I've Been Everywhere!

I took my annual trip to St. George this last week and had a blast. I went through Tooele and drove all the back roads to get there and took highway 89 for the trip back. The trip down was fun but the cattle guards just killed my front end. I tried slowing way down but I still hit hard. Anyways play this video and enjoy the music while looking at the pictures of the journey.

This was right at the beginning. If you look way out you can see the Great Salt Lake. It's a nice view to start out the drive.

 I decided to fill up at Flying J just before Tooele.

If you look close, you can see this is an old picture of the bug. I took these pictures on my last trip to St. George but I went through these towns. I just didn't get any pictures on the way down.

 Another picture from last year. Milford hasn't changed much since last year.

This was an old fort I checked out along the way.

This is pretty much the view most of the way on this route. It's cool to go through some of the little towns but the scenery isn't the best.

Here is the hotel I stayed at while I was in St. George. It is actually in Washington.

 I spent three days there helping out with a charity event for my work. I didn't get a lot of pictures there but it was a great week with even better weather. Here I am starting my journey home. This trip was one of the funnest I have taken with my bug. The weather was totally awesome and the drive was super fun. It's really a beautiful drive.

 I hit some pretty fast speeds trying to keep up with traffic on I-15. I cruised up to Cedar City before I kicked over to highway 89.

 Cedar City was where I got some breakfast. I then hit the road.

I had to stop at Butch Cassidy's hideout along the way. This would be an awesome picture except for the stupid espresso, ice cream sign below it.

I made it to Circleville.

 Found an awesome place I'd like to buy. The bug fits right in here.

I found this awesome little bridge over the Sevier river. I almost got stuck after I drove over it. I went to go back over it and hit the front end hard on the lip of the bridge. Luckily I was able to angle the bug just right to get it back over the bridge. 

 It was a super cool bridge.

Here's the little town of Joseph. Don't blink or you will miss it.

I couldn't get close enough to this sign in Salina City so I had to take it from inside the car.

 I somehow got routed around Gunnison but got to Manti. I love the town of Manti.

 Awesome shot of the Manti Temple. The pioneers made a beautiful temple.

Stopped at Ephraim for some lunch. Ephraim is where Snow College is located.

 Mt. Pleasant came next.

This was an awesome little shop I found along the way. Couldn't resist taking a picture here.

Cruised through Fairview. I then went through Thistle where they had really bad mudslides years ago. There are lots of houses that are abandoned, but I was surprised to see lots of new construction going on there also.

I turned on to Highway 6. This is the most dangerous road in Utah. I was testing my luck taking a 43 year old Bug on that road.

 Just my luck, If you look closely you can see I am stuck behind a student driver on Utah's most dangerous road.

 Still on Highway 6 and to help make it more dangerous they put up these really cool air generators right next to the highway. I had to take another risk and get a picture of them while I was following a student driver in a 43 year old bug on Utah's most dangerous road. I haven't been known to be the smartest person around!

 AAhhh, back to the freeways I know and love. I am in Provo in the heart of construction and soon to be traffic. I felt safer on Highway 6

Everything worked out great on this trip. I was able to get the bug ready in time and it ran without a hiccup. I don't think I have had a funner trip than this one. It was nice to be able to just get out and cruise the backroads of Utah. The only thing that would of made this trip better is if my family was with me. The only bad thing about getting home is that I have to deal with the mess in my garage now. I look forward to cruising south again next year if things work out.

Blinded by the white!

I've been busy getting the garage ready for paint. I needed to do some mud work and get things cleaned up. I quickly remembered why I have always hired my mudding out in the past. I spent 3 days mudding it and Saturday I finally thought I had it ready for paint. I have to say that I'm glad I don't mud for a living and if I did I would surely get fired before long. It's definitely not the best job but it's good enough for my first time trying to mud a whole room and it will work just fine for my garage. I borrowed a texturing spray gun from a buddy at work to do the ceiling with. It turned out so good, I should of textured the walls also. I used the powder mix for the sprayer and it makes a mell of a hess. I wasn't going to cover the walls but after spraying it I am glad I did. I had mud everywhere. Here it is just before I sprayed it.

I used a drill and a mixing paddle to mix up the mud. It has to be about the consistency of a thin milkshake. I didn't get a picture of the sprayer but it has a big hopper on it. Just fill it up, get your air pressure right and spray away.

 It's hard to see here but this is just after I sprayed it. You need a pretty good sized air compressor but I saved a ton of time doing the ceiling this way.

 I then used this scraper to knock down the mud after it dried for about 10 minutes. It really worked awesome. The technique is called a California knock down texture. I think it looks great. I did this on Friday so I would be ready to paint on Saturday.

Saturday I took Steven and Isaac to Home Depot with me at 7 in the morning to buy primer and paint. I estimate that 5 gallons will be enough for the garage. I bought a 5 gallon bucket of Kilz latex primer and primed the walls and ceiling. I think the hardest part of painting was the priming. The ceiling sucked a lot of primer into the mud and the walls looked really horrible after I primed them. I was getting really worried at that point. Luckily after I put on the paint everything looked a lot better. I researched paint pretty extensively before I bought it. My goal in painting the garage is to make it nice and bright for working in. I love working in a bright environment. It makes it really nice to work in rather then a dingy dark garage. That is one reason I really love my job. I have a bright, clean, comfortable shop to work in. In my painting research, I found that flat paint on the ceiling will reflect the light better to the ground so I bought 2 gallons of Behr ceiling paint. For the walls I went with semi gloss so they would be easy to clean. I also read that a bright white with a tiny hint of blue actually reflects the light better then white alone. I chose a Behr paint called frost in semi gloss. It has a tiny hint of blue to it. Here is the shop painted and ready for trim and stuff to go back in.

Here's another view. I like how bright it is. I love Behr paint. It covers awesome. I only used one coat and it looks good. I've used cheap paints in the past and I always have to cover twice and they usually look like crap even after 2 coats.

So, I am 1/2 way done with the garage. Here you can see where I had to stop. I need to move stuff around so I can get to the other half of the garage and I can get to mudding that. More fun to come.

I now have to deal with all this crap and decide what to do with it. I am keeping my fingers crossed that it will all be worth it when it's done.

The garage has side tracked me with getting the bug ready for my trip to St. George. Looks like I will be cramming to be ready to leave in the next couple of days. I need to change the oil, adjust the valves and check the points before I go. It's suppose to snow tonight and my bugs outside because the garage is such a mess so that won't help things. Oh well, it will all work out. Party On!

Hoarders here I come!

I have finally decided to finish the walls in my garage. I looked it over and figured I could do the shop area first. I was just going to push all my stuff that I have there into my garage bay where the bug usually is. That didn't work out so well. I have so much CRAP that it didn't fit. I was blown away at all the stuff I crammed into the little shop area. Here are some pictures of the mess. This is what I started with. Funny thing is, it didn't look too bad this morning until I started moving it.

 OK here is the shop area. I wanted to get this part done first so I needed to remove everything so I could have lots of room to mud and do my texture on the ceiling. When we bought the house I told them not to put drywall in the garage. I was planning on wiring and insulating it the way I wanted to so I figured it would be easier to have them not put the drywall up in the parts they didn't have to. I walked in one day during the time my house was being built and I saw that they had put drywall up in the garage but they had not mudded it yet. I figured that was OK so I told them not to mud the garage. It would be easier to take the drywall they had just put up down if it wasn't mudded. Well, the very next day I checked on the house and they mudded it. Argh! So after we moved in, I removed all the drywall on the walls of the garage and wired it with lots of plugs, 2 telephones and cable TV. I then put the drywall back up and so it's in pretty rough shape.

Here I have started taking out some of the stuff. My plan was to get the shop cleared, and get a 2nd coat of mud on the walls and finish putting tape where I didn't put any on the first time around. I also wanted to get the ceiling in the shop textured. I figured if I could accomplish that , I would only need one more quick mud job, and then a quick sanding and it would be onto prime and paint.

 Here is the one side of the wall. I put up a lot of signs and stuff in the 7 years we have lived here. I removed all that stuff. The slick on the wall is Dale Earnhardt Sr's from California Speedway. I went to that race with my Dad and Brother many years ago.

Here is the other wall with more crap that needed to come down.

So you can see how quickly the one bay of the garage is getting filled up. I swear when everything was moved I totally felt like a person from the show hoarders. I am actually quite embarrassed about the mess. I guess it's almost spring so I can count it as spring cleaning.

 So, here, almost everything is moved out. It's almost ready for some actual mud to go on the walls. I really butchered the window area when I removed the Sheetrock from the walls. If you look closely, you can see where I needed to tape and mud it. It was the worst part of the shop area.

Here is where my bug usually stays. Not for a couple weeks now.

 Here it is after I spent a few hours mudding it. I think it's looking a ton better. I got everything taped and I started texturing the ceiling way in the back left corner. I was a little intimidated about texturing the ceiling because I have never done it before but that turned out to be the easiest part to do. I have actually never mudded before except for little patches. If you have any tips or tricks, I would be glad to hear them. I have been picking my buddies brain for a week on his techniques and stuff. It really helped. This definitely won't be perfect but it will be plenty good for my garage.

 Here is the other wall. The area around the door was pretty rough also. I spent a lot of time there. I didn't meet my goal to have the whole ceiling textured but it took a lot longer then I was planning to get everything moved out. Oh well, there's always next week.

So check out the blog in the future to see how this whole mess turns out. I have lots of big ideas. I am hoping to paint some flames on the wall that currently has the nova hood on it. I also am going to paint that hood so it looks good and it will end up being hung on the ceiling of the garage. I am also going to paint my flammable cabinet with some cool old style hot rod flames. It's a flammable cabinet, shouldn't it have flames? Can you sense that I like flames? There may also be a VW symbol that gets painted on a wall somewhere. Time will tell. In the mean time, please don't call hoarders on me.

More progress and had time to hit the Autorama!

Well, the bug is ready for the alignment shop tomorrow morning. I got the trans filled with fluid, installed the sway bar, adjusted the height four times, and removed the sway bar because I pretty much ripped it off due to hitting the ground. Oh boy, always lots of fun when you drive a lowered bug. Here are some photos.

The easiest way I have found to put gear lube into something is by using a fluid sucker. It works like a huge syringe, so you suck up the fluid and push it into whatever your feeling. Works like a champ. I used redline MTL in the transaxle because Jay Leno says it works great. He was right! My trans shifts smooth and feels good again.

I greased the front beam while I was under it. There are 4 grease Zerk's and you just pump it full of grease until you see new grease coming out. A pneumatic grease gun really comes in handy here.

So here Ed is back on the ground. I had to keep adjusting the adjusters trying to get it to ride safely and not tear up the roads too bad. When all was said and done, I am only 3/8 of an inch lower then I was before the lowered spindles. My ball joints are at a very good angle unlike before, so I am hoping that they will last a little longer this time.

I also had some time to work on my front fender and try to smooth out some of the dents. This picture shows it just after I roughed it out. I used some body dollies on it and it looks better now. I figure it adds character to it. I will keep it like this until I buy new fenders when I get it painted.

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Ellie was my little helper all weekend. She loves to be out in the garage with me and doesn't mind getting dirty if she needs to. She also went on all my test drives when I was fine tuning the suspension. When we bottomed out really hard she would get a surprised look on her face and then laugh. She's so cool!

 I used some wax to get off the black marks from where Ed was hit. Ellie helped me wax it.

 Here she's showing how good she did. Her pink boots got a little dirty out in the garage but she didn't seem to mind.

 So after I decided on the height I was going to leave it, Ellie, Isaac and myself took it for a spin to airport number 2. We hit some train tracks really hard and here was the result. It was then that I decided to get rid of the sway bar and raise it up some more. I now think I have it at a good height and so I filled it with gas, aired up the tires to the correct pressure and tomorrow I will take it down to the alignment shop.

So here are the final pictures of how Ed sits. The lowered spindles helped move the front wheel back to where it is suppose to be. When I only had adjusters, the wheel was pushed really far forward. I like the look of it and even though I would like it lower, I am going to leave it here because it's funner to drive at this height then when it was lower. If this was only going to be driven on the weekend, I might of left it low but since I drive it every day when it's good weather, I need it to be safe and fun to drive.

 Here is the other side. Tugger is in the background. He needs to have some work done next. He has a broken clutch cable mount which requires me to cut open the tunnel and repair it. That has to wait until after I get back from St. George. It will be nice having Ed back up and running. It figures that when gas prices go so high, both my bugs are down. We should be good now.

So Friday, me and Isaac went to the Autorama. He was the only one that would go with me so we went and had a good time. I am sure Ellie would of gone but she stayed with her Mom. Isaac is imitating Bumble Bee. He was in the Autorama. I would of rather seen the old Bumble Bee before he changed to the new version.

 Isaac had plenty of poses for the cars. Here is a land speed record holder. It races at the Bonneville salt flats.

 Not quite sure what Isaac is doing here but the car is super cool. I think he's doing his best James Dean impersonation.

See, can you see the resemblance?

 Here's my style. I love the old 50's hot rods and the flames are too die for. My first car had these discs on the wheels. I love the looks.

Another super cool car. I wish I had the talent to build something like this woody.

Isaac is showing his impersonation of "ghost" flames. I took lots of pictures of the ghost flames I saw because I am going to put some on Ed when I get him painted. These ones were really nice.

 This 32 had some ghost flames that looked realistic. It's hard to see in this picture but they are there. I am going to go with a more old school style of flames.

 This F-100 had EXACTLY the kind of flames that I am going to put on Ed. They are very subtle and you have to look really close to see them. I love subtle things like this on a car. Ed will be full of things that are not stock but hard to notice unless you really know what you are looking at. He will also have flames like this that are going to come over his front fenders and hood.

This weekend was a blast and lots got done. I think I am on schedule to get everything done before the big trip to St. George. The list is getting smaller but at the same time some things get added on to it also. Here is how it looks now:

1. Get an alignment (which is set up for Monday)
2. Replace the passenger side wheel cylinder. (It has a leak that I just noticed.)
3. Adjust the valves
4. Change the oil
5. Check the timing and adjust the carburetor.
6. Wash and vacuum