So, the Slate price is out. And I qualify for a ton of Colorado incentives, brining my price down over $10,000! On the other hand, some $15,000 is still some $15,000 that I could better put towards more important things. And I don't have much use for a 2 seater pickup. I am trying to save fuel, but I've been combining that with addressing health issues by riding a bicycle instead. Oh well. Maybe a meteor will come crashing down on my Avalon tomorrow (hopefully without me in it) and I'll be in the market for a Slate. Or I'd try to save some money on a $5,000 Toyota with 365,000 miles on it.
A neighbor just a couple blocks up the road has a 58 VW Bug fully restored that I'm tempted to buy. $15,000 w/a freshly built 68 dual carb engine. Parts so simple you can fix anything yourself. Decisions decisions They are so light it could be towed behind our RV unlike many modern vehicles.
...and you need to! Just remember, you're doing a valve adjustment every 3k, setting dwell and or replacing points every 6k, plugs every 12k, suspension lube every 15k, repack the wheel bearings every 30k... That's not the whole schedule, but it should give you some reminder of what it was like. You probably wouldn't need to put that many miles on it, but make no mistake, there's a heck of a lot more maintenance to do on those, precisely because they are from the era of cheap labor and expensive parts. The opposite is now true, proceed carefully.
Yes - in high-school auto shop, we (team of 4) took apart & rebuilt a similar VW engine - that had a piston that had gotten punched thru due to getting speared by a valve.
