Greetings,
	I must admit first of all to being a lurker for the past few weeks.  I have 
enjoyed all the give and take.  I'm in the process of doing a restoration on a 
'72 Westie.  I am a partner in a local movie theater in Minneapolis and one of 
our workers let me know he had a bus he wanted to get rid of.   It was in his 
neighbors garage and now his neighbor was selling her house.  Bus has gotta go. 
I offered him 300 buck and he said O.K..  The bus looks solid enough.  The motor
(looks to be 1600cc) has no compression (planning to do rebuild), has some rust 
on rocker area, and the inside looks real good.  
	What I plan on doing is to take a couple of years and strip this machine to the
nuts and try and do it right on everything.  I had a great '65 Beetle  20 years 
ago that taught me a lot.  I picked the bug up cheap enough and I thought I had 
a real deal when I saw it had new heads and cylinders.  The first time I took it
out on old highway 9, knock, knock, KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK.  #3 rod bearing.  Drove
it 20 miles like that.  As it turns out the PO had just done the top and I'm 
sure the old mains were leaking like sieves.   I got the Idiot book, tore down 
the 1200cc and did it right.  When I got done that motor ran like a watch.  That
40hp pushed me around just fine and got 40mpg on a good day.  The time came, 
though, that I tired of freezing during the winter.  I got tired of not being 
able to use the radio and the headlights at the same time (6v.).  I said to hell
with it and sold it to some punk kid who obviously didn't love it like I did and
got sick to my stomach watching him drive  "my"  car away.   
	Maybe it will be different this time?  Maybe.  I'm sure I'll have plenty of 
questions.  Later I'll tell you how the wife feels about all this.   Ouch!

Like my Mama always told me, "If your head is wax, don't walk in the sun."
Randy Carpenter
carpe003@maroon.tc.umn.edu
'72 Westy