Project car T34 Karmann Ghia a.k.a Rustbucket

Started by 80 Vert, January 28, 2012, 08:29:00 PM

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badhabit

2007 Honda Euro
1973 Datsun 240Z - RB25det build
1991 Porsche 911/964
1960 VW karmann ghia

rambo_005

Looks amazing John; a long way from the first and last time I saw it, not long after it had arrived in NZ.

80 Vert

Dash top time, had a few ideas rolling around in my head as to how to attack this best and in the end went with none of them.
My original dash is completely poked, the inner steel support is completely rusted through and in one place the dash is completely broken in half.
Most of the hold down bolts are also broken off so there's little option but to make a whole new one.
My first thought was to make a new steel structure and then re use the foam pieces from the old dash but once I started trying to remove some of the foam the whole thing just began to disintegrated in to a pile of rust / rubbish on the bench.


In taking it apart I realised that there's more than just the steel hold down strip in there so that meant re thinking the whole thing anyway so I started by making a cardboard template of the steel dash to give me some idea of shape etc.
It's become pretty evident that I should have made the new dash when the body was still in primer, doing it now that it's painted is a royal pain in the a**
Soo easy to mark the paint and the car also isn't in the same work area but anywho that's life, I'll just have to deal with it.
My first attempt was to make the steel panel from one piece which didn't go so well so by lunch time that went in the bin and I started again.
This time 4 pieces worked ok, not the prettiest thing I've ever made but all going well it will never ever be seen again so I'm good with that.
In all it was a really difficult piece to make due to all of the curvature and making it from too thick panel steel (1.0mm)
Next job is to encapsulate the panel in PU Foam and start shaping it with a rasp till I get the shape I want.

2010 T5 Transporter TDI  Tuned by Superior Tuning NZ
2003 Jetta Coupe soon to be R36TT
1991 Golf GTI 2.0 TSI swapped
1963 Type 34 Karmann Ghia, turbo 2.0
1990 Porsche 964 911 Carrera 4
1980 1303 Beetle vert, under restoration

80 Vert

First foam pour on to the metal backer, this might actually work!
The 2 part PU foam sands super easy with 36 grit paper leaving a nice smooth surface to which I'll glue some closed cell foam and then thermo vacuum form the material over it.

I can see getting the shape right will take a little time but the profile gauge will come in handy there.
Have the dash on the bench again now having done the next pour on the under side.
2010 T5 Transporter TDI  Tuned by Superior Tuning NZ
2003 Jetta Coupe soon to be R36TT
1991 Golf GTI 2.0 TSI swapped
1963 Type 34 Karmann Ghia, turbo 2.0
1990 Porsche 964 911 Carrera 4
1980 1303 Beetle vert, under restoration

80 Vert

No time for the Ghia during the week so had to wait till today to start shaping the dash top, good thing is this 2 part pourable foam is very easy to work with and sands really easy with 36 grit paper to rough out to shape then finish off with 80 grit.
Got most of the shape dialed in pretty quickly to the point I could mount it in the car to see where it was at, shape around where it folds over the metal dash was a little tricky to get right but the closed cell foam will also smooth some of this out.
It seems to fit pretty well and looks the part, I've just applied one coat of epoxy resin to protect the PU foam and also to make the whole thing a little more sturdy.


Its quite a messy affair as you can see from the crap on the bench and had to do several extra foam pours in places where I came up short.
The great thing about the PU foam is you can just mix how ever much you need right down to very small quantities for working on small areas.
Dash mounted in the car and looks to be fairly even and straight in all directions ready for a coat of epoxy resin.

2010 T5 Transporter TDI  Tuned by Superior Tuning NZ
2003 Jetta Coupe soon to be R36TT
1991 Golf GTI 2.0 TSI swapped
1963 Type 34 Karmann Ghia, turbo 2.0
1990 Porsche 964 911 Carrera 4
1980 1303 Beetle vert, under restoration

brian

Škoda Fabia 1.0 TSI Race Blue

80 Vert

On to the lower dash, not in bad shape all things considered with one large crack but the vinyl is very brittle due to old age and sun damage so I'll try to remove the vinyl and repair this one.

Its also shrunk some over the last 60 years but most of it will be salvageable I think, plan is to repair the foam where it is very porous and extend the edges where it meets the steel dash as that's where it is a little short.
Once done I'll also cover this with a new layer of 3mm foam before vacuum forming a new cover on.
2010 T5 Transporter TDI  Tuned by Superior Tuning NZ
2003 Jetta Coupe soon to be R36TT
1991 Golf GTI 2.0 TSI swapped
1963 Type 34 Karmann Ghia, turbo 2.0
1990 Porsche 964 911 Carrera 4
1980 1303 Beetle vert, under restoration

80 Vert

Next on the list was to make a new strip of dash vinyl to hide the painted dash along the window edge, since I still had the original it was easy enough to copy it and make a new one from the same grained material as the door tops.
Had to heat it to be able to curve it in the corners and actually made it in two pieces since my roll of material wasn't wide enough to do the whole thing in one go, coat of black vinyl paint and glued it in place.
By the time i'm done I could probably write a book on restoring this car!

Bought another heater during the week which meant I had to make my box and vinyl frame longer again to be able to do the dash tops, that was yesterdays work along with getting everything ready and set up again for what hopefully will be the last round of vacuum forming.
Early this morning I decided to have a shot at doing the lower dash and to be honest  was pretty nervous as you really do only get one shot at it.
Things didn't go all that well as it turns out and in hindsight I should have gone about it differently but what's done is done.
The vacuum has such force that if the item is not supported correctly it will distort under vacuum which is what happened here, not much I can do about it and after a few hours of corrective work I at least have it in the car.
I'm far from happy with the finished result but I'll live with it for now, all bolted down it looks ok enough.
Probably more because I know where all the problems are but when you consider what most of us T34 owners start off with its not all bad.
Decided against doing the dash top for now, I'll think more about how I'm going to tackle that as that really does have to be right.

2010 T5 Transporter TDI  Tuned by Superior Tuning NZ
2003 Jetta Coupe soon to be R36TT
1991 Golf GTI 2.0 TSI swapped
1963 Type 34 Karmann Ghia, turbo 2.0
1990 Porsche 964 911 Carrera 4
1980 1303 Beetle vert, under restoration

Fizz


the phantom

this car will be a stunner when it's finished, awesome John  8)
Land Transport New Zealand, taking the fun out of driving since August 2008

80 Vert

Been sourcing and waiting for a few of the little parts needed to finish off certain jobs on this, some parts are better than others as per the norm with aftermarket stuff and usually you have no choice so what's available is all there is.
I was pleasantly surprised with the interior light from Stoddard, looks really nice, on the flipside the interior finger guards from KGP&R are absolute shi#te but with modification they just work and were cheap so...........
After a few weeks break from vacuum forming I decided today was the day to get er done so to speak and put this process to bed, at one point I was close to ripping it all off and starting again but managed to save it through perseverance.
Ran out of vinyl paint so that wasted a good couple of hours finding some more as I was determined this was going to get done today!

From here there's a couple of hours finishing off wrapping the vinyl over and gluing down / trimming edges etc.
Not half bad after a coat of black! Paint was barely dry and the dash is in my hot little hand on it's way over to the car to mount this sucker.
Pad bolted down completed another step in the interior, also installed the glove box which amazingly was good enough to go right back in after 52 years of service.
Scott's awesome glovebox decals were next, man are those things fragile!
All went well though but a lot of care and patience needed...........patience is not my strong suit..........

Last thing for the day I had a go at installing the windscreen by myself as there was no one here to help, the rubber doesn't want to stay on the glass too well but once you install the trim it seems to tie it all together.
A trick I've always used to make sure the rubber seals is to spray a rust preventative like Tectyl on the outside edge of the glass  and then install the seal, with the seal on I again spray the Tectyl on the rubber itself and on the window frame then install the glass.
The screen went in easy as, started seating the rubber at the bottom using the weight of the glass pushing down and once the whole lower lip was seated I gave it a good bash with the palm of my hand, then worked my way up each pillar with one hand pushing from the outside and the other pulling the rope.
Final stretch along the roof meeting in the center it was in, a good number of slaps seated the glass in place and hopefully it seals.
The only hassle with the rust preventative is it gets on everything and everywhere but once cleaned the result is awesome.
I always find that a project feels like its turned a corner once all glass is in and certainly today was one of those days, more parts off the floor / shelves and back on the old girl.
I'm quite amazed how good a shape this 50 year old glass is in, sure there's some de-lamination and a chip or 2 but still pretty damn nice, imagine trying to get another one.... :o
2010 T5 Transporter TDI  Tuned by Superior Tuning NZ
2003 Jetta Coupe soon to be R36TT
1991 Golf GTI 2.0 TSI swapped
1963 Type 34 Karmann Ghia, turbo 2.0
1990 Porsche 964 911 Carrera 4
1980 1303 Beetle vert, under restoration

80 Vert

The new heater hoses also arrived during the week which meant I could finally finish those off as well, the sizing is pretty good with the outside diameter being a little smaller than original.
Another fail on my part was the metal retaining straps being that these hoses actually use the larger of the 2 sizes used on the T34, good thing I have some coming from overseas.
Starting to come together at last, detail pieces take forever.

So the last couple of weeks I've been working on a tach as a side project, since there's little to no information out there once again here's my take on it figuring it out as I went.
Started off with a Bieber 8k rpm tach my Dad gave to me recently, he'd kept it from his days of screwing around with cars. I figured it to be 70's vintage but when I took it apart it had Marz 66 on the inside.
Not knowing if it even worked I wired it up to the coil on our forklift which was the easiest thing to get to and seemed to work fine.
Great! now what..........can't install it as is  ;D, I want it to  match the other gauges obviously soooooo..........
I also ended up with an early T3 clock from a local T3 guy to donate the dial plate and backing plate, ring which holds the lens and the chrome bezel.
First I cut the back off the clock housing leaving me with a ring which by sheer fluke the Bieber housing was a tight fit into so all I had to do was measure how deep the housing needed to be over all and cut the clock housing to length.

With the depth set I drilled new holes in the clock face, backer and mounted this to the tach movement, it was at this point I noticed a big problem with my plan.................the tach needle does not sit in the center of the face, rather off to one side so the center hole needs to be a lot bigger for the tach sweep. Never mind I'll worry about that detail later!
By now I have too much time invested to turn back.
Mount all of this back in the new housing and used the stepped trim ring from the T34 speaker grill as well as salvaged the brass plate and button from it.
Test fit everything together, looks ok so far.


Machined the clock face out by hand with a die grinder to be able to clip the brass plate in as well as cut a clearance for the needle to sweep around leaving a little material at the base between the stops. I had to re bend the needle at this point to raise where the bend was to clear everything.
Incredibly fiddly doing this by hand but what else can you do.......

So at this point I just needed a new lens which I cut from clear perspex and ground to shape, drilled a hole in the center to mount the brass button.
Still to make the tach face which will require some photoshop trickery before that can be printed and then strip everything to paint all the components for final assembly.............and hopefully it still works!
2010 T5 Transporter TDI  Tuned by Superior Tuning NZ
2003 Jetta Coupe soon to be R36TT
1991 Golf GTI 2.0 TSI swapped
1963 Type 34 Karmann Ghia, turbo 2.0
1990 Porsche 964 911 Carrera 4
1980 1303 Beetle vert, under restoration

80 Vert

Went and collected my newly rebuilt K24 Audi turbo from Steve Murch at MSE turbos NZ, its the last piece needed for getting the engine underway.
Hope to assemble the long block first and install it so that I can get a better idea of where everything will go, with some luck I can incorporate a small intercooler somewhere but we'll have to see if there's room.
Most of the fiddly interior stuff is done now apart from the seats and tach so i'm going to move on to doing mechanical and sorting out the fuel system next.

2010 T5 Transporter TDI  Tuned by Superior Tuning NZ
2003 Jetta Coupe soon to be R36TT
1991 Golf GTI 2.0 TSI swapped
1963 Type 34 Karmann Ghia, turbo 2.0
1990 Porsche 964 911 Carrera 4
1980 1303 Beetle vert, under restoration

80 Vert

Made a start on the fuel system and couldn't believe my luck or lack there of!
Before the tank was cleaned and epoxied I welded on a threaded plug for the fuel return line and now that I've come to make fuel lines I discovered that it is in absolutely THE worst place I could have put it on the entire tank!  >:(

It turns out that it's directly above the steering damper so nothing works, not a 45 deg, a 90 or straight NOTHING!  :roll:
Have to make something, made 2 custom fittings which give plenty of clearance to the steering damper and allow the use of Golf plastic fuel lines which A) are free and B) won't rot like rubber.
Also using a Golf fuel filter and if I'd really thought about it could have used a Golf in tank pump as well but I'll use a normal external EFI pump so that the tank remains stock looking from above.
I have several lenghts of plastic fuel line which hopefully will be enough but there's plenty of wrecks around to get some more from.
The fittings are really nice too, o ringed and just clip together so no hose clips required.
2010 T5 Transporter TDI  Tuned by Superior Tuning NZ
2003 Jetta Coupe soon to be R36TT
1991 Golf GTI 2.0 TSI swapped
1963 Type 34 Karmann Ghia, turbo 2.0
1990 Porsche 964 911 Carrera 4
1980 1303 Beetle vert, under restoration

coons


80 Vert

Finally managed to get an Walbro EFI pump during the week to be able to complete the fuel lines, its much much more difficult to add these kinds of parts without cutting or modifying the original car and making it look like they are supposed to be there.
I don't know why exactly I'm bothering to do it this way but basically it means that everything can be unbolted and returned to standard if I ever desired to do that.
I've run the supply line between the body and pan edge on the left side and the return on the right side, both are completely hidden from view and fully protected.

Made a mount for the pump which bolts up to the inspection plate at the front of the tunnel which also means a very short supply line from the tank.
Since I'm using modern FI components I'll also use a charcoal canister for a closed loop system, I would have had to run an extra hose to the rear but since the original fuel line is still in the tunnel that will do nicely!
All I have to do is connect the tank vent to the hard line at the front and the charcoal can to the hard line at the rear plus a hose to the engine for vacuum.
Bit hard to see but pump mounted in rubber mount between the beam and frame head.


Decided to put the fuel filter at the rear mounted off one of the subframe mounting points on a custom bracket, easy to get at and well enough protected from everything.
Motor build is looming even though I'm not feeling it, anyone keen to come over and build it for me??
2010 T5 Transporter TDI  Tuned by Superior Tuning NZ
2003 Jetta Coupe soon to be R36TT
1991 Golf GTI 2.0 TSI swapped
1963 Type 34 Karmann Ghia, turbo 2.0
1990 Porsche 964 911 Carrera 4
1980 1303 Beetle vert, under restoration

80 Vert

Wiring on old cars is funny compared to modern stuff, just shows how far automotive design has come.
A couple of stumbling blocks getting things working but mostly was just bad earths on a body which has had every square cm painted and not something the factory did very well so plenty of bare metal left exposed.
Good to see lights on and various things working after being sitting dormant and in pieces for 5+ years.

The 6V horn relay didn't like 12V going through it so I replaced it with a horn relay from a MK6 Golf, amazingly still the same pin outs on the Golf part 50 years after the Ghia was built.
The horn gave me a good run for my money though, 6V wiring differs from 12V so after changing that it still didn't work properly and I ended up taking the entire colum apart to figure out why, cut a long story short it was an epic fail on my part when I installed the colum the bolts were too long which touched the speedo housing in turn grounding the colum to the body.
Took me a while to find that but now that those are shortened it works like it was supposed to.

Good thing about taking the colum apart I painted the steering wheel boss black to match the colum.

Wipers will be next, I'm installing a variable rheostat between the fuse box and wiper push button so that I can regulate that to 6V give or take meaning that as far as the push button and wiper motor are concerned the system is being supplied 6V instead of 12V so there shouldn't be any harm done to the variable speed switch.
Some pics with the lights on, been a long time coming.


2010 T5 Transporter TDI  Tuned by Superior Tuning NZ
2003 Jetta Coupe soon to be R36TT
1991 Golf GTI 2.0 TSI swapped
1963 Type 34 Karmann Ghia, turbo 2.0
1990 Porsche 964 911 Carrera 4
1980 1303 Beetle vert, under restoration

RS ZWEI

1980 VW Golf GTI Track Car
1995 Audi RS2
2003 Mini Cooper S (Written off - rear ended)
2005 Mini Cooper S
2006 Skoda Octavia vRS Combi
2009 Renault Megane 230 R26 (Written off - rear ended)
2013 Renault Megane RS265 Redbull RB8

80 Vert

Quite slowly but making progress every week, bought new stainless steel bumpers instead of repairing / chroming my old ones as they are pretty tired.
Interior is completely done bar upholstering the seats, the exterior is now 95% complete as well with the last wheel being polished and clear powdercoated.  The 16x6 Fuchs wheels were a bit of a fail as I didn't realise there are 2 kinds and I had 3 of one type and 1 of the other which I couldn't live with so found the correct one but this needed polishing and clear coating.
Bonus being that I'll have a Fuchs as a spare as well if it actually fits on the front.

Bled the brakes today so once the wheel is done they can go on, found the tyres I needed for the front to be able to run the car fairly low.
Engine has been pre assembled and checked, rotating assembly now with engine balancer to do his bit before the long block goes together, loose plan right now is to be building the header / exhaust in the hollidays.
2010 T5 Transporter TDI  Tuned by Superior Tuning NZ
2003 Jetta Coupe soon to be R36TT
1991 Golf GTI 2.0 TSI swapped
1963 Type 34 Karmann Ghia, turbo 2.0
1990 Porsche 964 911 Carrera 4
1980 1303 Beetle vert, under restoration

brian

Škoda Fabia 1.0 TSI Race Blue