Springtime in Oceanside

Spring is here!  The plants are happy, birds chirping, and butterflies fluttering.  The native Elderberry is tall enough to see when sitting on the floor upstairs.  It must be 11 feet tall in a year and a half or so.  I'm still waiting for berries, but I haven't lost faith in this thriving bush.

The photos below show Floyd hanging by the campfire awaiting my neighbor Rick's visit for some fine tequila sipping from a beautiful boro blown bottle with a blue agave in the middle of a hollow tubular bottle.  I'll have to get the name since the bottle has grown on me.  Floyd stayed in the yard a while, received some preventative rust attention, and a thorough inspection before being sent to the street.  I've had many nice vehicles, but with a one car, 8 foot wide garage on this little beach house, they are starved for shelter.  I'm in the works of figuring the best design for an affordable workshop/garage out front where the shed is located on the right of Floyd.

 Last night I worked on the 1966 912 crankcase assembly.  I got as far as the third piece yesterday.  The photo shows the stud side of the case with stock cam, and crank assembled with lifters in place and silicone sealant including cam plug, ready for assembly of other case half and torquing down.  The process is very similar to a vw engine, but tighter specs and some extra oil plumbing.  I was happy with the first part of the rebuild.  The engine was line bored, with new bearings, rebushed rods, new rod bearings, honed cylinders, and new rings.  The heads were gone through including recutting the valve ports, and all new springs, valves, and guides. The end play came out fine with the previously spaced .95mm spacer, even with a NOS flywheel I found on Samba.  I'll likely rebuild the Dellorto carbs since they've been out of commission for about 3 years.

 I found a wood wheel to give the 912 all the factory options it was born with.  So, now it has a super rare electric sunroof, a rare factory wood wheel, 14" OG fuchs, a period correct Blaupunkt, a rare bat mobile rear speaker box that will take some new MB Quart speakers and possibly some Seas Excel speakers.  I'm working on fitting two 4" Onxy speakers in the original speaker hole that was setup for a 4x8 speaker.  I hope they fit, since I've seen aftermarket options, but desire quality sound.  The system will run off a digital amp set in the smuggler's box for a clean original look with only a 3.5mm jack for a mobile connection stashed somewhere yet to be discovered.  The car is looking pretty sweet so far.  I have a lot of time and $ invested and will likely let Bahama go for the right price, so I can keep the flow with Floyd who is a day dream ride, similar to Skippy, the head in your clouds relic I was so fortunate to spin around in for a while.  Someone is going to be stoked!