Grelland's Ghia

[Grelland]

Then I spent some time cleaning up a pair if IRS arms that have been narrowed about an inch in order to make my EMPI 8-spokes fit inside the fenders:

[Grelland]

And then finally, last week, I spent one evening helping en old friend picking up an EXTREMELY nice '60 T1. The original rear lights came with the car. The funny thing is that this car was located about 5 minuted from my house... I am glad my friend bought it, since I would have had to buy it, and I would end up with another explaination problem towards the Wife... ;-)

[Grelland]

And the last one for now, here's one of the reasons why progress has been slow lately, as I was ordered to finish this up before the snow comes:

[Grelland]

Later this week, I plan one taking a day off work to really have some progress on the car, and I cant wait :-)

Stay tuned for more updates.

[yvre]

Man, when do you sleep???

[Grelland]

 

Now it is just over midningt, and I just returned from work, as I had to finish something up before taking tomorrow off.

So NOW I will sleep :-)

[Grelland]

And apart from a handful of phonecalls, did I actually manage to take the day off, and spend the entire day in the garage :-)

I started out by welding in the wedge at the bottom of the front fender, and I also finished the arc against the door, so that the two now actually follow the same curve...

Then I welded up the edge facing the wheel well, and the fender now has the same shape as the heater channel along the entire length of the car.

I actually had to cut another wedge along the opening towards the door, in order to make the opening even all the way down.

[Grelland]

Then I covered all areas to be welded with a welding primer, and added body sealer wherever possible to ensure no rust in the future, and then I finally mounted the fender for the last time, and started welding it in place. I went wery easy with the welder, in order to avoid the metal to warp. I also used a hammer and dolly to get all gaps perfect prior to welding

[Grelland]

The area around the nostril was also fixed up, and here I have to make a small piece in order to fill in the void:

[Grelland]

Now the fender is in its final location, but there is still some work to do before the thing is finished.

I also mounted the bumper again to make sure all still fits.

I have lost count of how many times I have taken the doors, bumpers etc on and off this car...

But now it at least starts to resemble a car again...

[Grelland]

I had to break for lunch, and then I took a trip to a local hardware-store that has a wide selection of hard-to-find parts. this is a place where grey-haired men in gray frocks work behind a counter, and when you ask for a hard-to-find part, they say "hmmm, let me see", then they disappear into the back room, and after a while they come back, "is this what you are looking for?". This time they came back with some clips for mounting the splash panels and locking nuts for my Spyder Mag wheels. I love that place...

[Grelland]

A short update from the cold north...

I have managed to finish up the welding on the front fender:

[Grelland]

And I aslo laid down a layer of 2k epoxy primer behind the dash and in the luggage compartment. Now the welds arfe more or less invisible :-)

[Grelland]

Sunday night is garage nigth, so I started on the other front fender, and first I had to make something to attach the fender to.

The lower half of this part was gone, so I had to make it from scratch

[Grelland]

Looks ugly for the moment, the black messy stuff is a welding Primer I use to ensure no rust in the future, so I will clean the area up before I apply some 2k epoxy primer

[Grelland]

Then I welded on the lower part of the fender, and the rearmost lip folds around the part I just made, so I mounted the door and fender tree times to ensure a good fit

[Grelland]

next on the agenda now is to weld on the front part of the fender, and fix a section of the wheel opening, where one of the PO's have made some repairs...

It is coming together now :-)

[Grelland]

and after a night of sandblasting and cleaning up the area, the a-pillar now looks like this:

[speedwell]

great job ray

[Grelland]

And then I started on the front fender. I started out by taking a lot of measurements, as I would like this side to be equal to the other side (...), so I measured a lot, then started by tack-welding the front part of the fender on. This is an NOS part, so at least the shape of this should be right.

I can't stand a Ghia where the bumpers are not straight and parallel to the ground, so I also mounted this in order to ensure that all is well.

All the measurements on positioning the headlights, nostrils and bumper are now within 1-2mm, so I feel I can move on and mount this fender permanently now.

It starts looking like a car now, doesn't it?

[Grelland]

great job ray

Thanks :-)

[Grelland]

Things are slowly going in the right direction.

I have trial mounted some of the instruments and stuff thant goes on the dash, and I still have to figurte out how to mount the 356 tach

[Grelland]

Then earlier this week I started working on the left front fender, and as was the case on the other side, do I have a gap between the fresh metal in the NOS front section of the fender, and fresh metal in the fender itself, so I started out by making small tabs in order to locate the parts correctly, then I filled in the gap with pathes:

[Grelland]

And after another evening in the cold garage (it is getting time to turn on the heated floors, as the temperature is below the freezing point here now..) The fender looks like this:

[Grelland]

I am trying to make sure the ridge on top of the fender follows the original look, as I have seen quite a few Ghias where this ridge disappears long before it reaches the headlight.

Here you can see that you can at least see the ridge, now I just have to make sure it is straight, so a little work with the hammer and dolly, and this will be fine

[Zach Gomulka]

I cant imagine tackling a job of this magnitute. You are doing a great job, keep it up!

[stealth67vw]

I cant imagine tackling a job of this magnitute. You are doing a great job, keep it up!

No kidding. I've cut up better cars.

[Grelland]

Thanks for the feedback, guys :-)

I have been quite eager to test out the art of applying body solder, so I started out with the easy part; namely a horisontal area on top of the right front fender:

[Grelland]

The last picture shows a surprice I discovered when I tried to melt some of the solder that was already there.

So now I needed one of these, to even this out:

[Grelland]

And after a trip around town, I found one of these body files in a well-assorted HW store, so I could move on.

I started out with cutting out the rusted area, welded in a patch, and added more solder to that area.

Then I started the tedious work of filing down the solder, and here's a few shots of the result of a couple of hours work: