New Owner - 1973 Karmann Ghia Convertible

[CiderGuy]

Fantastic thread, keep posting your work on this this wonderful build. Great pictures, very easy to follow.

[ScottDoonan]

Looking good........
_________________
If you take time to do it, do it right and don't be so damn cheap.....🤙🏻

1959 Karmann Ghia Cabriolet (current restoration)
1965 Porsche 356 SC coupe
1967 Volkswagen Convertible Beetle
1969 Porsche 911E Targa 3.2 twin plug
2006 Porsche 987 Rüf 3400K Prototype #2 of 2

[DorianL]

I almost enjoy the writing more than the pics and reading...

[HardwayVW]

[sunsattva2004]

Nice ride you all have!! I just bought a '73 coupe and am looking for any good leads on restoration. I'm beginning the stripping down of the car today to get it ready for paint and body. Any advice is appreciated.

[HardwayVW]

Congrats on your new KG Sunsatta! The best advice I can give with any restoration work is to have a plan. Don't just dive in and start taking things a part. You will quickly become overwhelmed, your 2 car garage will fill up to the point that a bicycle will no longer fit, and you may get burned out before the project gets off the ground. Depending on the condition of your car the first thing I would say is get it running and driving. If it already is, drive it! As you put some miles on it you will figure out what it needs and address those items, obviously safety issues come first. Beyond that you can attack other cosmetic items. Sounds like you are stripping the car down in prep for body work. Start a build thread and look at the many others on here. As always, we love pictures!

Speaking of pictures, here is my KG. Based on the short drives I have taken in it the car still needs attention in the steering and handling department. At this point I have lost a lot of enjoyment working on and decided to hand it over to a local VW shop. It was much safer to have it flat-bedded to the shop so on it went. I gave the shop a list of things to look at and should know more next week.

[Bobnotch]

[HardwayVW]

It has been a very productive week with the KG. As I indicated before I had it flat-bedded to a local VW shop last Friday, in this case, Motor Mania in Austin. They came highly recommended and they were the only shop I could find that would work on air cooled VW’s on the north side of town. My to-do list for them included looking at the steering and front handling, installing a new starter and Bosch hard start relay kit that I dropped off with them, and see about why the engine still felt very under-powered despite all the work I had already done. Roger at MM kept me in the loop throughout the week but I must admit I was surprised about the diagnosis on the steering. He said “there is nothing wrong with it that we can find, we have driven it quite a bit, and that is about as good as it gets” Needless to say I was shocked as I had expected the car needed a new steering box and was willing to pay up to have one installed. Roger said he could install a new one for me but I probably would not be happy with the result. Plus, they had just put new boxes in two other cars over the last two weeks and they did not drive much better than mine. He said they would see if they could adjust mine up anymore but there was really nothing else they could see to do. I totally appreciated his honesty with me on the subject and pretty much said okay. Moving on to their other findings, they easily picked up on the overall lack of power from the engine. After some investigating they saw my car had a 050 distributor in it and not a 009 like I thought. Roger indicated he has not had any luck finding correct distributors for my car that work properly and recommended putting in a 009 distributor due to the more desirable timing curve. He said they had a stash of NOS Bosch 009 distributors in the boxes and made a deal on one. They also re-jetted the carb, set the timing, points, dwell, installed the previously mentioned starter and relay kit, adjust my horn so it would pass TX inspection, and did a thorough end to end inspection of everything else which all got a thumbs up. Total bill OTD with tax, the tow, TX inspection, and everything else, $780. This might sound steep to some people but I consider it money well spent and I could not be happier. The car starts so much easier, runs smoother, definitely has more power, and runs quieter. The steering is a little better and I believe it is something I will just have to get used to as I drive it more. When we pulled up to the shop to pick up the KG it was sitting outside amongst other fine machines that the shop had been working on.

[HardwayVW]

With the KG now running great and an absolutely beautiful day in the Austin area I decided to clean and do a quick detail on the KG and pop the hub caps back on. My wife’s family was over the day so I took everyone for a ride in it throughout the afternoon. I have a nice 6 mile loop that I do around the area that gives a good mix of speed and terrain. Needless to say they all loved it. My wife’s parents and grand-parents spent time in Germany while her grand-father was in the service. They said riding in it reminded them of the various European cars they drove and saw when they were there. My wife’s grand-mother made the comment of how nice the bluebonnets looked in front of the local church next to my subdivision and that I should go take some pictures of it. When I saw them for myself I thought “that is a great idea” so that is exactly what I did and the outcome is shown below.

Today represents the first day that I have really enjoyed owning our Karmann Ghia. It has been a journey full of ups and downs to get to this point but in the end it is worth it. Driving it is an experience all its own. It is definitely not the fastest or best handling car in the world but driving it is pure nostalgia and with my wife in the passenger seat, romantic. I have no other plans for it at this point other than giving it a good detailing and driving it whenever we want to. Thank you to everyone here for your guidance and support. Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

[kingkarmann]

Nice pictures and a great ending to an enjoyable build thread.
Can't wait for th weather to break here. Mines been under wraps since October.
I suspect that the differing driving sensations from the Ghia and the FS-R affect your impressions of steering "feel". I have a GTI as my regular car. I have to remember that my 67 is nearly 50 year old technology compared to the 2012.
_________________
"Depression is a malfunction of the instrument we use to determine reality.”

Mike Gerson

What is your "Bespoke Reality"?

[KGCoupe]

[HardwayVW]

You guys are right regarding the feel of the FR-S influencing my opinion of the steering on the KG. After I did all the repairs to the KG I think I my expectations were too high. As I drive it more I will settle in to the way it drives and it will eventually become second nature.

Since we had another beautiful day in Austin my wife and I took the car to breakfast at one of our favorite spots. As we pulled in we saw a silver KG and parked next to it. I left a card on the owners window as I would love to meet more people that own Ghias and talk shop. Below are some pictures I took. The silver looks so good on it!

[HardwayVW]

For once I have been driving the Karmann Ghia more than I have been working on it. Talk about progress! Anyway, one item I have been wanting to address is the convertible top. When we bought the car in December on the very short one mile drive home the top kept coming un-latched. Fortunately I was able to hold it in place until I reached the garage, put the top down, and unfortunately it has been down ever since. A few weeks ago I tried to put it up and it had shrunk to the point it was nowhere close to latching to the front of the car, even with the J-hooks extended all the way. I found a guy online that made a video showing how he used towels and boiling water to slowly stretch the fabric on a top he was installing. The video can be seen here -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2goOF25LDZ0

He was only working on a small section of his new top. Seeing that my top is over 20 years old and a little on the dry side I figured getting as much of it as hot as possible was the best route. Here are the before pictures.

I could not get any pictures of the steam rising off the towels but you get the idea. I ended up boiling 2 big pots of water and applied it over the course of an hour. As the top loosened up I was able to get the J-hooks to latch and eventually close the top.

As more time went on I was able to screw the J-hooks in all the way and successfully close the top all the way.

I still have a small gap in the center. I have not yet figured out where to adjust for this if I can. For now I was happy to have the top up and have left it up all week, letting it conform back to shape. Once it has relaxed some more I will address the gap.

[HardwayVW]

With the top up for a few days I worked on getting the rear window latched. It was missing the nut on for the hinge that connects to the window. A little sorting through my collection of nuts and washers took care of that. However I was now faced with a new problem, the shabby looking rear carpet. So out came the shop-vac for a lot clean up time.

I used a brass wire brush to brush off the old glue from the back of the carpet and the body. Once it was nice and clean I used some 3M Super-77 spray adhesive on the body and the back of the carpet, letting it setup for 30 seconds before applying it. It all went back on just fine and already looks 10x better. The carpet in the car is at least 15-20 years old and has gotten a little on the crispy side. For now I just keep it clean and if the car stays with us for a while we may invest in new carpet set. I will spend more time cleaning it this coming weekend as there is still room for improvement. For a 100% DIY zero cost job I think the return on investment is excellent.

Next up will be working on the carpet in the front of the car and installing a new set of door check kits as both doors will not stay open on their own. Till next time!

[Bobnotch]

[Opghia]

Thanks for responding to my post. You seem to have gone through some things I had mentioned in mine. I hope I'll get my ride nice and running asap.

Cheers!

[HardwayVW]

You are welcome Opghia. There is plenty of experience on the forums. I have quite a bit with other old cars but this being my first VW I still hit the learning curve on a regular basis. Good luck with your project and I will keep watching your thread.

[HardwayVW]

With another round of beautiful weather this past weekend I decided to focus on an item that has been nagging at me since I bought the car and that was the inoperable seats. The driver side was barely slide and took a lot of effort to tilt forward to access the rear cargo area. The passenger side was completely frozen in place except that I had managed to jam the tilt release mechanism in the unlatched position so I could access the rear cargo area when needed. One major component missing from my seats is the lever on the side that unlatches the mechanism at the bottom allowing the seat to tilt forward. At some point in the car’s life both had broken off and were covered up by the latest seat recovering job done by a previous owner. The bar is exposed at the bottom for the mechanism and I would pull up on it to allow the seat to move forward. This of course was very difficult and frustrating since you have almost nothing to grip to and no leverage.

Before I could do anything I had to get the seats out. This involved a series back and forth activities with a screw driver and small pry bar as I inched the seat forward off its track. Spraying PB Blaster did not help, it just gave my work environment the fragrance of degreaser. Finally after 45 minutes I had the seat out. Upon inspection I discovered the bar that catches on the pins of the track was bent. Once the adjustment level is turned it is easy to see that by over extending the lever’s range it bends the thin metal catch bar.

A few minutes of tweaking and it was straight and in good order. While in there I cleaned all the mechanisms as much as possible and applied some fresh grease. I also got the back rest adjusters working properly. They are still a little notchy but worlds better since they are now usable. I also replaced some missing hardware and cut off the excess hog rings that were still on the seat springs. On to the bigger challenge, coming up with a non-intrusive way to add some leverage to the tilt lever bar. At first I thought about welding a small piece of round bar stock to the bar but to be quite honest it seemed like a bit of overkill. Plus with all the old vinyl around the work area there was a high risk of damaging, melting, or completely burning the seat to the ground. My next option is shown below. I drilled a small hole in the bar, put a screw through it following by a small lock washer and a nut.

To cover the threads and protect my fingers I first put a small piece of electrical shrink wrap on it, shrank with some heat, and then covered it with a carburetor vacuum plug. See further below for a finished picture.

I cleaned up the tracks, greased them, and prepared to put the seat back in. It was at this time I realized a big mistake so I will share it here. TOP TIP: when reinstalling the seats only grease the front half of the tracks. Once the seat is properly on the tracks, apply the rest of the grease and finish sliding the seat on. If you grease the whole track like I did you will just end up with a bunch of grease on your shirt as you motivate the seat back in to position.

The passenger seat was much the same story and took just as long to get out. It needed the same maintenance as the driver seat and it was missing the springs that on each side of the tilt mechanism. Not wanting to put that seat in until these were installed I ran to the parts store and found a variety pack of long springs in the HELP section. I cut what I needed and bent hooks on the ends. All told they cost me $5 and took about 5 minutes per spring to cut and form.

I installed the same type of screw and components as listed above.

I reinstalled the passenger seat remembering myself taught top tip from the driver side seat install. I know I could have painted the screws and maybe one day I will. This is definitely not a seat restoration project but is merely repair and maintenance. For now, I am very happy with the end result. I now have fully functioning seats for a very minimal monetary cost and about 4 hours of my time.

[HardwayVW]

I posted a separate thread for the Nardi style wheel I recently installed. It can be seen here -> http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=597105
The post goes through all the details of the install but the before and after pictures speak for themselves. A touch of Italian elegance definitely goes a long way!

[John Moxon]