Progress has been really slow, over the past few months. Mostly due to my friend, Colin, closing down his business and taking a job elsewhere. So although my Karmann Ghia is still at his factory unit, he is mostly unavailable and the unit is locked up. However some progress has been made and work is continuing, if at a slower pace.
I said, at the end of the last blog, that there was only a couple of small jobs to do and then the body could come off. Well as usual, one of those "small jobs" turned out to be a big job. We were looking at the offside rear wheel arch. Which showed signs of rusting through and waves in the metal where previous repairs had been done and then covered with filler. We decided that as we had repaired all the other bad areas properly, that this area should also have the same approach. So I ordered a new wheel arch panel and we cut out the old damaged area.
We have now reached the point that all this replacement of metalwork has been for. When we started work it was immediately apparent that with so much body rot, if we took the body off the chassis, the body would simply break in half and if that happened, our chances of getting the doors to fit, after it was welded back together, was pretty slim. So the bracing bars and all of the replacement panels were necessary to strengthen the body first. So now it's time to think about removing the body from the chassis. Now in the mean time, Colin has been given some excellent engine stands (shown here in yellow) and with a little modification, we intend to use these stands to mount the body on, once removed from the chassis. This will enable the body to be rotated for the final underside welding and will also remain on the body during the paint spraying process.
So the first job was to devise a method of mounting the body onto the stands and for that we needed supports at both ends of the body.
And here they are. These heavy duty brackets were fabricated and fitted the the bumper mountings at the front and rear. Now once the body is off, these brackets can be mounted onto the stands allowing us to rotate the body as on a "spit roast".
And so, with all of the bolts removed, that fix the body to the chassis, and three strong men, the body is finally lifted off.I must admit, it does seem strange to see the body and the chassis in two different places. But this is what we have been working towards.
So now we can turn out attention to the chassis. Now both chassis pans are rotten and I had bought replacement pans some time ago and it was now time to unwrap them. To my surprise, although both had come from VW Heritage, they were quite different from each other. The right chassis pan seemed correct in every aspect, but the left one had no body mounting holes in it, no jacking point reinforcement, no captive nuts and a strange extra curved pressing that you can see on the front foot-well area. I spoke to VW Heritage and they were as puzzled as me. However they arranged to collect the rogue panel and send me a replacement. Great Service.
The next job was to remove the seat runners. This sounds like a small job, but it actually massive and very complex. Firstly you have to take very careful measurements of their position on the chassis and each of the three pieces relationship to each other, as there are no marked mounting points on the new chassis pans. Get it wrong and the seat won't fit or slide. Then you have to drill out hundreds of spot welds in order to remove the seat rails and their cross-member.
Now with the seat runners removed the old chassis pans can be cut out. I have removed the background from this picture to make it easier to see just how much has to be cut away leaving only the backbone of the car ready to receive it's new panels.
It now took hours of slow and laborious work to prepare the skeleton chassis ready to receive the new floor pans.
But things look a lot better now that the new floor pans are in place and ready to receive the old seat runners.
Runners measured for position and clamped into place.
The slow job of welding up hundreds of holes made drilling out the original spot welds.
Well that's one side done. Now I've got to do it all over again on the other side.
Well that's the progress so far, here's hoping that things will move a little faster over the winter months.
You can contact me on hopcroftscoot@gmail.com
Copyright 22.09.19 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
