15. Karmann Ghia Restoration - Chassis Rebuild

At last, the chassis is back in my own workshop. Now I can start the mechanical restoration, to make the chassis ready for when the body arrives.

So the first thing to do is clean up all the areas that are still original and that means hours of wire brushing, cleaning and painting.









After removing 50 years of road dirt, the next job was to apply a coat of rust converter and then once dry a coat of "chassis black" paint. I'm a particular fan of Chassis Black as it provides excellent thick metal coverage combined with good road dirt protection and a good gloss finish






My next job is to raise the rear suspension. 
If you look at this original picture, you can see that the front of the car is high and the back is low. Now it is my intention to fit a tow bar to this car when it is done and tow my motorcycle trailer with it. This will enable me to show both the car and two of my motorcycles at vintage rallies. I had lifted the back of the car on it's suspension to see how much higher it needed to be for it to sit level before I started to strip the car and it appeared to need about 63mm (2.5").

After reading about the rear torsion arm information on the internet, I found that one notch on the inner splines actually changes the height of the car by exactly 63mm. This can be reduced by moving the outer splines one notch should I find that it's too much when I finally put the car back on the chassis.

So, after removing the rear brakes, Unbolting the trailing arms and swinging them downwards, I removed the torsion bar end caps. My next problem was how to release the tension on the spring plate and after turning the torsion bar one click, how to pull the spring plate back up again onto its rest.

Now normally, with the weight of the car on the chassis, it is just a case of using a jack to push the spring plate back up again. But with no weight on the chassis, all a jack does is lift the whole chassis. So I had to devise a simple spring compressor as shown on this picture.

This worked great, but I should have investigated the reassembly instructions further, because I should have refitted the end caps before retensioning to torsion bar.

The result was that, with the spring plate under tension and back on its rest, the end cap would not line up with its fixing holes. I then made another bad decision. I decided to make another tool to force the end caps back on.

This turned out to be a very bad decision, because inside the end cap is a large rubber mounting doughnut. The four threaded rods forced the cap on OK but crushed the rubber doughnut and damaged it beyond use. So I have had to strip it again and I am now awaiting the arrival of two new doughnuts. After reading further I discovered that what I should have done is refit the end cap before retensioning the torsion bar. But you live and learn.





Anyway I left the end caps where they were for the time being and proceeded with the reassembly of the rear brakes. 

The first job was to clean up the back plates and rustproof and paint them. Next the shoes and springs were cleaned along with the brake adjusters. The back plate was then clamped into place with the axle end caps fitted with new oil seals and then the new wheel cylinders and cleaned brake shoes could all be fitted. 













The good news was that the brake linings were in excellent condition and the drums only needed cleaning and painting.

It's now time to look at the pedal cluster and like everything on the car, it's showing it's age. So a complete strip was necessary. Some parts needed straightening and then they all needed painting and lubricating with copper slip grease.

Now with all new rubbers fitted it could be fitted back onto the chassis. Before doing that I remembered an old modification that we used to do back in the 1960's and that was to drill a small hole in the end of the hook where the clutch cable hooks on. The idea of this is that, when fitting, you hook the clutch cable over the hook and then fit a small split pin through the drilled hole. This stops the clutch cable slipping off the hook whilst fitting.

 
 Now I could fit the new dual circuit master cylinder and all of the new brake pipes. 















I decided that, with a car of this age, it was a good idea to replace all brake components and so all flexible pipes were also replaced just to be on the safe side.







Well that's it for this episode but on the next one there is big trouble with the front axle.

You can contact me on hopcroftscoot@gmail.com

Copyright 08.03.20 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