Grelland's Ghia

[Grelland]

Yesterday I regained my eye-sight, and made one small step forward again, so now the front is ready for mounting the nose section:

[Lee.C]

Awsome work dude and don't worry I did the same thing a few months ago - hurt like hell right 

[Grelland]

Right, hurts like hell....

But I have managed to make some progress lately, and it is mostly the nostrils that have received some attention.

Here is the same nostril as above, and a picture with the grille mounted. I was lucky enough to borrow a pair of OG grilles from a friend, but the one in the picture is one of my Taiwan ones, hence the sligthly twisted look to it; it has now been persuaded into fitting the opening quite well :-)

[Grelland]

The entire nose section havs also seen some labour, and this part is now getting close to ready for body solder.

This is a pic from the inside, and the lower pic show all the welds after patching all the rusted areas... I still need to make openings for the bumper brackets.

[Grelland]

On the above pic, you can also see that I have attached the foremost parts of the air boxes

[Grelland]

And last night, I had to test assemble the front; first the nose section was mounted using all the seals that will eventually go on there, and then I hung one fender and the front corner on there too. I all sort of still fits, but there will have to be some adjustments before it all lines up perfectly.

At least it starts looking like a car now...

The lower pic show the seal between the nose and inner fender seen from the inside

[Grelland]

And just to make sure my motivtion will be totally killed; here is a picture of the last corner of the car.... 

[Shubee2 (DSK)]

LOL Roy Car Looks Good But What alot of work you have done to it I hope you are not keeping track of your hours spent Doing your restoration I would have never went as far as you have I would have Bought another car LOL  But where you are they are way harder to fing in any kind of Cond.  I already have My 49th VW Planned out in my Head  I Know everything I want to do to it the funny Part Is I have just started on #48 So I Have to get it done before the Next Brain Storm LMAO  Keep up the Good Work And E Mail Me if you have Questions on your Wheels or hardware Thanks Shubee Keep up The Good Wiork....

[Grelland]

Doing your restoration I would have never went as far as you have I would have Bought another car LOL 

Thanks, rub it in... 

I am way past the point of no return, and I am NOT keeping track on the hours... (nor the costs)

I will keep you posted on the progress on the wheels.

Roy

[Harry/FDK]

Point of No Return... That's cool Grelland. Youre work is outstanding. But you already know that. I wonder were you buy youre body seals. The ones i bought years ago from West Coast Metric are start to fall apart in the box !
Have a good weekend.

[Grelland]

Thnaks for the kind words. I get most of the parts like seals etc from VW Heritage in UK (through the Norwegian distributor, Unneberg Bil)

Roy

[Grelland]

So, last night I was packing up the nose section in order to take it to an uncle of my wife for the full body solder treatment. The intention being that I wanted to do the soldering prior to applying primer and paint on the inside. This man has some 40 years of body work experience, so I gathered that he woudl be the right man to guide me in this project. He also is the old school type, using hammer, dolly and solder, rather than bondo..

When I showed up, he stated there is no need for solder, as these were some of the nicest welds he had seen in years   

So he adviced me to paint the backside, and mount the nose to the car, weld on the fenders and corner sections, then he would help me flattening out the minor dents before doing the last finish with filler 

Needless to say; I am a happy guy today... 

So I mounted the rest of the HW on the inside, sandblasted the thing, and applid etch primer and two layers of 2-k epoxy. Next step is paint before I PERMANENTLY mount this piece on the car..

[Shubee2 (DSK)]

Thats Cool Roy Its nice to get a helpng hand once in a while I also have friends that do Bodywork they can sure save you alot of time, and most of the time it comes out way nicer with less work.. nose panel looks great keep up the good Work..

[Grelland]

Thank,, yes it is always good to get some advice from knowlegdable people.

Yesterday I was able to put some paint on the nose section and the front of the baggage area; next step now is to permanently mount this piece, then the fenders and headlight sections are next :-)

[Grelland]

Since I am not a particularily big fan of watching paint dry; I work on the engine between the rounds with the spray gun, and I have received some parts for my EFI system lately, so I am working on the trigger wheel and vr sensor setup.

The intenion is to mount the trigger wheel behind the pulley, for an as "out of the way" installation as possible. The equailzer pulley has a recess on the back where the trigger wheel may fit perfectly, I may need to trim the tin a tad at the red arrow, but you get the picture:

[Type1/DVK]

Great attention 4 detail on the bodywork nicee 

[Grelland]

Thanks.

A small progress report:

I have permanently mounted the nose to the car, and trial mounted the hood some 40 times in order to verify that everything goes back together:

[Grelland]

Next thing was to open up holes for the bumper brackets, and trial mount these:

[Grelland]

The over-ride supports are somewhat bent, so the distance from the nostrils to these is not right, but the bumper brackets themselves seem to align very well with the nose.

I also spent some more time on the intake runners for the EFI system, and here you can see that each runner is  made out of 7 pieces. The last pic show an earlier design of the runners, but these will be modified to follow the contour of the fan shroud better, like in the second last picture.

[Grelland]

Next on the to-do list are the fenders, and I have started by removing all old paint and grime, and some rust. The inside is quite badly attacked, mostly in the surface, and I have started sandblasting, but as can be seen from the close-up, I will have to be more thorough....

[Grelland]

Small update:

First, the engine: I have made the runners for the other side, and also started manufacturing a plenum chamber. I have started from a 2.1 wbx unit which I have cut up in order to fit behind the fan shroud. I will be using a 50mm TB:

[Grelland]

Then I have spent a lot of time on the front...

I have trial mounted the fenders and the bumper in order to ensure that it all goes back together in the right manner, and once I was quite happy with the RH side, I used self-threading screws to hold it all together. Next I will cut through both layers of metal in order to get a perfect 1mm gap for butt-welding.

I also mounted the LH side, but so far only using wise-grips, as it need a bit more adjustments.

I also mounted the bumper in order to ensure that everything will be straight. I had to open up the holes in the bumper brackets a tad, but it all lines up quite well now. I want all distances to the ground, the blinkers, headligts etc to be equal on both sides...

[Shubee2 (DSK)]

The Ghia is looking Good Roy you Must have a Ton of Hours in the Car It will be great to see it Done any idea when? or Color yet?

[Grelland]

Thanks,

Yes, and ton of hours, I stopped counting a couple of years back.

My ultimate target is SCC 2007 (early september), and the color will be L87 Pearl White.

Roy

[Shubee2 (DSK)]

what year is your Ghia? I had a 69 Ghia Pearl White with Porsche 2.0 Alloys back in the 80's

[Grelland]

mine is a '62. Any pics?

[Shubee2 (DSK)]

mine is a '62. Any pics?

heres mine at Bug in 13

[speedwell]

nice one gary  have you more pict  ..

[Grelland]

A couple of updates:

I have been working on the front rhs fender lately, and this one is even worse than I anticipated (that mean it is REALLY bad...)

First of all, someone once cut out a piece of the fender and replaced it with a part including the gas filler flap. Then they changed their mind, and welded the flap shut...

The parts for connecting the gas tube on the inside was still attached, so I started by cutting these away, then re-welding the joints, and then the nightmare started, The original metal was so thin that I just kept burning new holes as I tried to close the existing  ones... SO I ended up cutting away another piece, and made a replacement. The red line in the pic show the part that was welded in originally; the blue was the fuel flap that was welded shut, the the green is the piece that I made and put in:

[Grelland]

I also welded on the lower part of the fender, where it meets the heater channel: