It's legal, but still under gas power. I took it to the shop this week to get a few items done one was the state safety inspection. Sort of surprised me it passed as I can't get the heater controls to blow on defrost and the ride is pretty bouncy indicating the struts are shot.
Two of the original tires had some steel showing so I had the shop install a set of the low rolling resistance Sumitomo HTR 200's. Hopefully they will give some good gas mileage while while making up my mind an ordering EV parts. Bought these at
Tire Rack, I've used them in the past and I've had no trouble finding local installers. I did not replace the wheels with anything fancy. I shopped around a little and looked on my local
Craigslist, but in the end I think am going to just sand and repaint the centercaps and hopefully find a couple more trim rings for the right side.
I installed some 1/4 x 1/2 bolts through the back of the licence plate holder and installed a nut then placed the plate on top and found these chrome acorn nuts to finish it. So these should come off easily when it is time to replace these plates with personalized 'electric' plates when it's finally converted.
The upholstery is in good shape (no rips or tears) just very dirty.
I've talked with ElectroAuto a few times in the last month and they are indicating about a 10 week waiting time on the VoltsRabbit kit. They do want to know what batteries I will be using so they can customize the charger. Most chargers (Russco, Zivan, etc.) will work though ElectoAuto said a Manzanita is back ordered and will be a longer wait time. But the dual voltage (110v/220v) charging would be a nice feature. I'm probably going with the tried and true Trojan T-125 or the US-125XC batteries. I called a couple of places here regarding the US-125XC but they didn't carry them.
It's legal, but still under gas power. I took it to the shop this week to get a few items done one was the state safety inspection. Sort of surprised me it passed as I can't get the heater controls to blow on defrost and the ride is pretty bouncy indicating the struts are shot. 
Two of the original tires had some steel showing so I had the shop install a set of the low rolling resistance Sumitomo HTR 200's. Hopefully they will give some good gas mileage while while making up my mind an ordering EV parts. Bought these at Tire Rack, I've used them in the past and I've had no trouble finding local installers. I did not replace the wheels with anything fancy. I shopped around a little and looked on my local Craigslist, but in the end I think am going to just sand and repaint the centercaps and hopefully find a couple more trim rings for the right side.
I installed some 1/4 x 1/2 bolts through the back of the licence plate holder and installed a nut then placed the plate on top and found these chrome acorn nuts to finish it. So these should come off easily when it is time to replace these plates with personalized 'electric' plates when it's finally converted.
The upholstery is in good shape (no rips or tears) just very dirty.
Well last weekend our family got the garage cleaned out and parked the VW in it while we fix a few items needed before taking it to the safety inspection station. The first item was the side marker lights. Some one snipped the wires to the back ones. I still have the bulb sockets but the bulbs fit very loosely in them and I imagine this is why the wires were snipped. It turns out there is some exemption that if the marker has a bulb and wires it has to function. But you can disable it and use it as a reflector and pass the state inspection. I could just let it go as is but I'd feel better knowing the car is more visible from the side and it will look more complete with functioning lights.
I stopped in a VW shop in my area and though they did not have any rotting Cabriolets, they did have several scrap Vanagons and the marker lights and bulb holder appear to be compatible. The Vanagon bulb holder had a flat pin connector so I just crimped on some ends.
You'd thing removing a license plate would be a pretty easy task. I did anyway, but as you can see the rear license plate was held on with self-locking nuts and two of them were turning quite freely with nothing to hold on to from the back side. So based on a really good hint in the VWVortex forums, I removed the rear license bracket holder and hacksawed the bolts so I could free the old plate and make room for my new ones. I'll need to think of a clever method of fixing that.
Lastly, I put new brake shoes on the back, I will eventually be updating the rear and front brakes once the car gets loaded with over a half ton of lead batteries. There is a store on Ebay selling a big brake upgrade for this model it replaces the stock 180mm drum with a 200mm drum from a Rabbit Pickup. Everything else is compatible including the E-brake cables.
