A friend of mine had to clean out the cars in his backyard and he had 3 beetles to get rid of. He said I could have two of them if I fixed one for him. I fixed up the green one (rebuilt motor, cleaned up interior and holes in the floor etc.) and kept the red and yellow VW's. I had just enough time to rebuild a motor for the yellow one before it snowed. Here is a list of prices and parts I used to fix up this machine:

Engine Rebuild: (didn't do the bearings, price includes gaskets, carb kit, piston rings etc.)

Electric Winch: (used - local paper)

$200.00 (approx)

                                                                               $155.00

4 Foot blade from tractor

$150.00

4 winter tires, 2 are studded (local pick your part)

$26.00 (price for all 4, on sale)

 

 

Here is a picture of my "Plowbug" in action. You can see even from this distance how rusted this bug is. It is beyond a reasonable restoration. A closer look reveals even more body rot. Amazingly, the pan on this bug is very solid. The original factory undercoating is still intact and protecting it. Wherever you see rust on the fenders and such, it is the result of the undercoating failing many years ago. Good enough for a plowing machine or stump puller. I also use it in the summer to grade the driveway.

 

 

Here is a front shot. Since this picture was taken, I had a welder add one foot to each end of the blade to make it 6 feet wide. Now it really pushes a lot of snow.  You can see the red bug in the background. That is my wife in the car with this crazy cat we had at the time. He since got smushed on the highway. ;-(

 

The interior on this beetle is immaculate as you can see. The original dash doesn't have a crack in it. Above the drivers side window defog vent you can see a white switch with electrical tape and some wires coming from the door pillar. This is the switch I used at the time for up and down motion of the blade. Since then, I have wired a permanent switch in the dash beside the headlight switch (pictures coming soon!). The gas heater works great, and I have a booster fan in the drivers side Heater Hose. I am very warm even at -30 Celsius and usually have the window wide open. I installed a tape deck with a 5 band equalizer that I got from Pick-Your-Part for listening pleasure. Overall, I am quite comfortable while plowing!

 

Here is the switching circuit I made out of 4 Ford starter solenoids. Works perfectly. Someday I hope to mount this in a box with some connectors on the outside for a quick disconnect or plug in. Again, you can see more rust, this is mostly just surface stuff though. There is a switch mounted on the plow mount to stop the winch from lifting the blade too high and tearing off the bumper. That winch is good for around 1000 pounds so I did this just in case. The antennae on the plow is so that I can tell how high the blade is from inside the car. (NO! of course its not remote control! :-)