Saving Emiko: 68 RHD Restoration in New Zealand

[DorianL]

Oh my!!!!!!!!! I think I'd be in a flat rage for any of those three… All three together I'd be connipting!!!!!

The body bit would REALLY annoy me!!! Ya cut it apart but can't (officially) weld it back together???? WTF???? I can do that too! In fact I'm pretty good at skinning and taking things apart…

Do the Chaucer-thing and "eviscerate (them) in fiction. Every pimple, every character flaw. (You were) naked for a day; (they) will be naked for eternity."

[kiwighia68]

[DorianL]

Ooooh, I look forward to that installation!!!! *drool*

Close… my wife's a Ph.D. in French medieval literature. My thesis was in ethics and nuclear strategy, of all things… Ach, I (sorta) miss the romance of the Cold War.

One day soon I hope to grow some spine, follow your lead and write a book of my own… Keep Saving Emiko coming!

[kiwighia68]

My fortunes and my state of mind have improved dramatically over the last few days. We went on a road trip with an American boy who is spending his American summer vacation in the New Zealand winter to develop his rugby skills. (For the uninitiated, NZ is the world champions of rugby union.) The boy is a credit to his family and his country. It's a long time since I've encountered a young man with such good manners and social skills. He even helped me mow the lawn at my son's house today, and then entertained my two Duracell Bunny grandchildren.

Our road trip took us to a small town withe the impossible name of Ngatea, where I saw Phillip, who appears to be the town's panelbeater. And he agreed to do the bodywork for me. I need a certified welder to do the work, and everyone in Phillip's workshop has the proper qualifications. Mid-August is when I'll take the chassis and body to his workshop.

Phillip showed me around: He has two VW buses in different stages of restoration. One at bare metal stage and the other painted and on its wheels.

Just the way Phillip listened and spoke to me and the way his painter gushed when he heard that I was bringing my Ghia to them convinced me that these men were my kind of people. Phillip agreed that I could record the cutting and welding etc for my thread on the Samba and my novel, and that I could do some of the donkey work. I have a deal with NZ Classic Car magazine for an article on my restoration.

Watch this space.
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Festina lente - hasten slowly
1968 Ghia named Emiko
Resto completed Dec 2015

[ScottDoonan]

Good to hear, glad things are going along better.
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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

[kiwighia68]

Excerpt from the novel Saving Emiko

- De Villiers peered through the small glass window in the door and turned back immediately. Vaishna's husband was with her. While he might not be able to recognise De Villiers, who had worn a crash helmet when he gave the man a hiding for repeatedly beating up his wife, there was a danger that he might recognise De Villiers's voice. So De Villiers took a seat in the waiting room, pretending to be a grandfather waiting for his turn to meet the new arrival.

Life is good, De Villiers said to himself. I'm back to being the man I used to be. Not quite, the evil's voice whispered in his ear. The chemicals may have killed the cancer cells, but you'll always wonder whether there aren't some escapees hiding somewhere else, waiting for the right moment to go on the attack again. Look at you hair, it used to be thick and strong and blond. Now its an ash grey. The colour of death.

"I'm not giving up," De Villiers said. The receptionist at the desk looked at him in surprise. "I must have spoken aloud," De Villiers said. "You did," she said, smiling. 'Is this your first grand-child?" De Villiers nodded before he could think of the ramifications. Vaishna was by far the best detective under his command, but he somehow thought of her as his daughter.

New baby or not, she was going to have to help him if they were ever to find Emiko.

---

"Say after me," Emiko told her daughter. She spoke Japanese to the child, who stood ready to go to school, with her small backpack at her feet.
"My name is Konami. I want to go to Japan with Emiko."
Konami haltingly repeated the words. "Name Konami. Want Japan with Mummy." The sounds and voices in the world outside the bedroom and bathroom that constituted their prison were English, mostly English spoken with a Maori accent.

"One day," Emiko said as she gave the girl a hug. "One day soon, we are going to go home."
"Yes, Mum," Konami said in English. "After school."
Emiko smiled at the child's innocence. Not quite that soon, but in the end, for sure, she thought. And on that day we'll stand together at the foot of Mount Fuji and laugh and play in the snow and be happy again.

The door opened behind her. "Time for school," their Maori warden said. "Let's go."

Emiko turned and stood at the window. At the workshop in the distance, the first air-cooled engine started up. It's running on three cylinders, Emiko said in Japanese. Once a car enthusiast's daughter, always a car enthusiast.
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Festina lente - hasten slowly
1968 Ghia named Emiko
Resto completed Dec 2015

[kiwighia68]

Back to working on the car. I don't know how you guys in the northern hemisphere cope in your garages in winter when the snow is piled up a foot high on your cars outside. Here anything below 6C is enough to drive me into the house - and hence, into taking over my wife's kitchen.

I'm still waiting for parts from the US. I discovered one of the secrets of the shipping charges today. I had received a quote for the shipping of some parts by FedEx. Just on $1500. If KGP&R shipped the same parts to me via FedEx, it would cost me less than $200. Another shipper (TNT) quoted $900 for a one-off, half of that if I were to open an account, and half that again if I were a "business to business" shipper. Does any of this make sense to anyone?

I also got my brake callipers and master cylinder back today. I need to finish the work on the chassis and suspension in a week or two so that the car can go to the panelbeaters for the cutting and welding. Which reminds me, I need to order some panels still.

Finding parts is not easy down here. Even those niggly little brass flag connectors fitting into the back of the headlights are near impossible to find here. I could order a pack of a hundred from the USA for about $20. But I need only 6.
_________________
Festina lente - hasten slowly
1968 Ghia named Emiko
Resto completed Dec 2015

[kiwighia68]

I went to the polisher guy yesterday to talk to him about the pieces he had taken from the anodisers on 1 March. When I saw him last week, some of my pieces (18) were lying in the rain on a table in his back yard. He then said that he was waiting for a sunny day so that he could be sure to see well enough to get all the scratches out. He said I could pick my pieces up at the end of the week. That was last Friday. Well, we've had tree sunny days since then.

I phoned. No answer. No surprise. I drove there, and he was absent. His wife answered the door. She knows nothing about his work. My pieces were still lying in exactly the same place, still wet. I took them away with me, after leaving a note asking him to phone me so that we could make arrangements for me to pick up my remaining pieces and to pay him.

No phone call.

What does one have to do to get a job done out here?
_________________
Festina lente - hasten slowly
1968 Ghia named Emiko
Resto completed Dec 2015

[kiwighia68]

Excerpt from the novel, Saving Emiko:

- De Villiers instinctively raised the flowers he had brought for Vaishna in front of his face when her husband came out of her hospital room. He had worn a crash helmet with dark visors when he had gone to the flat to teach the man a lesson for beating up his wife, and there was no real danger of being recognised. Or so he thought.

He found Vaishna leaning over the baby's crib. She looked up. 'Thank you,' she said.
De Villiers put the flower arrangement on a small table that was already overflowing with bouquets. 'Its from the office,' he said. 'Everyone chipped in and said I must send their best wishes and congrats.'
Vaishna inclined her head towards the baby. 'Thank you for this,' she said. 'And thank you for the flowers.'
'I don't know what you...' De Villiers was going to say, 'I don't know what you mean,' but stopped before completing the sentence. He was not a good liar, and his way of dealing with an uncomfortable truth was to change the subject.
But Vaishna was having none of that. 'Thank you for my baby. And thank you on behalf of my baby.'
'Let's talk about something else,' De Villiers said. 'How are you?'
'I'm good,' she said.
'I know you're good,' De Villiers said. It irritated him when people say, 'I'm good,' when they mean, 'I'm well.'
He tried again. 'Are you well?'
'Never better,' Vaishna said. 'Ever since my husband didn't fall down the stairs and broke his ribs.'
'Okay,' De Villiers said. 'You can have the last word. Can we talk business now?'
'Anything you say, Boss,' she said.
'Okay, what did you find out before you left the office?' Vaishna had gone into labour two weeks early and before she could report the latest results of the investigation into the disappearance, if that it was, of the girl named Emiko.
'She wasn't on the plane,' Vaishna said. 'Someone else flew to Hong Kong on her passport.'
'How do you know?' De Villiers asked.
'I went to the airport and I had Customs play back the security footage of that day. And it certainly wasn't the girl whose photo we have on the file.'
'Then who, and why leave on someone else's passport?'
The baby started making small noises and Vaishna said, 'Ill send you a full report later, but here's what I can tell you quickly. It was a known drug mule who left on Emiko's passport.'
De Villiers started moving towards the door. 'That means Emiko is still here, exactly as we suspected.'
'And another thing,' Vaishna said. 'Remember those two men who died in the Coromandel when they were overcome by the fumes in their drug lab?'
'Yes.' De Villiers was at the door already.
'They were found dead by some relatives the very same morning the drug mule left New Zealand on Emiko's passport. She left that evening. and her ticket was bought at the counter at the airport.'

De Villiers didn't return to the office. He drove to the Coromandel. There must be a link, he thought. It just cannot be coincidence.
_________________
Festina lente - hasten slowly
1968 Ghia named Emiko
Resto completed Dec 2015

[DorianL]

Spannend

[Clatter]

If it's any consolation, there are very few people here in California who you might pay to perform quality work.

The stories of my attempts at finding skilled craftsmen here could fill an entire book.

Sorry, but, "if you want it done right, you will have to do it yourself" rings true again and again.

How far away are you from John, who is doing that beautiful Type 3 Ghia?
Even if he can't do work for you, he could certainly get you pointed toward getting set up do perform certain things yourself.

Take polishing for example; If you had enough polishing to do, a buffing wheel set would cost you less than paying some loser to not do your parts.
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Bus Motor Build

What’s That Noise?!?

[racoguy]

[kiwighia68]

[TheFop]

Come over this way Chris and we'll have a Sunday of metal work, I just need to book it with the Mrs.
My next plan is the drivers floor pan so you can come over when I'm dealing with that, lots of opportunities to wield various angle grinders with cutters and grinding disks, air chisels, nibblers, punchers, flangers and the mig welder.

We should try and get the Auckland Ghia owners together for a beer and share our trials and tribulations, the Beetle and bus owners at dairy flat just don't understand how tough it is to work on a Ghia
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Rusty 61 RHD Karmann Ghia Coupe - Resto in progress....slowly
Stock 69 LHD Karmann Ghia Coupe - Driver
67 New Zealand Spec Beetle - Being rebuilt
63 New Zealand Spec Beetle - Going Baja!
86 T25 Westfalia - Family Fun car

[racoguy]

What you are forgetting though is that I have no formal training in body work at all, or paint and upholstery for that matter.
Its all been driven by paying these so called professionals to do a job which is never what I want and they then have an attitude when you complain about the quality of the job you just paid for.

NZ is chocka full of these people, couldn't do a proper job if their life depended on it.
Youtube is also a great teaching tool, just about anything is on there.
No problem for you to come and look, I might even be able to help in some areas.

[TheFop]

[kiwighia68]

[racoguy]

Butt weld always for me, nicer job.

[TheFop]

It depends on the panel and if you can see it from both sides, so if its hidden and structural I lap weld, if its non structural or if you can see both sides I butt weld.
Weirdly enough I've just started plug welding rather than mig spot welding to try and gain some weld strength, I didn't really ever plug weld before and Johns post about plug welding with copper backed clamps inspired me to get some plug weld pliers...although drilling 50 odd 6mm holes through my floor pan and into the heavier tunnel steel was a mission.

Did you fancy working with me on the drivers floor pan Chris, it may be a good opportunity for a range of skills, but it will take about 7 hours to finish it 100% with rails and jack points repaired, refinished and re-installed.
Short of that I can work with you on a range of weld techniques on some scrap steel.
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Rusty 61 RHD Karmann Ghia Coupe - Resto in progress....slowly
Stock 69 LHD Karmann Ghia Coupe - Driver
67 New Zealand Spec Beetle - Being rebuilt
63 New Zealand Spec Beetle - Going Baja!
86 T25 Westfalia - Family Fun car

[racoguy]

6mm is a little small for plug welds on to the tunnel, prefer 7-7.5 to get a good weld on to the thicker steel.
I tend to start in the middle of the hole being the tunnel flange and pick up the pan sheet metal as I go round if that makes sense.
By the way you only drill the pan half, leave the tunnel lip clean steel.