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So I fixed the seatbelt on my wife's 90 the other day. If you recall, it broke the day after completing a clutch job.
This leaves just the parking brake (broken little triangle thing on the axle) and the AC system (in the middle of R134a conversion, and new compressor install) to make the car complete. Oh yeah, and the sunroof headliner. I need to go read the FAQ about that one. I just need to remove the old one and put in the nice one, and if I'm lucky I'll find the answer to what's worn or missing for pushing down the pop up spoiler at the front of the sunroof. That thing hangs up when closing it. As they all do.
So I went down to a local shop, an excellent shop here in CT that has a pretty good collection of parts cars, and rare for this area, the space to keep them. Everything sitting out back from a 82 245T to a crunched late 944 to a couple of completely disgusting unsalable 855's. (How do people DO these things to their cars? Duct tape and garbage bags over the sunroof? Please!)
So I find a 90 745T, same color as my wife's 745GL, and the body is just about perfect. I go in and pull out a good seatbelt receiver... and then decide I need about 10 more things off the car.
Came back the next day and bought the car. They wanted the Hydras, unfortunately. I brought some of my wheels over and we swapped them on. Battery's stone cold dead but reported that the car drove in. Hooked up the jumpstart box, and it cranks, albeit slowly. No fire. Found out power stage had been yanked. Found a good one in a 940. Plugged it in, car started instantly.
Did I mention that it has 272K on it? Yeah, but it felt like it couldn't have been a mile over 250K. No, actually it ran pretty well and didn't overheat. It was low on coolant and supposedly featured "every conceivable turbo oil leak." Typical I suppose. We topped things up... the oil dipstick was alarmingly rusty (is that bad? ya think?) but no smoke, no steam, no fires. Borrowed a dealer plate for the drive home. Took the long way to avoid the highway for most of the trip. Did I mention that I had stolen the seatbelt receiver? Yeah. My right thumb was plenty tired by the time I was home, holding that down there. No brakes to speak of, made the drive interesting. Actually, the almost-stall as it stopped every time, was more interesting, but fortunately it didn't. As it turned out, it wouldn't have restarted: the Interstate was dead and wasn't interested in taking a charge.
So here's the plan at this point: it'll yield a complete black interior for my wife's car. Instead of teal and tan, it'll be teal and black. Nice shape except, of course for the driver's seat. Thinking of having that repaired at a local upholstery shop. I want it to be right for the car's 300K anniversary.
The hood and grille are spoken for. The correct rims are gone. Everything else is gonna be up for grabs, either here, on Turbobricks, or Ebay. Email me with needs. Reach me at myvwsgotme (at) snet (dot) net and let me know what you're in need of. The tan interior of my wife's car will be sold off. The black I'm keeping. I'll have pics of everything as it comes out.
One dies so that many others may yet live!
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::: Rob Bareiss, New London CT ::: 92 244 M47 211K ::: 90 745GL M47 273K ::: 88 245DL AW70 190K ::: 84 242DL Project ::: 70 VW Bus ::: 70 VW Pickup Project ::: 71 VW Notchback :::
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