13. Karmann Ghia Restoration - Moving to the back

It's been a long time since the last blog on my 1971 Karmann Ghia Convertible restoration. It's not that I haven't been working on it. It's just that things have not been going so well, as you will read later, and I had to wait until significant progress could be reported.

Well, as you can see, from the picture above, the right side rear quarter went together quite well and the inner wing was also rebuilt. And so it was time to move to the back of the car and the engine compartment.

Now Colin (my friend who is doing the bodywork with me) said that from now on "the work would be easy". He really should not have said that. All we had left was the final 4 body panels and that just involved cutting out the old ones and welding in the new ones.

The four panels involved were the left and right engine compartment side trays, the rear engine compartment tray and the rear valance. 












So, as you can see, we proceeded with great confidence and cut them out. 

The next job was to fit the engine compartment lid so that the gap around it could be set and then offer up the rear valance.












With the rear valance in  place, the distance between the two rear wings was now set and we could proceed with the engine panels.

 The first job was to weld the valance to the back engine tray. These we spot welded together and at this point things were going well.

Then we tried adding the engine side trays and found that they did not fit. I had bought the rear tray and valance from VW Heritage in the UK but could find no one in the UK who had the side trays. After searching the Internet I found the two side trays in Germany and ordered them in.

At first glance they looked good but now it was apparent that they were not correct at all. My first instinct was to search again, which I did, but no one had any more panels. 




The main problem was where the tray meets the inner wheel arch. Between the flange on the tray and the inner wing was a gap of up to 25mm (1"). I started to look at pictures on the Internet of Karmann Ghia engine compartments and discovered that where my inner wings have an indentation, all of the ones in pictures were rounded and would have fit these panels. Could it be that my Karmann, being Brazilian, was different from the German ones?  What ever the answer I was stuck with the problem. These are the trays that I've got and no others are available. So somehow we've got to get them to fit.


 Just when we thought this was bad enough, we noticed something else. The engine seal runners on the side trays were in different places from the seal runner on the rear tray. The picture on the right shows the two trays upside down, laying on the bench, so that the top surfaces which you see in the engine compartment are level with each other. You can see that the seal runners don't line up at all.

We referred to the panels that we had cut out and found that the original seal runners were in the position shown on the new side trays. 


So now we had the task of removing the runner from the rear tray, extending the trays flange and then welding the runner back on again. And, to make things worse, the runner on the rear tray was also the wrong shape. So we had to make a tool and reshape the runner to match the side trays.

Finally the trays could be welded together and into the car, but this still left the problem of the large gaps between the side trays and the inner wings. Colin and I talked about this at length. His idea was to box over the hole from the top of the flange on the tray to the wing, leaving a low shelf. My idea was to cut the flange off the tray and weld a new flat piece onto the tray. We were not really happy with either idea, as it would be obvious that they were a compromise. Then Colin came up with an alternative. That was to make and fit sloping panels down from the inner wings to the trays. In effect swageing them in. 

To see what it would look like, cardboard templates were made, held in place with masking tape and sprayed with primer. They looked excellent and so Colin now had to make these very complex shaped panels. This took some time, but here they are.

It was then a case of fitting them in place and TIG welding them in. A coat of primer and the finished job looks excellent.

 Well the car is now solid, all steel and no filler and there's only a couple of small jobs to do now and then the body can come off.

You can contact me on hopcroftscoot@gmail.com

Copyright 16.04.19 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