First Time restoration

[murrayf]

Hi all

I've been a VW owner/mechanic my whole life with lots of experience doing mechanical stuff, but I've never done a full-on restoration. MY son and I have decided to restore a 71 Karmann Ghia hardtop. Its in fair shape but needs everything cosmetic!

So far we've pulled the engine and stripped it down. That has become our "evening" time filler. But we need to get going on the rest. Our plan is to separate the body from the pan, do whatever pan/suspension work is necessary, trailer the body to a shop for painting, primping. etc..

We have followed the procedure for Body Removal laid out in the Orange Book (Offical Type I Service Manual),
but despite having 5-6 healthy bodies lifting together, we can't get the body to separate.

Are there any "Ghia" specific steps we might have missed that aren't in the book? After 40 years, maybe its just good-n-stuck.

Any helpful hints are greatly appreciated.

Thanks

FM

[mike70kg]

Hey FM,

We took the body of a '65 off a couple years back - there are bolts holding the body on under the wheel wells if I remember correctly, that we totally missed. We tried jumping on the pan while lifting the body up since we couldn't see them. Also not sure about this, but I think there were rubber spacers between the pan/body back there. If you have all the bolts out, it really should just come apart..

When we finally got those off, the control wires for the heater flaps held us up. After struggling all day, we just clipped them with snippers out of frustration. Not recommended if you plan to use the heater (this was a choptop, so looking back, not the dumbest thing we did.)

Hope this helps.. Good luck with it!
-Mike

[Ol'fogasaurus]

A beetle has four bolts that come up from the bottom at the front firewall (the pan is slotted for them); did you get them? There 9 bolts on each side for body to pan connection and four across the rear at the firewall there. On each side in the rear, there also is a bolt and spacer that go into the torsion bar shock mount casting (alluded to by the fender well post that Mike70kg made) that are often missed.

Lee

[murrayf]

There were four bolts under the back seat- removed from inside the car, not under. Hopefully those are the ones you're talking about.
I did get the ones behind the rear wheels- near the trailing arms.

Maybe I need bigger helpers!!!!

FM

[Ol'fogasaurus]

I am trying to post two pictures that show the two (per side) slotted holes that are often missed. They are accessed from under the car.

The notch in the first picture is not normal, it is for something I was doing to the pan.

The square tube in the second picture is something I was adding and normally is not there

Lee

[murrayf]

Thanks for the Pics. I see what you mean and that could be it!

I'll take a look tonight.

Thanks again

FM