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Wed Jul 15, 2015 8:44 am

Hey Darrel, no problem and thanks for the input. I have checked all my documentation and can find nothing on how this area of the seats operate or the parts. I would love to rebuild these this winter and need a diagram or something to go on.

Welcome SirNickity to my build. To my knowledge, this is only electric conversion on Samba. Others have done a Ghia conversion before and I did a bunch of research on their builds for this project.

The groups reaction has been mostly 'why would any sane person do this. You can buy a lot of gas for the cost of those batteries'. I am proud to say this project makes no sense financially, it is a hobby and a passion.

As far as low operating cost, you just can't beat the 110v AC at 10 cents per KWH I get for energy. The road to electric conversion is a pricey road to travel but the joy of creating your own electric and that incredible acceleration (the EV Grin) is priceless.

You may have issues in Alaska with the cold. EV's do not like cold. You will need to put warming mats in your battery box for sure, not sure what to do about the car heater, maybe the Van Lovers have a solution.

Wed Jul 15, 2015 10:58 am

Nothing about owning an old VW makes financial sense. Electric conversion is perfectly suited to those of us who apparently enjoy spending time and money on a car rather than having one that "just runs" and has all its body parts intact. The latter sounds like no fun to me!

We're a little short on charging stations, and there remains the problem of how to dump tens of kilowatts into a battery as quickly and conveniently as filling a gas tank, but nonetheless, I'm convinced that electric is the future. We're just at the beginning of the curve, and so it will take time to optimize the process. It appeals to me to be at the early-adopter stage so I can tell others "you don't know how easy you have it!" in 10 years.

My Ghia is and will be a fair-weather car only. As fair as AK summers get, anyway. :-) I'm directed to the end of driving season by the car's frosty windshield and brisk interior on fall mornings, and that's enough to convince me to put her in storage until the weather improves.

The cell specs seem to indicate they'll be fine in the winter, provided I disconnect the load and build in a wiring harness for the BMS sense wires that can be disconnected as well.

Wed Jul 15, 2015 2:48 pm

Awesome build thread. I did a '69 beetle EV conversion 2 years ago and loved every minute of the project. So different than a normal car project. Driving it is also fun.

Make sure you know what you are doing when it comes time to balancing your batteries (are you running a battery management system?) - I thought I did this right but I ran out of juice last week and then tested my individual cells to find one cell was at basically 0 volts which is big trouble for the Lithium batteries (turns out my house outlet breaker popped and thus didn't charge my battery before I drove it). I don't have any on board BMS or even battery monitoring devices, just been driving on faith, which might have cost me a battery.

Sun Jul 19, 2015 9:20 pm

Still waiting on the sand blaster to get to the rims and some bumper parts. In the meantime, I cleaned, etched and POR15 the inside of the bumpers. I used crumpled aluminum foil and plain water to clean the chrome. IT WORKED GREAT.

Put in bumper bracket seals and that was a pain. The area was filed with bondo and I had to really work to get those puppies to line up.

Worked on the intake vents. Removed the grill and POR15 the inside area. Made some block off's to keep the air and moisture out of my vent tubes. Cleaned up the grill and it looks like crap. I may paint it black.

Fab'ed up my motor splash guard and set it in place. Waiting on ABS panels to finish the boot area and put the deck lid on.

Added some more stuff to the back, side panels, more floor cover

Mon Jul 20, 2015 3:32 pm

I would like to hear more about this splash guard... :-)

Mon Jul 20, 2015 8:13 pm

It hangs below the motor and protects it from road grime. It also helps keep the boot area clean. Here's a few shots from below.

and the same area above.

Mon Jul 20, 2015 8:22 pm

Finally...the wheels are in :D :lol: . They were sandblasted and painted Cocoa Cola Red today. I'll let them set a day and get the tires mounted Thursday.

I'm going to paint the top to match in a few weeks. Still waiting on the rear sway bar and a few bumper parts to get the project on the road. Looks like I have a shot a driving it this week.

Tue Jul 21, 2015 4:47 am

When you go to put the tires on make sure the tire shop has a mounting machine where the spoon will not touch the rim. I would hate to see the paint get all chipped up!

Wed Jul 22, 2015 5:10 pm

Tires mounted without a scratch, and first test run around the block is a success. Love the feel of the acceleration and am still learning how to drive it. You can put it in 2nd and leave it there and use the clutch like normal. Or you can put it in 1st and let out the clutch and it's OK with that as well.

When I start it up with the car in neutral, the engine idles around 150 rpm and that may be an issue on energy management. I had forgotten how sloppy the VW shifting is and am having issues finding gears. May be an adjustment, may be something I need to learn and will acclimate to.

I'm not trying to smoke the tires yet, taking it slow for now and getting to know what is normal. Didn't have anyone around when I did this so no action shots yet.

Thu Jul 23, 2015 3:50 pm

Today I drove the car to it's first tire balance and front alignment. The problem in the shifter was it not being bolted to the tunnel, so my linkage was real sloppy. Fixed that and now it shifts fine. Was able to start off in 3rd gear, thought I was in 1st but the acceleration was slow. :oops: Ran it up to 60mph in third with no problem, felt real solid. Will take it out on the freeway in a few days for test drive. Lets see what 89 electric horses can get me :D

Thu Jul 23, 2015 3:53 pm

Way cool!!

Been looking forward to seeing it in action...when's the video coming? :)

Fri Jul 24, 2015 8:24 pm

Should have a video tomorrow of the Cars and Coffee showing and I'll get a friend to do a ride along video.

Doing finishing work and have the boot engine compartment all complete. Got the boot lid back on as well.

Wheels are done. Stayed with the original rims and tires it came with. When I replace them, I'll get thin white walls.

Also got the door panels back on. The interior is complete for now.

It's Showtime :ghia_red:

Sat Jul 25, 2015 8:13 am

First 10+ mile drive and first show.

Sat Jul 25, 2015 8:58 am

Looks great, I wish you the best of luck with it.

Wed Jul 29, 2015 10:02 pm

Thanks CiderGuy. :)

This week I have been working on the bumpers. Here are some shots of the before:

To restore the inside of the bumpers,I wire brushed all the surfaces and sprayed with MetalReady. I then hit the surface with a green scuff pad and blew off the residue. I then covered it in silver POR15. For the chrome restoration, I used crumpled aluminum foil and water with a little dish washing soap. It cleaned them up beautifully. I don't know how it works but it does.

I had to do a lot of anvil and hammer work on the brackets to get them back and I pounded out as many bumps in the blades as I could. They look fine for a daily driver

Fri Jul 31, 2015 7:19 pm

Need some help please. Below is a photo of the 71 Ghia Fresh Air Inlet and weather strip. The cross section of the strip has a flat side and a groved side. The grove is off center, with a 70/30 ratio split, a long and short thing.

I assume the flat side goes against the body a the grove side takes the grills front edge. Is that correct?

Does the long portion of the grooved side face inwards our outwards from the body.

Any help or photos would be greatly appreciated.

Sun Aug 02, 2015 7:36 pm

Here is how I did it.

These are shots of the completed splash guard. Now I need a rain tray to protect the top side.

This is a video of the car running around the local foothills tonight

Tue Aug 04, 2015 4:26 pm

marklaken wrote: Awesome build thread...and then tested my individual cells to find one cell was at basically 0 volts which is big trouble for the Lithium batteries.

Thank you Mark for your input. I have cooked my first cell. It was showing zero volts. I removed it last night and it is bloated :D ... TOAST. I am not using a battery management system in my build. I have about 40 miles on it now and I have not bottom balanced it yet. I keep it charged up to 3.34v per cell and never let the voltage get below 2.9v per cell.

I'm taking a chance doing this but I just hate the idea of bottom balancing the cells, it will take 7-10 days at least and I don't want to do it until fall.

I took it out on the interstate last night and top speed is 79mph on the flats. Running at 5000 rpm it is solid. Very pleased with the ride, tracks like its on rails.

Tue Aug 04, 2015 6:43 pm

How loud is that cooling fan at highway speeds ?

Wed Aug 05, 2015 8:00 am

CiderGuy wrote: How loud is that cooling fan at highway speeds ?
Who have expected an electric car to be fitted with a blower? :shock:

... granted, judging by the sound of it, it does appear to be a leaf blower.

:wink:

I will admit that when you first started this thread, I never expected that I would like a Karmann Ghia converted to elctric power.
However, having now seen the completed project in action I will readily admit that I think it is very cool indeed!

I particularly like the way that you chose to go with a bare, minimalistic and utilitarian approach to the interior styling.
Most impressive of all is your attention to detail and the overall neatness of the conversion.

Congratulations on a job very well done!

... now, can anything be done to either quiet down that blower fan or perhaps have it make that "fweem" sound that is so characteristic to old VWs? :)