2. Karmann Ghia Retoration - The strip begins

Well the stripping has begun on my 1971 VW Karmann Ghia convertible and the more I uncover the worse it gets, although that is no surprise. On every restoration that I have done, when I've started to pull them apart they have always revealed hidden disasters.

As mentioned in my previous blog, I had decided to do the tow bar first. Well as usual, that didn't work out and although the car has now been measured for the tow bar, there is no further progress in that direction. So I decided to get on with the rest of the project.

The first thing was to try and find out how far the rust has spread under the paint. So I set about the car with a very heavy duty wire wheel mounted on my angle grinder and wherever I saw signs of rust I attacked it with the wire wheel. This disclosed holes around the headlights and around the front air intakes. Obviously both sills have gone and, now the bumpers are removed I can see considerable rust on the rear panel.

Of course the other problem with stripping a car that is this old, is that many of the screws and bolts you try to remove simply snap. Even the bigger nuts and bolts were seized solid. Fortunately some of my special tools came in handy, particularly my air wrench and some special sockets, that I was given for Christmas, that have a conical cutting inner shape and dig into old rounded off bolt heads. Many of the tiny pozi headed self tapping screws, holding in the interior trim just would not move and I had to resort to cutting a slot in them with the Dremel and then using a straight cut screwdriver.

The next stage, after removing the bumpers, was to take off the bonnet and boot lids and strip all of the furniture off them. This was quite easy compared to items that had to withstand the weather on their fixings. However, removing the battery from the engine compartment revealed the inside of the near side wing and this was a surprise. There were three rows of small holes drilled the length of the inner wing about 60 holes in all and these all had small amounts of filler poking through the holes.These holes combined with the huge amount of filler that I found on the outside of the rear wing has convinced me that this car had had a near side accident at some time and that these holes were used to pull out the wing as best they could. If you click on this picture of the outer wing, you can see just how deep the filler is on this side.

Well, with all of the outer trim, lights, badges etc. removed, it's time to look at the interior.
So "out with the seats" - mistake!!!, I'll explain that in a minute. The drivers seat slid out easily and, apart from needing a new foam base, revealed that it had a seat heater fitted in it (not standard). The passenger seat was not so easy and required a friend to pull it whilst I pushed with both feet from the rear, but as you can see, it did come out eventually. Now the carpets and door sill trims can be removed and reveal just how bad things are underneath. Well the front of the floor pan is OK and the off side rear section is too, but the near side rear floor pan is only held together with the sound deadening material stuck to it.

I now decided that this was a good time to remove the windscreen, but first I felt that it would be easier if I took the steering wheel and column out first. Not too difficult but someone has already replaced the ignition switch before and all of the wires have butt crimp connectors on them and will not withdraw through the hole in the dashboard. So I've had to cut them. That done and with the steering coupling removed, it all came off quite easily. As did the padded top on the dashboard, which is only held on with plastic nuts and will have to be replaced.

Now to reveal why taking the seats out was a mistake. It's time to remove the windscreen! I know the correct way to do this. You sit on the seat, put your feet on the glass and gently push it out forwards with someone to catch it on the other side. But I had already removed the seats!!! So I decided to try a different approach, as the screen rubber seemed quite soft and I had no one here to help me. So I tried gently levering the rubber out from the front. I should have known better and you know what's coming. Yes I broke the windscreen. !!!****   Idiot. The surprising news is that I found you can still buy one, but I could have done without the expense.  Another look at the floor pan revealed that the heater channels will also need repairing.

I don't know if you've seen the episode of Wheeler Dealers on TV, where they renovate a Karmann Ghia? But if you did, you will recall that Edd had to repair a large strange hole under the dashboard that he informed us once held an auxiliary heater for the USA. Well mine has got the same hole (neatly covered with masking tape), so this will also need to be repaired.

Now for the doors. Removing the handles and the door card is easy, just a couple of philips screws on the handles and then unclip the card and lift and off it comes. But getting the window glass out is a different matter.

To remove the window on a VW beetle, you simply unbolt everything and draw the glass out through the bottom of the door aperture inside the car. Not so with a Karmann Ghia. I downloaded a manual extract to tell me how to do it. First you have to remove the chrome and rubber strip on the top edge of the door. Then, looking down the hole, you can see two rubber buffers. These also have to be removed. Neither of these jobs are easy as you are literally working down the slot. But the next bit is worse. You then remove the window mechanism (that's easy) and that leaves the window with the metal plate fixed to the bottom of it. The manual then says remove the window upwards through the slot. This is almost impossible. I suppose that when the car was new and things hadn't rusted then the window and plate might have fit through the slot. But now, with age, it is a nightmare trying to lever the rusty metal plate through a slot that has now distorted with age and now has wavy internal edges. I was certain that I was going to break the windows, but by some miracle I didn't. However the thought of getting them back in again, when the doors have nice new and soft paintwork is somewhat worrying.

My next task will be removing the convertible hood. I've already taken the rear window out, which was just a couple of bolts and so I suppose the next thing to do is unbolt it and see what happens. I would like to remove it in one piece so that the trimmers can see how it should be when I take it to them. But I can also see that there are some repairs necessary on the frame too.

But more of that next time.



You can contact me on hopcroftscoot@gmail.com

Copyright 29.03.17 all rights reserved.


My Other Blogs:
1961 BSA A10 Super Rocket Motorcycle:
http://60sclassicmotorbikes.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/before.html

1961 Ariel Arrow Super Sport Motorcycle :
http://60sclassicmotorbikes.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/1961-aerial-golden-arrow-restoration.html

Miniature Land Rover Defender:
http://miniaturelandrover.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/1-miniature-land-rover-defender-idea.html?view=timeslide

Motorcycle Trailers / Caravans:
http://motorcycletrailersandcaravans.blogspot.co.uk/2018/01/1-motorcycle-trailers-problem.html

1. Karmann Ghia Retoration - The project

Having restored several vintage motorcycles and built a miniature Land Rover, this is my biggest project yet and looks to be a major challenge. Looking at the photo above, the car looks in fairly good condition, but you will see from the photos that follow that this is not the case. The car requires significant body repairs and chassis repairs and I estimate that, as it took me 2 years to renovate classic motorcycles up to concours standard, then this project is likely to take up to 4 years. So this is going to be a long blog.

My history regarding VW's is that I left school, at the age of 16, and became an apprentice motor mechanic at Beardalls of Nottingham, who were at the time the VW main agents in the area. During this time I worked on all models of VW's and after leaving for a short time to work on other makes of cars, I returned to the same garage as a service advisor. So despite it being a very long time ago, I'm still pretty familiar with how the car works.

So before I start to strip it, let's take a look at what I am faced with:

The chassis is in bad condition and needs new floor pans welding in. This will mean removing the whole body from the chassis and then cutting out any rotted panels and replacing them with new ones.








Of great concern are the rear quarter panels, particularly on the near side. These have rotted away. But of greater concern is the fact that this is the last point at which the body is connected to the chassis. Everything rear of this point, where the body continues to the back of the car, simply hangs over the gearbox and engine compartment.





The result of this is that when I lift the car and take the weight off the wheel, the gap between the doors and the body widens. Equally, when I drop the car back down onto its wheels, the gap closes again. This means that the car is literally bending and when I come to welding new quarter panels in place, I will have to ensure that I support the back of the body to close the gaps before welding.

The rest of the body isn't much better.

So I'm under no illusion how big a job this is or how long it is likely to take.

The good new is that the 1600cc engine starts and runs OK. Two jobs that I've had to do right away are the petrol tank and the front brakes.

The petrol tank had a bad leak and the smell of petrol was significant whenever you approached the car. I removed it and found that the underside of the tank was perforated so badly that I had to send it away for refurbishment and then had to order a new pipe connector which was also fractured. Well it's back now and looks great, but there is no point in refitting it, as it would just have to come off again.



The next problem was the front brakes. These had seized completely and you couldn't turn the front wheels at all. If I'm going to work on this car, I must be able to roll it. So as a temporary measure, I removed the two seized front brake callipers and simply placed them on top of the front chassis, without disconnecting the brake pipes. This also revealed the front discs, which are so badly corroded that they will have to be replaced.


My intention, when this car is fully restored, is not only to show it at rallies but also to use it to tow my motorcycle trailer. This will enable me to enter the concours competitions for both bikes and cars. This however means that I will need to fit a tow bar on this car. This creates two more problems; firstly I have searched the Internet and cannot find a tow bar  available. So I will have to make one. Secondly, I may need to raise the rear suspension a little to accommodate the tow bar. If I am going to do this, I would rather do it now before the car is renovated to avoid possible damage to the new paintwork. Also I need the full weight of the car on the suspension to set the correct height. So I can't commence the stripping process until the tow bar is fitted. So strange as it may seem, that is my next priority.

You can contact me on hopcroftscoot@gmail.com

Copyright 03.03.17 all rights reserved.


My Other Blogs:
1961 BSA A10 Super Rocket Motorcycle:
http://60sclassicmotorbikes.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/before.html

1961 Ariel Arrow Super Sport Motorcycle :
http://60sclassicmotorbikes.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/1961-aerial-golden-arrow-restoration.html

Miniature Land Rover Defender:
http://miniaturelandrover.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/1-miniature-land-rover-defender-idea.html?view=timeslide

Motorcycle Trailers / Caravans:
http://motorcycletrailersandcaravans.blogspot.co.uk/2018/01/1-motorcycle-trailers-problem.html