House of Karmann

[greg356a]

Upgraded brake safety from drums to Porsche 968 fronts and 944 rear disks. To install the front calipers the backing plates needed to be slightly larger. A local race fabrication shop Tig welded in new metal and then machined the offset to ensure the disks are perfectly central. The original M12 fixings have been maintained. Need to organise to powder coat the spindles in silver as originally supplied. Calipers will be completely refurbished and painted red.

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[greg356a]

Back to the body, bit of a shock to see a face less car, and no I am not referring to the bodywork in the background

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The the structural part of the body work is complete, must say Keith has done a fantastic job, great panel gaps, clean joints requiring limited leading/ filler and quick.
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The whole point of taking the nose off was to straighten the inner wheel arches after it suffered a low impact bump;

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Not sure whether to finish the back bodywork before moving the car back home to do all the mechanical work or not. The boot/ engine lid is being worked on separately for some rust repairs and fitting the twin 356 grills. Without the engine lid cant reset the rear engine bay panel and lower cover. These are also the most expensive panels to replace, needing right hand battery tray, rear engine 1955-1963 panel, lower 1/4 wing bottoms both sides, possibly rear arches.

[911hillclimber]

Seems to me to leave it there and get those parts spot-on and the whole shell signed-off with the specialists.
For me that would be a major stage done and dusted and well done throughout.
just my 2d

[greg356a]

Just been talking to Californian Classics, they are going to send me an update on the engine lid progress and the right hand battery tray is on back order so confirmation of delivery time. Agree it would be best to leave the car and get it finished. I suspect I may not see the modified engine lid for some time, given how busy they are. So may have no choice other than drag it back home and crack on with chassis work.

[911hillclimber]

Can you prep the shell all over and fit the underside etc before the rear lid is ready, or will it's absence delay/alter the rear wing gapping etc?

[neilbardsley]

With those brakes your car is going to stop very well

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[greg356a]

The vented disks and calipers and over size bore master cylinder should make for some great stopping given no brake servo. I used this combination on my speedster, which given the light weight stops without locking up.

Unfortunately I need all the panels at the same time to make sure they fit together correctly. About a month left on the front and then bring the Ghia back home. I then need to work out how to get the body up in the air so I have enough space below to work on the pan.

[RobFrost]

Morning to you all.
lockdown 3: The 356 Coupe waiting in the que for paint and the speedster outlaw waiting final tune with it’s new PMO’s. I have searched endlessly for a 911/ 912/356 project but the starting costs are just outrageously prohibitive and then the parts. What’s left that’s rare, cool and has German heritage? House of Karmann lead me to the lowlight or early 60’s Ghia. A Baywatch body with Crimewatch mechanics? Link pin, swaybars, drum brakes all less than ideal for modern traffic.

The vision is to blend two Coupes from house of Karmann the 1964 VW Karmann Ghia and the Porsche 356C using modern suspension, brakes, drive train
Too much time on google and my next project is ready to go.

Wait only essential travel, so everything stopped.

Staring with a 1964 LHD US import in all of its 47 years of patina. Pete at California Classic helped with a great deal, 64 Ghia, stripped, bagged and tagged, media blasted, epoxy coated, uk registered and a whole bundle of replacement panels. They make a RHD dash board kit. Also secured a 901/07 gearbox from 1969 911S

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The aim is for something like this Indonesian car, but not as a lowlight.

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Techy stuff
Imohr a Brazilian VW suspension company make some amazing bolt on suspension systems, RHD double A arm wish bone suspension front and back. Addition of front and rear sway bars and 60mm vw dropped spindles, CSP 4 pot vented brakes at front and 2 pot disks at the back with e-brake. Still exploring if any Porsche early 911 hubs, calliper's will fit on 1968+ vw spindles on front and the 1303 spindles on the back of the Imohr suspension package

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Not got a clue as to engine to use except must be aircooled, look like a 356 with around 150bhp, no subby stuff here. I need to use a 914 flywheel and clutch for the 901 gearbox to fit type 1 or type 4 engine.

Understated wheels, 16” or 17” 130x5 steel look wheels maybe Fuchs

So no budget or time scales, just needs to be another step up in build quality, like my last speedster project will take years, but hopefully be great fun, make some new friends and look great when finished.

Gearbox arrives next week but may not be until March April until travel restrictions are lifted and I can take the trailer down to Californian Classic to pick everything up.

Appreciate, its not a Porsche in the restoration threads, but hope everyone is ok with that and likes a KG

I don't know if you chose an engine yet, but in my youth I had a type 3 with a flat 4 fuel injected. It had about 65hp I think, but it felt pretty fast for daily driving because that engine has quite a bit of torque and delivers maximum power at 2,800 revs. Certainly no hot rod but still a lot of fun and you could get about 30mpg.

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[greg356a]

Rob, I suspect you are right fuel injection is the way forward.

My lead on a 1776 type 1 with hopefully a good case seems to be getting closer to selling. Thinking of rebuilding to 1918cc, high lift cam, followers, lightened flywheel and fuel injection/ crank trigger. But using 356 fram filter, throttle linkage, oil filler etc maybe a solid 140bhp.

So latest parts hoard increasing, thanks to a very kind fellow DDKer is expanding. Great pair of complete 911 swb from 1969 front seats. Hinges need re-chroming and obviously new upholstery. Once I get the chassis back I can now look at fabricating some seat support for the runners

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Front brakes complete ready for first trail fitting

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[greg356a]

Managed to get hold of a original dash cut out for a 61 KG. Not quite decided on the final RHD dash plans yet, but I have the option for a double peak. At the very least it gives me some more metal for the RHD conversion to allow for any mistakes.

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I believe the panel on the seats is GRP, no idea what glove box they have used, any clues? Maybe it was part of the kit

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[greg356a]

Catch up Friday. The inner wings have been straightened and the correct gasket inserted between the end of the inner wings and the intersection of the nose cone. No idea why VW did not weld these together but I guess there must be a reason. Both head light surrounds and buckets have new metal. Measurement for the head light bucket position are symmetrical from the ground and measured back to the windscreen. The nose and the under belly section have been cut into place are are being slowly mig welded along the butt joint. So far no sign of any panel distortion due to heat.

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I guess the front will be wrapped up next week. There may still be time in the guys schedule to look at the back. I think I can get hold of the panels, the most difficult one to get hold of has been despatched. The others I could pick up at the same time as picking up the engine lid. Engine lid modifications are not done but its needed to fit the joining panels.

Really think I have a good shot at making this into a good quality car, for me its really going to be about the small details. Some of my ideas include;
Porsche features
356C Engine lid twin grills
356 Rear shine down number plate light
356C Front indicators, very similar to KG in design
911 R engine lid hinges - not sure about these
356 Leather straps
356 Through bonnet filler
Body colour bumpers with 356 GT aluminium deco strip
356 GT aluminium deco strip to replace side spears.
356 Rear rectangle reflectors - rear lenses already have reflector
912 Steel look wheels but need to be at least 16" to accommodate the 968/944 calipers. They just never made any?
911 Rear ¼ window louvers
356 Period colour
356 Washer jets
KG gauges to look like 356 gauges. There are some green dials already available or use 912 gauges.
911 swb seats – head rests and adjustable / tilt base
356/ 912 Rear view mirror
550 handbrake
911 gear shift
356 look engine
356 GT fuel tank - Most likely get this made
356 Floor mounted headlight switch
356 steering wheel or 912 bat wing
etc

[Bootsy]

Sounds very special

[greg356a]

Thanks Bootsy, fingers crossed.

Progress this week has seen the front end panels all fully welded in. Keith has also panel worked the right hand wing to remove a lot of the dents, amazing skillzs with hammer and dolly. Also received the unobtanium right hand side battery tray panel. Given its hand made looks like a really good fitting panel. The KG is staying with the guys at Hingham a little longer than planned, to have the rear end panels replaced. This is mostly the rear right side bottom, inner and outer right side 1/4s, rear corner valance x 2 sides and rear engine bay panel. The panels are all ordered from Californian Classics and Pete is sending the panels and the rear engine lid so that the panels can be correctly positioned, before welding.

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The body fabrication, welding etc will be fully complete in the next few weeks. Well accept the work I need to do with hammer and dolly on the rear left wing to get rid of the dents. I want to have a go at lead loading a few seems, particularly around the front light bezels and front 1/4 seem never done it before so what could possibly go wrong!

I will then turn my attention to the chassis mods, fitting 901 gear box front mounts and gear linkage. Also the rear cradle mount has slightly different angles to the VW Beetle so need to modify to fit the poly bush mounts.

Ordered and received the new 550 replica look handbrake. Looks like a simple fit. However, not one for simple and trying to be IVA compliant I need to fit an switch to allow for a on/ off warning indicator light to be installed on the dash. The handle looks like it needs a series of holes for a race look.

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[rhd racer]

Looking great, excellent progress. It’s going to be super cool…

[greg356a]

Catch up Friday, progress on the rear end is good. Old panels have been cut out and the new ones screwed in place ready for welding. There is also a small patch needed on the offside rear wing. The gap and fit needs a little tweaking. The boot lock does not quite line up with the catch position which means the rear cross member section needs moving across left a few millimetres. The rear cross member and the right side battery tray are hand made so I guess some variation should be expected. This is really the last of the panel replacement work to be finished before the fun starts. Looks like the ghia will be back home in the next couple of weeks.

Cant wait to start working on fitting the new double A arm suspension and chassis parts. I suspect the Porsche 968 front disc brake conversion may have added some width to the front track. The options seem to be change wheel offset, narrow front axle or wider wings. All these options are going to require a lot of work or compromise if the offset wheel option is followed. Some basic measurements looking at added width of 30mm per side. If I narrow the front axle section it would allow me to tuck the wheels under and end up with a slightly lower killer stance. Anyway running away a bit. Pictures;

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