More importantly, my cabby is back. Last November I was driving home late one night from a hockey game when the remaining clip holding the exhaust downpipe to the manifold let go. I drove noisily back home, and a week or two later (I had other cars to drive) I borrowed an exhaust clip expander thingy from a friend and installed a couple new clips.

But when I fired the thing up, I noticed a nasty lifter-tapping sort of noise. Having heard similar noises from a car with one spark wire off, I checked those, and found that he #4 spark plug appeared to be getting hammered from inside the head. I checked the oil, and was pretty sure that in the bad light I saw sparly metal flakes.

I decided I'd shatterred a valve, and had Jon of RallyVW come get it an the TT race engine I'd had sitting around for a year. I'd been working on selling the engine to a friend (or anyone with $1500, for that matter) but now I felt like Fate had somehow spoken. Of course, in a quick pre-swap checkout, Jon discovered that the reason the #4 plug was clatterring was that it was loose. I told him to keep his mouth shut and replace my "blown" engine.

He did, and it's back, and holy shit, is it fast! Pics and stuff will be up... someday.

Cabby top replacement...

I've had this doc for a while, and have been meaning to convert it to HTML with illustrations. Some day I'll get around to it, but at least you can download the Word Doc for How to replace a Cabriolet Top, by Forrest King.

Well, it's official, the New Beetle Cabriolet will be here this year. Personally, I'd rather drive a Ford than a New Beetle, and am hoping that they bring over the VW version of the Seat Tango soon, but here ya go...

From the VW Vortex...

2003 New Beetle Convertible (new model)

- Available in GLS
- GL and GLX available later in model year

- Manual transmission standard on GLS, 6-speed automatic transmission optional on GLS

Colors

- Black
- Reflex Sliver
- Galactic Blue
- Harvest Moon
- Sundown
- Mellow Yellow
- Aquarius

Roof colors:

- Black

I've also finally got all the stuff I need to start on my new head project - a solid-lifter GTI head, spare intake manifold, dual-outlet exhaust manifold, and an Audi throttle body. I'm having a friend do a complete overhaul of the head and a port & polish on everything. It will also be getting a G-grind cam before it's done. Now I just have to figure out if it will be going back on my 130k old block, or go for a 2.0.

Well, I had a little accident in the '00 Golf on my way down to Chattanooga, so the Cabby came out of storage a month earlier than planned, and has been serving as my primary transprotation while the Golf is in the body shop getting a new door. It's been in the 50's here this week , which means I've been driving it with the top down a good bit. Of course, I've develoved a nasty cough, and there's this gurgling sound from my chest when I breath deeply...

Anyhow, the Golf comes back from the hospital on Friday, and the garage is clean and ready for the Cabriolet to go up on jackstands for a major bit of work. Since I've been driving it, that perforated exhaust has been bothering me almost more than the sloppy handeling and squishy brakes, so I may be upping the priority on that. Of course, there's no sense in changing the exhaust, and not doing the ported head thing - and the ported intake and Audi TB...

OK, so actually, it's 30 degrees outside, and snowing a little, but I'm going down to Tennessee this weekend, where it's expected to be in the 60s. That's Convertible Weather, my friends. It's almost time for Der Cheerleadermobile to come out of hibernation, and replace my '00 TDI as my primary mode of transportation. That will require some work.

Since the rear trailing arm is a little bent, my first bit project will be to replace that. While it's off, I'll toss on the rear disk brakes, upgrade the master cylindar, and flush & fill with Super Blue racing brake fluid.

Then I'll be moving my attention to the front of the car, where I'll be replacing both control arms, as well as all related ball joints, wheel bearings, and bushings (I'm thinking Delrin). I'll also replace the steering rack U-joint. That should get the car roadworthy, then it's on to performance upgrades...

I've got a solid-lifter GTI head, spare intake manifold, Audi throttle-body, dual-outlet exhaust manifold, and TT non-cat downpipe waiting to be prepped. A friend of mine does that sort of work for a living, so I can get it all professionally ported, polished and built at a good price. I also have a 2.0L Audi 3E ("bubble-block") engine sitting in the garage. Right now it's promised to a friend, but I'm trying to come up with a way to talk him out of it. If I can get all that together, my little ragtop should be pushing 140hp.

Once the car is driving nice, it'll be time to work on the body. There aren't any real dents or rust spots on the car, and the top is perfect, but I want to de-chrome it, shave those goofy side markers, tint the tail-lights, install H4s, install my Zender side-skirts and some wide fender flares, and maybe get a badgeless grill. That'll probably wait until NEXT Spring.

In other news, it looks like I'll have to amend my statements about leaky Cabriolet tops in the the Buyers section - I've received several Emails from offended Cabby owners who's cars remain bone-dry in even the most torrential of cloudbursts.   Which reminds me - very little of what I put up here should be taken as gospel - a lot of it is just what I've heard, and a good bit is pulled directly from my ass.   Feel free to correct me if you find anything amiss.   There's damn little information on our cars out there, so any contribution you have is appreciated. 

9/6/00 Been lax in my updating. Got myself an '81 Rabbit truck, so most of my spare time has gone into setting that up. I'll have a site like this up for it soon.

-----Original Message-----
From: Grinternet UK 
Sent: Wednesday, August 09, 2000 4:18 PM
To: josh_w@sprynet.com
Subject: Re: Web linking
    
Hi Josh,

Thanks for the mail.....its not often someone asks permission 
for using our images, i've since had to disable the right 
click since the images are appearing everywhere !  Soon to 
sort though as i'm asking everyone who hasnt asked me to take 
the pictures off their sites.

I'd be happy for you to use the image as long as you give due 
credit to the artist Carl Greatrix and link to our site from 
either the image or our banner enclosed (which you may edit 
to suit your site)

I'm a fellow VW owner also, I have a Polo mk4 (you can see 
me in the next issue of Performance VW)

Let us know when you've completed either.....

Thanks again
Adrian
<-><-><->
www.GrinternetUK.com
www.alsager.org.uk
www.clubwear4u.co.uk
www.awesome-gti.co.uk
www.doveys.co.uk
www.vwbreaker.co.uk
www.everyday-accounting.co.uk
www.tax-assess.co.uk
to name a few :-)

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Josh 
To: orders@grinternetuk.com 
Sent: 09 August 2000 20:32
Subject: Web linking


Greetings,
  I have a VW Cabriolet site at www.geocities.com/cheerleadermobile/, and
was wondering if I might get permission to post a couple of the small sample
images from your site, provided that I credit the artist and link them to
your site.   I received one of the images from a reader and posted this
morning.  However, when another reader pointed me to your site, and I saw
the copyright notice, I promptly pulled it.  It's a nice pic though
(gmk1cab.jpg), and I spent a good bit of time cleaning it up to display
properly on my background, so I'd really like to use it, if I may.

Thanks for your time,

Josh W
www.rallyvw.com
ICQ: 76450286

Holy crap- 400 hits-  just since 9:00am today!   Of course, that doesn't just count unique IPs.   i may have to change that...

Now, I'm all for hiring the mentally challenged and such,   but whoever decided to put a dyslexic individual in charge of boxing brake calipers can send me a check to cover the three hours cumulative driving time to IPS on the far side of the city and 5 days of borrowing cars and bumming rides that resulted from them shipping THREE miss-boxed calipers.

Today my driver's side caliper should finally be in (the 3rd time they ordered calipers for BOTH sides, and made the shipper pull them out of the box to make sure they were different before FedExing them).   I'll be going to pick it up in my Cabriolet, riding on one new 10.1" brake and one rusty, leaky 9.4".

Pictures of the whole process will, of course, be forthcomming.

If anybody knows the name of the artist who did the above cartoon, let me know- I got the pic from my new friend and fellow Cabby buff Johan in Holland, but the signature has been scranbled by repeated image editing. He sent me a few more as well, which I'll sprinkle in here and there.

The name is, of course, indicative of the fact that the Cabriolet isn't considered to be the most masculine of rides.  They're most commonly associated with teenage Valley girls.   But despite their less-than-aggressive appearance and squishy stock suspensions, they are at heart a GTI with the top cut off.

I've been meaning to do this site for a while, and have piled up quite a collection of links and pictures, so get ready to witness the agony that is downloading stuff from GeoCities.

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