1962 Aussie RHD Resto

[Mellow Yellow 74]

I bought this 1962 RHD Karmann Ghia in June 2011:

It was in reasonable condition but the floor pans had been very poorly repaired and it had some dodgy accident and rust repairs in the past. It was fairly original but had a 1600 twin port engine, 12V conversion, front disc brake conversion, four stud wheels and mini minor headlights.

I drove it without changing things much for a few years but in April 2015 I started a body off resto. I have done a lot of work on it and have taken a lot of photos but never got around to starting a resto thread until now.
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1962 Karmann Ghia
1974 Deluxe Microbus
1985 Caravelle (Vanagon)

[Mellow Yellow 74]

Body disassembled and ready to remove from the chassis:

Body dolly built and ready for body:

Body welded to the floor pan in a couple of locations so needed to be cut:

Body on dolly:

Chassis with body removed:

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1962 Karmann Ghia
1974 Deluxe Microbus
1985 Caravelle (Vanagon)

[Mellow Yellow 74]

Crusty floor pans:

Crusty heater channel:

Crusty rear seat kick:

Dodgy tunnel patch welds:

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1962 Karmann Ghia
1974 Deluxe Microbus
1985 Caravelle (Vanagon)

[Mellow Yellow 74]

Floor pan remains:

Chassis with floor pans removed:

Chassis with engine and front beam removed:

Dodgy factory welds on RHD pedal support:

Welds fixed and ground:

Tunnel patch repairs after checking clutch tube support ok:

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1962 Karmann Ghia
1974 Deluxe Microbus
1985 Caravelle (Vanagon)

[Mellow Yellow 74]

New hand made seat rails:

Seatbelt mounts:

Jack mounts (had to modify because depth of floor pan less than original):

Floor pan too short at rear:

Floor pan recesses wrong for RHD pedal mount:

Floor pan first three ribs wrong (too close to tunnel lip):

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1962 Karmann Ghia
1974 Deluxe Microbus
1985 Caravelle (Vanagon)

[Mellow Yellow 74]

Modifications to pan pedal mount and ribs:

Seat rails installed:

Trial fit of seat frames:

Pans with attachments and plug weld holes ready for fitting:

Pans tek screwed in position ready for plug welding:

Completed floor pans:

Detail showing accelerator mount and modifications at front on driver side:

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1962 Karmann Ghia
1974 Deluxe Microbus
1985 Caravelle (Vanagon)

[Mellow Yellow 74]

I removed the paint using a combination of paint stripper, strip discs and wire wheels. This car had been resprayed multiple times and each time they had used a lot of spray filler (probably because it is easier to do instead of block sanding between coats).

There was a lot of plastic filler (US translation: bondo) in some areas to cover the dodgy repairs. These cars have always been are fairly rare in Australia and it has never been easy to get used panels like in the US which led to dodgy repairs.

After stripping the paint on the body, the full extent of the dodgy previous repairs became obvious:

Rear driver side quarter major accident repair:

Front nose major accident and rust repair:

Front passenger fender major accident repair:

Headlight rust and mini minor headlight flange:

Front wing poorly done rust repair:

Passenger side ventilation duct previous poor repair:

Driver side ventilation duct rust:

Rear quarter to bumper support poor repairs:

Wheel well rust:

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1962 Karmann Ghia
1974 Deluxe Microbus
1985 Caravelle (Vanagon)

[Mellow Yellow 74]

The nose, headlights and spare wheel well all had previous dodgy repairs or rust so it had to go:

The rear driver side quarter had been poorly repaired multiple times and a repair section had been grafted on too low so it had to go:

The battery trays and wheel wells had rust and previous poor accident repairs so it had to go as well:

The heater channels were rusted and had previous poor repairs so I made up and fitted a body brace for when it was time to cut them out:

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1962 Karmann Ghia
1974 Deluxe Microbus
1985 Caravelle (Vanagon)

[djkeev]

Looking good!
Keep the photos and info coming!

Are these recent photos?

May we presume you are advanced beyond this point or is this an ongoing project today?

Dave
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Stop Dead Photo Links how to post photos

Ghia
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=392473

Vanagon
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?p=6315537#6315537

Beetle
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=482968&highlight=74+super+vert

[Mellow Yellow 74]

[sputnick60]

Glad you got those Morris Headlight buckets out of there.
Keep it coming.

Nicholas
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'66 Karmann Ghia Cabriolet...
'65 Porsche 356C Coupe...
2005 Mecedes Benz C180 Kompressor Estate
Stop dead photo links! Post your photos to The Samba Gallery!

[NoDents]

Great thread.

About the same amout of work as my 71.

My new floor pans were crappy as well. Even though they were shipped from Denmark, made in China with no quality control. I have heard that Wolfsburg West has the best pans, although not sure they supply Ghia pans.

One thing I learned (too late) was that the jig I made to hold front/rear body halves together should NOT bolt to the door hinges or otherwise be on the door pillars where the door would be. Should have welded/bolted to the inside of the pillar instead. Will be an issue when replacing the rocker panel. Need to mount the door in place to insure rocker panel alignment. So now I will have to bolt the body to floor pan and remove the jig before the rocker work.


Looks like you are well on your way. Keep up the effort!

[kgj]

Nice.
I like the cut away pictures.
Looking forward to the next instalment.
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1958 coupe

[Starbucket]

How many hours labor to this point 1000?

[Mellow Yellow 74]

[Onceler]

Beautiful work so far. I'm always impressed how much labor and money is devoted to these cars even though the roi is not there, it's mainly for the love of the history and cool style
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1972 Karmann Ghia

[Mellow Yellow 74]

I did the body work at a workshop in Sydney called Motorretro (motorretro.com.au).

I had done an evening college course in 2014 to learn basic panel beating skills and the teachers from the college started their own business in 2015. It is a fully fitted out body shop with old school tools such as english wheels and various metal forming machines.

They restore cars for customers and also run classes to teach welding and panel beating. Once you have done the classes you can work on your own project using their tools and their assistance when required.

I had been going there on Saturdays in 2015 and 2016 to make up panels for my resto. In 2017 I took my car there for three stints to work full time for a few weeks at a time.

I did a lot of the work myself with advice and help from the guys, but for some of the more specialised panel beating and TIG welding I paid them to do it and I assisted them.

A sign on the wall sums up the philosophy perfectly:

- A labourer uses his hands
- A tradesman uses his hands and his head
- A craftsman use his hands and his head and his heart
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1962 Karmann Ghia
1974 Deluxe Microbus
1985 Caravelle (Vanagon)

[Mellow Yellow 74]

I bought a new nose panel but it was damaged a little in transit:

Also the profile of the ridge on the repro panel was not right anyway:

So I bought Danny Gabbard's nose ridge tool and milled the end so it would fit in the Eckold metal forming machine:

After cutting out the holes for the vents, horn and bumper irons the nose ridge was reshaped:

The nose tool worked well but we needed to linish the ends down because it was a bit too flat and left some serious tool marks at first and had to be fixed using a hammer and dolly then file finished:

The finished new nose and the old nose:

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1962 Karmann Ghia
1974 Deluxe Microbus
1985 Caravelle (Vanagon)

[Mellow Yellow 74]

The fresh air ducts were gone so I removed these - due to lack of access I had to drill the spot welds out from the other side:

This left lots of holes in the wheelhouse panels plus there was rust and previous dodgy repairs:

Therefore these were removed as well:

The old panels with the new panels:

I removed the attachments off the panels to re-use them:

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1962 Karmann Ghia
1974 Deluxe Microbus
1985 Caravelle (Vanagon)

[Mellow Yellow 74]

The vent boxes come in two parts but do not have the cut outs, mounting tabs or drains:

I did the cut outs and drains based on the old ones:

The new versus the old:

I made up the vent mounting tabs and welded on:

I trial fitted the mesh and dilled the mounting hole:

I trial fitted the vent:

Then spot welded the two halves together:

Close up showing the drain and the tab joint:

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1962 Karmann Ghia
1974 Deluxe Microbus
1985 Caravelle (Vanagon)