Sorry, my German is a bit rusty… Nein 11 & LimeBug Ghia

[grizz]

May 30, 2022 19:52:30 GMT munky said:

Two old Miata steering wheels become one, mostly good one.








Where’s Waldo?









Welcome to the uncomfortable world of messing about on cars!

Jun 1, 2022 1:00:30 GMT munky said:

May 31, 2022 7:11:49 GMT glenanderson said:

I see your “gen-z” family member has the same aversion to the barbers as mine 🤣

That’s fantastic Glen! Nice bike too!!!

Are you still working on the lorry? I lost track a little after I was escorted from VZI for posting a picture of a James Hunt Formula 1 Teddybear flicking the ‘V’s on the front of my Atom… (it was my second offense).

My boy showers, I make sure he has shampooed his mane and then somehow, 10 mins later, adds something to it and looks like Kurt Cobain has tangled with a deep fat fryer. Still, if that’s his only issue, I haven’t much to complain about.

Liking this thread a ton, despite your fights in the background.




You guys are still making a difference, and at times I despair but these youngsters who do end up knowing their no10 from their X-Box will be fine in future.



I think the MX5 is a great starter too for the one with the mane 😉

[Alpina99]

I always say :
You spend the first six months thinking you could eat them and the next sixteen years wishing you had !! 😁😁

[glenanderson]

Yeah. The lorry. It’s still grinding on at a snail’s pace.

Getting the offspring to shower is another common problem. I understand it’ll resolve itself when he notices the opposite sex, but that will undoubtedly simply exchange one issue I’d sooner not deal with for another. 🤣

Whenever I mention “haircut” the little swine just comes out with “but you had long hair”, to which I can only respond with “yes, and I used to wash it and tie it back”. Still, the “Cousin It” comments give me some amusement, and if the poor soul takes after either grandfathers he’ll be as bald as an egg at some point, so best to let him make the most of it while he can. 😃

The bike is a semi-successful attempt to get him off the PlayStation, much like the MX-5. 👍

[jake899]

I spy a Skate and Destroy phone case, a Santa Cruz shirt and a skateboard air freshener. So expect him to make you complain a bit more, I drove my parents (and now my wife even though i'm in my 40s) crazy with skateboarding. Once I broke into a factory to skate a "full pipe" silo that had been laid down on its side for decommissioning, crashed, broke three ribs and knocked myself out. 24hrs stuck in that pipe till a security guard heard me banging and called the police who helped me out and wrote me up. I refused to go to hospital so turned up at the door with the cops. Mother wasn't impressed with that one but it was a good story. I love skateboarding still after over 30 years. Fortunately tinkering with cars is taking up the slack of a body that can no longer bounce when it hits the floor...

[munky]

Thanks Grizz
We have a ton of welding I’m not looking forward to. I’m ok on chassis (and anything else you can’t see) but the sills will be interesting.
I just bought a clay bar and some black spray turtle wax, so this weekend will be ‘fun’.

Alpina- I used to tease the wife, when my son was first born with ‘so the house is on fire, are you sure it’s not the dog I should rescue first? It’s far less trouble’.

Glen - my Dad was as bald as a coot (what is a coot in this metaphor? Must Google that) by the time he was in his mid 20s and my son seems to have the same type of hair - so something else in common!

Jake - ai started the whole skateboard thing with him. I’ve now twigged my 50s and until a year and a half ago, I hadn’t been on a board since maybe 12 or 13 years old. I went with him to the local half pipe, dropped in went up the other side, at which point things got out of balance quickly. Sky, wood, sky, wood, sky… ouch!
I’m not sure I’ve seen my wife cry with laughter before. I now stick to longboards.

My son goes every week to a big indoor place called ‘3rd Lair’ in Minnesota and then to the local public outdoor skate park (zero gravity) at the weekends. It’s great that he’s outside doing stuff and the facilities here in the US are pretty amazing for keeping the kids occupied. Even the paid indoor place is only $5 for a four hour session if you become a member ($40). Funny that his first introduction as to why nyloc nuts are important was on a skateboard. I had no idea what they were at his age!

[munky]

A coot…

I get it now!

[neilsdavies]

I've just read the five pages of this and I've got to say that I'm jealous! 25 years ago a couple of the guys in my local VW club bought cheap 912s (I think they were about 6k each!), and I got my Karmann Ghia through a couple of trades. I raced my Ghia in VWDRC in 99, and partway through the season I was asked if I fancied a swap for a ratty 912. I said no because I was still loving the Ghia and thought the prices would stay similar. I have kicked myself every single day since.

[jake899]

Jun 2, 2022 7:08:51 GMT neilsdavies said:

I've just read the five pages of this and I've got to say that I'm jealous! 25 years ago a couple of the guys in my local VW club bought cheap 912s (I think they were about 6k each!), and I got my Karmann Ghia through a couple of trades. I raced my Ghia in VWDRC in 99, and partway through the season I was asked if I fancied a swap for a ratty 912. I said no because I was still loving the Ghia and thought the prices would stay similar. I have kicked myself every single day since.

Don't do that mate. We all have those "if only i had.." we can't keep them all, and there's always the next one. No regrets, here we are. We can't all be as talented, lucky and fertile as Munky   
And you have owned a very nice Ghia so there's no big loss!

[neilsdavies]

Cheers Jake, I'm really good at predicting trends by selling what I've got far too cheap just before the prices go sky high! So now I try not to sell anything...

Munky, I think I remember you from VZi in the early 2000s!

[munky]

A Karmann Ghia is on my dream list - probably one of the last few classics I would like to try. I’ve owned a bunch of aircooled VW cars in my day but a Karmann ghia has always been one of the halo cars that I never quite made it to. Ghias are just like a 356 which somehow has always been just out of reach (and now 356s are so far out of reach I couldn’t even see it!)

Currently in the US a ratty old 912 is worth the same as a pristine Ghia. So I guess things haven’t changed much, just the prices have moved up to stupid levels.

I think I’m going to either have to start swapping a few things out on the Nein to see why it won’t stay running or bring in someone who knows what they are doing.

Last weekend was completely overtaken by my wife’s hobby. Having just sold the Atom, there was money in the ‘play account’…

When I met my wife 19 years ago, she already had a boat. She has been into waterskiing and related ‘messing about in the water’ things for all of her life. I guess thats not surprising living in Minnesota, where the state tagline is 'the state of 10,000 lakes'.
She had a loan on the boat, which worked well for me once we were married. Boat payment = car toy money.

The past 4 years has seen it break down pretty much once a year. last year was the starter motor, year before something to do with fuel lines. Nothing quite as much fun, as braking down in the middle of a lake!

Boats record hours run, and her boat only had 324hrs on it, which apparently for a 20 year old boat is very low.

We looked at new replacement boats over the Memorial Weekend (national holiday like a UK bank holiday) and I refused to even consider paying $135k for a damn boat and having a loan for a non-necessity, going into a possible recession, seemed like a stupid idea (At home, this made me about as popular as finding half a worm in the apple you are eating…)

Using my Google Fu, I came up with a list of possible used alternatives. Not 20 years old, but not brand new.

One was selected and then the rush to sell our current boat started to add to the much needed funds and make the space.

An advert on Craigslist (a bit like the US version of Gumtree) with a price less than low retail, brought a pretty immediate response (ad went up on Wednesday night at 9pm and by 5am Thursday a number of willing purchasers had responded).

Friday saw a test ride along and Saturday pickup!

The wife’s boat…



About the best bit of it…



New owner on Saturday morning…


And watching it speed off for the last time!



All this talk of boats makes us sound like ‘ballers’. We really aren’t and other than my cars (which I tend to swap around rather than dump big money into) and the boat live very frugally, like careful list shopping at Aldi each week and eating out for us is the local equivalent of Burger King once a week. We are still very fortunate though…

Anyway, the good part of the tale (for me) is coming up now. The new to us boat was 414 miles away, quotes to ship were in the $1k+ range and nothing we own would tow it…

[munky]

Saturday afternoon I went to the local rental car company. When I travel for work, I always use Enterprise rental cars as I have a loyalty card. Now was the time to cash in some of my ‘free rental’ points.

For the grand total of free, I picked up this BEAST! Dodge Ram bighorn. 5.7 diesel (and not just 5.7 but 5.7 TURBO) for the trip to pick up the other boat!



The thing is HUGE. Even by US standards. I’m 6’2” and it made me feel small.



So Sunday would be an early start, with 15hrs of driving. Over half of which, would be towing.

[munky]

We started out before dawn and filled up with Diesel.
Sweaty palms as messing with the info the night before, I realized that the dash said the truck had managed 12.5 mpg in its short life (3000 miles on the clock).

All the blood went to my feet when I filled it up. Diesel here is $6.50 a gallon (I know - I can here that mouse violin for the poor Americans withe their not so cheap fuel any more). It’s cost around $150 to fill it… anyway, happy wife, happy life right?

And we are off!

The sun is just coming up as we got to the end of the wet area we live in.







And finally the sun made an appearance, only to hide behind clouds…



I’m sure most on here have driven in the US so know that once out of the cities, there’s a lot of this.



Miles and miles of straight boring roads. At least my co-pilot kept me company with witty comments and generally interesting facts and repartee…


Um, not so much. At least I had the driving to keep me interested and the truck was a dream to drive, but a nightmare at the petrol stations. More of this:



And finally we get there. No pics of that as it was a quick and urgent set of paperwork and mini inspection, followed by getting back on the road as soon as possible!





More stops for fuel as the MPG would drop below 10 at some points (though hitting 80mph at times I should be that surprised)
More of this:


And of this:


With this little display being the only reason otherwise to pause.



And by dusk, we were back at the lake.







Then I had to take the trailer to storage and return the truck!

Talk about being glad to see my bed!

[grizz]

I soooooo live in the wrong country.



Love the sunrise and your Ram, boat is very cool too.



Had to chuckle at “IT” under the covers.

[munky]

Jun 11, 2022 20:26:23 GMT grizz said:

I soooooo live in the wrong country.



Love the sunrise and your Ram, boat is very cool too.



Had to chuckle at “IT” under the covers.

Thank you.
Re living in the wrong country - Yes and no. 
I’ve been watching ‘Escape to the Country’ today on BritBox, wishing I lived in Somerset!

Both places have their pros and cons. Just when you think life over here is going to be easy street, you realize you are paying $1k a month for nominal healthcare, that you have to pay more for when you actually use it and my house tax is about the same a month again. That said I live in an expensive state on the outskirts of an expensive city. 

Then there are some quite extremist points of view over here - the gun lobby (guns don’t kill people - people kill people etc) and some pretty strong religious beliefs (for a country which in the constitution says you are free to worship any god (as long as only creationism is taught and not evolution in some state schools)). 

I would say opportunities are better over here if you are interested in working and there tend to be more available resources. 
I still miss going to a friends house for a cuppa, just ‘to be’ and British foods like pasties and real sausages and bacon. 

[mylittletony]

I've recently spent some time in Madison which I saw pop up on your map... the pictures look very familiar, even though it's several hundred miles away!

I agree with all your comments too, there's pitfalls and benefits to living everywhere!

[munky]

Jun 12, 2022 7:27:25 GMT mylittletony said:

I've recently spent some time in Madison which I saw pop up on your map... the pictures look very familiar, even though it's several hundred miles away!

I agree with all your comments too, there's pitfalls and benefits to living everywhere!

Madison WI is just down the road from us (in an American sense) about 5 or 6hrs drive away. 
I’ve not actually made it there myself yet, but I hear it’s a nice place. What were you doing there?

Got back to the Nein again today (finally!). I was quite despondent as a bunch of parts I had ordered from other Porsche people (and I had paid for) hadn’t turned up or were junk. 

Back in April, I bought a used rear passenger side bumper quarter, so I could harvest the bumper hanger for my bumper. Well after chasing the guy for months, it finally turned up on Saturday - along with a text message saying I owed him $50 for postage and packing…

So I paypaled him the money and have seriously learned my lesson. Don’t let the money go, until you are not just ‘eyes on’ but have the item in your hand and have inspected it. 

The bumper turned out to be mostly good, so today I started the journey of ‘two becomes one’ in the words of sporty spice!







I’ve stripped the trim off as the trim on my bumper is better and have put all the various nuts and bolts in cleaning solution. 
Next up will be a power wash, followed by a good rubdown to the metal, minor metal repairs, followed by a prime and spray. Not sure what colour though at the moment, as I’m not going to be able to match the blue.

A local AutoXer has some very sticky tires for sale, that have had the edges scrubbed off, but still good enough for the widened steels I just picked up. Not sure if I’m going to be able to get them though, as I’m second in line.
He wants the princely sum of $50 for the 4 to get them out of his garage, so even if they are too warn, they will give me a good idea of the clearance I might or might not have with the wide steels and this rubber set up. 

Fingers crossed!

[wildrover]

Jun 12, 2022 2:18:02 GMT munky said:

Jun 11, 2022 20:26:23 GMT grizz said:

I soooooo live in the wrong country.



Love the sunrise and your Ram, boat is very cool too.



Had to chuckle at “IT” under the covers.

Thank you.
Re living in the wrong country - Yes and no. 
I’ve been watching ‘Escape to the Country’ today on BritBox, wishing I lived in Somerset!

Both places have their pros and cons. Just when you think life over here is going to be easy street, you realize you are paying $1k a month for nominal healthcare, that you have to pay more for when you actually use it and my house tax is about the same a month again. That said I live in an expensive state on the outskirts of an expensive city. 

Then there are some quite extremist points of view over here - the gun lobby (guns don’t kill people - people kill people etc) and some pretty strong religious beliefs (for a country which in the constitution says you are free to worship any god (as long as only creationism is taught and not evolution in some state schools)). 

I would say opportunities are better over here if you are interested in working and there tend to be more available resources. 
I still miss going to a friends house for a cuppa, just ‘to be’ and British foods like pasties and real sausages and bacon. 

$1k a month for health insurance - we pay that and more through the missus's work, they pick up the tab for her portion but as we have Kaiser we get pretty good bumper to bumper coverage with little out of  pocket - still wouldn't want to be without it.  Property tax - we bought 21 years ago so our base assessment is the 2001 purchase price and we'll be able to keep that as long as we move within California.  I look at house prices now and the first thing that springs to mind is the cost of the property tax, never mind the mortgage!

Extremist points of view... yeah, you've got that right - these last few weeks especially have been a nightmare.  You would think living on the lefty coast we'd not have too much in the extremist department - if only.

I 100% agree with you on opportunities - I often wonder where I would be now if I had stayed at home.  I don't think I'd be in the same position I am now but, who knows?

We love watching all those build/buy/escape to a new life in the country shows and I love going back home but, after a few weeks I just don't feel like I belong there anymore.  As for our car interest I know that we have it better on this side of the Atlantic.  There just seem to be so many rules and regulations about what you can/can't/should/must do - we really do have a lot of freedom here and, I don't think we are any the worse off for it.

My MIL is Welsh but for some strange reason she cannot make a decent cuppa to save her life - my wife who was only a sprog when she came here can make a decent brew but not her mum.  I have learned to make the things I miss - I make a decent Cornish pasty, steak and kidney pie, pork pie and Scotch egg (if I do say so myself) and we have an import store a half mile from the house so bacon and sweeties are expensive but obtainable.  Sausages for some reason are the holy grail - still searching for a decent banger.  Fun fact about Pasties... apparently the Cornish miners brought them with them to Mexico and the upper peninsula of Michigan - we have a fairly good pasty shop run by Mexicans about 2 miles away - although it's not exactly local you could roadtrip to Michigan next time you need a fix...

I think I have mentioned this before but, if I can help you out west let me know - I am in Orange County and will happily drive anywhere reasonably local (American local not British local) to check stuff out/pick parts up for you - maybe that could help cut down on some of the disappointments you've had.

grizz I think the grass is always greener mate - I have no doubt that you would love it here long term, that being said I have known many fellas that just couldn't settle here  - Mountain Dew and rum if you make it this far west.

[mylittletony]

Jun 13, 2022 3:45:16 GMT munky said:

Madison WI is just down the road from us (in an American sense) about 5 or 6hrs drive away. 
I’ve not actually made it there myself yet, but I hear it’s a nice place. What were you doing there?

I was in Middleton mostly, and visiting suppliers outside Milwaukee and it was only a brief trip at the start of winter. We have a US office there and I expect to be visiting again pretty soon. I'd like to spend a bit longer there tbh...

It was already hovering around freezing in November, not sure I've got the bones for the rest of the winter there!!

[Frankenhealey]

Would you get in trouble if a stupid person in the UK sent you some homemade Pork & Leek sausages?

[munky]

Jun 13, 2022 15:18:51 GMT Frankenhealey said:

Would you get in trouble if a stupid person in the UK sent you some homemade Pork & Leek sausages?

Ha ha ha - now that would be amazing, but it’s due to be 97F here this weekend and it’s often that hot in summer, so they would probably be cooked before they arrived. And in winter, they would be frozen!

It’s a really kind idea though. I can just imagine them with mash, peas and Bisto gravy. Thank you!

Wildrover. Thanks for the kind offer. I wish I had spoken to you before I bought the 912. That said, it’s not so bad that it isn’t saveable. Just a bit worse than expected (aren’t they always!). 

I’ve got to say, I’m more than a little envious of So Cal. What a place! The weather is so much better there than here and you don’t need a 4 x 4 clunker for getting to work in winter! How did you end up there?

Mylittletony, the winters here can be rough. It’s always an idea to get away from the cold and snow for at least a week break through it all. 

Well, I struck lucky this week. I managed to pick up a compact 911 spare for $60 locally. They have the exact same steel wheel as is on the early cars 5 1/2” wide and in fair nick too!



As luck would have it, I have a couple of tyres from some time ago that should fit as well, so just need to wait for one more steel to turn up. 
It also gives me a good reference for painting the widened steels I lucked out on. So I’ve been out and bought some paint and started to dig in. 




seems like they were originally painted by Stevie Wonder by the paint thickness and runs!



I’ve sanded them for keying in and now dusted with primer to see how bad a sanding job I have ahead of me…





Looks like I’m going to be busy!