Engine and Trans

OK, the car's outta the garage, now's time to start in on the trans and engine, which haven't had any attention for oh, say....20 years...just sitting in the corner. Trans was degreased, anchored the engine stand into the garage floor. Trans will get some basic overhaul work and a paint job, engine will get the same. This is the original single port engine from the Ghia; I have a dual port (for those of you new to VW's, hit The Samba to find out what the difference is) pulled from a '73 Ghia that will undergo a 1776 cc rebuild, probably next winter. For now, just a cleanup on the single port to get the car on the road.

Taillight Housing Resto

What you are looking at is the tailight housing for 1970 and '71 model year Ghias. The housing is chrome, and there are three separate light fixtures: turn signal, brake light and running light. The top area where you can see the rust, is for the turn signal. The rusty element is a reflector which, due to the intense heat of the lightbulb, sheds its' chrome rather easily. I have acquired several of these housings over the years and they are ALL rusty in this area. This one and its' mate, however, both have good solid chrome on the other inside areas, and the exterior chrome (that which is exposed when the housing is mounted in place) is perfect, with absolutely no rust pitting. The bulb sockets and their electrical contacts are likewise in great shape. On the inside, what I've elected to do is remove the reflector/heat shield, and have it rechromed. Others have recommended a light colored high temp paint, but I believe chrome plating will not be cost prohibitive, and if done right, will provide long (enough) service life.

The trick here is that the reflector is held in place by three small pins, which you can see if you look close at the pic (double click to open up the image). The pins penetrate holes located at the corners of the reflector, and then are peened over to hold the piece in place. I used a Dremel tool to grind back the peened over edges and free up the reflector. Now it's off to chrome plating! Once plated, I'll use JB Weld unobtrusively to 'weld'/anchor the reflector back in place.

ReSpray Time - Finally!

Here's a pic of the car going back out for final painting. Painting is to be done by a local body shop that also does custom paint work, Edward J. Henry (www.edwardjhenry.com) These guys have been in business at the same location in Wilmington for three generations - so I'm guessing they are doing something right.

Off the Blocks

All of the underbody stripping and painting is done, including all the wheel wells and the pan. The axle beam is in place, the rear suspension has been rebuilt including resetting the torsion bar angle. This photo shows the car just after it has been let down off the jack stands, approximately on December 1st. Nearly 5 months of work to get to this point.

Checking the body height looked good. The car is not dead level but is riding just slightly high in the rear. I checked this by setting a bubble level on the frame tunnel. At this point it is a little difficult to check the side-to-side level of the car as the garage floor is not dead level, but measuring the height of the wheel well at the top of the arch showed only a very small (+/- 3/8") difference. I expect that this difference will not be noticeable when viewed on the road, and I expect when the engine, trans and convertible top frame are installed, the car will be very close to dead level and factory ride height both front and rear.

All Parts are NOT Equal

At left find a pic of two equivalent parts sourced from two separate vendors. These clamps each represent one of four that are used to hold a sway bar onto the front axle beam on Type I air cooled VW's. The part on the left is from Bugs For You (www.bfyonline.com); that on the right is from CIP1 (www.cip1.com), an otherwise reputable supplier. I'd tried fitting the right part and its' brethren from the kit onto my axle beam, but as you can see, the part is much smaller and simply would not close around the beam. The BFY parts I had in place in about an hour. The CIP1 rubber was also configured a bit differently, making the installation a little more challenging.

Price difference here was insignificant - so it pays to shop! How much is your time worth?

You have the option of installing urethane bushings but I am sticking to a stock arrangement and used new rubber bushings with these, also sourced from BFY.