1981 White Rabbit SOLD!

1981 White VW rabbit. 1.5D engine. The short of it is that the engine came out of a car that a tree fell on. Engine has low miles around 130,000. Body had a 1.6D that the previous owner pulled out. I dropped in the 1.5 and added a kit that runs on used Vegetable oil. The veggie oil tank in the back holds about 8 gallons and is made of food grade stainless steel, then painted black. The tank is heated by a copper coil that is heated by the waste heat leaving the engine through the head and the water pump.

Interior- is in awesome shape, no rips or tears in the seats. Dash does have the usual cracks in it but has the carpet cover. This was the fully carpeted interior so the trunk space is even carpeted, except where I trimmed it for the tank to fit in nice and tight. Switch for the veggie kit is trimmed right in to the fake wood grain dash (middle switch). This is a three way switch that runs both the veggie oil and the purge system, basically go to greasecar.com if you want to see exactly how the kit works. I am using there switch and valves, but the tank and fuel filter I made.

Exterior-Body is in excellent shape! The car is not perfect, on the Passanger side there is a dent right behind the front wheel well a flat tire hit the underside of the quarter panel. You would never know it was there unless I showed you. Few little splotches of surface rust but nothing to be concerned about. Hood and Tail gate are light tan and the rest of the car is white. Looks fine though. This car is an excellent candidate for a daily driver, road trips, and or a nice paint job. Bumpers are straight, brand new tires about 20 miles on them, new battery, various new parts where necessary, timing belt, water pump, fuel screw is turned up a bit. It runs 70 mph in the flats no problem. Only trade I will consider would be this rabbit and cash for a nice, low mile 96 passat TDI Wagon (wagon only I already have a sedan grease car).

Also car was A/C but I took out the A/C parts to make the room for the veggie oil components. The A/C did work but has a leak in the system so it will not hold recharged. This is a common enough repair that if you live in the south and need a car with A/C you could have the system put back in. I have all the parts and hoses and they are all in great shape.

Few things in the mail: I have a vegtherm on the way that will be installed and run through the grease car system set up. It is a fail safe heater so you don't ruin your injection pump. Also have a set of sport springs in the way so this will have much better handling at speed. Not sure if I will have time to get them installed but they will come with the car if you want them or I will take off the cost of the springs and keep them for another rebuild. Headliner is missing, no radio.

Holiday Decor at the Straw Bale

The lights on our big trees are LED efficient fun.
If they weren't so dang expensive I would have added more.  

My ipod doesn't take the best pictures, but I think you get the
idea of the awesomeness of the Christmas tree ornaments!  

Italy large format photograph- 20 minute exposure

I realize that I haven't ever posted this photograph that Russ made on our Honeymoon in Italy.  It is a large format (4"x5" negative) image.  We were in Ferrara, Italy (where cars are not allowed!) eating dinner at a restaurant in the center of town across the street from the duomo when Russ decided to make this image.  Because it was dark it was going to be a super long exposure, approximately 20 minutes.  In not photography terms, he pushed the button to open the shutter and then 20 minutes later he pushed the button to close the shutter.  That is why you don't see me in the photograph, even though I walked thru it 3 times.  All you see are the things that were perfectly still for that 20 minutes and the lights on the bicycles that rode by.
A side note, shortly after Russ started the exposure (opened the shutter) I saw a guy balancing on a bicycle across the street (just to the right out of shot in this image).  Russ did a double take and then went to talk to the guy because he knew him from the SLC Bicycle Collective.  Crazy, right!?!  We were in Ferrara, Italy for one night and we ran into this guy who was there getting his doctorate.  

New Art in the Straw Bale House

A huge reminder of a crazy adventure we had on our spring break trip to Iceland is now hanging above our kitchen. We were trying to take a short cut from the south side of the island to the north side. At first the windy road was covered in a little snow, then a little bit of ice, then a lot of snow and ice. It was crazy...eventually our little rental car wouldn't take us any farther and we had to turn around. I turned into rain man as what was scary going up was treacherous coming down. It was about 5 PM and the lighting was perfect. The fields of moss and lichen covered lava rock were stunning with waterfalls cutting thru the cliffs in the distance. I kept mumbling and rocking "We just gotta get down. We just gotta get down." While Russ stopped the car to make the his best image of the entire trip. The negative is a 4"x5" black and white image. They don't make black and white photo paper as big as Russ wanted to print it, so he did some MacGyvering with his large format enlarger and laid the paper on the floor. He basically made six separate prints from the one negative. You will have to visit the straw bale house to get the full joy of the details in this photograph.


The striped image on the left is a drawing done by one of Russ' students of one of my students!

Metallic Green Pick up SOLD

SOLD enjoy the truck

Brady!

Rabbit pics

Before the paint

7 Months later Euro caddy conversion

Well start to finish it took 7 months.

Another Caddy saved. This one went

from just a shell to a full rebuild and

is by far the best one I have done.

1.6 Turbo Diesel, 2.5 straight exhaust

and soon to be WVO. It goes 80 no

problem up a hill, which is saying

something since top speed on these was

82 and that was going down hill.

New Turbo

So the original turbo froze some how...I think it was from not oiling properly. I had a Garrett T3 but did not have the plate that covered the waste gate. So I TIG welded a plate over it. If this turbo goes bad I have no intention of rebuilding it so I figured I would just make it work.

Truck runs great now and I can hear the turbo spin up

just fine. This does not have as much pop off the line

that the K14 did but it works.

Whats New at the House

The following are a few cars/trucks I have picked up to start some rebuilds over the next year or so. The money raised from these endevors will likly go towards new land for another house project.

ROAD TRIP!!!

Brit and I have just returned

from a road trip through Canada.

When it was all said and done we

covered 2875 miles. About 1600

of that was on waste vegatable

oil.

First we headed straight North into Montana. The plan was to go through

Glacier National Park but the road was closed due to rock slides and snow

so we traveled North again and crossed the boarder into Canada. We spent

the night in Calgary and with the intent to head into Banff National Park in

the morning. Turns out the Calgary has the largest skatepark in North America

so we headed over there at about 9 pm. The park must have been built in the

mid 90's because it was horrible.

Made are way through Banff the next few days with plenty of rain and driving.

We then dipped down back into the U.S. to vist our good friends Lesley and Joe.

Britt flew out to Texas after that to see the fam damly. Lesley and I got a wild hair

and decided to go to Whistler up in Canada to check out the down hill MTB scene.

First day the weather was great...second day was a bit rainy and with more on the

way we called it and head back to the good old U.S.A.

Sevier Bunny's

Not long ago this engine compartment was empty.

Blooming flowers and trees!

Landscaping progress at the Hopkins' Staw Bale

The weeds are filling in nicely :)

Green is green in my book...and these weeds

like to grow all by themselves.

No water necessary!

Turbo rebuild

Bunch of posting for the Vortex

GREEN PAINT!!