactured calipers i bought on ebay last year were still spotless, and i cannibalized the old ones for the pad hardware. 

412 resurrection phase 1

  i woke up the other day with a feeling of acute inspiration to bring my old car back from the dead, (poorly) stored for the last 5 years in an assortment of driveways, streets, and warehouses. my goal is to have it back on the road by the end of this summer...

  

before i do anything else, i need to do two things: fix the brakes and try to start it. ideally, i would have it running/driving before i tear into it, but i guess i would settle for just a steady idle...

  i was curious what would happen if all i did was charge the battery and forget about the stale, 5-year-old gas in the tank or the pooled oil in the cylinders, so i cranked it over a few times. after a couple false starts i started to smell gasoline...lots of it. thats when i remembered the fuel leaks that had developed right when i stopped driving it, only now they were many times worse. underneath the car there was an ocean of gas and steady drips coming from the entire underside:

  

  

thats all 411/412 parts. i was sick once. i'm better now.

  

  my assortment of manuals...i think i have at least 1 of every one thats ever been published, including the genuine VW Factory Service Manual & Parts List:

  last year i installed the new master cylinder, rebuilt the pedal assembly, installed new wheel cylinders, bought remanufactured calipers, and drained the fluid. its been sitting since then and doesnt even have a functional e-brake. Always VW had brake shoes, and today i installed them. the only thing left now is to fill and bleed the system...

morrison bridge passage for bikes?

bikeportland.org posted this story yesterday afternoon:

new morrison bridge bikeway

i cant believe it took so long for this to happen. finally a "middle passage"

too bad i dont ride pedalbikes anymore...

fun with time lapse!

last year i played around with the time-lapse setting on my camera at work... somehow the slow days ended up being more entertaining than the busy ones...

more soup!

wow. gary bussey is batshit crazy:

zero punctuation

  OK, so i dont have much to do these days besides watch stupid videos on the internet and choose between pollo or al pastor at Los Gorditos... Zero Punctuation is a video game review series by a very grumpy Australian and its hilarious. this weeks game is Little Big Planet, a PS3 exclusive that has become something of a phenomenon:

Joel McHale for president

in other TV news, i'm obsessed with The Soup, and here's why:

next time: mankini & spaghetti cat!

what happened to BSG?

ellen is the fifth? dee blows her own head off for no reason? hotdog's the real daddy? sal's a frackin' cylon? gaeta's a one-legged revolutionary? we're all cool with the skinjobs now that they've had a change of heart? kara's randomly sucking face with lee again? after 4 seasons of searching, the fleet is just going to shrug their shoulders and leave earth behind? what the hell is going on? is this their idea of plot twists? i think they just turned the show over to some high school kids so they could make a getaway before everybody figured out what a piece of shit their show has become...."I'M COMING FOR YOU!"