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'74 Ghia Project
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semipixel
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 03, 2015 8:08 pm    Post subject: '74 Ghia Project Reply with quote

Hi all,
I picked up a '74 Coupe this summer with plans to restore it over the next 2 years. I haven't been posting my progress but thought it might be helpful to others, as well as myself, to do so.

The car has been in storage for the last 10 years. After a bit of tinkering the engine runs and sounds great. The brakes were ceased so it wasn't in a position to be road tested, but most of the other drive train/suspension/brake components are going to be replaced anyway, so I'm not too concerned. The transaxle is really the only wildcard so I'll cross that bridge when I get to it (no reason to think there's an issue with it, but we'll see...).

I have lots of pictures so far, but I'll just post the highlights so far. I can post others if someone wants to see something particular.

The car was originally Signal Orange, badly repainted white.

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Interior pretty much has to go...

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Carpets out. The bright white spots on the floor pans is actually the garage floor.

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Engine out.

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Body off. Stand built roughly off instructions in the forum here. The wheels on it are hard rubber and seem to be getting flat spots, will need to replace them with something better once I start moving it around more frequently.

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A little bit of rust, typical for the east coast though:

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Front beam master cylinder, pedals all off.

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Galvanized sheet metal, self tapping screws, and lots of tar holding this floor together.

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Getting ready to take out the axles and rear suspension, have the CV bolts soaking in SimpleGreen and oven cleaner.

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Suspension out.
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Ready to tackle the floor pans.

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One side roughly cut out.

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Used the air chisel between what was left of the pan and the lid of the tunnel which worked really well to brake the spot welds:

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First side test fitted, looking good.

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Passenger side out:

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Last edited by semipixel on Sat Jan 03, 2015 9:58 pm; edited 1 time in total
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semipixel
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 03, 2015 8:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Wire wheel taking care of the rust/paint/dirt:

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Bottom side done.

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Both pans ready to weld in:

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One side welded in...

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...and the other.

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Seat rails added and primed with Tremclad Rusty metal primer then seam sealed roughly the same as factory:

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and finally painted (still wet, dries to a semi-gloss)

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CiderGuy
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 03, 2015 8:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Nice job on the pans. Did you align the holes in the pans with the body before you welded everything up?

The project car I'm working on, the former owner welded one of the pans to the body. I'm still cutting it free, trying not to damage the body.
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semipixel
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 03, 2015 9:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks! I haven't drilled the holes for the pan bolts yet, I only confirmed the dimensions at key points matched up. The inner and outer rockers on the body are shot, so I'm going to wait until those are fixed up, make a template then and transfer it over to the pans once I'm at that point.
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Tonyorlo
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 03, 2015 9:13 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Your making great progress!

What brand of paint did you use on your pan?
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semipixel
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 03, 2015 9:23 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I used Tremclad, which is the Canadian brand name for Rustolium. I used a foam roller and foam brush to apply. Not quite as good of a finish as I was hoping for but really can't complain. You can't actually tell it was rolled on, it just didn't lay as flat as I would have liked. I read some people thinned it with acetone which I didn't do which probably would have helped.
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semipixel
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 03, 2015 9:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Last update bringing it to today.

Transaxle before..

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and after (simple green, wire wheel, and flap disk):

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Brake lines run:

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Transaxle in.

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Axles cleaned up for some paint:

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CV joints cleaned up, no issues with wear so I'm reusing them:

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Installed with some suspension components:

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Drum assembled. My first time owning and/or working on a car with drums. Despite referring to the Bentley as well as my pictures pre-disassembly, the first side took me about 2 hours, the second about 20 minutes. I forgot the ebrake cables aren't the same length left/right, so I had to swap them after I already had them in:

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Drums on:

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The beam as it came off the car. I pulled out the needle bearings in prep for narrowing and adding adjusters:

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Beam cleaned up and brackets removed:

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That's where it currently sits, I'll try to post as I get things done going forward. Thanks for reading!
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paul_round
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 04, 2015 1:05 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Looking good, what's the time frame for your work so far?
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semipixel
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 04, 2015 7:58 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

paul_round wrote:
Looking good, what's the time frame for your work so far?


Thanks, I started in August 2014. So about 5 months in. Plan is to have it ready for paint by September. Do electrical and interior over winter and have it on the road summer 2016.
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toddb_67
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 04, 2015 8:14 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Boy, rust doesn't stand a chance on your car! Nice job. I noticed a lot of holes drilled in your rear brake drums, what wheels are you planning to run?
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semipixel
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 04, 2015 8:54 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

toddb_67 wrote:
Boy, rust doesn't stand a chance on your car! Nice job. I noticed a lot of holes drilled in your rear brake drums, what wheels are you planning to run?


I'm planning on running these 15x5 Fuch Replicas with 5x130 bolt pattern. The drums have both 5x130 and 5x120 as I couldn't find just 5x130. The combo ones were worked out to be cheaper than blanks and getting them drilled myself.

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Rome
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 04, 2015 9:39 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Very nice work so far! Did you use the semi-gloss black from Tremclad as your topcoat, also applied with foam roller+brush?

My Ghia has developed enough rot in the floorpans in the 30 years I've had it to require full replacements also. From whom did you purchase your pans? What kind of welder do you have at home?

Have you decided on the car's final paint color? Will you modify the engine to add some "go" to go along with those great Fuchs wheels?
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semipixel
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 04, 2015 10:06 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Rome wrote:
Very nice work so far! Did you use the semi-gloss black from Tremclad as your topcoat, also applied with foam roller+brush?

My Ghia has developed enough rot in the floorpans in the 30 years I've had it to require full replacements also. From whom did you purchase your pans? What kind of welder do you have at home?

Have you decided on the car's final paint color? Will you modify the engine to add some "go" to go along with those great Fuchs wheels?


Thanks! Yes, I used the Tremclad/Rustolium semi-gloss as the topcoat applied with foam roller/brush. The label says it doesn't need a primer, but I couldn't see why I would hurt, so I went with their metal primer.

The floor pans were from CIP, I believe they were made in Denmark. I haven't worked with any other brand of pans so it's hard to compare, but they fit with only some minor tweaking and seem to be of reasonable quality. I'd use them again. I have a Lincoln 140 Mig welder which is a small welder but still more than you need for floor pans.

I've been struggling to settle on a color. I'm trying to find a bright metallic blue that I like but haven't found it yet.

Adding some "go" will be phase 2. Once it's back on the road and I have the bugs worked out, I'm probably going to look at some sort of turbo setup.
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kingkarmann
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 04, 2015 1:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Great progress!
How did you torque those rear axle nuts without the pan flipping over!!
Blue would be a great color for your Ghia Cool
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semipixel
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PostPosted: Mon Jan 05, 2015 7:30 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Good question! Short answer is they're not torqued yet haha, I'll give it a shot once I have the front-end on to weigh things down a bit.
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semipixel
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 17, 2015 2:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I finished up narrowing the beam and installing adjusters. Here's a quick how to...

I didn't have any sort of pipe cutter, so I had to cut the beam with my angle grinder and a cut-off disc. The adjusters themselves are 2 inches wide, and I wanted to narrow the beam 2 inches, so I marked 2 inches out from center on each side based on the original grub screw and marked it with tape (total pipe between the tape is 4 inches to be removed, add in 2 inches for the adjusters, and you have a net 2 inch loss). If you'd doing this make sure you measure at a couple places to make sure you're tape line is marking a constant width.

Also, I made a horizontal scribe on both pipes to mark the location of the original grub screw. You'll need this to get your adjusters back at the right angle. My adjusters came with instructions as to how to orient them relative to the scribe. I believe there's a few different designs so I won't go into detail.

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First section cut out. I didn't take any pictures but once it was in 2 pieces I chamfered the edges of the pipe as well as the edges of the adjusters themselves for a better weld. Also a good time to clean out the beam. I used a rod to push through some rags to get the majority of the old grease out.

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To hold things straight in the absence of a better jig I used 2 pieces of angle iron and some pipe clamps to hold everything together. It inherently puts things in alignment and makes it easy to fine tune. I measured beam end to beam end, both bottom and top and made sure I was exactly 2 inches less once strapped together (obviously make sure you do this prior to cutting it in half). If you had something more precise to cut the beam with it wouldn't be as much of a concern, but with an angle grinder I needed to tweak the spacing of everything to get it true.

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Everything sitting in place. I used a long clamp to pull everything tight end-to-end, then tightened the pipe clamps, and checked alignment with a straight edge. After a couple of tack welds a took the clamps off and finished the welding.

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Next I installed the beam on the frame head with the brackets sitting in place and did a verity of measurements to make sure it was centred. I didn't trust any particular marking, so I checked measurements from various spots on the frame to different spots on the beam until I was comfortable it was centred. After that i did a couple of tack welds with everything in place, took it off, and finished them off.

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Also put back the steering damper bracket 1 inch farther to the outside than original, and cleaned up some of the welds.

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I think I'm going to leave of the bracket for the steering bump stops off. Any thoughts on that?
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Tonyorlo
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 23, 2015 11:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

What did you do with the bearings in your beam? New bearings, bushings, or old bearings? Sorry if I missed it, but I didnt see it mentioned anywhere. Im impressed with your quick progress!
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semipixel
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PostPosted: Mon Jan 26, 2015 5:42 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Tonyorlo wrote:
What did you do with the bearings in your beam? New bearings, bushings, or old bearings? Sorry if I missed it, but I didnt see it mentioned anywhere. Im impressed with your quick progress!


I made a puller with some ground down washers and threaded rod and pulled them out and cleaned them up. They looked fine so I reused them. I thought about urethane but there seems to be mixed reviews, so I figured if it isn't broken don't fix it.
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semipixel
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 28, 2015 7:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Beam painted, trailing arms and spindles back on

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Checking the axial play in rotors

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Calipers painted and read for install

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Front end coming together. Just need to get the steering box back on and tie rods in.

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semipixel
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 01, 2015 7:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Been a while since the last update...

Cleaned up the radio, a little silver paint and it looks like new:

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Started having a look at the heater channels. PO replaced them at some point, but unfortunately didn't do it correctly so it needs to be redone:

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Discovered a bit of bondo hiding the fact that the rear wheel arch had been replaced:

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A little bit of east coast rust. At least there's not much left to cut out...

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Replacement panels test fit into place, looks like it'll work:

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