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Tue Jun 30, 2020 11:30 am

My 3 row speaker grill is from metal. I thought only the 4 row speaker grills were plastic! :oops:
Still learning after all those years...

Tue Jun 30, 2020 12:00 pm

Early 3 row- metal, late 3 row- plastic, I believe.

Tue Jun 30, 2020 3:09 pm

Intervention

If you have a spouse and kids they may know more than you think. They saw my posts and questioned when I bought the Ghia. As the documents would show I towed it home on 6/13/92 so the documents suggest at 28 yr journey. Hum....

Here the current Allstate tires were installed in 1963 along with a new oil cooler, muffler and oil change. The miles were 52k so from 6/12/56 when they bought the car they put less that 8k miles a year on it. From 1963 to 1992 they only put another 12k miles on the Ghia.

Update: they won't let this go. Here we thought/I thought our 1994 tractor was the oldest thing I kept with wheels on it after maybe 90 cars was not factual. The 1956 Ghia rules.

Here there was also a 1958 Texaco map in the car and no interstates like I80 exist at that time!

I added a photo of the dealership. Looks like a general dealership and not solely VW?

Tue Jun 30, 2020 6:03 pm

56GoldeGhia wrote: My 3 row speaker grill is from metal. I thought only the 4 row speaker grills were plastic! :oops:
Still learning after all those years...

My June 56 has its original four row plastic speaker grill.

Tue Jun 30, 2020 7:30 pm

Braukuche wrote: 56GoldeGhia wrote: My 3 row speaker grill is from metal. I thought only the 4 row speaker grills were plastic! :oops:
Still learning after all those years...

My June 56 has its original four row plastic speaker grill.

Can you share a picture thanks

Thu Jul 02, 2020 5:36 am

Down under

The underside had a sound proofing I will need to add back on when painting.

This Ghia used the battery negative mounted to the sheet metal and not the engine.

Also the early 56s did not have silencers on the air input ducts. The heater boxes just had metal flex hoses right to pipes for entry to the cabin.

Thu Jul 02, 2020 5:53 am

Going through my old hub cap stash. I thought showing the original painted logo hub caps would be interesting. Here when they painted the car silver in the 60s they did the hubcaps too which preserved the logo. I simply wiped through the silver to expose the original Trout Blue.

I started going through the 20 tubs of parts to find what I had bought over the years for restoring the Ghia.

Thu Jul 02, 2020 7:46 am

JeffL wrote: Going through my old hub cap stash. I thought showing the original painted logo hub caps would be interesting. Here when they painted the car silver in the 60s they did the hubcaps too which preserved the logo. I simply wiped through the silver to expose the original Trout Blue.

I started going through the 20 tubs of parts to find what I had bought over the years for restoring the Ghia.

Interesting, my 56 Gazelle has the inner rim color, “Brown” used for the emblem.

Thu Jul 02, 2020 8:02 am

Hi all,

My three row speaker grille on my May56 was in a terrible shape and I had the one Aerosilver posted made/printed... I still have the CAD Drawings and am happy to look into getting some printed. if you’re interested please let me know and I’ll get some prices together.

Cheers

Andy

Thu Jul 02, 2020 9:57 am

andy914-6 wrote: Hi all,

My three row speaker grille on my May56 was in a terrible shape and I had the one Aerosilver posted made/printed... I still have the CAD Drawings and am happy to look into getting some printed. if you’re interested please let me know and I’ll get some prices together.

Cheers

Andy

Andy that would be fantastic to get a new one and be able to use your prior work. Thanks.

During my build on the 1958 Alken I had a dash script 3D printed. We used a speedster dash script for the dimensions and added the Alken logo from brochures. They 3D printed it in stainless, polished it and chrome plated it. I had 3 made and the uint cost was about $500 a unit I believe. Great technology.

Thu Jul 02, 2020 12:46 pm

JeffL wrote: ...

... I understand that BITD it was not completely unusual for small details on a vehicle to change not only at the change of the model year, but also throughout the production run of a single model year.

Just because I understand that, though, doesn't make it seem any less strange looking back from this "modern" perspective.

It must be a real nightmare trying to "correctly" restore a very early Karmann Ghia, especially if it was missing any of those many parts that changed during the first year or so of production.

What is truly surprising, however, is that based on the original sales receipt posted above it appears that even the spelling of "Karmen Ghia" was different on the very early production cars. :shock:

:wink:

Thu Jul 02, 2020 1:28 pm

I learned when I got home that the car title used the engine number. Luckily it still had the original engine as PA is a bugger when it comes to details and I would never go a title for it. A State cop had to come to the house and verify the changing of the numbers. Since I never registered the car, the PA title I got in 1992 still works today even though I lived in 3 other states.

Mon Jul 06, 2020 8:28 am

Judson Supercharger early gauge. Very nice reproduction gauge here from Mike. Just got it in the mail.

I am thinking to mount it at 12:00 on the steering wheel with a gauge pod. The 56 does not have a gas gauge so this would not block anything. The pod shown is not deep enough but I might be able to modify to work. Looks like I would need a pod 3.5 inches deep at least.

I would paint the pod the same color as the steering wheel to look a little more vintage and not see the exposed back of the gauge.

Mon Jul 06, 2020 6:34 pm

Here I took some of the silver paint off the rim to show the black outer rim and L82 silver white inner disc. This has the original Englebert tire possibly.

I was thinking this was the same color as all of the interior parts like the column but the steering wheel looks more beige, possibly silver beige? Will look through Oval color forum since I think all Beetle colors were used here.
Anyone with current Silver White L 82 and Silver Beige L466 paint formulas?

Tue Jul 07, 2020 7:01 pm

Interior paint color

I cleaned my parts and put them together. Must be beige but column is a little different. Turn signal looks different than column.

Shifter and e-brake were repainted but look like wheel.

The other wheel was the repro Rometsch that must be ivory.

I like the wheel at Silver White. With a lt grey and Blue interior it would look better. I went back and looked at Thom's 56 Trout Blue Ghia too.

Wed Jul 08, 2020 6:57 pm

Anyone have NOS torsion covers outer and inner. Mine are pretty rough.

Maybe some repros have the correct shape. Amazing same part used for all years.

141809631 outer
141809633 inner

I have some items to trade

Thanks

Wed Jul 08, 2020 7:47 pm

Maybe the best thing for you.

https://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/detail.php?id=2102907

Wed Jul 08, 2020 8:18 pm

Ghias4ever wrote: Maybe the best thing for you.

https://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/detail.php?id=2102907

Thanks I saw those. Maybe those and repro backing plates is an option.

Thu Jul 09, 2020 6:39 pm

JeffL wrote: Braukuche wrote: 56GoldeGhia wrote: My 3 row speaker grill is from metal. I thought only the 4 row speaker grills were plastic! :oops:
Still learning after all those years...

My June 56 has its original four row plastic speaker grill.

Can you share a picture thanks

Fri Jul 10, 2020 1:59 am

Ace to see a build thread Jeff. Will be watching. Top car. Keep sharing those details!
I see the wheels have the clean colour break.