The Cal-look Lounge

Here are some shot of my 62 Ghia. I got this car from Mike Mahaffey (Green 1951 split from the original DKP). The car had been stripped to bare metal and pushed outside once his son bought a 71 Ghia. It sat outside out here in California for 8 years. Here are the beginning pics of the car, she's pretty rusty. I'll post some of the pics showing the steps I've gone through on it so far. 

Here are a few more pics of her before I started sand blasting. My camera was on the fritz when I took them, but the rest of the pics will be better after these ones. I started off sandblasting with a 90lb blaster and a 50gal compressor. It was brutal. I then moved up to two compressors and it was still taking too long. More pics will follow soon.

I sanded the car with 80 grit using an orbital sander to take most of the surface rust off, but there was still a lot of rust on the body. It took me 3 hours to do the sandblasting that is shown in the pictures below using the 90lb sand blaster, draw thru style blaster.

My father-in-law ended up buying a two cylinder diesel compressor and hooked it up to a 500 gallon amonia tank he had laying around. Things started going quicker, but it still took me roughly a month and 350-400lbs of sand to get the entire car blasted. By the time I finished the car, I had to go back and re-blast the doors, they had already started rusting again.

Here are some pics of the interior. Mike Mahaffey (DKP) took a class at the local Junior College on upholstry and rebuilt the seats and door panels. They are amazing. We are planning on painting the car to match the silver that runs down the middle of the seats. A stout 2275 is also on the build list, along with a set of Flat 4 BRMs, but those things will have to wait until all the body work is done and she's painted. As you can see, there is a lot of body work to get finished. I have to fix the weld on the right front fender, but I'm not too worried about that. 

cool, what are the plans for engine, color, wheels, engine?

It was while I was sanding out the rear trunk area I realized I had a floor pan problem. I felt my right new drop about a half inch. Once I got underneath the car I realized there were big troubles. I'm going to have to replace the pan once I get around to it. I've got nothing but time, but I'd like to have it done by next time this year. We'll see what happens.

Looks like a cool project 8)
Lots of work ahead but if I left a bare steel ghia outside in the UK for 8 years it would have to be swept up ::)
Keep the pics coming.
Cheers,
Kev

Hi Roy,
     I'm planning on a 2275 pushing somewhere close to 200hp, running a Rancho Performance trans, the color is going to be Polar Silver (it has a blue look from different angles, there's a bug in the 2/08 Hot VW's magazine with the paint color), I'm hoping to run some BRM repos.
     You're blog is going to help me so much!!! Mike turned me onto your build last night and I've been hooked on it since then. I have a lot of the same spots that need to be replace like on your Ghia, the lower rears behind all the tires, floor pans, the spots around the front lights, and repairing that front fender. I've got a lot of hammer and dolly work to do too, but I'll get to it a little here and there.
     Here are some of those spots that need to be fixed up. I picked up a nice Lincoln HD175 welder to get to work on replacing the panels.

Here are the pics of her all the way sanded down. It took Mike and I almost 4 hours just to get all the sand out of the body before I sprayed her. We emptied our  big shop vac several times. There was a lot of air blowing and banging on the body panels trying to get it all out. After we got done we finally wheeled it over to my barn/paint booth. More pics to come later today.

Here are the pics of Mike and I laying down our PPG Epoxy Primer. It went on so easy. This was my first primer job and I only had 1 or 2 runs. I'll attach the pics next showing how I set up the other parts of the body for spraying the primer. I live on a farm, so there are a lot of things around to use. Mike Mahaffey is hitting the roof with a torch to burn off all the little specs of cloth that came off when we were wiping it down.

Here is the rack, hood, doors, gas tank, engine lid all ready to be primered up. One of the pics shows the door all primered up.

The next couple of posts will have the pics of her all primered up.

Here are the final pics of her primered up. Now I have to get to hammering, filling, panel replacement, blocking, primering some more, on and on. Mike Mahaffey is checking out our work and I'm standing as a proud papa infront of my girl. I'll keep you updated with how things are coming along, pictures included too. Please drop me lines to other works in progress so I can use ideas that they might have. Thanks - Andy

Here is one of the motivational pictures that I look to when working on my 62 looker. I'm not going to be running any chrome on the car, and I'm not going to drop the rear at all. I don't know if I'm going to run an adjustable narrowed front beam or an airbag setup, probably a narrowed beam, 3" or 4". Has anyone had success fitting 6" Flat4 BRMs on their Ghia? Will I have to run shortened axles to make them fit? Thanks for any tips you might have.

Nice to see that another early Ghia survived! 8)

Mario/DKT

wow that is a stunning car, great inspiration.

I am not sure about the offset of the Flat4 BRMs, but I am using a set of genuine EMPI 8's and they are 5 3/8" inch wide if I remember correctly, and ET36 or 38. In the rear I use a 1" narroved IRS setup, which is about the same width as the stock (short) swing axles, I have no issues with rubbing, some 1/2" clearance to the wheel opening, using 185/65 tyres. In the front I use a 3" narrowed beam and CB dropped spindles, and personally I think it is too narrow for looks, but ok for rubbing... Depends on how low you want to go. I will aim for the same as you, with near stock at the rear, and a "decent" rake. Not as low as the one here. I am also going for not-so-cal-look front tyres, using 185/55, as I would like to be able to stop and turn even in the rain...
Good luck, and keep the pics coming.

:)

Hi Andy, looks 100% better after blasting & a coat of primer!
Silver is a fairly unusual colour to see on a ghia but is really suited to it I think 8)
Cheers,
Kev

185's up front!  :o That thing is going to handle like it's on rails. You would definitely need a 3" or 4" narrowed front just to turn with tires that wide. Yep, I'll probably run some 135's up front since it doesn't rain that often down here in Southern California.
My goal is to build the car to Der Kleiner Panzer specs, dropped in the front, rear at stock height, no billet, single paint color and fast as all getout. 
Thanks Kev, it's been a long process. I've currently been going through the steps to become a teacher, so I haven't had much time to work on it. Starting this page is the best thing I could've done. It'll keep me motivated to get working on it.
I'll keep posting pics as I get more and more done.  :)

I'm sorry I haven't been up on posting pics. I'm going to get started on the bodywork again so there will be more pics added soon.