1990-1993 (FORMERLY 4 YEARS- NOW CONDENSED TO 3)
Jim Ratto:
Sept 1989-March 1990, No Direction
I am referring to time period between 1990 and 1994. Some of you commented on my short bit about Mason's '62 and rather than run that thread into the ditch, I thought I'd start a new one, basically about a pretty vivid time period concerning hot rod VW's and what was going on with me at the time. I apologize in advance for the onset of boredom this may cause you.
Not very relevant, but it kind of starts in December 1986 when I got my '67 Bug for Christmas, yeah same car in my garage today, almost 30 years later. It was stock height, ran chrome 5.5" wheels with '67 hubcaps, Zenith Blue, Euro-blade bumpers with short guards, P3 185/70 Pirelli's and a stock motor (except for 009 and gutted stock tailpipes). In about 6 months time the car had a 1641 with Weber 32/36 and an S&S header with dual aluminum glass packs. Early summer of 1987, with a fresh driver's license in my wallet, as the sky turned purple-orange on an early Sunday morning, I set off on a 30 mile drive, alone, to Baylands Raceway in Fremont CA for one of the VW only events held there. I had spent the previous day doing my damndest job on detailing what I had to work with, using my mom's good dish towels and Brasso to polish the chrome wheels and her white vinegar and old newspaper to clean the glass. After 6-7 hours I was proud. Anyway, that early morning drive through the riparian woodlands of south Pleasanton and Sunol, and into the warm smells of hundreds of VW waiting in line along Durham Rd (outside raceway) got my gears turning. By the afternoon I had watched cars like Tan Fastic and Dom's Dragon Slayer car rip through the 1/4. I had heard kids at high school brag about their fast VW's but I had no idea..... so from this day forward there was "Life before seeing VW's race at Baylands" and "Life after seeing VW's race at Baylands." A new mindset, and way to kill time had been introduced.
As I mentioned in my comments about Dave Mason's car, there was another turning point, the night my buddy and I sat across from each other at the pizza place we worked at, eating free cheese pizza and sipping beer from to-go soda cups with lids and straws (we were 18). We each had a copy of Dec '89 Hot VW's and were tripping out on the blue shock of Gary Berg's '67. We each found the car perfect. Both us were tired of what was going on with the VW's we saw regularly. One kid had a very low yellow sedan with the wide-5 lug copycat 911-alloys, and a clear decklid that showed off a chromed, but otherwise stock motor. Another kid had a Ford Grabber blue '69 with pink and day glow green striping and matching colors on his Rivieras. Another guy had an orange '72 Super Beetle with gold Rivieras and a stinger on his stock motor. Had none of these guys been to Baylands and seen what a VW can do? It was frustrating that all the VW guys we knew of were a bunch of guys that knew nothing about building anything that would scaring chicks or their moms (Though we did know one guy that had a 2086cc in a very rat-trap of a '64 Bug that hauled holy ass...). In any case, seeing Berg's car in the magazine, very gleamy blue, with full stock bumpers, a full-tilt 48IDA ("What are Eye Dee Ays?" "Didn't Cobras run those? Maybe Ferraris did?" we used to ask each other, as I had DRLA 36's and Frank had a Cadillac), but the thing that really set that car apart were the EMPI BRM mags.
So at this point I was making pizzas, about to take a new job, baking sourdough bread from 10pm at night until 6am the next morning. The cool thing about this new job was the money at the time. It was good, actually great. I figured in a few weeks I'd have a Kawell Turbo motor in my car and a set of those wheels like Berg's car, no problem. The not so cool thing was those hours. And what all my friends were up to while I was at work. They were out having fun. I was stretching dough in 125F bakery. And just months later, I had been part of a rocky break up after an even rockier relationship at the end of high school. I won't elaborate, but when you're young and heartbroken, you tend to be looking for some kind of direction...
So fast forward 3 months. March 1990. The job at the sourdough bakery didn't work for me. I was tired of getting home at 7am, with flour stuck to my sweat and dead tired. Everybody else was getting on socially, scholastically, and financially. I was making decent $ but never had the gumption to work on my car now. So I quit. Then one day Frank and I were hanging out at the local VW shop, just over the hill from us, known as Buggy House. If you lived in the East Bay and had an air cooled VW you knew this place. There was a great motley group that kept the place running, a big tall guy with a perm and a beard (he always changed my mind for me when I would ask for certain parts: "I need a 200mm clutch disc"/ "Stock?" /"Yeah just stock"/ "You got a stock motor?" / "It's just a 1641 with a cam and Dellortos..." / "Yep, well, listen guy, you need a Kush Lok disc, whyddya think you need a clutch already? All the horsepower is killin that disc, guy...let me get you a Kush Lok.."), then there was a big tall military type that had no idea how to speak in a normal tone or volume level. Everything he said W A S L I K E T H I S. The owner was a big tall guy that lived up the street from me, and since we were neighbors, I imagined there to be some kinship there. But he was rarely there. Then there was this guy Jerry. Jerry was then in his mid 40's and was the machinist and authority figure. He had huge hands, a tucked in VW t-shirt, a mustache and was very animated and high strung. He also swore more than anyone I had ever met. Over nothing. Anyway on this particular day, here we were, no money, just wasting our time and theirs, asking how much Super Flow heads were, can I hold a 44IDF, what do you think about CB's turbo kit, all these questions we had with absolutely no resources. Mr Kush Lok Disc was the manager, and after about the 16th dumb question from me, asks me "You wanna work here? You're in here often enough you oughta be on payroll." I thought he was joking, and I didn't know what to say. So I said "I'd work here." That was all I said. So he explained to me that the boot camp guy was going back into the marines and they needed somebody. And could I start tomorrow?
Well of course I could.
By that summer, I was defined by that job. Before I worked there, I thought I knew VW's. Within about 18 minutes of my first day, I realized I knew next to nothing. There were 3 phones that could and would ring every second between 9am and 6pm. The only questions I could answer were the shop's address and what time we closed. Otherwise I was useless. Everything, I had to go find somebody to re-ask the question. "Do we have VW 412 wiring harnesses?" "Do we refill nitrous bottles here?" "Can you line bore this guy's Bus case? In the car?" But being ignorant and green didn't discourage me. I heard Jerry talking about bearing clearances and initial advance and Weber main jets and that's what kept me going. Besides, I was busy and that kept my mind focused and not thinking about the void of the breakup. Full steam ahead. I was even memorizing a few part numbers... 111 298 051A, muffler clamps.... 111 198 007A, 13-1600cc gasket set. Too bad people didn't just didn't just need those two things. I would look like a pro already.
At night Frank and I would hang out. We still hung out at the pizza place we had been employed at the previous year. We could walk in the back door, sneak beer and eat cheap. Or we'd drive around and talk about the fast VW's we'd have in a few months.
At work, the shop had two glass display cabinets. One was full of repro vintage crap that didn't interest me in the least. Who cared about flower vases on your dash and mudflaps and stock horn buttons? The other case had the good stuff. A counterweighted crank, a box of Rimco modded VW rods, a black-oxided VW lightened flywheel and a set of DCOE Webers for a Rabbit. For the longest time I thought the crank was stock 69mm, which I already had in my car. Then one day the manager said "Hey Jimmy, if you get some time, will you take that stroker crank and those Rabbit carbs out and dust them? They look like crap." Wait a minute.. Stroker? That crank was a stroker? So of course.... "What size is that crank?" / "It's standard-ten." WTF does that mean? "No what stroke is it?" /"Oh it's a 74mm some guy ordered and never paid or picked up." Really...? Hmmm.....
Part 2 tomorrow
Helge/DFL:
:-) Can`t wait till tomorrow... :-)
ida2332cc:
awesome read thanks. cant wait till tomorrow
Jim Ratto:
April-June 1990, the Dream Job, or Was It?
Over the next week or so, I spent my free time walking by the glass cabinet with the performance stuff in it. That set of rods, that crank and the flywheel were going to be mine. I had no idea how all this was going to work, but it seemed real easy in my head. Buy this stuff, get my case and heads machined, spend a night putting it together in a night and stick it in the car and be done with it.
I don't remember exactly how much the crank and rods were, but we got a decent discount as employees. I think I got the 74mm DMS crank, the 12lb flywheel and the rods for under $400. We stocked Engle cams, W100 through W125. Being 19 only the biggest would work. Back then I think I paid $45 for the cam. So what was left? I planned on stripping my 1641 down and cannibalize it for the dual relief case and the 044 Magnum heads it was made of. The 1641 ran dual 36DRLA Dellorto's, which I thought for sure would work fine. One thing I really, really wanted was a true competition merged header. In the 3-4 years I had owned my '67, I had run many different exhausts, but never a real merged header. Nobody I knew ran a merged header. Only the baddest rides in the magazines had merged headers. Only the bad boys seemed to not give a crap about losing heat. I wanted that. Plus that long collector poking out from under the apron looked the business. What diameter would I run? Who cares, just get one.
So the build process seemed super simple in my head. It was as if everything would just go by the book, and free time would just be there for the taking. I'd give the parts to Jerry to machine and hot tank, he'd blow them off, and then I'd take boxes of the stuff home (in my Fiat X19) and that night screw it together. Nothing could be more of a fantasy.
I eventually pulled the 1641 out of my car, which stranded the Bug with its ass in the air, on jackstands. I tore the engine down, now seeing really no value in the poor engine any longer. But just a year or so before, I took great care building it, my first VW engine build. I tore through the top end, with concern for only the heads and case. Stripped the bottom end, stacked the heads and wrapped them in a black trash bag, stuffed the case halves in another bag and the next day brought them to work with me. And on that day, nothing else mattered, other than the heads and case getting machined and cleaned. In my mind, by my 10am donut break, it should all be done. Never mind the full schedule the shop had. Or the cases lined up needing case saver inserts. Or that my sole concern at 19 wasn't a concern to anyone else at the shop at all. Once I got to work, I carefully placed the heads and case by Jerry's mill. ("He'll know what to do, and since they're mine, he'll do an extra careful job, Jerry likes me"). As the morning wore on (and I never heard the mill on), I was making up reasons to walk back to the machine shop and would sigh when I saw my stuff just sitting. Didn't I forget my pen in my car? Yeah probably. I better go check. Case and heads sitting there, same spot. I'm tired of wearing my sunglasses on my head, I'll got put them in my car. Case and heads haven't moved. By lunch time nothing had happened. And Jerry's taking lunch? How in the hell is he going to find time to do all my machine work?
At 3pm stuff started happening.
From the front counter, I could hear Jerry, now pretty upset, in the machine shop: "Who in the F*%K left this g*dam* crap in my f%*cking way? I want to know which sumbitch stacked all this SH%T right in my F**cking way!" Oh crap. Throat swells up, mouth goes dry. This is going to be torture. I hear the manager say "Wasn't me, I'll ask Jim if he put that crap there."
I didn't understand what the big deal was. I needed the stuff machined, so it could be like the big engines in the magazines. Everybody knew big engines needed machine work. And now that I worked at a shop, it should be no big deal. You just got your machine work done. Right?
Problem was- I had no idea what "machine work" was.
The case I had intended to use was a dual relief with 10mm head studs and 14mm OD inserts (in 1990 I didn't know what any of this meant). Oh and being 19, only one bore size was going to work for me: 94mm.
So once Jerry came back to Earth after his tantrum about my crap in his way, he summoned me to the mill, and asked me "So what in God's name are you wanting me to do to sh*t? Who's garbage is this anyway?!?!"
"It's mine. I'm building a big engine. A 94 by 74. Can you machine it? Now?"
"What are you doing? A 94 by what? With this fu*cking garbage? Huh? What?"
"Yeah remember? I bought that crank? And the rods?" (Didn't the whole world care as much as I did about my engine plans?)
"You're not building ANYTHING with this junk case. Did you even check the line bore? Did you see these godd@m 10mm case savers? Where in the f*ck are you gonna bore this thing? You think you can just jam a godd@m 94 barrel in there?"
I just stood there, staring at the floor. I didn't know what the issue was, but obviously, things weren't going the way I hoped. Aw man, it was mid-week there was a slim chance that the stroker motor would be in my car and running by the looming weekend.
That night, out driving around in the Fiat with Frank, I spilled the beans. I was totally dejected, what seemed so easy in my head had turned into a fricking nightmare now. Working at a VW shop was supposed to make my life easy. No shipping parts, cheap prices and all the advice in the world was supposed to be available in unlimited quantities. But it seemed the only things unlimited was flaring tempers and me looking stupid. After hearing this Frank said "I have a case. Remember? The Hecho En Mexico Case?"
More later.
Below: a picture of Frank and my '67, December 19 1989, on our way to Los Angeles via CA Highway 1. This is south of Big Sur but north of San Simeon, the car was lowered, had the 5-1/2" chrome wheels, copy 356A hubcaps (no emblem) missing its decklid and a stinger exhaust.
vwhelmot:
Great story.
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