Aarons 1964 Karmann Ghia Rat

I cut the area over the drivers side headlight that was rusted out and got it ready to be fixed. I already tacked in the patch for the inner bucket. Last weekend I got a 1500 single port engine to put in the car for now. I stripped the tins off of it to clean them out. Today I went out and pulled the heads to replace the dented pushrod tubes. All I need now is to get the intake gasket and a carb rebuild kit and the engine will be together.

I was able to get back to work on the car today. I had been so busy with hockey that I just didn't have time to work on it. I did order some parts in the past few weeks that all got here today and yesterday.

I bought a Empi GT replica steering wheel because I can't afford an original right now. I think it looks good in the car and goes well with the eliminator shifter and sprint star wheels. They were all available starting in 1967 from Empi.

I also bought a new set of tires. The tires on the car now are old and too larger for the height I want the car to be at. If you go more then a turn of the wheel in either direction the tires rub on everything there is to rub on. The new tires are 165/45r15's up front and 165/50r15's in the back. They should cure all the rubbing problems because of there low profile.

I also ordered a few things to get the interior together. The car still needs the rear seat covered and the door panels installed. I also want to get rid of the black carpet and replace it with an oatmeal colored kit. I think that would help to brighten up the interior.

Next on the list of things to do is get the engine finished. I have it about ready and would like to have the car driving by Sunday night. I am also going to start ordering metal to repair some of the nasty bondo areas that it has.

I wish you would stop posting. Just when I'm over my rusty ACVW jones BAM! You post an update. Same with the Rabbit actually.

Seriously, nice job

Make sure to take/post pics when you get it running Sunday!

I didn't get the car running like I wanted to. I got stuck working on the GTI most of last weekend then had no time this weekend. Last weekend after I got the GTI done my dad and I were going to put the tires on the Ghia but found that the sidewall was too low profile for us to do it. We are going to see if we can find a tire shop that can do it.

Since I have the wheels with no tires I started to strip them to bare metal so that I can paint them in the correct silver/black not the white/blue they have now. I did find the original Empi warning stickers on the inside of the wheel and a date stamp of 5/71.

Before I get the car running I decided that I want to replace the drivers side rear pan half that is staring to get a little rusty. To do this I need to pull the carpet and interior out of the car so I am going to wait until I get some new oatmeal carpet to install after the patch is fixed.

Today I got the rear seat upholstery for the Ghia. I had gotten convertible seat upholstery with the seats that was about 10" too narrow to use. When I pulled the rear seat out of the car I found that the backrest of the seat was broken so I used an extra one from a 1969 Karmann Ghia that I had laying around. The use the same upholstery and the difference would only be noticeable to an expert with the seat out of the car. The piping on the edge doesn't line up perfectly because I overstuffed the seats so the in a few months when all the foam/horse hair compresses down it will be just about right.

That's coming along nicely. Between your posts and the VW bits I've been playing with in the Wartburg build I'm jonesin for another ACVW again. Wife really wants a Thing so I've got the kitchen pass on that one if you come across any :)

Seems they all seem to turn into bigger projects then you think they will..that part never goes away, RG!

Well I have some bad news. I have decided that the rust in the car is bad enough that it isn't logical to get the car back on the road and do it piece by piece. I am going to tear the car down and do a real restoration. I am thinking I will keep the original color but I might add the white roof. I will be doing a complete off white interior that will look fairly stock. I want to go with a very low ride height, but since I will have the body off the pan I might just bag it. I will keep the sprint stars on the car. I might also buy a Judson because that was what I originally wanted for the car.

I hate that I will need to get rid of the og paint but if I re-do everything I will want to paint it.

Kinda makes me want to "restore" my Baja. Maybe after the 944 is done

Well, there's always those faux patina paint jobs like the rat rodders do, but I think they're kind of silly...if you're going to repaint it you may as well do it right.

I started to strip the wiring out of the car. I found some more rust in the car that I didn't know was there before I started to tear the car down. My plan is to strip the body and pull it off the pan. I want to restore the pan and get everything nice and clean then do the body.

I dug the beam I want to use on the car out of the storage shed today. It is 5" narrowed and has a better type of adjusters then the 2" beam in the car now. I just need to weld in the other beam support and get it painted and it will be ready. It should make it so that the deeper sprint star wheels don’t rub on the fender.

There is a stock beam and the beam I will be using.

ratghia wrote: I want to restore the pan and get everything nice and clean then do the body.

if you were me, you'd get the pan totally sweet, then do only enough bodywork to attach the body to the sweet pan.

Rat, AngryCorvair's right. Don't try to do everything at once. Break it down into smaller jobs. Decide what you're going to do first (the pan?) and then move onto stuff like which beam you want to use afterwards.

Besides, weren't you going to build an engine and just drive the thing around for a minute before taking on the rest of it?

Not slamming ya dude...just wondering where your focus is at the moment. The car's so cool that I don't want to see you end up with a "round-tuit".

I am going to do everything in little jobs. I want to get the beam built first so I can see if it will fit the car or if it is too narrow before I get it all nice looking. I know that I need to replace the floors on both sides I am going to take the body of the chassis.

When I have the chassis off I want to get it all painted and looking very clean then reassemble everything. I then want to do the body work. I know the car will need the complete rockers done on both sides because they are held together with bondo and fiberglass. It will also need the area under the taillights done on both sides as well as the rear bumper mounts. The inside and lower rear fender is nonexistent at this point.

I am thinking about just color matching what I have replaced on the car to make it look like it is all still original paint. My only main problem with that is that I don't want to fake the funk and with everything that needs replaced I think I would be getting close. I think it is time for me to reinvent the car as something new.

friedgreencorrado wrote: Besides, weren't you going to build an engine and just drive the thing around for a minute before taking on the rest of it? Not slamming ya dude...just wondering where your focus is at the moment.

I was originally going to just throw an engine in it and roll, but when I was removing carpeting I found that the floors were much wore then I had remembered them being. I decided that with the combination of the floors and the rest of the rust in the car it would be better to just do it right the first time. I also found an air-cooled car to drive to shows this summer to get my acvw fix.

I do agree that I have been all over the board with what I want to do to the car. I am constantly changing my idea of what the car should be. I am either thinking a cool period performance car or about building it with a type 4 engine and a little bit of real performance.

ratghia wrote:

friedgreencorrado wrote: Besides, weren't you going to build an engine and just drive the thing around for a minute before taking on the rest of it? Not slamming ya dude...just wondering where your focus is at the moment.

I was originally going to just throw an engine in it and roll, but when I was removing carpeting I found that the floors were much wore then I had remembered them being. I decided that with the combination of the floors and the rest of the rust in the car it would be better to just do it right the first time. I also found an air-cooled car to drive to shows this summer to get my acvw fix. I do agree that I have been all over the board with what I want to do to the car. I am constantly changing my idea of what the car should be. I am either thinking a cool period performance car or about building it with a type 4 engine and a little bit of real performance.

Hey, it's your car. Do with it what you wish, you'll enjoy it much more when you're finished. I'd forgotten about your GTI, and was afraid you wouldn't have anything to DD until the Ghia was running.

I have been DD my GTI and a Miata. I also have the keys to a fully restored 1964 Beetle that I can take to shows because I do most of the work on it.

Well hopefully soon I'll be back to working on the Ghia. I took a while off from the car and let it sit while I focused on other things and started to really figure out what direction I want to go with it.

I believe the direction I finally decided on is doing a full restoration. I plan on building a 2.1L type 4 engine, and hope to get about 150hp. It might not be much but it's over 3 times the factory amount and the car is only 1808lbs. For suspension I am currently undecided. I might swap the rear to IRS and run a 5spd Porsche 901 trans to help cope with the power. The front will stay king and link pin and be adjustable, but I don’t know if it’ll be narrowed or not until I buy wheels.

I plan on doing the interior all cream with an oatmeal carpet to lighten it up. According to the cars birth certificate the interior was black on black factory, but that's too dark and I never like the black in it before. The exterior will stay blue and possibly get a white roof since I’ve always loved two-tone cars. It already has Euro signals so I might add Euro bumpers to complete the look.

When I get back home next I'm going to start cutting things to see how bad the rot in the car is so I can start doing metal work. It looks like its going to need complete rockers and heat exchanger, headlight buckets on both sides, rear floors, and the complete lower 10" from the rear wheels back

My goal is to have the car done and ready to drive for its 50th birthday. That would be sometime in March or February of 2014. I don't have the car's birth cert so I don't know the exact date right now.

Just when I was curious as to whether you still owned this, there it is! Keep at it, young blood. I dig it.

Any Update On This??