Grelland's Ghia

[Jon]

Your getting there Roy!! Keep going!! Spring is comming :-)

[Grelland]

Thanks, Johnny, but judging by the weather earlier tonight, when I was moving my chassis to an other location, it seems loooong before the spring is here...

[Grelland]

Slowly moving forward.. Have done some work on the lower a-pillar on the RH side, as well as the inner fender.
Man, I look forward to driving this thing ;-)

[Grelland]

In the meantime, Speedwell and others have overwhelmed me with pictures of old cal-look Ghias, and I have decided to change my choice of wheels. I am now about to land a deal on a set of these:

[bathing ape]

sounds like this is gonna be a cool ghia!

[Grelland]

Thanks, hope so. Still some way to go to match yours (if the car in the avatar is yours, that is..).

I had a chance to work on the engine a bit tonight, and this is probably not going to be fitting to the traditional cal-look theme, but I am opting for a Porsche cooling setup in order to place the plenum for a FI setup behind it. I kind of believe in utilizing modern technology whenever it is available, We dont have to freeze EVERYTHING to the way things were in '76 

Roy

[bathing ape]

thanks,yes its mine in the avatar,i couldn't bring myself to weld up nostrils etc,but maybe the bumper overriders and window rubber trim could go!.glad to see you going for real empi 8s

[Grelland]

Agree with you on the nostrils (even if they are causing me a lot of extra work due to rust and stuff at the moment). The Ghia look naked without them.

Roy

[Jon]

About as naked as an engine without carbs?? 

[Grelland]

right

[Grelland]

some update: the inner fender is ready also on this side, just need to mount the fresh air channel before I can start mounting the nose and fenders. It's coming together :-)

The red lines indicate where I have welded in new panels....

[Cheesepanzer]

Man oh man, that is quite impressive.  Nice work!  Dedication for sure!     Keep the shots coming!

[Grelland]

Thanks, I had a look at your car on your website, and it looks great. What plans do you have for the wheels?

Back to my project; I finished up the lower a-pillar last night, so now this entire part of the car starts taking shape:

[Harry/FDK]

Just AWESOME !!!

[Grelland]

thanks :-)

Things are slowly moving forward, and I have fixed up the luggage area, ground down the welds, sandblasted, and applied the first coat of primer (etch primer).

Looking better already:

[Grelland]

In the bottom right corner, you can see that I have fixed the area where the dogleg stops at the firewall. I still have to fix the other side, before I can primer the entire front of the car.

My major headache at the moment is the nostrils. The entire nose of the car was a total mess, and I fixed most of it, but the area around the nostrils was partly rusted out and partly "destroyed" by some PO's attemt to fix it. So I have mounted new air boxes, and try to shape the outer skin such that the chrome grille fits. But it doesn't....

I really dont know how to fix this, but I guess I will get there in the end. I have received some good advice from my friends at TheSamba, so I will keep trying:-)

[Shubee2 (DSK)]

Hi If You Are Fitting The Grills and Need to Shape Everything Do Not Use A New After Market Grill Use A Good Used One To Copy The Shape The After Market Grill are Way Off as far as A Good Fit I Would Make The Car Fit an Original Set Of Grills Then Make the After Market Grills Fit The Car Dont Make the Car Fit The Grill 

[Bryan67]

Or.... you could fill them in.

[Grelland]

Hi If You Are Fitting The Grills and Need to Shape Everything Do Not Use A New After Market Grill Use A Good Used One To Copy The Shape The After Market Grill are Way Off as far as A Good Fit I Would Make The Car Fit an Original Set Of Grills Then Make the After Market Grills Fit The Car Dont Make the Car Fit The Grill 

Thanks, that was what I expected... I will try finding an OE grille before I spend more time on this.

[Grelland]

Or.... you could fill them in.

Somehow, I was expecting this :-) But I will keep the grills.

[Grelland]

I am trying my best to keep up with JHU, but I see he has now started cheating, hiring proffesional help, so I will just have to stop sleeping at night...

But I did get some more work done the last few days, but barely visible, as it has been mostly related to grinding welds and applying primer.

But I had a trip out in the forest to rescue the last remainings of my parts car the other night, and here's a picture of the only usable part left. I will replace the dash with this one shortly.

[bathing ape]

Or.... you could fill them in.

oh no not again

[Shubee2 (DSK)]

I Dont Know if this would help you on your Ghia nose panel around the grills but take a look
 
 
 
 
TheSamba.com Classifieds Index -> Parts -> Ghia
Karmann Ghia Nose Ad number: 234511
 


 
Karmann Ghia Nose - 150 
This needs a bit of help in the apron and headlight buckets, but it's a big ol hunk of metal to work with if you have collision damage.Remember, the center sections alone, repro, go for $750. Man! Not an easy piece of metal to fabricate.
Crating Fee $40, I ship globally
 
 

[Grelland]

Thanks.

A friend here in Norway have kindly let be borrow his nostril grills, so I will at least have a go at this first.

In the meantime, I have spent some time filling in some bumps in the front luggage area, and then applied a final coat of 2-k epoxy primer. This will be followed by a layer of inno-tec spray sealer, and finally paint:

[Grelland]

I have also painted the outside of the inner fender, in the area behind the fresh air vents, in order to ensure that this area will not rust again:

[Grelland]

And while I was at it, the fan-shroud and cooling tin also got a round with the L87 Pearl White paint:

[Grelland]

It is actually nice and shiny, it is just my photography skills that make them look flat...

[MattKab]

Very impressive Grelland!

This will surely inspire other people to fix Ghia's. You will be a proud man when you drive it next!

Keep up the good work,

Matt

[Grelland]

Thanks, Matt.

I see Johnny Boy has really upped the pace lately, so I will have to work hard to keep up with him :-) (By the way, Johnny, my chassis is already painted and ready for the body  )

Here are a few pics of this week's progress so far:

First a picture of the right hand side, where I have welded on the rearmost part of the fresh air channel:


Then the other side got  the foremost part added:


What you cant see here is that all these parts have a fresh layer of new shiny paint on the inside, hopefully avoiding rust in the future: I will also use cavity wax once the last part is welded on.

Lastly, I spent a few minutes mounting all the engine tin and fan shroud onto my engine:


I am not really too sure whether I like the outcome, but after I get all the runners, plenum, fuel lines and wires mounted, it will look better, I hope.   

[Grelland]

Slow progress, but still progress...

I have finally got around to fixing the last part of the firewall, and applied some primer and even a lick of bondo to cover everything up:

I will have to take a few day's brake, as I did some welding without my helmet, so now my eyes are all red and swollen... I know...