Saving Emiko: 68 RHD Restoration in New Zealand

[KGCoupe]

OK, enough of actually working on the restoration of the car - isn't it time for an update on the continuing story?
I'm dying to find out if there really is a missing girl in need of help.

[kiwighia68]

[kiwighia68]

Excerpt from the novel, Saving Emiko:

- She called him on the cell-phone he had sent her in an envelope addressed to Detective Constable Vaishna Veerasinghe, Private & Confidential. It was a device De Villiers had used on prior occasions when he didn't want his investigations to go through official channels. He'd buy two or more used cell-phones, one for each operative involved in the mission.

'Why?' she asked.
She didn't have to explain why she was questioning his orders. They would both face disciplinary action if the Police Commissioner should learn that De Villiers had disregarded her express orders. His crime would not be working on a case but that he had disregarded an express order.
'I'm just curious,' De Villiers lied.
He could hear her sigh. 'Why do I find that hard to believe?' she said.
'Because it's the truth,' De Villiers said. 'What is it with women that they can't understand the plain and simple truth?'
'Because we've all read Oscar Wilde,' Vaishna said. 'And he said, "The truth is rarely pure, and never simple." Now tell me what's really going on,' she insisted.
De Villiers contemplated the situation for a while. He had no choice, really.
'Well?' she prodded him.
'Okay,' De Villiers said, 'but you have to keep a low profile. I don't want you to get in trouble.'
'So tell me then,' she said. 'Make it quick because I'm standing in the passage outside the office and the others are beginning to look at me with suspicion.
So De Villiers told her.
_________________
Festina lente - hasten slowly
1968 Ghia named Emiko
Resto completed Dec 2015

[kiwighia68]

Excerpt from the novel, Saving Emiko:

- DS Veerasinghe phoned De Villiers a few minutes later.
'They found some bones under a culvert yesterday. A council employee was mowing the lawns when he came across a skull and ribcage trapped against a grid in the culvert under a pedestrian bridge on the North Shore.'
'So what makes you think this could be a Japanese girl?' De Villiers asked.
'They found a Louis Vuitton handbag a short distance downstream.'
It didn't make sense to De Villiers and he said so.
'Only Japanese tourists can afford those handbags,' Vaishna said.
Only a woman would make that connection, De Villiers thought, and this particular woman was for no reason that he could determine, by far the sharpest detective under his command. 'There's a Louis Vuitton store in downtown Queen Street,' he said. 'Perhaps a visit during your lunch hour ...' He left the suggestion hanging in the air.
'Should I buy something on my office credit card?' she asked.
'Better not,' De Villiers said, playing along. 'The Commissioner might find out.'
'I'll let you know how it goes,' she said.
'You do that,' De Villiers said and pulled the phone away from his ear to end the call. He was about to push the button when he heard his name.
'Pierre?'
He quickly put the phone back to his ear. 'Yes, I'm here.'
'A Japanese girl disappeared here in Auckland about 10 years ago, if I remember correctly.'
'Yes,' De Villiers said. 'I know about that case. They found the mummified body in a lift-shaft. But that was before you joined. That case is closed.'
_________________
Festina lente - hasten slowly
1968 Ghia named Emiko
Resto completed Dec 2015

[kiwighia68]

I decided that my beam was beyond saving. Every time I turned it over, the rust holes got bigger and more rust flakes fell out. That, and boredom, caused me to take a drive to the V-Dub Shoppe yesterday to see if I could break and arm or two to get a better price on a used beam. And I found a very good one for $160 (20% off the quoted price). I had won $800 on the Lotto, so I had $400 to spend - my wife took the other half!!!

I'm beginning to think New Zealand is not a good place to rely on others to get a restoration done. My glass - promised to be ready in January - will now arrive on Saturday, and that after a promise 3 weeks ago that it would be delivered that week. And the polishing of my aluminium is taking 4 times as long as promised - and the man is not answering his phone any more. You know what happened with the floorpans - welded onto rust. And that's not the end of the story. When I went to see the sandblasters last week, they said the work would be done that Thursday - well, it's a week later and now they won't return my calls.

I should have listened to my mother: "If you want a job to be done properly, better do it yourself."

I think I'll have the front suspension all cleaned up and painted by Tuesday. The disc brakes may be a problem. I think I'll take one apart and clean and paint it before putting new pads in. I'll keep the other in one piece to make sure I get the pieces back together correctly.
_________________
Festina lente - hasten slowly
1968 Ghia named Emiko
Resto completed Dec 2015

[TheFop]

I can to the same conclusion some time ago, tradies are notoriously hopeless here, how many times have you had lined up a tradie to quote on some work and they don't even bother to turn up or cancel, why the hell would I give them work if they can't even be bothered turning up to quote?

Anyways....offers still open on the sandblasting.
Don't trash the beam as we may be able to do something with it, Ie fix up the rust then narrow by 2-4 inches and weld in some torsion bar adjusters and you can sell it on and make a few $'s

[VWCOOL]

[kiwighia68]

[kiwighia68]

I've done quite a bit of cleaning and refurbishing the last week. The steering box is the first component that I've opened and reconditioned. I found hard things in there - peanut size - and once I had them out the column was able to turn from end to end where previously it was grating and sticking when turned to the right. Someone - I think it was KGCoupe - suggested I cut my own gasket and I've done so. Tricky, but my one son is a surgeon and a scalpel blade just worked fine.

Here's a before shot or two:

Cleaned the top first:

Then I cleaned inside with petrol and as the last cleaner used kerosene:

All done now after painting with CRC high zink paint. The new seal/gasket is in place and the nuts and bolts cleaned up too. Will fill with grease tomorrow (a day for dirty work) before I put the steering box back on the beam.

Has anyone noticed that the photos that accompany the Facts in VW History this week have all been taken in game parks with lots of large animals around? I recognised some of the registration numbers on the beetles: TP was once the registration for Pretoria, but the photos appear to have been taken in the Kruger National Park or in Namibia in the Etosha Nature Reserve. I miss Africa and its animals, even the insects and the reptiles.
_________________
Festina lente - hasten slowly
1968 Ghia named Emiko
Resto completed Dec 2015

[kiwighia68]

Excerpt from the novel, saving Emiko:

- 'You're not as tough as you think, Dad.'
It irritated De Villiers that his 10-year old daughter should mother him, but he kept quiet lest her mother should join in. There were on the way home from the Accident and Emergency Clinic where De Villiers had received 3 stitches to his left eyebrow. He had been working on the car, somewhat lethargically, when the phone he had acquired for his clandestine operation rang. It could only be Detective Constable Veerasinghe.

'Yes, Vaishna. What do you have for me?'
'I don't know whether it is good news or bad news,' she began, ' but there was an enquiry from the police in Tokyo about a Japanese girl 3 years ago.'
Forgetting where he was, De Villiers sat up and bumped his head against the reinforcement under the floor-pan where the jack support is welded in. He had lain back at first, ignoring the pain, but when blood ran into his eye and his vision became blurred, he rolled out from under the car and stood up.

It was when he stood up that he started feeling faint and the next thing he knew, his daughter was kneeling next to him, holding his head in her hands.
'Dad!. What's going on? You're bleeding all over the floor.'
De Villiers sat up again. His vision was a red haze until he closed his left eye. 'I cut myself when I bumped against something under the car,' he said.
'We'd better get you to the doctor before Mum comes home,' Zoe suggested, but De Villiers knew better. He might have taken the risk of driving himself to the A&E, but he was not going to drive with Zoe in the car. Not when he'd already fainted once that afternoon. What was worse, was that it was becoming a regular occurrence. The chemotherapy was taking its toll.

'I need to make a phone call,' he said when they arrived home. He went into the garage and retrieved his phone from under the car.
'Vaishna?'
'Yes, I'm here, Pierre. What happened? You went silent all of a sudden and I could hear you breathing but you didn't say anything.'
'I dropped the phone,' he lied. 'And I tried to retrieve it with the broom. That must be what you heard.'
'You took a long time finding it.'
'My wife arrived and I couldn't phone back then.'

'Well,' Vaishna said, 'You were right. There is something about a Japanese girl who disappeared in Auckland. She was at an English Language School preparing for university in Tokyo - she wanted to study medicine - but she disappeared after completing the course here.'
'What do you mean, disappeared?' Was a case opened?'
'No, that's the strange thing. Her parents made enquiries and the Tokyo police contacted us, but we found out through Immigration and Customs that her passport was used to fly out to Hong Kong two months after she completed her studies here.'
'Do we know where she was those two months?' De Villiers asked.
'No. Not a thing. Her flatmates told us that she walked out of the house they shared one day with a small suitcase and that was the last they saw of her.'
'Mmm,' De Villiers said, playing for time. 'What was her name?'
'Her flatmates referred to her as Grace, but the enquiries from Japan were about a girl called Emiko. Shall I spell that for you?'
'No,' De Villiers said. 'Listen, Vaishna, I'm going to send you a photo of a note I found in the car under the carpet in the rear foot-well. It's in Chinese or Japanese script. Ask someone what it means, one of the students at that language school down the road from the Police HQ, and let me know asap.'
'Okay. Are you going to tell me what this is about?'
'Not yet,' De Villiers said. 'Stand by for the photo.'

'One last thing, Pierre,' Vaishna said.
'Yes?'
'Her father insisted that she had been abducted, but her mother apparently thought she had eloped.'
_________________
Festina lente - hasten slowly
1968 Ghia named Emiko
Resto completed Dec 2015

[lemke]

[DorianL]

NICE!!!!!

Keep on trucking!!!!!

[DorianL]

Rats ! I still owe you part numbers of the dampers!

[kiwighia68]

[KGCoupe]

[kiwighia68]

[DorianL]

I'm sorry to say - but your challenges draw chuckles. It's your deadpan humor.

YES! That was most surprising for me as well: some are metric other imperial. I was NOT expecting that. And it also seems that over there year - when the PO couldn't find one, they used the other. Very mix-and-match.

[DorianL]

Just make sure you strap the body down carefully when you get it back

[kiwighia68]

[TheFop]

I wonder if the imperial parts were there from the factory, it would strike me as odd if it was......Now what I do know for sure is that wood screws aren't factory standard for the majority of fixings.....in my cars case that's good old Kiwi engineering
I'd love to see how the blasting turned out, I'm about to paint strip the main panels on mine and get the details blasted if needs be.