Update: Heater channel replacement

2" x 3" box channel (which is our replacement heater channel) finally tack welded into place

Project: Drivers side kick panel

Well we spent most of the day staring at this mess and trying to figure out what we are going to do with it.  After much deliberation, we may have come up with a plan.  It's probably not the way any car professional would fix it, but hey we are not car professionals.  It will call for some creative fabrication and welding skills. Stay tuned to see if our  plan works!

This is where we started.  The previous owner actually screwed in a piece of metal and then used fiberglass to attach it to the floor

Same area, view from the inside

Here we have cut away all the rusted areas and the area where the all the screw holes were

view of the cutaway area from the inside

This is the patch we welded in to replace the screw hole area and after we attached the new floor to body piece.  Of  course now we figured out our new box channel is about 1" too long, so we will just have to work around it on this side since its all welded in.  Lesson learned!

The bottom piece of the repair being dry fitted

Interior view of the dry fit

David smoothing out the bottom of our patch piece.  It has been tacked into place

Tacked into place, just need to go back and finish welding and seal all the seams

Interior view of repair

9/14/13 - Well I think we are almost finished with the kick panel, the exterior is done and the only thing we have to do is make a support piece for the interior

All welding done

Exterior done with seam sealer and por 15

Exterior done with seam sealer and por 15

Update: 8/14/13

Finally felt like we made some progress today.  We cleaned out some of the rust so we could see what we are dealing with.  We got all our braces in so we could start working on the heater channels, and cut out a lot of the old heater channel.  David got the new 3x2 box channel cut down to their workable size.  All the work today was productive, we could actually see what we need to do and it all seemed to make sense now.  So hopefully we can start making some headway.  Pictures of what we accomplished today in the project heater channel replacement post.

Project: Heater channel replacement

Okay, this is where things get a little ugly.  The original heater channels are shot.  They were a poor design to start with and a fairly common issue with Volkswagons.  Heater channel replacement parts for a Karmann Ghia run in the area of $300-$350 per side!  So after a lot of internet research and considerable time on thesamba.com we have decided to replace the current channels with 2"x3"x3/16" box channel.  We really are not 100% sure what we are doing but I guess with a plasma cutter and a welder we can fabricate or remove anything we come across.  But if it works, the total cost of the box channel (and the braces needed to reinforce the doors) came to a total of $73.  So, its around 1/10th the price and hopefully be a much stronger fix.

Ugh! this is where we have to start, it's pretty ugly and we are still coming up with a game plan on how we are going to tackle it

Passenger door braced prior to cutting out old heater channel 8/10/13

View of front left wheel well. Note holes where the previous owner just screwed a piece of metal on the existing  wall and then fiberglassed the floor to the body on the inside.  8/14/13

Front left where we need to fabricate some metal and install the new floor pan to body piece.  8/14/13

Existing rusted heater channel on the drivers side door frame.  8/14/13

Add caption

8/14/13

8/14/13

Most of the heater channel cut out and part of the rear quarter panel where we removed a portion that was rusted.  8/14/13

8/14/13

8/24/13  Today we finally got the drivers side box channel tack welded in, Since we are basically winging this project there was a lot of idea tossing around.  We finally decided to lower the body back onto the frame so that we could try to line things up.  Pretty happy finally getting this part done so that we can start building around it and getting onto the body panel work

Project: Shaving the gas filler door

So, everyone in the shop decided that it would look sleeker to do away with the gas filler door.  They also want to shave the door handles, rain gutters and god knows what else.  So, obviously you can figure out by now that we are not going for an original restoration. 

1st go round ready for grinding

Ok, I think this is finally done!

Project: Deconstruction

So, originally we were just going  to get this car, bring it home, do a little here..a little there.  But since we had to take the body off the most popular phrase was "well since we have the body off, we should just do it".  And so here we are.

David in the engine compartment

Bill taking his turn in the engine compartment

Finally, nobody in the engine compartment

Body stripped and ready to start repairs

Stripped and on the handy dandy roll around cart that the guys built to move the body around

See through view

360 degree view of deconstruction

Project: Front Axle Beam

Front Axle beam was in pretty bad shape and had a significant amount of rust on the bottom.  Luckily, our donor car's front in was in pretty good condition so David removed the entire front end from our donor 74.

Front axle beam from the 74 before we blasted it



After  media blasting

After cleaning and some POR 15

Another view after POR 15

Project: Floor Pans

Removing Body from chassis to get at the floor pans

Passenger's side floor pan cut out and as you can see, the drivers side has a large defect just behind the seat rails

Side view of the passenger side floor pan cut off.  Special thanks to the guys at MBD  Automotive for allowing us access to their shop and equipment, the plasma cutter made this project go a whole lot faster and easier!

New floor pan measured out and ready for the plasma cutter

New floor pan dry fitted in, just need to make a few minor adjustments

Both pans completed and welded in.  Both seat rails were removed from the original pans and cleaned up and welded back on the floor pans.  We actually moved them back 3" due to the fact that I am 6'2" and any extra room is a bonus.

Father/Son Project 1971 VW Karmann Ghia

So back in early July 1013, David found these 2 VW Karmann Ghia's for sale and thought they would be a  good project for us to work on together.

This is the car we primarily went to check out.  it is a 1971 VW Karmann Ghia.  It looked pretty cool from the picture so we headed down to Cahokia to take a look. When we got there, the car started right up and it had factory air conditioning installed, which I don't think was too common for these cars.  We were told the floor pans were in decent shape and the body looked to be in pretty good shape too, with the exception of the expected lower rust area that VWs are known for.  The interior was original and looked every bit of the 42 years it was.

So as part of the deal, this car, a 1974 KG was also included in the purchase price.  Of course, we were kind of excited and were talking about all the things we could do to each of them.  So we made the purchase and made arrangements to have them delivered to MBD Automotive in Cahokia where David's friends, Mike Bill, and Dave had recently opened their new automotive shop.  So Monday morning, Fred, true to his word, delivered both cars to MBD.  Upon further review of the cars, we decided that the 74 was really beyond restoration and would just be used as a donor car. So of course when dealing with older cars, we found a lot more problems than we originally thought when we got the 71 up on the rack. The Drivers side floor pan was pretty bad, there was a very large hole in the floor in the back seat, and some smaller holes on the passengers side floor pan.

Typical black vinyl interior

Ugly faux woodgrain dash

The engine is dirty, but runs!