Another Free Car
This Summer has been a record-setting whirlwind of receiving, fixing, and selling cars.
I always have several automotive projects going on simultaneously and in August was able to finish a few and sell three cars in a single week; a 2001 Ford Taurus that I had overhauled for my mother in law, a 1950 Chevy truck I sold for a lady at my church and a 1994 Toyota Paseo I had gotten for free in June.
With some space cleared up on the property, yesterday I was able to bring home my most recent free car: a 1971 Volkswagen Bus/Vanogon/Westfalia. A friend had gotten it in a real estate deal and known exactly who to call… Me. 
- The VW on the trailer in my driveway.
It had been sitting in a driveway under a tree for at least 10 years and judging from the vintage of the cassette tapes and various scraps of paper inside, hadn’t been driven regularly since the late 80’s.
Today I dove in; scraping off a thick blanket of leaves, cleaning the engine compartment, vacuuming the interior and filling my refuse bin with someone else’s abandoned and outdated clothing. I ran a new main wiring harness from the dash to the motor, added a battery, and cranked the motor until the oil light turned off.
My homemade wiring harness
The motor has to be removed to check the gas tank so that will have to wait. I ran a fuel line to a gas can in the rear compartment and cranked the motor but it did not start. Bad fuel pump? No, in fact fuel seemed to be leaking from both ends of every line. It was 11:00 PM and still 95 degrees outside so I gave up for the night and will get it running tomorrow.
