A rare 23-window 1952 VW bus

After I came back from Irwindale yesterday, I met up with a guy who wanted to buy my pair of vintage 1956 California license plates. Initially, we agreed over the phone to meet in Lake Elsinore because he lives in Temecula. But on my way to Irwindale, he called me and told me to meet him at around noon time near my house. I felt relieved because that saves me a 100+ miles of drive to Lake Elsinore.

As expected, the guy arrived at our agreed place. The guy’s name is Ron and he is part Filipino, Chinese & Hawaiian. He never been in the Philippines but likes to visit the country. Ron was driving a Hertz rental truck that was towing an auto-transport trailer. On the trailer is a 1952 23-window VW bus that he just picked up from Long Beach pier. I was totally amazed when I saw the bus because it is a very rare Volkswagen bus. He said that he bought it from someone in United Kingdom and had it shipped to California. Originally, the bus was used in South Africa and a British national bought it and brought it to U.K.. After years of use, the Briton decided to sell it.

The 1952 bus did not have any rear bumpers, which is how it was designed back then. The nose did not have any damage, which is totally amazing because it is rare for a 59 year old bus not to have any front damage. The dashboard of the 52 looked original without any cuts—another eye popper.

It did not have any engine but Ron said that he is picking up an original 1952 engine that he is buying from another person. When I asked him if he plans to resell it after it is restored, he said that he will drive it for a while then resell it. That vehicle will surely be very expensive. It could easily fetch a cool $100,000 when restored.

This 1952 bus is so rare that it will surely be one of the main attraction in any VW show or gathering in California.

VW 1600 H-block finally restored.

Remember the VW 1600cc engine that I bought two weeks ago that looked like a piece of rusted junk? Yes, the one whose shroud was used by a squirrel as its dwelling place and filled it with walnuts. Two weeks ago, I took that engine to a VW engine restoration shop called Strictly VW in Irwindale. Today, I went to Strictly VW engine restoration shop at the city of Irwindale to pick up the engine. The two guys at the shop did a superb job and the engine looked like it just came out of the factory.

They placed new pistons, bearings and other parts in the engine. They had to replace the cylinder heads because the ones that came with it were no longer good. They have one German made clutch which I decided to buy because most of the ones being sold in the market are made in Brazil. The Brazilian clutches are good clutches and they do the job but the German made ones last longer and can take more punishment.

I also picked up the 12-volt transmission along with the engine. All I need now is to buy a certain hand tool that is used to take out and install a clip inside the transmission. I searched for two weeks for a transmission to use as a core but was not able to find an identical one to the one I am buying. I had to pay $200 as a core charge. I did not have any choice because it seems that finding a used transmission at a reasonable price is harder than finding a good engine core.

The owner of Strictly VW told me that I should only buy engines for type-1 VWs that has serial numbers that start with the letters “B” (1600cc—1970 model dual relief, single port), “AB” (1300cc—1971/73 model dual port), “AE” (1600cc—1971/72 model dual relief, dual port), “AH” (1600cc—1973/74, 8mm head studs w/ case savers).

I also read that AS41 universal engine case has a few issues and so the AS21 universal case is a better choice.

Last weekend, my son, Christian and I took down the engine from my 1963 bug in preparation for the new 1600 engine. Hopefully, I can sell that engine to another VW enthusiast. During the afternoon today, I drained the oil inside the old 6-volt transmission of my bug and I also took off the nuts around the front end of the machine. I ran out of daylight and so I was forced to continue my work on Friday.

Dishwasher dashed

Have you seen a TV Maytag commercial showing an old Maytag repairman who is totally bored because he has not been getting any calls from customers for repair? Well, I bought the message in that commercial and when I installed our kitchen cabinets, sink and counter top , I decided to buy a Maytag dishwasher. I felt confident that I bought a good brand because of its reputation. I even bought a Maytag laundry machine after buying the dishwasher.

Today, that belief and confidence on Maytag was dashed a bit because all of a sudden my Maytag dishwasher broke down. The machine does not turn on when I push the “ON” button. The buttons in the control panel does not light up when I push them. I told my wife about the problem and she said exactly what was in my mind, “This is a Maytag. It should not break down”.

I think we bought our Maytag dishwashing machine back in 2006 because I have gotten tired of doing the dishes by hand. It only took four years for it to break down. I was hoping that it would last until my kids are through with college but I guess that belief was shattered.

I pulled the machine from its spot and checked the power current that ran from the wall to the machine using a current light tester. There appears to be current going into the machine. I tested the door latch to see if there is a malfunction and the door seemed to be latching good. There is also current running through the latch switch. This made me conclude that the problem must be in the control panel and so I took off the panel and I will call Maytag tomorrow to find out how much will it cost me to buy the part.

VW 1600cc for sale in Costa Mesa

Last night while I was searching for a second VW 1600 SP/DP engine in the internet, I spotted an advertisement posted by a guy selling his dual port 1600cc that he is taking down from his 1974 VW bug. I sent him a text message telling him that I would like to check his engine. He responded and agreed to meet at 9AM.

It was raining hard this morning when I drove to Costa Mesa to meet the guy. Before leaving the house, I texted the guy asking him to give me the engine number of his bug. He did not respond and so this made me wonder why he was not giving me a lot of information about his bug.

When I arrived at the guy’s house, he told me that his bug is at a shop in Santa Ana. It puzzled me why this guy did not give me all the details of where his bug was. He jumped to his van and I followed him to a house (not a shop) in Santa Ana. Parked In front of the house was this guy’s bug. He opened the engine deck lid and when I checked the engine number, there was none marked in it.

Since there is no serial number in it, this would mean that the engine case was probably a replacement case and I do not know where it was made. I could only guess that the case was made in either U.S. , Mexico or Brazil. It is definitely not a German made.

I told the owner that I would not be able to buy the engine because I was searching for ones that were made from 1970-1974 with serial numbers marked in them.

My 1600cc B-code engine is ready for restoration

I called “Strictly VW” shop this morning to get an update on the 1600cc engine that I dropped at their shop last Tuesday. I was a bit nervous because good and affordable 1600cc & 1776cc engine cases are getting harder and harder to find nowadays.

The owner told me that the case is fine and he is preparing to restore it. He told me that one of the heads will need to be replaced because it has broken studs. I have an extra cylinder head that was given to me by the guy who sold me the engine. I told the owner of the shop that I will mail the head to him and it should arrive at his shop by Tuesday of Next week. He told me that he will be able to finish the restoration by the first week of January 2011.

I spoke to a guy over the phone who is selling a 1600 single port & a 1776 engine both for $500. He lives near Victorville, CA. That price is affordable but I kind of hesitated a bit because owner told me that the 1776 was used in a dune buggy before. This would mean that it was used on rough rides at the desert. Sand could have entered the engine causing possible internal damage. The engine number in his 1600cc engine starts with the letter H which means that it was manufactured back in 1965 thru 1967. I told the guy that I would prefer to buy an engine that was manufactured from 1970 thru 1974.

Searching a good VW engine case is hard. A brand new case costs around $700 for a 1600cc and more for a 1776. I would love to own a 1776 but my budget kind of holds me back. I am hoping to get lucky one of these days and spot a restorable 1776 at a cheap price.

VW Tranny and engine restoration

I dropped the 1600cc engine at the shop this morning. The restorer told me that he already finished the transmission that I ordered. Since I did not have a core transmission to do an exchange, I decided to pick up the tranny along with my engine once my engine is restored.

Tranny core cost $200 and so I need to find me a cheap one to use as an exchange.

My first 1600cc single port VW engine restoration

I drove to the city of Ontario, California (not Canada) and met up with a guy who owns a warehouse full of vintage VW parts. He told me over the phone when we spoke last Thursday that he has a 1600cc VW single port engine for sale. After a short haggling, we settled on the price of $180 for the long block.

When I arrived at the warehouse, the guy already has the engine ready. Instead of just a long block, he is selling me the complete engine because he did not have time to remove the shroud, alternator, clutch, etc. I checked its engine number and it appears that it came out of a 1970 VW bug.

The seller agreed that if the VW engine restorer finds a crack on the engine case, I can return the engine to him and he is willing to exchange it with another one.

I know that the engine is a bit rough and rusty. But to a vintage VW restorer, this engine can be brought back to life. When I got home and my wife saw the engine, she said, “You paid money for that!!!” She made it sound as if I got scammed. I assured her that it was a good buy and once the engine is restored, she will be amazed.

To prepare the engine for restoration, I took off everything that was attached to the long block. I noticed that the engine shroud had empty nut shells in it which tells me that a squirrel used to live inside the shroud. I will take a day off this coming week so that I could bring the engine to “Strictly VW” restoration shop at Irwindale, CA.

Infectious passion for writing

As an amateur writer, I always enjoy reading articles written by other writers. One of the writers that I follow is Jim Paredes (APO Hiking Society) whose expressive articles seemed to bring the readers' mind next to his thoughts.


Jim's passion is very infectious. Even his articles that are in the raw form (unedited) flows like a smooth river.


Below is one of the articles that he wrote.


HUMMING IN MY UNIVERSE By Jim Paredes (The Philippine Star) Updated December 05, 2010 12:00 AM

A time with others: With the author Jim Paredes are Jorenz Tanada, Steffi Tad-y, Karen Raagas, Aicca Roxas, Erika Valdueza, Jumax Amellabon, Myles Jamito
I like things mildly dangerous, and sometimes even on the semi-wild side. I like saying yes to things I am not sure about. Sometimes, when I am traveling, I like hopping on a bus, destination unknown, and sometimes end up getting lost. It beats just staying in my room.

In cyberspace, where I spend a lot of time talking with people I don’t know, I sometimes take a few risks. I like to go beyond the comfort of talking to someone from a distance, someone I can opt to respond to or not, and actually meet him or her in the flesh. Once I invited seven random people I had never met for dinner at my house in an event I called, “Seven People You Meet on Earth.” It turned out to be a great evening.

Last Friday, I hosted another such event that I called “Night of Passion.” Through Twitter and Tumblr, I posted an invitation to anyone who was interested in talking about their passion over wine after dinner. I said I was looking for people from certain types of professions or backgrounds — travelers, lawyers, businessmen, scientists, etc., but I also said I was open to junking the rules depending on the responses I got. I asked them to email me their stories from which I would chose eight people. I got close to 80 replies.

Most of the people who wrote in were very interesting and seemed like the type I would actually want to meet. But I had a limit of eight and so after I weeded out the applicants who did not seem “right” for one reason or another, I randomly chose eight people, making sure that both sexes were adequately represented.

When Friday, the 26th came, all eight showed up at my doorstep for the after-dinner tête-à-tête on the topic of passion, and everything else.

After everyone said their tentative hellos, we sat down around a table and I asked that each one of us talk about what we were individually passionate about.

It was interesting being in the presence of Jorenz, a lawyer, who was animated about his passion for stereo equipment, his recent acquisition of old and rare vinyl records, and his love for biking. And there was Karen, a call center supervisor who shared with us the many facets of her work, which include giving advice, inspiring, firmly disciplining, mothering among other things, the diverse personalities who work under her. She also mentioned that her real passion is film and that she plans to enroll at the UP Film Institute next year.

There was Steffy, 22 years old and an advocate of child education, who radiated her love for her students in the GK center. She went through quite a number of twists and turns deciding what she wanted to study in college, changing courses until finally deciding on education. Her idealism was refreshing. Erika, an astronomy buff, talked about her rather obscure favorite topic with much passion, telling us about how photos she took with her telescope were shortlisted among 2,000 entries in an international contest.

Myles, a businessman, techie and graphic designer shared the joy of his creative process making designs for small and big businesses. He described the “marinating” process in his head which leads to something good enough to present to clients, sometimes just hours before the deadline.

Aicca is a nurse doing part-time work for a music promotions company, a place where she feels may have found her real calling. More than nursing, she loves everything about her work and is quite conflicted about whether she should still pursue nursing as a career. There was also Jumax, a Cebuana mother of two who works all week in Manila and goes back to Cebu where her partner and their children live, on weekends.

Lastly there was Sanndra, a traveler who relishes every place she visits. She has traveled in many modes — from first class to tightly packed provincial buses. She has hiked up mountains, swum with the butanding, earning enough credentials to talk about the joys of travel with some authority. What struck me was her sharing that she finds inner peace, a kind of centering amid all the movement and action, when she is on the road.

Throughout the evening, we flowed seamlessly from one topic to another — from the possibility of extra-terrestrials being real to transvestites in Bangkok, to photography, Steely Dan, Zen, living in other places, climbing mountains with the elderly, life in Cebu, our Ondoy experiences, earthquake fault lines, global warming, my bizarre adventures in Kathmandu, creativity, spirituality, etc.

In the midst of the animated conversation, I glanced at the clock on the wall and saw it was already 1:30 in the morning. How quickly time flew! None of us realized the late hour because we were all lost in each other’s passion-telling.

But I had to end the party because I had an early meeting in Makati the next morning. I thanked everyone profusely for showing up, hoping hey did not find it to be a waste of their time. It certainly wasn’t a waste of mine. In fact, I was giddy at how well everything turned out.

What are the chances that eight people who don’t know each other and whose only common ground is that they share the gift of passion, can come together around one table and affect each other’s lives by talking about their interests?

When they were leaving, I felt that I had been with a great group of people who could actually become my real friends. A few minutes later, the nine of us were tweeting about the fun we had being part of this experience. Jorenz, the lawyer, offered to host another gathering if everyone was up to it. The others tweeted in agreement.

This experiment tells me that that there are lots of people out there who are “friends-in-waiting” and who could be our real friends if we made the effort to seek them out.

Jumax and Karen, in separate tweets and messages, expressed how the “Night of Passion” made them come alive, as passion is wont to do. The great Dr. Albert Schweitzer put it so well: “In everyone’s life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.”

I thank my eight new friends for a great night of magic, wonder, and the contagion of passions shared.

I will definitely do this again… and again.

My first visit at Strictly VW restoration shop

Last December 7th, I went to a VW vintage engine restoration shop at the city of Irwindale called Strictly VW. They are known in the VW industry of southern California as one of the best in VW engine restoration. I met the two gentlemen at the shop who had been building VW engines at the same shop for the past 30 years.

I told them that I am looking for a single port 1600cc VW engine. They had 3 engines in their shop: 1600cc single port, 1600cc dual port and a 1776cc. I wanted to buy the single port but they told me that a guy from Sacramento just made a deal with them that morning and that guy is bringing in an engine exchange core. I felt bad because I was ready to get the 1600 single port engine he got on display. The 1776 cost close to twice more than the 1600 and so I kind of backed off purchasing the 1776.

I decided that the best option for me is to bring to the shop an undamage VW 1600 long block engine core that they could rebuilt for me. I also need to buy a transmission because the 36 and 40 Horse power I have respectively in my 1963 & 1964 VW bugs would not accommodate the bigger flywheel of the 1600.

I had a great time chatting with the two guys at the shop and they showed me their 1956 & 1958 VW bus that were parked in front of their shop.