Oh yeah, it's on.

We have less than 2 weeks left. That's what it has come down to. The pressure of making a legitimate race car for under $500 is boiling over, but things are looking up.

It has been quite some time since I've posted anything about the car. Not because we haven't been busy, quite the contrary. We've been hard at work on many of the little issues that presented themselves early on. But primarily, we haven't posted anything recently because we were waiting for a certain significant milestone to occur, i.e. finishing the roll cage.

I don't want to forget that we had a few successes during the last month or so en route to this goal. We removed the entire front end of the car and eliminated the AC condenser. We also painstakingly rebuilt the shifter linkage so we could triumphantly shift into first gear. The cage is now nearing completion so here I am, posting again. Let me tell you how it went down.

In our last post, we ordered the roll cage. That was August 5th. It took some time to get it through the mail, it took some time to prep the car, and it took some time to figure out how in hell we were going to install a roll cage; something that no one on our team had ever done before. Hesitant? You could say that. Confused? You could say that too. So we set the pieces of the cage on the floor of the garage, and stared pensively at it for a few minutes. Umm...

That was the turning point. After a brief evaluation period, we had our eyes on the prize. After all, getting the cage in there meant that the car is more or less race ready, and more importantly, it meant that we would have a car that looked like a race car.

Long story short we spent all of last weekend cutting pipe and tack welding it into place. Then we spent the majority of last week cutting pipe and tack welding it into place. On Sunday, Gian and I set out to finish the job and got all but one piece into place, leaving us with about an hours worth of work tomorrow to get the cage in before we take it down to Detroit to have a professional welder finish the job.

One question that had been bothering us recently is whether or not this thing was going to run. It had been close to 2 months since we ripped out the majority of the electrical system from inside the car, and had yet to try to start her up mainly out of the fear that it wouldn't turn over. The answer, my friends, is a resounding yes. The GLI is alive and well.

And now boys and girls, the final countdown is upon us. Here's what has to happen:

Evaluate the brake system and make adjustments as needed.
Finalize the rear brake light wiring.
Install an emergency electrical kill switch.
Install the seat.
Mount the safety harness.
Give it a sweet paint job.

So stay tuned. This is going to be intense.

-Tube Jockeys