New Parts Wish List
My wife Reese has put a moratorium on parts purchases for the Ghia except for items of absolute necessity. At first I thought I'd be putting in an order for new bearings or CV joint repair kit but yesterday was glad to discover none of that is needed. Of course, that means I'm not ordering anything for a while unless I con her into letting me get a couple things "for my birthday."
Here's what I'd like to eventually get:
New door checkrods, pins and rollers.
These would make getting in and out of the Ghia easier for driver and passenger. As with most cars the doors are supposed to prop themselves open at a few points and keep them from opening too far and buckling the front quarter panels. Right now I've still got the original metal checkrod only for the driver's side. At first one of the rollers on that side wasn't connected properly but I've since fixed that so the door doesn't open too far.
The original checkrod I have is all metal but it had a tiny bit of old, dried and cracked rubber still on it. When I took the 0ld rubber off I found three round holes that used to hold the rubber in place. I tried to hack together a solution with a cut up old bike inner tube. That would probably work OK if I could figure out just the right amount of inner tube needed for each spot and how best to secure it to the checkrod through the holes so it wouldn't slide around. Well, for about $13 each a new set of checkrods is more worth the money than the time wasted trying to fix the old one.
New lower, driver's-side door hinge
I do have a pretty good temporary fix in place for this, though. My driver's-side door does droop down more than my passenger's-side and sometimes you hear that horrible creaking sound of the lower front corner of the door rubbing against the front quarter panel. The paint is scraped off on that spot now, too.
At first I passed it off as "Eh, it's the driver's side door and they just get used more so it's worn out more. My old Beetle was the same way." I should really stop saying that. It's no different than "Eh, they just smell like gas" or "Eh, they just don't idle well" for that matter. After further inspection I discovered weld marks on the lower hinge. It also looked to be welded a bit off from where it should have been, causing the lower front of the door to sit more forward than it should.
So, I cut up a can of Mello Yellow and put six layers of aluminum can between the hinge and the door frame to shim it and position the hinge more toward the back of the car. It could use more shimming, but it no longer scrapes and the door doesn't drop nearly as much as it used to.
I most likely won't be buying brand new as someone at TheSamba told me he had a reconditioned hinge he could sell me for only $25 with shipping included.
Instrument bulb socket(s)
I just need the one to replace the green parking light indicator in my dash but it would be nice to have a few extra on-hand just in case. The only place I can find these currently is California Import Parts and they've been out of stock for a few months now.
"Olympic Blue" touch-up paint
I believe this is my color. It's VW Code 58 and paint code L51P for whatever that's worth. My car has been re-painted but I don't believe completely. I think a lot of the paint on it is actually original with a lot of touch-up work already done to fix rust areas around the front and rocker panels. I've got a lot of little scratches here and there such as where the door was rubbing against the quarter panel. A touch-up of those areas would be nice.
Dream on, Chris
Fun to dream about and only $300. My current carburetor is original to the car and therefore restoring it to perfect condition might cost almost as much in time and parts. Why not just spend the same money for a dual carburetor kit and get a little extra power and fun?
Of course, I would want to put a brand new, higher-flow exhaust system on to really get any benefit from dual carburetors and not over-heat the engine. That would probably mean no more heater boxes unless ...
Just be happy with what you've got, OK?
High performance heater boxes? Mid America Motorworks' site doesn't have too much info on what makes these high performance compared to stock, so I'll have to ask around if someone knows more about them. It does state "1.5 inch OD pipes" for whatever that's worth and they're supposed to have "better flow." A new set of them is $50 cheaper than stock. *shrug*
And then, of course, why stop there?
To go with high performance, high flow heater boxes I'd need a muffler that fit it. I dunno about the four pipe look of this one, though. I think I have seen some cheaper that had just two pipes so it wouldn't look quite so different as stock.
Here's what I'd like to eventually get:
New door checkrods, pins and rollers.
These would make getting in and out of the Ghia easier for driver and passenger. As with most cars the doors are supposed to prop themselves open at a few points and keep them from opening too far and buckling the front quarter panels. Right now I've still got the original metal checkrod only for the driver's side. At first one of the rollers on that side wasn't connected properly but I've since fixed that so the door doesn't open too far.
The original checkrod I have is all metal but it had a tiny bit of old, dried and cracked rubber still on it. When I took the 0ld rubber off I found three round holes that used to hold the rubber in place. I tried to hack together a solution with a cut up old bike inner tube. That would probably work OK if I could figure out just the right amount of inner tube needed for each spot and how best to secure it to the checkrod through the holes so it wouldn't slide around. Well, for about $13 each a new set of checkrods is more worth the money than the time wasted trying to fix the old one.
New lower, driver's-side door hinge
I do have a pretty good temporary fix in place for this, though. My driver's-side door does droop down more than my passenger's-side and sometimes you hear that horrible creaking sound of the lower front corner of the door rubbing against the front quarter panel. The paint is scraped off on that spot now, too.
At first I passed it off as "Eh, it's the driver's side door and they just get used more so it's worn out more. My old Beetle was the same way." I should really stop saying that. It's no different than "Eh, they just smell like gas" or "Eh, they just don't idle well" for that matter. After further inspection I discovered weld marks on the lower hinge. It also looked to be welded a bit off from where it should have been, causing the lower front of the door to sit more forward than it should.
So, I cut up a can of Mello Yellow and put six layers of aluminum can between the hinge and the door frame to shim it and position the hinge more toward the back of the car. It could use more shimming, but it no longer scrapes and the door doesn't drop nearly as much as it used to.
I most likely won't be buying brand new as someone at TheSamba told me he had a reconditioned hinge he could sell me for only $25 with shipping included.
Instrument bulb socket(s)
I just need the one to replace the green parking light indicator in my dash but it would be nice to have a few extra on-hand just in case. The only place I can find these currently is California Import Parts and they've been out of stock for a few months now.
"Olympic Blue" touch-up paint
I believe this is my color. It's VW Code 58 and paint code L51P for whatever that's worth. My car has been re-painted but I don't believe completely. I think a lot of the paint on it is actually original with a lot of touch-up work already done to fix rust areas around the front and rocker panels. I've got a lot of little scratches here and there such as where the door was rubbing against the quarter panel. A touch-up of those areas would be nice.
Dream on, Chris
Fun to dream about and only $300. My current carburetor is original to the car and therefore restoring it to perfect condition might cost almost as much in time and parts. Why not just spend the same money for a dual carburetor kit and get a little extra power and fun?
Of course, I would want to put a brand new, higher-flow exhaust system on to really get any benefit from dual carburetors and not over-heat the engine. That would probably mean no more heater boxes unless ...
Just be happy with what you've got, OK?
High performance heater boxes? Mid America Motorworks' site doesn't have too much info on what makes these high performance compared to stock, so I'll have to ask around if someone knows more about them. It does state "1.5 inch OD pipes" for whatever that's worth and they're supposed to have "better flow." A new set of them is $50 cheaper than stock. *shrug*
And then, of course, why stop there?
To go with high performance, high flow heater boxes I'd need a muffler that fit it. I dunno about the four pipe look of this one, though. I think I have seen some cheaper that had just two pipes so it wouldn't look quite so different as stock.
posted by Chris Druckenmiller at 10:39 AM
1 Comments:
After investigation the high performance heater boxes turned out to be not so great, according to the guys at TheSamba. I can get just as much out of a dual carb setup if I just put a higher-flow muffler on with the existing heater boxes.
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