Another Ghia back on the road

Here we have the finished product!  After a good long while in the shop, this Ghia is headed home today. I know the owner is happy to have her car back. Im not sure what wheels are planned for this beauty, but I will post pictures of it when she gets them on.

Clear as glass

We’ve been here. I know its been a while since my last post, we have been busy. Paul, my painter has been out with shoulder surgery and its just been Cole and I for the past 7 weeks or so. Its been crazy. Things are settling down some and we have been working on the Ghia recently so here is an update on it. The door glass, rubber, quarter glass and all rubber parts pertaining to them are in. All of these parts are original to the car, we just polished them up and detailed them so they would look as good as possible. The door sound so tight now when you close them. Its really nice. We also have running and driving car now. Although its not road worthy just yet. Its close. Plans for this week are to have the bumpers on, windshield in and get a couple of nick knack stuff painted. Its really coming together now.

What a relief

Not that I was really expecting problems, its just a little nerve racking when you first hook the battery up to a car you just rewired. Luckily everything went very well. The ONLY problem we had was I wired up the headlight relay with two wires crossed. The stamps on those relays telling you what is what are mighty small and I mistook 56b for just 56. We tested every operation and they all work. Its a big relief. We also installed the door windows, the outer window scrapers and  the moldings. We also cleaned up the quarter glass moldings and chrome trim. We were on tap to install the quarter windows but Murphy and his laws showed up. One would think that if you purchased a “body rubber KIT” it would include everything you needed. Well, it doesn’t. So, we have a few more tid bits of rubber parts on order. Yesterday we bleed the braking system and checked for leaks this morning. All is well with that too. Tomorrow we will install the gas tank and if all goes well, maybe a short video of the first start up.

Its dashing

Today we installed the upper dash pad that we rejuvenated this week and the new lower one. The freshly painted defrost vents look really nice against the dash pad.  We also had to black out the area around the vents to give a more finished and cleaner look. The hands free microphone looks right at home beside the gas gauge. We also buttoned up a couple things with the wiring and installed the new throw out bearing. We have a quite a few parts on order that should get us really close to finishing this project up. We can’t install the engine until these parts come in, but I did get notification that they have been shipped and are on the way. Im looking forward to getting the engine back in and bringing this Ghia back to life.

The heartbeats back

Today we rejuvenated the original dash pad for the Ghia. I really wish I had thought to get a before picture. The transformation was really impressive.  I used a product from a company call CarWorx. This product is supposed to last for years. We started by thoroughly cleaning the pad with a degreaser. We then went back over that with a milder soap. Once it was dry, we applied the CarWorx per the instructions. I couldn’t believe it! It really looks brand new. Now for the engine. A complete tune up was done consisting of points, condenser, distributer cap, rotor button, plugs and wires. The valves were adjusted and the oil was changed. A new header and clutch and pressure plate rounded out the engine work. While all that was being done, we painted the engine tins to clean things up a bit. The new header will allow for a little performance upgrade while offering a slightly deeper sound over the stock muffler. After all this work was done, it was test run to be sure it all worked like it was supposed to and now its ready to go back into the car.

Getting there

We had a pretty prosperous day on the Ghia today. We were able to get the wiring pretty well wrapped up. The back up lights were wired up today and the switch tested. Its about the only electrical part that hasn’t been replaced so we tested it to be sure its working properly. Sure enough its working so the back up lights should be fine. We still need a few parts so we moved on to putting the doors on. It took 3 people to make sure they went on without any bumps or bruises but we were able to get them on just fine. They lined up pretty well. Once all the door rubber is installed we may have to tweak a few things but so far so good. The switches have been mounted and looking good in the dash. That lowered stance really looks good on these VW’s. We hope to get the engine back next week from getting a tune up and new exhaust. If we do, we should be able to hook the battery up and start testing all of the circuits. We have gotten many compliments on the color. The owner had a great vision on that. Stay tuned.

Get the lights

I was able to do a little more wiring today on the Ghia. We installed the early front turn signals for a much cleaner look than the big bulky original ones for this ’71. We also installed new headlight buckets. The old ones were in really bad shape, rusty with broken adjusters and springs just wasnt worth trying to fix them. I also snapped a shot of the wiring thus far. We are still waiting on an emergency flasher unit and a headlight relay so we can finish up the spaghetti system. The new voltage regulator came in today so we wired that up too while we were at it. Its been a long road but this Ghia has come a long way and is looking really nice.

Assembly time

As you can see, we have been able to devote some time to the Ghia this week. All of the sound deadener is in and the steering column was  painted and installed. We also painted and installed the e-brake handle and cleaned up the heater controls. The stock gauges were polished up and installed and awaiting the rest of the harness. We have a ton of parts on order, they should be here next week. Once we have those, this will start shaping up pretty quickly.

Paint day!!

Today was a big day! We painted the Ghia today and as you can see, it turned out very nice. We started this morning by masking off the floors, transmission, headliner and behind the area behind the gauges. We do this to both to keep paint off of these areas but also to keep any dirt out of the paint that may be hiding in there. Because the car is now lowered, we had to remove the wheels to and get the car up on stands to make access to the lower front end and the rockers a bit easier to paint. Once the car was wiped down and ready to spray, we applied a coat of sealer and after that was dry, we sprayed several coats of color followed by 3 coats of clear. Because we couldn’t fit the hood and deck lid in the booth with the rest of the car and doors, we must paint those next week.  Once that is done we will start the re-assembly. The color on this car is very classy looking, Its going to look great all back together.

Almost paint day

The prep on the Ghia is coming along very well. The car has been fully block sanded and most of the outside has had its final sand. We do have a little more sanding to do in the trunk and engine compartment before we are ready to pull the trigger. We only have a coulple of small areas to reprime and a couple more hours of final sanding before paint hopefully on Friday.