u/BobsBug65

Quick cruise today in the'60 to pick up some supplies for the '65. it's actually been chilly this week but warm today. I think the same picture next week the trees would be bare.

Thinking about tapping out on the G63. 133,000 miles. It's been great but getting a little pricey. The GX has 188,000 miles on it. This is our third GX. That is an unbelievable car, but they have all had some electrical issues. 2024 LC. We had a 96 Land Cruiser that we put 250 thousand miles on but it was gutless in the mountains. I still miss that car though. Don't get me wrong, I love this LC too. Favorite? Probably the GX but the new LC is more off-roady for sure. I just wanted to get this picture in case we let the G63 go and thought it was an interesting trio for this group.

• Update on GX Electrical: Few questions about my comment here. Electrical issues have not been anything catastrophic. No lemon law kind of stuff. For us these problems were always on the dash. Gauges that stopped working or the head unit ($4,000) is toast on the black one in this picture. Not really a big deal or huge $$$ compared to what you can encounter on a high mileage car, but I wanted to mention it because it is something we have seen on all 3 of our GX. Not a knock on the GX at all.

• Update 2 - What should an LC be? I don't know. If I wanted to just 4-wheel I would get a Razor (RZR), but an LC should be very off road capable and in my opinion be daily drivable. In Colorado, anything that is 80 series or less is hanging by a thread going up to the Eisenhower tunnel, Hoosier pass or even Kenosha. Awesome when you get where you are going, but at some point you're gonna be in traffic going up a big hill. Screaming along at 43mph gets old. Yeah nothing like the style of the old LC (or dozens of old classics in whatever category) but underpowered is a deal breaker for me.

First thanks for all the info here. I check in just about every day. This has been my first time doing body work, getting my first sprayer and trying to paint. I felt like I was a pro with a rattle can, but that's bullshit. This is the real deal and it's freaking hard.

I won't go into the gory details but I included a picture of my passenger door just for a taste of what is going on. This post is mostly about my glove box door, but as far as the car paint goes... Body work, primer, oops should have been epoxy primer, high build primer, sand, more primer, sand, painted, oops read the data sheet! too hot, hella orange peel and the body work sucked. Sanding and gonna try to get it right next time. More to come on that.

The glove box... Painted a few things since I effed up the car and getting better. Painting the glove box and the first time it fell off my hooks and bent it up. Fast forward 2 weeks after 'body work' on the glove box door. 2nd time I blew a bunch of garbage off my hoodie onto the piece. Since that was the last of the Dove Gray I just picked off the bits with some safety wire and piled on what I had left of the gray. I figured this might be a good chance to attempt a cut and buff on single stage.

- Paint - TCP Global/Resto Shop/Acrylic Urethane/4:1
- Wet sanded 2000
- Meguiar's 105, Harbor Freight DA with a Heavy Cut Microfiber Pad
- Meguiar's 205 with just a hand polishing pad because they were out of the DA polishing pads

I wish I got a before picture. It was really a disaster. I have a long way to go but I haven't had too many paint pics I am proud of so thought I would share it. Yes, I know the interior blue isn't amazing but most people aren't going to gasp when they get in it. The outside, probably.

Thanks again.

I rewired the entire car plus extras including powered sub, amp, blue tooth, line lock, oil cooler, fuel pump, gauges, etc. and the hardest part was getting the horn to work correctly.

Gotta show off my deck lights once in a while.

Super happy with how the switch panel came out. This had a radio, but I installed a BlueTooth setup so got a new radio blank and did this. Left switch and blue indicator is the audio, center switches are fuel pump some LEDs and an extra, red indicator is line lock engaged. This is another thing I spent a crap ton of time thinking about but I dig it.

Thought it was a cool pic though.

I imagined this over a year ago. Pretty ambitious for me and a crap ton of work, but I really dig it.

After 3 years I'm stoked right now. Putting power to the dash and seeing this makes it worth it.

Just a few more things to do and I can put a bow on this. Huge day today getting the vinyl and getting it screwed in for hopefully the last time. I have some escutcheons to go around the pipes and an ABS cover I will Velcro over the access panel and a graphic I had made that will go on top.

FWIW, this is 2-6 inch JL 2-way speakers. The other small grills are just vents. Rockford 500watt, 2-channel amp and a powered JBL sub. JL bluetooth dongle JL-MBT-RX. I can post more pics if anyone is interested.

I took this a few years ago. This is my Kawasaki ultra LX. Top speed I've ever seen on this is about 55. We have a 2018 that can hit 57 on a good day.

2017 and 2018 UltraLX

I've been thinking about what I want this to look like for a couple years. Oil pressure, oil temp, voltage, fuel, tach. The blue is VW blue, L633. The Gray is TCP Dove Gray. Both single stage. I had some pretty grand plans, but I have the Jbugs gauge cut outs in my other bug. They're actually great. I just got a set of those, sanded them down and repainted them. It's a pretty easy set up, but I really like it.

... and fetching some parts for the '65.

I am in CO. These came with the beetle I am working on. I will not be using them. I never really looked at the condition they're in, but they look solid. I just took them out and they've been in my storage. If you are seriously interested, I can take a closer look or get more pictures for you but I don't want to ship them.

Just thought I would share this. This is a fairly big topic of conversation in the various beetle communities. Main front body mount bolts were rusted and broken. I had to cut open here to get access to the bolt plate. Really didn't wanna weld it closed again so I figured I would just put access plates over the holes. I put closed cell foam on the back of the plates to hopefully keep water out, but I still plan on inspecting these during any regular maintenance that I do. One more thing I guess, this is the front end of the heater channel, so it does allow me to blow air into to the heater channel if I want to keep them clean or dry. We'll see how it goes.

About this paint job if you're interested... My goal has always been for this car to be a solid, safe, long distance warrior. I want excellent mechanicals, not a show car. I didn't want something so nice I would worry about. I decided to just paint it the best I could. I'm doing this all myself, no matter what. On top of that, I have another bug that the PO painted. There are runs all over it, but every time I take it out someone comments on the color. My paint job here, people will love it, but those who know would probably give it a C or less. My objective - no runs, full coverage and limit the overspray the best I could. I did that. Overspray was probably the biggest challenge for me and we'll see what it looks like in the sun, but pretty happy.