Volkswagen Restoration: Week 2 and 4

Okay, so Car-car, my 1972 Volkswagen Beetle has been at ROS Autoworks for a month (tomorrow), and Remi and I have visited twice since my first post about it. The work is going quite nicely and now that they’ve scraped the paint down to metal, we could clearly see just how much damage and rust is under there.

Wait, before I get ahead of myself, I’ve had a number of people ask me just what I’m having done on the car and how much it’s going to cost me. First off, here’s the job order: 

> Remove seats, glass, lights, carpet, ceiling, gas tank, fenders
> Underpaint, interior paint, body paint (Anzahl with top coat)
> Strip to metal
> Bodywork 

As for the quote, let’s just say it’s a little over the price I’d have to pay for a year of parking. I think I got a good deal, considering that I’d gotten the 6-month payment term and considering that somebody once gave me a quote for 70,000 pesos. In case you’re planning to have your bug restored, I suggest you ask for quotes from a lot of shops.

Dean Montalbo, a friend from the Las Pinas Volkswagen Club, swears by a Volkswagen specialist in Paranaque, Kuya Nanding. I wasn’t able to visit their shop, but if you’re located near the Valley 1 area, you may want to give them a visit. Another friend, Bong Reyes from Artiken Marikina, offers body work and repainting services as well, so you will want to visit him if you’re in the Cainta-Marikina-Quezon City area. He wasn’t available last June, so I wasn’t able to get a quote from him either. Everybody has his or her own suki so be sure to ask around. I didn't have much time to do canvassing, but I had a fair idea of how much it would cost since I've been asking around for a few months - libre naman magtanong, libre din mangarap.

Since no two project cars are the same – I mean, they can be from the same year, but the damage and rust wouldn’t be the same on each – my quote may vastly differ from yours. I have a banged up headlight and hood from the accident, and I have a mysterious leak where water seeps in if I park the car outdoors. So yeah, ask around.

Anyway, progress. Some bodywork has been done on Car-car. It’s been stripped to metal and we could plainly see previous work done on the body, as well as additional holes that we hadn’t noticed before. I saw that some of the existing metal patches on the body were pretty banged up (spot-welded), though hopefully, they can correct that.

Week 2 pictures:

Also, if you saw two girls carrying a pair of bumpers at Kamias, Cubao about two weeks back, that was Remi and me. I had bought a set from BatVolks member James. They were dirt cheap and I had them sent over via bus. A middle-aged dispatcher helped us fit it inside the backseat of Remi's Vios.

Also, if you've seen a Vios flashing its lights or beeping, that might be us as well. We do that every time we pass somebody driving a Beetle and we get disappointed when they don't greet back. "Dahil ba naka-Toyota tayo?"

Week 4

Bumpers from Batangas!

Before Midnight (Not a Review)

I come from a generation that had been fed fairy tales. We all thought that true love was as easy as making a deal with the sea witch and trading your voice for a pair of legs, kissing the beast to get the prince, and maybe even riding a magic carpet - shining, shimmering, fucking splendid. Then we grew up and realized that nope, it doesn't quite work that way. You have to date, kiss a multitude of beasts and frogs and find out that they were no more than beasts and frogs.

Last night, I saw Before Midnight, the last installment of the Before series. Now, the Before series follows the story of Jesse and Celine. The first one, Before Sunrise, explored magic. How two people can meet by chance, and have such a great connection. It wasn't quite like a fairy tale, Jesse didn't ride a white horse and save Celine from a dragon. (Actually, I think she's more than capable of taking care of herself, and Jesse, though he has a flair for grand romantic gestures, isn't quite the type.) The story isn't fairy tale-ish, but it is something we all wish for at some point: Meeting your soulmate - or at least, somebody who looks like him or her - on the train.

How Megaworld Got Me to Restoring My Bug

So last Wednesday (a holiday, Independence Day), I went to Kuya Nards’ shop in Buendia to get my bug a new carb spring. While at a vulcanizing shop, Remi and I noticed that we were leaking engine oil. The engine had to be removed, since the oil gaskets needed to be replaced. I also got a new generator pulley and had Kuya Ter check the distributor parts (condenser, rotor, and contact points). I also had a change oil.

Happy with having the car maintenance stuff out of the way, we went home. To a memo. From Megaworld. It basically said that I could no longer park for free outside the condo-slash-suburb’s perimeter and that I have until Monday (June 17) to move my car elsewhere. They graciously offered to give me a list of available parking slots for rent inside the gates. Just how much is parking in Rich People Ville? Here’s the breakdown:

Security Deposit: PHP 7,500

Advance Payment for 3 months: PHP 2,800 x 3 = PHP 8,400

Subsequent Payments for 9 months: PHP 2,800 x 9 = PHP 25,200

7500 + 8400 + 25200 = 41100. Forty-one thousand, one hundred pesos. For a year. Of parking. For the purposes of comparison, my house rent is 3,000 pesos.

Hung-over Sugarfree: A Sa Wakas Review

I’ve always believed that everybody comes with their own background music. There are some days that seem to follow the rhythm of Hit Me Baby One More Time or Don’t Cha – no judging – and there are times when whole swaths of your life seem to be outright rip-offs of a two-bit song. Whole sweeping segments of your life told in every lyric word, in every note, in every falsetto. This seems especially true in the happiest moments and ironically, in the most tragic as well. As we’ve discussed before, Sugarfree has chronicled those (mostly love-related) moments and have therefore provided the songs of both triumphs and tribulations for an entire generation. Specifically, mine.

When I saw the teasers for Sa Wakas, a rock musical featuring the songs of Sugarfree, I immediately went into fangirl mode. I must watch this. They better not mess this up, I said, for a thousand Sugarfree fangirls (and fanboys) will descend upon them. Our hate mail will blot out the sun! Yesterday, we watched Sa Wakas, and this is not a rage-fueled, vitriol-laced review.

Life After Dropping Out of College

My favorite probinsyana, Annabs of Suburbia, has written a wonderful guide on job hunting, an article that has inspired me to expound on it. Couple of weeks back, I was trying to write something about the UP Manila shitstorm but was too angry to finish it, but the gist of it was this: There is life after dropping out of college. I’ll not get into why people are forced to drop out, just thinking about it makes my blood pressure rise.

Anyway. So you’ve dropped out of college. Cue the dreaded question: What now? You have two options, a. find a job, or b. find a job. (Of course, this won’t apply to everybody since not all of us have to quit college because of financial difficulties, but I digress.) At any rate, finding something with which to support yourself is the next logical step.

Why One Arm is Darker than the Other

Since getting the 1972 Volkswagen FrankenBeetle out from the shop, a lot of things have changed. For one thing, I now reserve a column for ‘Gas’ in my expenses spreadsheet and as soon as BPI approves my application, I’ll have a bank account for car contingencies. I’ve also applied for a savings account with life insurance bundled in – you know, in case I de-limb myself in a horrible accident.

Aside of being partially ready for accidental dismemberment, other changes have happened. For one thing, as my mother so kindly pointed out, my left arm is two shades darker than the right one. What changes have happened?

1.     I am not ashamed to be seen in a car that seems to be held together by rust and cracking rubber. It is 41 years old, and by sheer force of will and mechanical miracles, it is running. After 3 and some years of being parked in various places, it rose back from the dead.

Ang Sakit, Ang Sakit-Sakit Na: The Valentine’s Day Sugarfree Playlist

Music plays a large role in love. Remember that scene in One More Chance where exes Popoy and Basha are stopped at a red light and a jeep pulls up next to them with speakers blaring out, “Nanghihinayang~ Nanghihinayang ang puso ko~!”? In real life, it isn’t quite as dramatic or as provident as that, though there are times when you kind of wish it worked like it did in the movies.

Now, bands like the Beatles and the Eraserheads have such extensive discographies that they have a song for every possible thing that could happen to you. Sugarfree, I’ve realized recently, seem to have condensed a boy-meets-girl-and-disaster-happens story in four albums. To check this theory, I listened to their songs and have made myself inadvertently miserable for the last four days. I can’t help it. It doesn’t matter if I’m not single, it doesn’t matter if I’m perfectly happy, and it doesn’t matter if I’m emotionally stable (I am, really, at least some of the time). It doesn’t matter. Sugarfree has collected all of your heartbreaks and distilled the mix into a misery concentrate.

This misery concentrate contains every heartrending experience you’ve ever had, from that time your crush called you dude to the night you once considered the end of the universe.

What Happened on the Way to Mini-Stop

Also, 'Never, Under Duress or Any Other Circumstances Including But Not Limited to Laser Eye Beams of Death Are You to Divulge Any of the Information Found Here to My Mother. Please.'

So last Tuesday, Remi and I went grocery shopping – because heck, supplies don’t magically reappear in the cupboards of hungry yuppies. I drove. Now, you need to know two things: One, Car-Car (the tentatively re-named 1972 Volkswagen Beetle) has been home from the mechanics’ shop since Saturday and in case you’re counting, Saturday to Tuesday = 3 days; and two, I’ve been practicing driving since Car-Car made it home, an aforementioned 3 days.

So anyway, Shopwise didn’t have Marlboro Lights. At least a third of the five people who read this blog can sympathize with this. I, with nary a stick, will have to find some other place from which to buy a pack of cancer sticks. The only place that hasn’t (yet) failed to sell me cancer stick packs is the Mini-Stop in Katipunan Avenue. I therefore took the turn right to Katipunan instead of left to go home.

Volkswagen Chronicles: IT’S ALIIIIIIIIVE!!!!

So about a month back, we made the decision to pull out the 1972 FrankenBeetle from Batangas from its then shop in Las Pinas to Kuya Nards’ shop in Buendia, Pasay. Towing a car, as I’ve heard, is a huge pain in the ass/wallet, but thankfully I got the services of Nino Ayroso and got the car from Point A to Point B without a hitch (and without blowing a fuse). I also got to save a lot since towing only cost me 2,000, a fraction of what the other towing services are extorting/charging.

Anyway, three mechanics started working on the Volks as soon as it landed in Kuya Nard’s shop. Right off the bat, they found many, MANY problems. There were a lot of wrong settings, the belt was too tight, and they suspect I have a hole somewhere in the engine that was causing the oil to leak. Everything was fixed, everything that was broken were replaced. They even gave my tires a new lease at life via a simple vulcanizing trip.

And thus after 3 years and four months, I am finally able to use the 1972 Volkswagen Beetle. It took 2 parking spots, 3 auto shops, and two towing stints, not to mention the blood, sweat, tears, and money (lots and lots and lots of money), but I finally got it where I want it. I’ve been test driving it around since Saturday, and it’s a thrill to be able to use it.

Every time I slide into the driver’s seat, I think, “They were right.” Tama nga sila. Remi, the folks at the VWCP.org forum, and the random people I’ve met who told me, “Tatakbo din yan.” After replacing the faulty ignition coil that caused our launch failure, it worked. I even had the mechanics break it in for me (i.e. use it for a week).

 Tatakbo din yan, tatakbo din yan. 

Volks Chronicles: Failure to Launch

So last Saturday, Remi, Mabie, and I were dipped in shit and rolled in breadcrumbs.

The plan was simple. We were to pick up the Volkswagen from Kuya Nards’ shop and drive it back to good old Quezon City. It’s simple enough, but if you’ve been following this series of posts, then you know that going from Point A to Point B is never simple. The simple enough plan turned into an unfortunate series of events that turned our Saturday into something Lemony Snicket may come up with.

Faint of heart, turn away now.