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It’s the Ghia’s 50th birthday today. I bought it a gift — a reproduction ’62 Ghia badge — and toasted the occasion with a glass of Duvel. Yes, I know it’s not a German beer, but the brewery is less than 200 miles from Osnabrück, so that’s close enough for me. This summer the restoration project will continue.
On Sunday morning we all met again at the Borradori Garage for breakfast. A casual observer would assume this had been planned all along, but Terri Reay only came up with the idea of a tri-tip and egg burrito breakfast at about 10pm the night before. Everyone pitched in and it came together perfectly. After breakfast and some cleanup everyone began to go their separate ways. Our Los Angeles caravan left at around noon and other than David Aveson’s squareback having a relapse of its fuel injection trouble the drive was smooth and uneventful (we had to put it behind Gizmo Bob’s truck and Dave drove Bob’s notchback the rest of the way back). When Jack Fisher got back to San Diego he texted that his total weekend mileage was 950! I figure I did about 700. What a great weekend of driving!
Many more photos from the weekend can be seen here.
The Type 3s that attended spanned the production run and model range:
’61 Type 34 cabriolet (Lee Hedges, Sabre Springs, CA)
’61 Notchback (Shin of TOA International, Yokohama, Japan)
’62 Notchback (Eric and Kathleen Hand, Lodi, CA)
’62 Notchback (Gizmo Bob Walton, Hacienda Heights, CA)
’63 Notchback (Alex of ISP West, Carson, CA)
’63 sunroof Notchback (Jason Weigel, Seattle, WA)
’64 Type 34 (Jack Fisher, Imperial Beach, CA)
’64 Type 34 (Gizmo Bob Walton, Hacienda Heights, CA)
’64 Type 34 (Dave Whitaker, Central Valley, CA)
’65 sunroof Type 34 (Larry Edson, Campbell, CA)
’65 Notchback (Eric Farnsworth, Arroyo Grande, CA)
’65 Notchback (Jimmynotch, Sacramento, CA)
’65 sunroof Type 34 (Tom Reay, Los Osos, CA)
’65 Squareback (Michael Runyon, Orange, CA)
’66 Fastback (Andy Kimball, Tustin, CA)
’66 turbo Fastback (A.J. Sims of Low Bugget, Orange, CA)
’67 sunroof Fastback (Jim Maljanian, Sierra Madre, CA)
’67 sunroof Fastback (Steve Noll, Santa Cruz, CA)
’68 sunroof Squareback (Josh Lewis, Orange County, CA)
’71 Squareback (David Aveson, West Covina, CA)
’73 RHD Notchback (Glenn, Huntington Beach, CA)
One of the best things about the weekend was how everyone pitched in to help. It was a truly collaborative effort. I was responsible for the graphics and some publicity and coordination, but Tom and Terri Reay did almost all of the heavy lifting — the planning, coordinating, securing use of the Borradori Garage, the awesome BBQ and cooking, and bringing it all together — a huge amount of work that really paid off. But in addition to Tom and Terri’s efforts, the weekend could never have been the success it was without the help of:
• The Borradori Family and Stuart Selkirk of Cayucos Cellars — making the garage available to us (and thanks to LJ for putting in the word for us)
• Lee Hedges, Jason Weigel, and Scott McWilliams — advance publicity, getting the word out
• Mike Runyon — getting the OC/South Bay caravan together
• Dave Whitaker — BBQ transport
• Stuart Selkirk, Jason Weigel, Lee Hedges, Scott Perry, and Jack Fisher — moving the old Mack truck inside the garage
• Lee Hedges — car show judge and parking coordinator
• David Aveson, Lee Hedges, Larry Edson, Scott Perry, Eric and Suzanne Farnsworth, and Brian and Diana O’Kelly — event set up for Saturday night
• Scott Perry, Lee Hedges, Larry Edson, Jack Fisher, and Jack’s daughters Kendall and Emma — food prep
• Terri Reay, Cathy Callahan, Suzanne Farnsworth, and Jack, Kendall, and Emma Fisher — desserts and cake decoration
• Jimmynotch — sound system, stunts, and general mayhem
• Larry Edson and Dave Whitaker — Sunday morning grocery store run
• Brian and Diana O’Kelly — video, overall event support, and clean up
• Gizmo Bob Walton — for having the foresight to bring a tow vehicle and enough tools spare parts to build a Type 3 from scratch
• Omni Design Group — oversize printing and accommodating Tom’s event planning hours
• Firestone Walker Brewing Company — for all that they do
• Everybody — great photo documentation, monetary contributions, and making the time and effort to be a part of it
And special thanks to Gizmo Bob for letting me drive his ’64 Type 34 for the weekend!
Thanks everyone!
On Saturday morning everyone met again at the garage — everyone meaning the 11 cars that had cruised up the coast on Friday and 9 more, including a caravan from Orange County. We headed up into the hills above Cayucos for a beautiful 30-mile drive through the countryside. Other than one car with a malfunctioning injection system, being hassled a little by the Five-O, and a stretch of rough road that vexed the lowered cars a bit, the drive was perfect. We then showed up at the Cambria Oktoberfest, where Type 3s totally dominated the all-German car show. Later in the afternoon we all headed back to the garage for a Santa Maria-style tri-tip barbeque thanks to grillmaster Tom Reay, Type 3-shaped desserts (!), and a champagne toast to the Type 3′s 50th birthday. Perfect ending to a perfect day.
This last weekend was the 50 Years of the Type 3 weekend on California’s central coast. It was an incredible 4 days of Type 3 driving centered around the historic Borradori Garage in the beach town of Cayucos. 21 Type 3s (8 notchbacks, 3 squarebacks, 4 fastbacks and 6 Type 34s) and about 50 people attended. A great time was had by all.
Here are some shots from Friday. We drove up Highway 1 from Cayucos to the lower part of Big Sur and back, about a 120 mile round trip.
Hey all,
I am going to add to this blog as I move ahead with fixes and changes to my 66 T34.
Recently, Mick was kind enough to send me a correct drivers side door armrest/pull and I was able to pick one up for the passenger side from Canada. Well, as luck would have it, the panels on the door are not original, and the material now has holes in it from the incorrect door pulls.
I have purchased Masonite to make new panels, using the old as patterns. My good friend here in Taos is a retired upholsterer, and he is going to stitch up the material for me to match what was there previously. I should have it done in a week or so. In the meantime, I will be taking photos as I make the new panel, drill them out for the clips and the armrests.
I got my engine back from the builder recently and this weekend I got it reassembled and reinstalled after some parts sourcing, rust treatment and painting. I was preparing to put the engine back in when I was stopped by this:
A couple of months ago I saw that my Ghia’s swingaxle boots needed replacement. I had a pair of old stock boots on the shelf so I put them on and forgot about it. They were in their factory sealed bags until I installed them, experienced about 15 miles of use, and had no exposure to excessive heat or UV rays, but in two months they’re in worse shape than the ones they replaced. Luckily I had the foresight to buy a new pair of VW OEM boots the last time I was at Bill and Steve’s, so I was able to replace them without yet another trip to the parts store. Just goes to show that NOS rubber parts can go bad on the shelf. Be careful with old rubber parts, especially brake parts.
I should have the Ghia running in the next few days and will then be able to determine whether the builder was able to successfully address the leak and oil burning problems, and decide if it will be able to make the Central Coast cruise. Two weeks to go!
With the headliner and rear parcel shelf now installed the next things to get installed are the trims that fit around the side windows. The whole area has an extruded aluminium trim that sits in a rubber channel, this fits from the base of the A Pillar, along the roof, down the rear of the C pillar and back along the bottom of the aperture to the door opening.
The trim section helps to hold the roof lining in position and finishes the roof lining off. I had previously sent the aluminium trims out to be polished. Normally these trim sections are plated with a bright finish similar to anodizing (but not the same), however I decided to polish them which gives a shinier finish. The trims were then waxed to prevent oxidation.
There are a few articles in the library about trim refinishing and from memory at least one Registry member has had their trim re-plated in the correct finish (the name of the process escapes me at present – maybe they will chime in!?). With my restoration not being concourse this gives me license to do things a little differently, which in some cases makes things easier, but in other cases does not 
.
With the trims refinished, I also purchased a new length of rubber trim from Rudiger Huber (www.karmannghia.de) a great source for those hard to get parts. The rubber is sold in a single length long enough to do both sides of the car.
Originally the trim is nailed into position, the nail is simply driven through the trim and rubber into the steel surround (the carpets and several other trim pieces are held in position in a similar manner) I opted to replace the nails with a low profile stainless steel screw, partially as I did not have the correct nails, but also so that if for some reason I needed to remove the trim in the future, it would be easy to do so.
With the main trim in position I then fitted the front A pillar cover trim. I had also had this trim re-polished. The cover trim sits underneath the aperture trim and tucks under the front screen rubber, it covers the complete A pillar and gives the appearance that the A pillar is made of aluminium.
Next I fitted the B pillar in position. As with the rest of the brightwork I had these re-chromed. The rubber trim at the top needs to be trimmed to allow the B pillar to be fixed into position. At the bottom there is a small rubber trim piece that sits underneath the B pillar itself. The B Pillar is fixed with a single set screw at the top and a self tapping screw at the bottom. Unfortunately this is about as far as I could get with the side windows as I had to order the door and quarter window aperture seals.
Remote Boot Release
As the theme of the car is a mild custom, there are a few things that I’ve done here and there to ‘improve’ or customise the appearance. One of these is to remove the rear boot release. I did this to tidy up the rear panel, which I always considered to be a bit spoiled by the addition of the rear hood release. Other modifications include shaving the passenger door lock, welding up the sill (rocker) trim holes, welding up the badge mounting holes and panel beating the front badge protrusion to smooth it out. I did at one stage consider removing the spot lights (same as on my old ’69) but decided against it.
Originally I had considered fitting a solenoid type rear hood release but then decided to do something more in keeping with the car. I purchased a generic cable pull hood release kit and obtained a broken front hood release knob. The idea here was to use the longer cable but fit the correct style pull knob.
Changing the knobs over was relatively easy, and would also work for repairing a broken cable. I simply cut off the crimped part of the knob, re-drilled the end to accept the cable and then re-crimped it using a combination of vice top, cold chisel and hammer.
The release cable was mounted in the front of the rear seat base, the cable was then carefully threaded through to the back of the rear wing (you can just about poke it through the ‘razor’ line of the wing – there is a bulkhead separating the two areas).
From inside the wing space I then threaded the cable through into the bottom of the air dam area where I drilled a hole in the bulkhead adjacent to the oil filler. The cable then exits into the engine bay area where it loops around to go back through the bulkhead to meet up with the hood catch.
The hood catch was drilled to allow the cable to be fitted to it by the use of a cable clamp (supplied as part of the hood release kit), and fitted with a return spring so that the catch returns to the correct position.
All in all it only took a few hours to get it up and running and works perfectly – including the retaining hook which prevents the hood from simply flying open. It’s completely unobtrusive too – unless you are sitting in the engine bay, the cable is completely hidden from view.
With the rear hood release fitted I can actually close the rear hood, which means that apart from the rear quarter windows the car is now weather proof.
As with assembling most things, whether an Ikea flat pack, or a classic car, the order in which things are put together is pretty important. This is especially true of the Type 34 interior. The interior trim is installed in such a way that each part must be fitted in the correct order. The headlining is the first part in this jigsaw puzzle, it fits underneath the front and rear screen rubbers and also the side trim around the door aperture and so needs to be installed first. Next is the rear parcel shelf. This also fits underneath the rear screen rubber, much the same way that the headlining does.
My rear parcel shelf was too badly warped to be reused, but I had carefully stored it for use as a pattern. Unfortunately I could not find it, and so had to make one from scratch. My guess is that somewhere between the UK and here, and several moves in between, it simply got lost. Not too worried, I set about locating some suitable card.
Finding a bit of card large enough was not an easy task, the overall dimension is larger than most art suppliers stock (it’s bigger than A0), fortunately I managed to find a stockist that had some oversize stuff in stock. The card I used was 2mm thick, which is thick enough to retain it’s shape but thin enough to bend up to the rear screen.
Cutting out the shape was simple enough, I simply laid the car over the rear parcel shelf and cut it out oversize, allowing me to trim it down to size afterwards. With the shape determined, I cut some ‘darts’ around the bends to allow the card to bend into shape. The idea here is to get the card to sit so that it wedges into position between the front lip of the shelf and the rear edge. After a small amount of trimming It looked pretty good. At this stage it’s important to go and find the vent trim cut out the aperture for and make sure that it fits by screwing it in position. once you are happy it’s time to cover it.
I decided to use the same material as the headlining to cover the shelf. This is not technically correct as originally it would have been covered in the same vinyl material as the door cards, which incidentally would also be a lot more forgiving to fit as it is a little heavier than the headlining material. But being a custom, that’s what I wanted.
I started by clipping the material in position in much the same way I did for the headliner – as I blogged about in this post. Using the same technique I started in the middle and worked my way outwards until the creases had been removed. Once happy with the fit I un-clipped one side at a time and applied the contact adhesive. I used the same glue that I did for the headliner, a special automotive contact adhesive that is heat resistant and will not come unstuck on hot days.
The trick is to apply the glue to the face of the card and approximately 3/4 of the way up the card. The last part of the material is not glued and naturally forms the remainder of the curve. The material is then glued to the window seam in the same manner as the headliner was. At this stage the front edge of the shelf is not glued, it is simply left clipped in position.
Once you have done both sides, it’s time to turn your attention to the inside. The material should be glued tightly to the inside of the front edge of the shelf, to the face of the shelf and then underneath the shelf. One thing to note here is that on the top in the centre there is a hook mounted to hook the seat retaining strap to. I checked before fitting the shelf that I could access the holes from underneath. This made it easy to poke the holes through from underneath to locate the position that the hook mounted in.
[installed rear shelf]
The hardest part of the whole job was removing the creases from the material around the part where the glass curves forwards, the material has a tendency to ‘gather’ here and the excess material is hard to stretch out. I managed to get almost all of the creases out but was still left with one or two. I’m sure that there is a technique to help get rid of these – perhaps using a heat gun, or entrusting it to the professionals, but despite the creases, which are mostly hidden beneath the window rubber, I’m pretty happy with the results.
It’s been a few weeks since I posted a progress update, not because I’ve not done anything, but simply as I’ve been too busy to be able to to spare the time to blog about it. If you’ve been checking my photo stream you would have noticed that I did manage to upload some pictures of what I’ve been up to and you would have noticed that the build is ticking along nicely.
The main work that has been carried out since my last update is the installation of the headlining. I had originally booked this into the same trim shop that trimmed my seats, but after several postponements, I got fed up with waiting for them and decided to do it myself. I had already purchased the headlining material when I ordered my carpet set from Spirit of the 50′s this must have been some 10 years ago and unfortunately both the carpet set and headlining material had been folded up in the original packaging. Whilst not a major issue, this did leave some creases in the material.
I decided the best thing to do was to try to iron out the creases and so set about it with the iron and ironing board. Unfortunately, the heat required to remove the creases also flattened the pattern in the material (it has a raised textured pattern). In spite of this I decided to press ahead, I’ve previously installed convertible hoods with similar creases and they eventually drop out, so decided that it wasn’t too much of an issue.
The material I chose is a non standard material that is not perforated and has a textured pattern to it. It’s a silver grey colour to match the car and interior (grey leather and carpets). One great thing about this headliner is that it stretches in both directions meaning that it is much easier to fit than a standard headliner which only stretches in one direction, this makes removing ripples and creases much much easier. This is not something that I knew when ordering it, but would advise anyone wanting to fit their own headliner to consider.
Being a sunroof car, the headliner would have originally had a zipper parallel to the rear window to allow emergency access to the sunroof motor, I obtained a correct length zipper some time ago and set about fitting it. Whilst my sewing machine skills are not exactly up there with the likes of Bernard Newbury, I can usually turn out a reasonable job with stuff like this. Sure it will not be 100%, but it’s all my own handiwork and is still better than some professional jobs I’ve seen. I did a few trial runs to work out how the material behaved and found that it was almost impossible to replicate the way that the zipper had originally been installed. The main issue was that originally the zipper was not sewn into a seam, but into the middle of a solid piece of material. This left relatively little material left to hem the zip in.
After battling with this for some time I decided that I had two options – Install the zipper in a seam, or leave it out altogether. I decided the latter. My reasoning is that if the motor fails, I can simply remove the rear screen to get access, and if the sunroof is stuck in the open position and I need to get access to the gearbox to close it, I will simply cut the headlining and replace it.
So, with this small issue solved, I finished making the headlining (it has one seam sewn in for a headlining bow) and pegged it to the washing line in the sun to heat it up a little and hopefully assist in removing the creases from storage. It also allowed me to easily fit the support bow.
Installing the headlining involves patience, and a LOT of bulldog clips. It’s not a hard thing to do, and probably much easier with a non-sunroof car. (If you are not of a patient disposition, you might want to entrust this to the professionals). The first issue that I found was that the headliner bows that I had were all the wrong length. There are three different length bows on a standard coupe, and whilst the rear one should be the same length for both the coupe and the sunroof models, I found that the one I had appeared to be too long. Easily fixed – I cut some off of the end of it, only to find out that now it was too short 
Fortunately, I managed to find a suitable length of steel and made a new one – to the correct length.
Being a sunroof car the sunroof aperture is fitted with a thin foam surround to help soften the appearance of the headlining material around the aperture. I glued this into position using a contact adhesive. The contact adhesive that I used was a proper automotive trim glue, this is good for higher temperatures and will not come unstuck on hot days. It’s an aerosol spray glue made by Auto-Parts and is by far the best stuff I’ve used. The stuff generally recommended is 3M Super Trim Adhesive, Part No. 051135-08091 but this is not available here in Aus. I got the Auto-Parts stuff from Rare Spares – just up the road to me.
With the glue dried, foam bits in position and the bow fitted in place into the holes in the roof, the next job was to roughly peg the material to the roof. I used bullldog type clips, which I purchased from a local ‘cheap-as-chips’ shops for something like $2 for a tub of 50 odd clips. The trick here is to work from the centre of the apertures outwards. Initially I fixed only the front and rear screen apertures, and then when I was happy, I did the same for the side apertures, using the roof gutter to clip the material to.
I found that the corners were the trickiest, the rear corners being the worst. The issue here is that the material that has been stretched from the centre has a natural tendency to want to crease, and so these creases need to be ‘worked’ out by carefully tensioning the material on each side of the roof support. I also found that it helps to trim the material to the correct length as the excess material has a natural tendency to crease up, but make sure you are happy with the rest of the fit before you cut, as once you have cut it there is no turning back.
With the headlining stretched into position, I left the car overnight to let the material settle. A good trick here, especially if you are in a colder climate is to do this is a heated environment or place a heater inside of the car. I did this when fitting my convertible hood to my old Triumph. Fortunately the weather is better here in Australia.
In the morning I found that the headlining was still looking good so decided to leave it and move on to the pillar trim. Originally the front and rear roof pillars were covered with headlining material. I decided to cover the rear pillars but leave the front ones painted. Fortunately I retained all of the old trim and so made a pattern from the old covers, I then stretched these into position the same as the roof lining – with plenty of bulldog clips. Happy with the fit, I applied some contact adhesive to the pillars and the rear of the material and fixed them position.
With the rear pillar trim pieces in position, I turned to the headlining itself. The trick here is to do one aperture at a time and let the glue set before moving to the next. I started with the rear screen aperture and undid the clips to apply the glue. it’s important to remember that the headlining sits under the window rubber and needs to wrap right over the window flange. When the glue had become tacky, I started at the centre and worked my way outwards – in exactly the same way that I did originally. I used a continual row of bulldog clips to ensure that the material was held tight into the window flange.
After the glue had dried, I then moved on to the front aperture, and after the sides. The trick to remember is always work from the middle outwards.
[finished headliner]
With a coupe, at this stage the headlining would be finished, but being a sunroof car the sunroof aperture needed to be trimmed. To do this I started off by removing the trim pieces and sliding the side rails out, leaving the sunroof cables free. I then carefully cut a hole in the material leaving a 2 inch excess to fold back around the aperture. I cut ‘darts’ into the material at the corners and folded it back around the aperture using the tried and trusted bulldog clips to hold everything in position. Once happy with the fit I removed one side at a time and glued the material in position. With everything glued in position, the only part left was to cover the sliding panel with the same material and then carefully reassemble everything. With everything now dry, I trimmed the excess material back with a craft knife, and removed all of the bulldog clips to reveal my new headlining in all it’s glory. So whilst not every Ghia has a silver lining, mine now does
If like me you have wondered how or where you can mount the trigger wheel for your EFI Type 3 engine, well ponder no longer, the answer is here 
I stumbled across this thread over at the Samba, where supersuk outlined an idea to make a trigger wheel that mounted directly to the front of the fan. A stroke of genius really, and simple too.
In a previous blog post I had already considered somehow using the fan as the trigger wheel (it kinda looks like a trigger wheel) but never got past the fact that the VR sensor would not work on the cast aluminium.
The solution is to make a trigger wheel that has no centre and can be bolted to the front of the fan. Just ensure that it follows the form of the fan, thus not impeding the airflow. A head smacking moment really – one of elegant simplicity.
But. Unfortunately it did not look like supersuk’s prototype would be very forthcoming so I drafted up my own version.
I will get some quotes for getting these laser cut from 5mm steel. Drop me a line if you are interested in one.
