Lulu's engine

Me and Isaac are still disagreeing on the name for the new bug. I am going to start calling it Lulu and see if it sticks. Anyways, Isaac has been really excited to get going on it so we decided to get tuggers engine up on a stand so we can clean it up and get it ready to install in Lulu. I decided that it's a lot easier to use the engine hoist to install the engine in the stand then it is to round up some neighbors and lift it up on the stand. The engine is really light so we just used some straps and hoisted it up.

 Like I said, Isaac is really excited about it. He hung out in the garage with me most of the day.

 We got the engine installed on the stand and we started working on the exhaust. I made some really cool custom exhaust pipes for the baja but the older pipes just rusted away and wore out. They had to go.

 Here you can see the cracks that formed on the exhaust pipes. There is no way to weld up this sort of crack on the thin metal of the pipe. I quit driving Tugger because of these cracks. I didn't want to screw up a valve by having an exhaust leak like this.

This is the really sad part. When we installed this engine it looked great. It had a polished alternator and the paint was in great shape. It is amazing how fast an engine can go downhill when it's always out in all the weather. We are planning on removing all the tin. We will then clean it up and powder coat it all. It will be nice to have it enclosed in the engine compartment and not out in the weather.

 Isaac is removing the exhaust. It was pretty crusty from all the rust. We got them removed and the engine ready for some new exhaust to go on.

 This shows some of the corrosion that has formed in the 3 years that the engine was exposed. I am planning on polishing all the aluminum up back to it's former glory. We are going to powder coat the engine tin black and blue. It should look pretty sharp when it's done.

It was kind of a lazy day and we didn't get a ton accomplished. I think we can get the engine out of the blue bug in the next week or so and then we will figure out which tin will be installed on the new engine. It will then take another couple weeks to get things cleaned up and ready to install. It shouldn't be long before you see Lulu cruising down the road. Keep your eye out for her!