Not a Porsche… But air cooled and close enough

[Geordie71]

In addition to my 993 and 997 I also have a 1963 Karmann Ghia outlaw hot rod which was built in the mid 90s and actually won Volksworld in 1999. I’ve owned the car for ??7-8 years maybe but it hasn’t turned the wheel since Covid and as I cannot pick up a spanner without dropping it but want to learn about cars, I figured bringing my Kg back to life would be the best place to start as it’s probably the most basic car and air cool engine you can get

Over the next few months the plan is to drop the engine honestly just for the fun of it, rebuild the carbs as I am getting petrol into the engine oil and that seems the most likely cause, refresh the brakes, give it a full service including valve adjustments et cetera and just give it a nice refresh.

The plan is to be on a four week cycle where spend the next 2 to 3 weeks researching how to do what I want to do and buying any necessary tools and on week four get the boys over on a Saturday afternoon to drink beer and help me …. Which will be called Steve’s Beers and Ghias!

We started on Saturday by dropping the engine which took a couple of hours – see photos below.

Plan next time is to takeoff all of the engine peripherals but not going to take the engine apart and strip down the Webber 48 IDA Carbs

I really enjoyed this first weekend and looking forward to future weekend beers n Ghias









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[Bootsy]

Look forward to the updates - it’s a very cool car

[greg356a]

Look forward to the Karmann Ghia progress updates. It would be great to see some more pics of the whole car

[KS]

As others have said, cool car. I remember it as I was still involved with VolksWorld (and the show) at the time.

Can I make a couple of observations? You mention fuel getting into the oil - one of the first things I'd check is the pressure regulator. It looks to be one of the old-style Holley/Mr Gasket regs which relies on a spring-loaded rubber diaphragm to control fuel pressure. The diaphragms on these go hard with age and can fail. Modern fuels do them no favours, so I'd be looking at rebuilding or replacing the regulator. Be aware that most Holley regs these days operate in the 4.5–9psi range, which is too high for Webers, even the IDAs. They need no more than 3.5psi - more than that and they'll flood at idle. Also check the float valves in the carbs - if the car's been sat for ages, then they stick, again largely due to crap modern fuels. Also check the spec of the fuel pump.

The oil breather tank is set way too low. The hoses are also far too small in diameter for my liking. Not sure what size the engine is but I'm assuming as you quote 200bhp then it's going to be 2276 or 2332cc, or similar. That's a lot of air to move around inside a stock VW crankcase, and without adequate breathing, it will want to leak oil at higher rpm. The routing of the breather hoses look strange - aside from the size of the hoses, the one going into the bottom of the breather tank won't allow oil to drain back and will block, meaning you have one undersized breather line from the oil filler. I'd replace that oil filler set-up with a breather tower from Berg or CSP, which can then vent into a separate smaller breather tank. I personally also prefer to vent the valve covers, too. Large displacement VW engines do like to breathe freely – aside from anything else, it's free horsepower, too!

Oops, sorry, didn't mean to get carried away! Have fun with the Ghia. You know what they say: Happiness is a Hot VW!

[neilbardsley]

Good luck. I would of been tempted to change the oil, turn it over by hand and then try to fire it up?

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[70sThrowback]

Love the idea behind the process, keep us informed

[Geordie71]

Look forward to the Karmann Ghia progress updates. It would be great to see some more pics of the whole car

I tried …. But the Tapatalk app is very temperamental as it will only let me find new photos to upload once and then I have to reinstall the app so I’ll do it next time…. Promise


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[Geordie71]

As others have said, cool car. I remember it as I was still involved with VolksWorld (and the show) at the time.

Can I make a couple of observations? You mention fuel getting into the oil - one of the first things I'd check is the pressure regulator. It looks to be one of the old-style Holley/Mr Gasket regs which relies on a spring-loaded rubber diaphragm to control fuel pressure. The diaphragms on these go hard with age and can fail. Modern fuels do them no favours, so I'd be looking at rebuilding or replacing the regulator. Be aware that most Holley regs these days operate in the 4.5–9psi range, which is too high for Webers, even the IDAs. They need no more than 3.5psi - more than that and they'll flood at idle. Also check the float valves in the carbs - if the car's been sat for ages, then they stick, again largely due to crap modern fuels. Also check the spec of the fuel pump.

The oil breather tank is set way too low. The hoses are also far too small in diameter for my liking. Not sure what size the engine is but I'm assuming as you quote 200bhp then it's going to be 2276 or 2332cc, or similar. That's a lot of air to move around inside a stock VW crankcase, and without adequate breathing, it will want to leak oil at higher rpm. The routing of the breather hoses look strange - aside from the size of the hoses, the one going into the bottom of the breather tank won't allow oil to drain back and will block, meaning you have one undersized breather line from the oil filler. I'd replace that oil filler set-up with a breather tower from Berg or CSP, which can then vent into a separate smaller breather tank. I personally also prefer to vent the valve covers, too. Large displacement VW engines do like to breathe freely – aside from anything else, it's free horsepower, too!

Oops, sorry, didn't mean to get carried away! Have fun with the Ghia. You know what they say: Happiness is a Hot VW!

Many thanks for the details thoughts and advice Keith – it is a 2332cc build and I actually have a call with the guy who originally built the car mid 90s next week so I ask him about all of these points


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[Geordie71]

Good luck. I would of been tempted to change the oil, turn it over by hand and then try to fire it up?

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Yeah, that would probably be the smart thing to do but as I said at the beginning, I want to learn about the basics of car mechanics and this is a good place to start so doing it all methodically one step a time just for fun over winter


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[Geordie71]

As promised …



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[neilbardsley]

You might be interested in this slightly modified Ghia

https://youtu.be/QpQSZZhvc-U?si=2LcLj7ItYrV-Oo-w

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[hot66]

Steve, did you get any timing slips with car as I assume it had been run at the pod ?

[anglophone1]

That does look the biz Steve!!
C

[Geordie71]

Steve, did you get any timing slips with car as I assume it had been run at the pod ?

Not by me because I’m a big pussy


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[Geordie71]

Update from Beers n Ghias #2 today - took the Weber 48 IDA carbs, fan shroud, tin ware and most of the peripherals off the engine. Plan to disassemble the carbs next time










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