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Thu Feb 20, 2025 12:05 am

Wow, looking absolutely stunning 8) what a nice car !!

Bests

Antoine

Fri Feb 21, 2025 1:11 am

Damn, that's one awfully good looking headliner! I hope the top will be as gorgeous as the the headliner.

Fri Feb 21, 2025 12:51 pm

Not much for me to do while the car is away, but I fitted the bits up to the fuel tank:

Fri Feb 21, 2025 12:55 pm

Meanwhile a bit more progress on the roof. I am pleased with the shape he's achieved. I can't wait to see it, but am struggling for time to get over there.

Thu Feb 27, 2025 8:52 pm

Been playing catchup to your progress! Holy smokes!! It is turning out to be gorgeous.

Fri Feb 28, 2025 8:58 am

Thanks Obus, Antione, kingkarmann (unless you meant the Facel Vega ...) :)

Tallbloke - did you own the old Richie King removable roof car?

Anyway, a couple of extra progress pics. The front seats are done, copying the originals but obviously using stitching for the 7 pleats rather than heat seams.

The door panels are now coming together, all made from scratch. The pull handles will be trimmed in the ecrue leather, rather than try to match the colour with Vinylkote or something similar. A pale coloured material on pull handles is probably a terrible idea, but there we are!

They will be as close a match to the factory design as I can get. I have original trim strips for the bottom of the panels, but have not found any of the thin strips top go across the middle. I will therefore be using a strip which is slightly shorter, similar to those at the bottom, but smaller in profile. I guess if I ever found a set of full width ones I could swap them in, but I suspect I would rather spend the time driving it by then!

Thu Mar 13, 2025 3:00 pm

The interior is finished and I am very happy with it - factory style with a slight twist:

The window winders and dash knobs are missing as they are waiting to be painted.

The next step is to install the engine and petrol tank, make and connect up remaining oil, petrol and breather hoses, put fluid in the brakes and get it moving under its own steam for the first time in just over 5 years.

I will then see how it sits and whether it is lower than I want. It is on dropped spindles and an adjustable beam that is on its highest setting, which should be stock, but I wonder. If it is too low I may need to switch to stock spindles and then drop it a little on the adjusters. A few other potential pitfalls remain, like whether the rain tray will still foul the tinware despite my modifications, whether any hose fittings leak etc etc. There could still be all sorts of headaches ahead, but it does look a lot like a car now. This project has definitely "escalated" as its gone on...

Sat Mar 15, 2025 8:49 am

Wow, that is looking really fantastic 8)

Antoine

Sun Apr 27, 2025 4:43 pm

I may ask for you to take photos of where you placed the snap buttons? for the convertible top (boot) cover. I still have to have that done on mine.

Your car is fabulous!!!

Mon Apr 28, 2025 12:23 pm

Thanks obus, here you go on the popper studs for the roof bag:

Not the clearest due to all the black, but there are three around each corner. the trimmer used slightly smaller studs than originals, which I think looks better and means there is no need for any supporting spacer underneath each one.

According to the factory manual, they should probably be slightly more spread out, with the middle one level with the edge of the window and the other two equidistant each side.

Mon Apr 28, 2025 12:31 pm

I am rushing towards a hopeful deadline this weekend and will do a fuller update after that, but while I am here I'll add a bit more.

I had arranged to collect the Ghia from the trimmers, take it to my friend Paul's where the engine was waiting and then spend two days getting the engine, fuel tank and various bits in, wired, plumbed, brakes bled and basically driving.

Unfortunately there was a bit of a wrinkle on the motorway on my way there:

I was very lucky and suffered nothing more than seatbelt bruises and shock. I have to say the old thing did brilliantly, better than I could have hoped. Paul came and collected me and all the Ghia bits and I had to let the insurers recover the van so that we still had at least a day left on the Ghia before the covered transport I had booked to get it home again.

Mon Apr 28, 2025 12:49 pm

I think staying busy after a shock is the best thing, so luckily there was a lot to do in a now shorter period!

The engine went in without too much drama, though one heat exchanger needed the upper control arm designed for vans trimmed down to clear the engine bay metal.

There were two clearance issues that had been worrying me, because I hadn't managed to test them in the dry build. The first was the rain tray, which had fouled the fanhousing due to the high roof engine case moving that up a little. I had moulded a new centre section for the rain tray in fibreglass, but only after the body had gone for paint. The good news was - it cleared the fan housing! I am so glad I don't have to start work on the rain tray again.

The other one was the battery. With hindsight perhaps I should have got a slimline one and mounted it under the rear seat, but I didn't want to cut the original mounting fittings off the engine bay panel and they would have looked strange with no battery. Here there was less good news - the battery I had fouled the corner of the huge inlet manifold. There was no choice but to buy another, smaller battery.

As it turned out, I would have had to buy another battery anyway - the first one flew forward into the bulkhead of my bus in the crash and had cracked, starting to leak acid. I had welded two subtle battery retaining brackets to prevent forward or backward movement, so I now needed to make an extension bracket for the one round the back to hold the battery away from the manifold.

Success! With the plastic lip at the corner trimmed back, the new battery leaves a clear 15mm between the battery and the manifold - hopefully more than enough to allow for engine vibration.

I had bought an original style long earth strap, but I wasn't liking it, so I also made an earth cable that mounts to the new battery locating bracket and is hidden behind the battery.

Mon Apr 28, 2025 1:04 pm

The fuel tank went in with the gasket round the bottom, which had to be trimmed to size as it was too big in both dimensions (!). I stuck it down with contact adhesive and then mounted the tank with chromed brackets and socket head bolts with black stainless collars to match the tinware screws. The neck now has an AN-4 outlet with a black braided hose running up and back via the original route, then through the spare wheel well in the stock location, which had been flared slightly for the larger hose size before the car was painted.

As the neck of the tank was swapped from a scrap tank, it now aligns with the VW logo facing forward - it always niggled me that on my Beetle the logo was never straight! I made up a small aluminium bracket to locate the washer bottle hose with one fuel tank bracket.

There was just time to make up the fuel hoses and remaining breather hose in the engine bay:

That was as far as we got. We tried to do the brakes, but the reservoir leaked where the blue low pressure hoses connected and by the time we had wrestled jubilee clips onto them, the transport had arrived to take the Ghia home:

Tue Apr 29, 2025 5:52 am

That roof looks really nice. Its nice and tight with very few wrinkles.

Sorry to see the bus dinged up like that. Glad you weren’t hurt.
Hopefully it is repairable.
Nicholas

Tue Apr 29, 2025 12:22 pm

Wow, you're lucky not being more injured ! Sad day for the bus!

Ghia is looking fabulous, well done!

Bests

Antoine

Tue Apr 29, 2025 11:40 pm

The chopped-roof Beetle in the background reminds me of the "Tar Babe" from SoCal's FAT Performance in the '70's, though photos from 2012 show it still with the large name and logos on the side.

Wed Apr 30, 2025 6:17 am

Glad to see you are OK after the bus incident.

I just missed your car over at Paul's on one of its visits - he was telling me about the Black convertable Ghia with perfect paint. I put 2+2 together - Looking good.

Russ Williams (Aerosilver on here) had the Ghia with the hardtop by Ritche King back in the day.

Wed Apr 30, 2025 12:05 pm

[quote="Rome"]The chopped-roof Beetle in the background reminds me of the "Tar Babe" from SoCal's FAT Performance in the '70's, though photos from 2012 show it still with the large name and logos on the side.

It's not Tar Babe - I believe that is now in Russell Ricthie's collection in Scotland. I don't know the owner of this one but apparently it was left part finished for many years in a garage and recently emerged. Mt friend Paul has been commissioned to build up all the mechanical and electrical parts. Having seen it, it is a stunningly good chop, keeping the curves and flowing lines of the roof really well. It is also painted black, so pretty unforgiving of any issues in the metalwork. It should be a great car when done.

Wed Apr 30, 2025 12:08 pm

Tall Bloke - I think i had you mistaken for a guy who used the avatar "Ugly Bloke" on another forum and at one stage had the ex-Rad Ritchie Ghia.

Which is your car at Paul's? I've probably seen it there.

If you're going to Stanford Hall on Sunday, that is my current target. Might see you there?

Sat May 10, 2025 8:07 am

Time for another update. When I got the Ghia home the engine had been run in the car, but that had revealed a number of problems. The charging light did not come on when the ignition was switched, so the alternator was not functioning. The temperature gauge was not functioning. There had been no time to fit air hoses for the heaters. And the oil hoses sat uncomfortably close to the exhaust.

Dealing with the heater hoses, the Vintage Speed exhause does not make routing these easy, with the pipes from cylinders 2 and 4 encroaching on where the tubes should run. On cylinder 4 this is made worse by the external oil system, as the hose back to the case also goes across where the pipe needs to go.

I started by wrapping those parts of the exhaust in Thermotec and then running bare aluminium tubes from the heat exchanger to the tinware. I wanted black hoses in the engine bay, but the bare aluminium hose is more flexible and less of a fire risk than the cardboard covered tubing. After a few goes and several bits of ruined tubing I got them in place.

I then fitted a metal joiner like on stock exhausts, a seal and the black hose. I did the easier side first.