Cars

I’ve been making some headway lately on the floor pans. I bought them a while back from House of Ghia, and the owner brought them to a VW show locally so that I didn’t have to pay for shipping. They require some cutting and welding to fit properly, and one side is just about done now.

For a change of pace this week, I decided to tear apart my transaxle. I wasn’t very careful when I removed it, so dirt got inside. Before things got too bad, I decided to tear it down and make sure everything was clean.

As is the norm for me, I’ll soon be distracted by my motorcycle. I just got a new tire for my Suzuki and a box of parts for my CB400f.

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Saturday, if all goes well, I’m picking up a ’63 Ghia for parts. It only costs $$ and there’s enough good metal on this thing to take care of just about all the rest of the stuff I need.

It looks pretty crusty, but the body is very straight. The nose is perfect, as are the fenders. My 62 has a pretty messed up front end. One fender is not salvageable even by the most talented metal workers, and the nose isn’t in the best shape either.

I would use this body except that someone has made some strange cuts to it, going from the rear parcel shelf through the window lip to the engine compartment, and another couple of strange cuts on the right rear fender.

But if you’ll notice, two good straight sets of bumpers ($$$), and the container next to the car has seats in good condition ($), straight, rust free decklid and bonnet lid (mine aren’t quite so nice), a real swan neck mirror ($$$), and some other misc. parts, like a rear view mirror and visor from an early ’50s bug ($$$$) and some pop-outs that I might stick in my ’74 Super.

So cost of this Ghia is $$, and the total value of all the stuff I’ll get with it is at least $$$$$$$$, so I’ll be money ahead. It looks crusty, but it’ll be worth it.

Oh, and my pans arrived on Tuesday!

I’ve got some Eastwood style butt welding clamps on order (8 for the same price as their four on eBay). Hopefully going to work on it tonight some more.

I was at my parents house for dinner on Sunday, and was showing off to my sister’s boyfriend. Found the steering wheel this time.

Crap. Has it really be a year since I’ve updated? I have done some work, though not as much as I wanted. I moved to the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle last August, then spent several months dealing with problems with the Beetle, my daily driver. First I had the super shimmies, which required replacing almost the whole front end, then as soon as that was done, some lady hit me in an intersection 2 blocks from my house, bending my trailing arm, and breaking a CV joint. My insurance said she was 100% at fault, and her’s said I was 75% at fault, which was BS. Basically, they wanted to total out my car, and give me $750 for it, or total it, let me keep the car, and give me $150. I spent less than $150 fixing it myself, so I just said “screw it” and blew them off. It wasn’t worth dealing with. That’s done. On to the Ghia.

Started working on the floor pan yesterday. A PO had patched the rust holes by cutting them out, and riveting plates where the holes were. Part of an aluminum street sign on one side, and what looks like some sheet metal from a van or something on the other, and sealing it up with bondo.

Cut off the rivets, popped them out with a punch, and smacked the patches out with a hammer. Then I ground the bondo off with a wire wheel.

Hadn’t sat in my car for so long that I had to get the driver’s seat down from the shelving and slide it on the rails.

Couldn’t find my steering wheel though.

Time to get some POR15 and welding clamps, and weld my new floors in.

Got my rotisserie just about done this weekend. All that’s left is to figure out wheels for it. I welded the cross members between the two supports a bit too close to the ends to be able to put the casters at the end, so they are about 3 or 4 inches in, which isn’t working out because then it changes the center of gravity, making the rotisserie a bit less stable than it was without wheels. Plus, the base of the casters aren’t strong enough, and they warp when I bolt them on, so I’m working on plan “B” with some bigger wheels that will attach to the ends of the T supports.

A month and a half ago, I quit my job. It sucked, and I had to get out of there, and I was in a situation that I could afford to do it.

I could afford to quit, but not much else until I found a new job.

So last week, I finally started a new job. I’m a sales assistant for a local tool company (which means I get a really steep discount on them :-), and I’m getting payed a lot more than I was at my last job, and it’s closer to where I want to move to by the end of summer. But best of all, I can afford to by Ghia parts again.

A week and a half ago I got a message from Clint. He had a new job at my favorite Ghia house, and he and the boss were coming up for the OSGTG: did I need anything? Hell yea, but, no job = no money.

Two days later, I got the job, so I pm-ed him and put in my order. I got all the floor pans I needed, and the outer rockers. All the big pieces that I will need for a while. (Once I get to work on the body, I’ll need some more pieces, but that will be a bit yet.) So when I got to the GTG, Mike was sitting there with my pile of parts. No shipping, and good thick sheet metal. I’m going to be a happy welder here in a couple weeks. I hung out at the GTG for a while, but I don’t really know anyone there, and I needed a beer, so I went home and got to work on my rotisserie. I had started a couple weeks ago with a bracket that went across the rear arch, but I’ve decided on a much simpler approach like this post so I started cutting steel for a bracket.

My chop saw is okay for making straight cuts, but as soon as you start cutting angles, they start going off kilter. Sill, it went together pretty well, and my welding is getting a lot better. I’ve gone through a lot of welding rod though, so I’ll have to pick some more up soon. I hope to have the body up on it by next weekend.

There will be tubing welding on top of these stands, wheels on the bottoms, and a bar connecting the two. The mounts on the body with have tubes with a smaller inner diameter to fit into the tubes on the stands.

Not really nice, but not too shabby at all.

I good welder really helps (TIG baby!)

Here’s the other thing that sidetracked me over the last month. I got two CB400F Supersports for free. They will make one sweet cafe racer 😉

I haven’t updated any of my blogs in a while, but I have been working on my Ghia. At around this time last month, I accomplished the landmark step of getting the body and the pan separated. I had been waiting for some help to do it, since an easy way is to just have a few people over for beers, and have each grab a corner and lift it off. Since I couldn’t get enough people for that, I built a couple saw horses, jacked the car up as high as I could get it, and slipped boards in between the wheel wells and the pan. Propped up with the saw horses, I was able to lower the pan out from under the body until it was sitting on the ground.

Once the two parts were separate, I was able to see that there was minor rusting in the heater channel, which I should be able to repair but cutting out the bad metal and welding in patches. The rust is in an area that will be impossible to see when the pan and body are bolted back together.

I then took about a week break from working on the car while dad finished insulating and sheeting the inside of the shop. We also got things cleaned up a lot, and there’s a ton more room in there now.

Last week, I decided to tear into the long block that I bought in January. There was a lot of grime in it since it had been sitting outside for a while, but it seems like everything was in pretty good shape. There’s some definite wear, so it will have to be align bored, but the case is only on the first oversize bearings, so it should have plenty of life left.

When I finished tearing mine apart, dad put his up on the work bench. As soon as he popped the valve covers off, we noticed a big problem. One of the push rods was inside the case. After getting everything off and the case apart, we found that a connecting rod had snapped, throwing itself at the lifter, snapping it out of it’s housing in the case. His case was toast, so we have been breaking little bits off and lighting them on fire. On of the unique aspects of the VW case being made of magnesium alloy, is that you can get it to burn pretty easily. It burns with a very hot, very bright white flame. You definitely don’t want to stare at it while it’s burning.

Today, made a simple roller for the front part of the pan, and removed the beam. I got the right side of the beam mostly disassembled. It’s really worn, and I wonder if I’ll be able to re-sleeve the parts I have, or if there too far gone. Goal for this week is to get the beam completely torn down and cleaned up. I don’t know yet what I’ll do for finish. Probably just paint it with POR 15.

I dropped the pan out from under the body today! I had the whole thing up on jack stands, and got boards through the fender wells, then built saw horses to support the boards. Then I just lowered the pan. Probably a lot slower than having 6 friends over to help me lift, but it took a lot less beer. (not that I wouldn’t share or anything…)

Now I have to figure out where to put the body while I work on the pan. I still may need a few people for beer and body moving 🙂