1974 Karmann Ghia Convertible: Ghia moved to a bigger shop for a week

This week has been another to mark on the calendar for progress on the Ghia. My friend Brian offered the use of his shop to me. He has a large garage with high ceilings and a car lift. The shop also comes with Brian's expert advice and on more than one occasion, the use of his highly skilled hands.

I towed the car over to his house on Thursday last week and we set the car up on the lift. With family in town and a few birthdays to celebrate, the car had to wait until Monday evening before I started to work on it. I had a week's worth of vacation I needed to use or loose, so I decided this week would be the "haul ass" on the Karmann Ghia week.

Before heading over to Brian's to get cracking, I wrote out a list of the jobs and the priority of those jobs, knowing, that I need to get everything done on the lift that requires lifting... At home I have a cherry picker, but that's not anywhere near as handy as a lift.

Priority number 1: get the rockers fully welded and complete... Sounds simple, but I've spent 3 days working on bracing up the doors (see pic for the "adjust-a-brace"), welding all the seams, adjusted the warped skins (from the repop factory, not from welding), filling gaps and grinding down the welds. At the end of the day today, the door gaps held when we removed the adjuster clamps on the door braces. I think that means we are done with the rockers. Now they just need to have the welds ground down for finishing.

Priority number 2: Grind hard to reach places that are easier to get to while standing. My wife's grandpa came and helped on Wednesday. He got in and ground down the back sides of the headlight skins, and the bumper bracket mounting points. I know he did more than that, but that's what I saw.

Priority number 3: weld up the holes in the wheel wells. This is going to happen tomorrow. I think we can knock out both sides in one day. If not, we will hit it over the weekend.