Tearing stuff apart

Today I had help working on the Beetle. Jon and I had decided to take apart the dash to see if that was the way to get to the fresh air box and the windshield wiper motor. It wasn't, but we figured that much out pretty quickly. I was stumped about how to get the stupid fresh air box out of the way, but eventually he found three little screws in the groove near the trunk seal and once we took them out, the fresh air box was free! I took it apart and cleaned all of the crap out of it. It was disgusting. There seems to be some sort of mold in there so it's going to have to sit out in the sun for a while. That's ok though, because the windshield wiper motor still isn't out!!

Still a mess in here...


We spent a while trying to get the original radio out of the way so that we could get to the final nuts holding the windshield wiper motor in place, but it wasn't budging and I was afraid to use too much force because I don't want to destroy the dash, the radio, or my hand, so I ended up leaving it there. The wiring looks ok for the most part - nothing seems obviously corroded, although there is one connector on the wiring for the motor that seems suspicious. I may try to install a new connector tomorrow and see if that fixes the problem. Otherwise, I'll try to find out how to get the radio out of there and then keep working on getting the motor out.

Jon also took the old license plate holder off of the back of the car. Underneath it and the grime that had accumulated underneath it was a small patch of pristine paint. It's nice to see what the car looked like when it was new and to have some more guidance on restoring it to its original color.

Today was Sunday and in Bavaria, that means no shopping. Not even for Beetle parts. Tomorrow I'm going to buy some more viscous oil (Germans seem to like 15W-40), wire strippers, and a new oil screen if they've got the right one for my bug. I'm going to try again to get the radio out and see if I can make some more progress on getting the windshield wiper motor out. I'm slowly finding my way around the confusing mess of wires in the front end of the car...of course, by the time I feel at home there it'll be time to move on to something else.