My Fat Chick

[LVGhia72]

Getting side tracked a little bit, from the weather and life's problems in general.
Hope to have torsion arms etc.. installed by the weekend.
Here's a little project creep;

Cleaned some rust off frame head. While I can get to it without the suspension in the way.

3 coats of black epoxy.

Steve

[LVGhia72]

Weather was good for painting. No wind and not to cold.
Managed to finish painting the torsion control arms.

Bottom arm looks a little gray. Rest assured it is black as one above.

Hopefully, it won't take to long for the paint to cure. Then install.

Steve

[LVGhia72]

I put the right side (passenger) side torsion arms on. I did'nt do the left (driver) side, because I wanted to finish up cleaning the rust off the frame head etc..
The arms went on quite easy. The only hassle was seating the grease seals flush into the beam. One side of the seal would go in the other side would not. After a few try's I got it done. Some Pic's;

Grease seals.

Cleaned off the rust that was on the arm.

Greased.

More grease.

Grease seal flush with beam.

Perfect line up.

Rust killing, left side.

Painted.

I'll put the left side torsion arms on tomorrow. Then move on with the spindles, etc...

Steve

[LVGhia72]

I painted and installed new front spindles from AC industries over the weekend. I also installed new concentric camber adjusters.
I working on stripping and repainting the tie rods and new ends, if the weather will cooperate.
Had some major dental work done on Monday. Total cost 23K. So I'm in some major pain after the work. Never mind about the pain from the cost.
Anyway some Pic's;

New spindles.

New spindles.

Painted.

New camber adjusters.

I transcribed the markings I made to the new ones.

Anti-seize to prevent it from getting stuck in the bore.

Anti-seize in bore.

Right side installed.

Left side installed.

Steve

[LVGhia72]

The tie rods and ends are painted and ready to be installed. I was going to do it Today. However, after doing some research on torque values etc.. I found out I do not have the locking plates for the adjustment nuts. Their were none on the tie rods when I took it apart. Same as the steering arm situation from earlier. So, a $2.00 part is holding me up. I will skip over this and move on. I'll being ordering and waiting on parts again. Need to prioritize what I need etc..

I installed new backing plates. Thank god I did'nt have to paint them.
I also cleaned up and painted the front firewall. I'm not a fan of yellow, but the color is pretty close. I may spray the wheel wells with that color once I clean off all the old under coating. I did get overspray on the black epoxy and I had to go back and touch it up.

So, next is the new bearings, races and rotors to install. Anyway a few Pic's;

Spent too much time trying to make this perfect.

Ready to go or so I thought.

Painted the front firewall to clean it up. I fixed the overspray

This color is a very close match to the color of the car(Saturn Yellow, I think).

New backing plates.

Backing plate installed with new bolts left side. My finger prints on it.

Right side.

Steve

[LVGhia72]

Weather was nice today and I got some stuff done.
I installed the new wheel bearings, races and grease seals into the new rotors.
I also packed it full of grease and managed to get rid of the can of grease I must of had for 20 years,
This front end rebuild is coming to a close pretty quickly. By the end of the weekend I should every thing installed, short of the tie rods (locking plates on order) and a sway bar.
For some reason, there was no sway bar on the car. Did some PO take it off because of the lowered adjustable beam? I noticed the sell sway bars for lowered beams. So does a stock sway bar interfere with a lowered suspension?
Anyway a few Pic's;

Bosch rotors made in China. Timken bearings and races made in France. SKF grease seals made in Mexico.

Old rotor, I took the bearing races out of. To see how it works etc.. They were SKF brand.

New rotor.

Driving the race in.

The bearing driver did not fit the front race good. So I used the old race to help it out. Then used the driver once the race was part way in the rotor.

Packed full of grease.

Grease seal

Drive it in.

Done, ready for install.

Steve

[LVGhia72]

The front end rebuild is pretty much a wrap. I installed the new rotors and calipers. Just waiting on some locking plates for the tie rod ends and maybe a sway bar. The next major project will be to replace the wiring harness. In the mean time I'll be doing odds and ends jobs. Like repainting the old valve covers, rebuilding the old Brosal carburetor, taking the old under coating off the wheel wells etc..etc..

A few Pic's;

New backing plate and bolts. The bolts were torqued to 7Ft Lbs and I used loctite to insure the don't come loose. The old ones were loose.

Rotor on. Extra grease used for packing outer bearing and dust cap.

Locking nut was torqued to 9Ft Lbs and the bolt to 7Ft Lbs per Bentley.

Caliper back on and torqued to 30Ft Lbs and I used loctite on the bolts.

New speedeometer cable and hardware. I doub't it will fix my odometer thats not working. Speedo is Ok.

New grommet for speedo cable. Inner wheel well. Yes, there is holes all over the place from PO's.

Inside speedo grommet.

Left side.


A lot of things were replace over the months working on the front end of the Ghia. I will list them in a later post.

Steve

[Rome]

Front end rebuilt is looking good, together with the repaint of the undertank body area.

Did you install any type of lock washer under those 3 bolts that hold each backing plate to the spindles?

[LVGhia72]

[jjeffries]

Steve, I’m new here and just ready your thread from start till here. Isn’t always amazing how a small/ simple car can absorb so much of your time, effort and money? Great job and I admire your get-it-done mindset and approach to the work needed. The car will, I’m sure, drive so much nicer with that fresh front end … all those little flaws you’re correcting (worn ball joints, the beam bearings, etc) must have added up in how it drove. I will continue following your work.

Best regards,
John, in Conn.

[LVGhia72]

[LVGhia72]

A little update. I ordered the tie rod locking tabs on February 15th. Still have not received them. I contacted the seller (ISP West) and asked the status. They stated they only had 3 tabs and I ordered 4. I told them to just ship the 3. I only need 2. The 4 was a package deal. I don't even know if they will work as the are for a Type 3. No one has these so called important locking tabs. If they are so important how come no one sells them? They are a so called one time use item. Anyway, they are shipped.

I ordered a complete wiring harness from West Coast Metric on March 1st. It has already shipped. I choose WCM because they showed the item was in stock and the price was reasonable vs some others that were lower price with no information on whether they had the item in stock. Anyway, should have it by next week.

In the mean time, while I'm waiting on parts I painted the old valve covers. I did'nt waste a lot time stripping them to bare metal because they are beat up. I just sanded the loose paint, primed and painted. They are spares for valve adjustments etc.. If I want some thing new I'll just buy it. Oh, not a fan of yellow.

So a few Pic's;

Old beat up ones.

Tried this paint.

Primed.

Painted. May try a few more coats of paint after it cures for a week.

Steve

[LVGhia72]

Tie rod locking tabs and wiring harness came in the other day.
The locking tabs do fit. They were marketing them for a Type 3.
So, I installed the Tie rods etc.. That pretty much wraps it up for the front end.
Just s few things left to do. Need a sway bar. Need to fine tune the front alignment. I'll do an old school alignment using string and a tape measure. Get the car road worthy again. so I can drive it to an alignment shop etc..

So, it might be a couple of weeks before I get to the wiring harness. I have concerns of course. What kind of nightmare is waiting for me under the dashboard? What other bits and pieces will I need etc..? One concern I have is fishing the wire to/from the dome light. I really don't want to tear up the headliner. As it is in good condition.

Anyway some Pic's;

Wiring Harness.

Tie rod locking tabs.

Locking tabs.

New steering damper.

Tie rods and steering damper installed.

New tie rod right

New tie rod left.

I have new bolts for the rag joint. Just need to install. Locking tabs not bent over yet. Will wait till it gets to alignment shop.

Checking to make sure it is straight before aligning the steering wheel etc..

Steve

[Rome]

[LVGhia72]

[LVGhia72]

[LVGhia72]

I put the wheel's and tire's back on the Ghia. To do the initial check on Toe alignment. Without going into to much detail, I used 2 methods;

#1.Tape measure. Measured the distance between both front tires center line. Front of tires and back of tires. The problem with this method is you can not get the tape measure perpendicular to the center line of the wheel, because the body of the car is in the way. I did the best I could. I came up with the Toe being 4/16th out. Which is not that bad I thought. The other problem with this method is you really don't know which wheel to adjust. Do both evenly or just one etc.. So, all things considered I went to method number 2;

#2. String alignment. Run a string parallel along center line of the wheel, front to back on both sides of the car. More difficult to set-up, because everything has to be level and square. Using this method which is more accurate, I found the Left wheel toe was zero and the Right wheel was out by 16cm. Not bad. I'll admit I did play around with the tie rods after I installed them to get them even, which threw my initial measurements off when I first installed the tie rods. Won't do that again, lesson learned. I decided to switch to cm versus fractions because much easy to subtract. I also must of checked the measurements a least 10 times.

It got late in the day, so I did not adjust anything. I'll have to set everything up again on another day and do the adjustments. Which is alright because the measurements will be checked again.

As far as the Camber goes; I can get a Camber gauge/level from Amazon for $15. So, I'll do that.

As far as an alignment shop that knows what they are doing? I have not checked any out yet. There is at least 5 or 6 close by.

Anyway, some Pic's

Back on all four wheels. New found inspiration.

Tools I used, tape measures, line level, straight level, straight edge, string etc..

Used jack stands to hold string. The jack stands also have to be level.

String level.

String set-up

Measurement. I only have two hands, hard to take picture.

I'm also working on what I call dead end wiring as a side job. Wires to no where land. What are they? Where do they go to? etc....

Steve

[Ian Godfrey]

Strings are good, I do my race car that way and you can get it super accurate with practice.
I like to set the pitman arm parallel to the center line of the car which should be the mid point between full right and full left turn (counting the turns),
then put the steering wheel on the right spline so it is in the straight ahead position. Then set both tie rods to the toe in I want. Then set the steering stops.
Next time you just put the steering in the centre to adjust the toe in.
If you are going to change the camber or the front height do those first before the toe.
Your car is looking great. fantastic to see it back on wheels. I like the subtle rake

[Vladiiiii]

The car is looking better and better!

I also did my geometry with my phone (for camber adjustment) and strings (for toe), it worked out perfect the first try out Really didn't expect that.

I put some plastic bags under the front wheels so they turn easier. If you can fix the steering wheel in the straight-ahead position, then it's even better. If not, you have to go back-and-forth a couple of times. But certainly doable. Some oil / grease on the threads certainly help, that way you can even turn the rods by hand for fixing the angle. (of course don't forget to tighten afterwards).

Vlad
_________________
Vlad's 72 Ghia (Once in a Lifetime Restoration topic)
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?p=9237746#9237746

[Rome]

I'm surprised your steering box does not have that center reference ring/collar on the input shaft just ahead of where the shaft enters the box... I checked the gallery and many boxes are like that. Finally found a photo of the ring (TX-73)-

Now I see that this entire box has a different design than yours, as the "snout" casting that contains the input shaft is much longer/comes back more rearward on yours than on the photo box. On the photo box, the input shaft is turned so that the ring is at the approx. 3:00 position. To center the box, you'd turn the shaft CCW so that the ring's gap is straight up at the 12:00 position, which aligns the gap with the vertical sharp casting edge of the box directly above it.