(ED: We’re having an old Beetle sub-theme this week, so this is the first of several “Bug Tales” you’ll be seeing)
A funny thing happened to me and my ’65 VW on the way to work one day. But first, how I got there.
Typical fate of an old Bug in the Northeast
These are not photos of my Bug, which is long gone.
I grew up and went to school in the Northeast, so my idea of normal was that cars rust out before they wear out, and there’s nothing on the road older than ten years that’s not either a total junker with holes in the floor or else a garage queen taken out only on warm summer days.
Then I moved to the Northwest and couldn’t believe my eyes. Old Car Heaven! Nash Airflytes getting groceries! So once we settled down in Oregon and I needed a commuter car, it was the Bug for me. They were everywhere! I learned to drive on my Dad’s ’61, and my first car was a red ’63 sunroof that I bought with summer job money.
So I hit the ads and there was just the thing, a red ’65 down in McMinnville. 100% rust free! And cheap! I drove it a little and bought it. Drove it home 20 miles to Forest Grove thinking about how I’d restore it someday. When I got there, sniff-sniff, what’s that burning smell? A front wheel bearing was cooking. Damn. Not having tools for that sort of work, I took it to the funky local VW shop, of which there were many back then.
They fixed the bearing, and while they were at it I had them replace some of the rubber bushings that were cracked and splitting. I picked it up and it drove horribly! Wouldn’t even track in a straight line. I took it right back, they put it up on the lift, and everything looked fine. Then someone noticed it had a 14″ bus wheel in the right front! 15″ bug wheels everywhere else. The bushings had been so shot it didn’t matter before. They found a 15″ wheel and tire from the junkyard out back and all was well with my rust-free bug. This was the first of many lessons to come, in the ways other than rust that cars get old and die.
Anyway, eventually the speedo quit. The cable was still turning, so I picked up another from the junkyard and stuck it in. Easy, since the back of the instrument panel is right behind a cardboard cover in the trunk. The dial glass is mounted into the dash, so it’s just the bare-faced gauge that comes out.
Early the next week I come out to the car, head to work, and the speedo needle stops at about 20. Why? There’s a bee in there! Buzzing around! When the needle came up it smacked this angry bee right in the ass and stuck there. Once I got out on the highway and up to about 60, the needle finally had enough force to snap past the bee. Then on the way down, same thing. In the meantime this bee is buzzing around in there, mad as hell. Kinda like one of those Ant Farms in the dash, only with an angry bee and the needle.
How the hell did it get in there? There’s an opening in the dial face for the turn signal bulb, and this one had lost its little green gel for some reason. Out in the junkyard this bee must have flown in through there and made itself at home.
Anyway this was quite entertaining for a few days, until finally the poor little bee gave up the ghost, stuck behind the needle pointing at 25. Oh well, I’ll get him out of there this weekend.
Next day I get pulled over for speeding in Hillsboro, 45 in a 35 (it’s a state highway, just slow right there, you know). I showed the officer the bee stuck in my speedometer, and promised I was going to get it fixed the next day. He said, “Well that’s a new one” and let me off with a warning. Thanks Mr. Speedo Bee!
Thanks Mike, for sharing this funny story. It really brings home to me what a simple little car the VW was, like a big toy. Figuring out how it all worked was a never-ending source of fun and frustration.
You have probably just started a family discussion. A deep and unhappy discussion. I have a complete 63 stashed away and think I will have to get it. Unfortunately, I also have a 57- 210 and a 68 year old back that hold down the progress. I also have about 1.75 40 horse engines. I need to get to work.
Beetles are too much fun to let it die in my old age.
Hmmm, this bee story reminds me of the spiders (/spider webs) blocking the fuel tank vents on a number of different car makes over the past 10 years . . . they don’t teach you anything about that kind of thing in engineering school!
And in other parts of the world, there are even worse problems – birds attacking windshield molding and monkees removing wiper arms and so on . . .
Un-bee-lievable! 😀
(Sorry.)
This reminds me of my wife asking me what I could possibly have been doing in her car that I managed to get coffee into her speedometer. (Enjoying a tasty beverage, obviously.)
Better that it stay in the speedo than the alternative. My grandmother had a bee fly in the window one summer day. It flew down the back of her neck and suddenly there was one fewer 51 Kaiser in the world.
While motorcycling, I once had a yellowjacket hit me in the only exposed skin, (the soft part of my throat) crawl under my collar and down my back, and sting me on a shoulder blade.
Impromptu roadside strip show!
I am cursed with living in Upstate NY. It can’t even snow a trace without a crap load of salt being thrown on the roads. I have to put my 1961 Falcon and pristine 1987 S-10 away for at least four months, starting soon.
Ah, critters and vehicles…A customer of mine once had his boat die and be towed in less than a week after I gave it a full tune-up. No spark. Hmmm….Pull dist cap to find spider remains in the breaker points! I still get a chuckle out of it to this day. And it proves a reminder of how little it takes to bring a rig to a grinding halt, could happen to an old VW just as easy! (Whew! There’s the VW tie-in)
The car in the above illustration looks like a ’63 or thereabouts, based on:
-bigger turn signals
-Wolfsburg crest at bottom of “hood”
-small side windows.
My dad had a ’65 and that year they’d made the side windows larger, also the divider between the ventipane and the window became a little slanted.
The Wolfsburg crest disappeared after ’63 I think… Someone who knows more about V-bubs than I do can set the record straight here.
Yes, even though it’s listed as a ’65 in this article, which is where I got the picture (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Beetle_in_Mexico) I think it’s a ’62, the last year for the Wolfsburg crest, first year for the plastic taillights.
VW year-spotting is always fun. I was pretty good at it back when I was driving them. Here’s a list: http://www.vw-resource.com/years.html
I once owned a pair of guaranteed unbreakable titanium eyeglasses. One fine summer day I was driving my 79′ Bus around a corner in the country with the windows down. A bee flew right under my left lens, I instinctively slapped it away. And off went the glasses to be smashed to little bits under the back tire. but they lived up to the guarantee and replaced them! So thanks bee for new glasses!
the old fashioned 1/4 vent window used to be good at redirecting flying wildlife into the car unfotunately once in they dont leave easily and its kinda distracting haveing stinging insects orbiting ones head while driving. Isnt it great all the hazards air conditioning saves us from now.
Nearly wrote off the bosses Honda Accord a few years back thanks to a bug. Was driving home at night, noticed a large dark smudge move on the headliner above me, flicked on the interior light, which blinded both me and the cockroach… Most bugs (of VW and non-VW variety) I can deal with, but cockroachs, nooooo. Ended up with the Accord at 90 degrees to the road, the rear end in the grass verge and me standing beside the car looking for the roach. Turns out sunvisors make fantastic roach-swatters…!