Saturday 22 January 2022

21. Karmann Ghia Restorations - The Doors

 

Well it's been a very long time since my last blog and progress has been very slow, mostly due to Covid lockdown. But I am finally making progress. As I mentioned on my last blog, my next job was to weld new pieces of metal onto the kickboards under the rear seat. This was done and painted and looked OK. 

I was then looking at my new wheels and the wheel well at the front of the car and decided to try one of the new wheels into the hole. Well surprise surprise, it didn't fit! The new wheel and tyre being bigger would not go down into the well and the horn support bracket and jack clamp all got it the way. Well there was nothing for it but to remove both brackets and then panel beat the inner wings on both sides to widen the wheel well. 


That done I could then try the new wheel in the well and find a new position for the jack clamp and weld it back into place. I then had to design and make a new horn bracket and try that in place with the horn attached to ensure that it would not foul the spare wheel. Designing the new horn bracket was more complicated than I had expected as I had to ensure that I could adjust it's position, with the horn on it, with the spare wheel in place. This involved drilling a hole in the bodywork and bolting the new bracket in place, then turning the bracket until everything cleared the wheel. Once in the right place, the bracket could be welded in place. The bolt could then be removed and the hole welded up again. But there it is, done.


Now the job I have not been looking forward to. The doors. Inspection of the doors showed rot at the bottom of each door, but this only required plating and welding. The main problem was down the slot on the top where the window passes through. Just inside this slot are two plates, one on each side. These plates carry 7 rubber buffers, that fit either side of the window to stop it rattling. The holes that carry these buffers had rotted away. I had no choice but to cut open the top of the doors and make new plates. Here you can see the door cut open and one of the new plates held in place ready for welding. I was lucky when making the plates that my small press was just wide enough to do the small bend along the top edge. The holes that you can see in the new plate for the buffers were drilled right through with the door. The other holes, only in the new plate, are for welding through to hold the plate in place.

The top of the door then had to be carefully welded back on again and refinished to a smooth condition. The whole process then had to be repeated for the other door. 








The whole process took days  but in the end the doors were fit to spray and use.




Finally the doors could be fitted to the body to see if they still fit and amazingly, they do!! I then had to look at the chrome trim fixing holes down the side of the body. Now the ones in the doors were still there but most of the ones on the replacement body panels were missing. So, to get them in the right places, I used a laser to project a straight line onto the side of the body, passing through as many holes as possible and then marked and drilled the new ones in place. It's interesting to note that the indentations on the replacement panels, for the holes, were all in the wrong places.



 I could now refit the rear boot lid and that just leaves the bonnet (Hood) to be fitted and the body can go off for paint.

So, I have actually booked the body in for paint in two weeks time. 

Now having booked that, it has now occurred to me that, as I had so much trouble getting the spare wheel to fit, will the new wheels and tyres fit under the wheel arches?? So my next job is to fit the body onto the chassis and try the wheels in place. FINGERS CROSSED!!


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