My Traveling Family

Well, I decided to do some work on Wally this weekend. Just some minor stuff. At least that’s how it started out. It always starts as a simple fix, and just goes horribly wrong from there.

While pulling off the windshield wipers I dropped a bolt down the vented section between the bonnet and the windshield. Unfortunately I could see the bloody bolt, but couldn’t reach it. So, I open the hood and look at the cover for the windshield wiper motor and blower fan. The cover I’ve never been able to get off before. That was before I got serious with a pair of pliers and a screwdriver.

So, long story short. I’ll put up drawings and pictures later for the next poor schmuck that has to try this on a 1974 SuperBeetle.

• Pull Wiper Motor cover.
• Clean out old rotten leaves and debris. Get bolt.
• Discover seized blower fan.
• unplug ’something’ from under the dash while trying to get enough slack to mess with blower fan.
• Discover that you can not see under the dash of a superbeetle.
• Discover 5 hidden screws to remove dash front from dash. (Diagram coming)
• Discover speedometer is held in via pressure fit rubber gasket
• Remove speedometer and clean all 17 or so connection on the back of it. Yes. 17 or so connections. (Diagram coming)
• Discover 1 bad light and 5 good ones. $1.50 a pop from CIP1.
• Discover the cable that came unplugged was actually reachable, just hidden. (Go figure)
• Plug cable back in. Clean all connections with sandpaper and put dash back together.
• Realize blower fan is well beyond repair and will need to be replaced. Shove back in place.
• Replace cover.
• Discover bolt is missing. (Grrrrr!!!) Search for 10 minutes before finding again.
• Put windshield wipers back on.
• Discover only the driver side wiper now works. Take back apart. Fix. Put back together.
• Done.

All this because I wanted to remove the wipers to sand and repaint them. That was all.

Believe it or not, I’ve walked in the footsteps of Jimi Hendrix. In Scotland I walked in the footsteps of kings, here, I’ve walked in the footsteps of the greatest rock guitarist of all times.

By meeting Dave the Luthier I was introduced to a rock group from the 60’s call Moby Grape.  Dave is meeting with one of the guitarists next month to do some work on his guitar, who’s also a friend, and then he’s playing Don Quixote’s in Felton CA. (I’m hoping to be there for the gig.)

Anyhow. Upon researching the Moby Grape, which I’m listening to as I write this. I ran across a reference to the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival, what’s been called a prelude to Woodstock. What? Monterey? Pop fest? Yep, right here in Monterey California at the Monterey Fairgrounds that I drive past every day on the way to work, one of the greatest rock festivals of the decade. Who knew?

So, what’s so big about this festival? Jimi Hendrix. That’s what. Arguably the greatest rock guitarist of all time. He played the Monterey Pop Festival.  Here’s him playing Purple Haze at the concert. Not only that, he was from Seattle, my home town. Then I discovered that Jimi got in a bit of trouble as a young man, surprised?, and ended up with the choice of 2 years behind bars or the military. He chose the military. Now, this is where it gets crazy.  Jimi ended up with the 101st airborne at Ft. Campbell KY. Where I spent 3 years. He got out and formed a band based out of Clarksville, TN. Where my crazy bud Darrin still lives.

It’s amazing how small the world is. Really amazing some times.  Some day I need to go check out his grave site in Renton WA, just because.

By chance and happenstance I met a master luthier today. While wandering around Carmel with Roberta we went into a small antique store to check things out. Inside there was a mandolin and Roberta commented on it. Turns out it was the proprietors instrument for when it was slow in the shop. This led him and I to discuss different music, what bands were coming to town, etc.

I mentioned I was a fiddler and a luthier hack. He then mentioned a friend of his was  a luthier in Pacific Grove. What? I haven’t heard of any! Well, it turns out that Dave Enderby has no advertisement at all. None. The door to the shop has a red letter E and a sign that says “by appt only” with a phone number that doesn’t even work. Behind that door is a master luthier and his tools. He mainly works on Guitars but does other work also. He’s rehairing my old violin bow for me.

Anyhow, Dave gave me the tour of his shop and we ended up shooting the breeze for over an hour. I know I’m going to screw this up because I’m not a guitar guy, but, he pointed out a 1920 Martin guitar hanging on the wall needing restoring. His comment, “The right person hasn’t come in yet for that, when they do I’ll fix it up.”  Same comment was made for the 1940’s Les Paul(?) hanging next to it.

Dave is also the first person I’ve met that tap tone checks all the pieces of his instruments to insure they match tonally before putting them together  This is an old style of making sure the pieces will work together, and is an art in itself to learn. It was pretty interesting to watch him pick up pieces of instrument and tap it, say, ya, that’s about a full tone under the front so it should work pretty good together.

Oh ya, turns out my ”Ole Bull” fiddle and bow I picked up for $100 off of Ebay a long time ago, well the bow is made from Pernambuco wood and a pretty decent quality one also. The only info I have on the Ole Bull fiddle was the repair tag from 1912 and no information on the bow. So I’m not sure if the bow is that old or not, but a good chance it is. So, Dave is going to rehair it, clean up the varnish, and rewrap it for me. Another $100, but it should be a real nice playing bow when it’s done. Definitely worth more than the $200 I’ll have into it and the fiddle. The fiddle turned out to be pretty junky, so, even taking that into account I’m ahead just from the bow.

Well, as anyone who owns an old beetle probably knows. The heating and defrost in a bug isn’t the best design ever made. With Wally I can cook my feet, but have almost no defrost and the heat on the passenger side is less than optimal. So, I decided to do some work on the bug today.

First thing I did was adjust all of the cable conrols to the heat flappers. Both front foot controls and the rear under the seat Y pipes. Turns out the Y pipe under the rear seat passenger side wasn’t even connected. The flapper was stuck in floor mode.

Also, for some reason which I cannot fathom the rear Y pipes are vented. Which means, no matter what, the rear seat gets 90% of the air, hot or cold. Here’s what they look like.

From Wally the Superbeetle

The pipe to the top goes to the front heater channel and the defrost system, the pipe towards the bottom of the pic is for the rear floor heat. So I did a quick duct tape modification to see how it would effect my front defrost. Here is what it looks like after my changes.

From Wally the Superbeetle

I’m hoping this will give me some forced air to the front. Maybe if this works I can get rid of the paper towel I currently use as a defroster. Fingers crossed and we’ll see how well it works.

Just a quick story to give you an idea of what Tom was like. Tom was one of our network guys at the Arctic Region Supercomputing Center. Tom was pretty smart in a definite redneck sort of way. Tom also had bouts of, well, let’s just call them moments of sub optimal intelligence.

Tom liked to hunt and fish. Tom owned an air boat. Tom used to go waaaaay up the Chena river into the back of beyond and set up camp. He’d then leave the camp and come back to “civilization” and work. Then the next weekend he’d head back up the river. Well, Tom had a problem with bears messing with his camp while he was away. Bears being big ole grizzlies. This is central Alaska remember. Something about grizzlies that may not be obvious. They’re very curious animals and like to check out things that are strange or different. Like fishing camps in the middle of nowhere.

So, like any good smart guy, Tom came up with a plan. He was well and truly fed up with the bears poking through his camp. So, on his run down to civilization, Fairbanks, I guess you could call it civilized, well, if you’re drunk enough. Anyhow, during his work week Tom ran over to the hardware store and picked up a bunch of plywood and nails. Long, pointy nails. He then went back to his camp and had a good time fishing and hunting for the weekend. Then when it was time to head back to Fairbanks he hatched his plan. He took those sheets of plywood and drove hundreds of nails through them and placed them in a circle around his camp. A veritable mine field of nails. Those damn bears weren’t gonna get his camp this time! And back to Fairbanks he comes.

Now Tom was proud of his plan. In fact he bragged about it to those of us poor folk who didn’t have fishing camps. That is until he went back and checked on his camp, or what was left of it.

It seems that bears when they are wandering around just being bears, well, they get kind of pissed when they step on a nail. Kind of like people really, I suppose. Well, imagine how pissed you would be if you stepped on say, 20 or 30 nails. Every time you tried to get off of one nail you stepped on another. Well, I don’t know about you or I, but that bear was really, really pissed! By the time it was done dripping blood and shredding anything in sight, well, Toms camp was pretty much gone. We’re talking shreds of camp covered in bear blood, and plywood scattered to the winds. The camp was totally and utterly destroyed.

Tom never did see the bear, at least he never mentioned seeing it. I imagine the bear had enough of the whole fishing camp experience and lit off to better environs. I do know that Tom never admitted to trying the nail trick again.  I guess it’s just better to let the bears poke around rather than piss em off and have em destroy your camp.

So, lesson to those who want to set up a fishing camp in the back woods of Alaska. Don’t be smart. Let the bears poke around and don’t, no matter what, piss em off.

And if you’re like me. You can’t get the pictures of one pissed of bear, bleeding and angry, ripping and tearing that camp apart, out of your head. Even after all these years it still brings a smile to my face. Sorry Tom. But, damn, what a story.