Reassembling Scarlet, The 1963 Karmann Ghia Cabriolet

AT RIGHT: Scarlet in her new paint after nearly a week of drying.

Of course, after all this preparation, I was chomping at the bit to get going on reassembly! But, one must be patient to let the paint fully cure before even touching it. But as soon as it was safe, out came the boxes!

The very first thing to do was complete the routing of the wiring harness. It turned out that I had not pulled it to the rear far enough though it was already through the rockers. Once that was resolved, the wires of the main loom were routed where they go, front and rear, a new rubber boot installed on the front end of the rocker! Unfortunately, no photos of all that!

I next moved nearly immediatley to installing the engine bay components. First, the engine lid needs to be adjusted because the sound deadening materials cover access to the hinge mounting bolts. So, I took the rear lid and mounted it, and then adjusted the hinges where they go, and after tightening them I was ready for the insullation.

Next, the original sound deadening materials were gently cleaned and spray-painted flat black. The paint acts a bit like a glue to keep the integrity of the outer layer intact while also covering over any stains or color imperfections. I then carefully installed the firewall piece - the remaining pieces went in later. After the firewall insullation was installed, I then installed the engine's seals, both above the transaxle / engine interface and around the rear edge boundary of the engine and the body.

Pretty quickly following that, the rear lamps go in, rear lock, etc. It was about this point I trial fit the battery - it's the new Optima 12v! I had to design and manufacture a special mounting bracket. Here, in the fitting process, tweaks to the disign were effected and it was declared ready. (Later, when fabricating the special new wiring harness that hooks up the generator to the regulator, I had to change the mount!)

Back again to wiring, I routed the front looms, for both headlights, and horns, then installed the front hood water drain tubes (right and left), and an original working horn relay - also 12v, of course!

I then installed the front lid latch, release cable, and locking knob and started to install the lamps and horns. Scarlet got a pair of horns and mouting hardware from a '71 - genuine Karmann fitted horns in great condition, and a new rubber boot of course.

AT RIGHT: This image, taken a bit later, shows the parts just discussed. Also visible is a wire to the grounding point of the left horn - this was just a convenient grounding point for testing the electrical system.

When the headlamp bucket - the metal the headlamp assembly mounts to - is replaced, all the modern ones are made with two sets of holes, so they can be installed on either right or left position, and therefore there's a hole that would otherwise let water in. These were closed with New Old Stock (NOS) ORIGINAL VW - and very rare! - "white nylon" plugs. And lets not forget the original water drain tubes!

Attention then turned to the wiring at the front dash. First, ALL the wires are laid where they go (including down to the brake pressure switch, high / low beam switch, etc), and the courtesy / map light and its wiring was installed along with both door switches - and a 12v bulb, of course! Next, the fuel gauge was installed and fuse box. This is the time to install the fresh air control valves, and that meant reinstalling their control levers, and tightening up all their attach points. Here's a photo of the right one - the left is visible in a later shot showing the wiring system (minus wiper motor) completely installed.

AT RIGHT: This shows the right air control valve with new rubber boots on the end. You can also note here how darned close the original and new paint colors are - there's no visible transition point! Interesting! Maybe the color is actually correct? Hmmm...

Then, working from the left, the wiring components were installed, starting with the key switch (ignition), including a new rubber grommet that goes into the dash right where the switch goes through it. The gauges were left out for ease of access for the time being and the headlight switch was installed.

This work was briefly inturrupted by the realization that the turn signal switch wiring is much more easily performed while the clock and speedo are NOT installed! So, a digression occurred in which the steering column tube - powdercoated! - was installed so that the NEW turn signal switch could be mounted. And, of course, to complete that, the steering wheel has to be there so the depth can be set. ...I didn't want to risk damage to the new steering wheel, so the original was used for this process. While down under the dash fiddling with the steering column tube, the high / low beam switch was installed.

The gauges were previously rebuilt by North Hollywood Speedometer, the clock having been converted to 12v and all new 12v illumination bulbs provided. And now it was time: The speedo and clock were installed into the dash and hooked up correctly.

Unfortunately, these were harder to get a good photo of than one might imagine - either out of focus or bad flash dynamics; sorry it's not centered better!

Turning attention to the front once more, the grounds were installed into the headlight buckets to complete the wiring and then both headlamps and both turn signals were installed. This took a bit of doing because the headlamp assemblies weren't cooperative - I had thought they'd go back in pretty easily, but nope! So, a lot of time was spent fiddling with about ten units to find two good ones, which were disassembled, cleaned, reassembled with new bulbs and finally installed.

Just as the left headlamp trim ring was about to be installed, it was realized that there was no point: the headlights have to be adjusted first and we're not ready for that yet - the car has to be driven straight up to a flat level spot first and at this point the front end was still two feet off the ground! So, instead, the nose emblem, fresh air screens, and front grilles were installed.

ABOVE LEFT AND RIGHT: These images were taken a bit later, after the door stiker plates and alignment wedges were already installed. In the image at right, an Optima battery can be seen (black strap) in the gas tank area being used for testing the wiring system.

At this point, the back side of the dash looked like this:

With more and more installed, there was less remaining! So, at this point a walk around the car made some installations of opportunity, including:

The right fender emblem - a new one
The ash tray holder, ash tray face and ash tray itself
Both door striker plates and alignment wedges
Both glove box door rubber stops

The wiper motor conversion to 12v wasn't ready yet, and the radio and speaker weren't yet received - nor the antenna or bumpers! - so pretty much all non-mechanical installation that could be done was already done, so attention turned to the mechanical systems.

First, the dual circuit brake conversion, shown here.

This dual circuit conversion is unique. It involves zero changes to the vehicle's body - pure bolt in. It uses a German made master cylinder from a different type car! A dual circuit type reservoir plugs right into it, and it has a special conversion piece so that it can utilize the original reservoir as a source to fill brake fluid into the lower reservoir! Clever, eh? The master cylinder's two circuits use the same diameter pistons with identical throw, so the brakes work exactly as before, they're just now safer. (We can supply you with this type of conversion for the present price of $225.) Only the master and its reservoir and brake lines were installed at this time.

AT RIGHT: Here's the new dual circuit upgrad master cylinder assembly. The master was painted black to protect it from rusting - a purely cosmetic asthetic! The reservoir "snaps in", and is fed by a second reservoir, in this case the original one! A new brake line is fitted to the left front wheel, the rear line is adjusted only a little to fit, and the right front is served from a line taken from a younger Karmann Ghia.

At this point, attention turned to the engine! The engine had been in service, but following the change in generator from 6v to 12v, just to be sure it was OK, it was mounted to the dynamometer and run in a preceeding month or so, so we know it was really ready. In NOT the usual practice, the front remained on jack stands while the rear was raised!

From here, heck, it's just an engine installation, right? Well, let's be careful!

ABOVE LEFT AND RIGHT: Scarlet's original engine, converted to 12v but otherwise with all her original from new parts gets installed once more.In image at left, the sound deadening insullation material covering the rear lid hinges are installed, but the closing panel for the engine bay - sometimes called the breast plate - is not yet installed.

After the engine was in, it was time to declare it a day. ALL the work cited above was done in ONE day!

On day TWO of assembly, I installed the Optima battery and fabricated its new wiring harness. I had an insight that by swapping the battery with a slightly different (also new) Optima battery, it would improve the situation by shortening the length needed for the primary + and - wires while moving the voltage regulator deeper out of harms way into the right rear fender. However, this had the drawback of meaning the ground wire for the regulator was too short! Oh well, small problem. I corrected it as can be seen in the right image below.

ABOVE LEFT AND RIGHT: Here the 12v conversion at the power source can be seen. The battery retaining strap includes a mount for the voltage regulator. Both the regulator and the generator are new, modern Bosh products. The image at left shows the original configuration with the original Optima I had chosen. The image at right shows the second configuration with the different Optima (still 12v) which allowed the regulator to be better protected under the edge of the fender. ALSO NOTE that in the image above left you can clearly see the clearance between the generator and carburetor - other people have a problem with the fit here, prompting some to use a spacer between the carburetor and manifold to raise the carb up so it doesn't strike the larger diameter 12v generator. But Scarlet doesn't have that problem!

BELOW LEFT: Because it was planned to tow the car to the upholstery shop, possibly sans rear lid, the heater pipes weren't installed yet - they're paper! - so they wouldn't be at risk. At that point, the engine bay looked like this:

ABOVE RIGHT: Powder-coated access / inspection covers were installed in the trunk, along with Scarlet's original windshield washer bottle. The pressure for it is specified in ATU, so I thoughtfully (later) wrote the value in PSI near the cap. Note that there's a little water that made it to the trunk floor - yes, I filled the washer reservoir!

AT RIGHT: The completed dual circuit reservoir system. The upper (lower / foreground) reservoir feeds the lower (background / upper) one using stock joining tubing and brake fluid safe hose.

Next, I'd gotten the new speaker in the mail, so I mounted it up.

I then finished off the brake reservoir, installed the pedal assembly, and adjusted both pedals, then adjusted the clutch!

At this point, the time had come to stop assembly and get Scarlet to her upholsterers so she could have her new hat installed to go with her new dress!

So I hooked her up and towed her over.

Unfortunately, she had to be towed back and forth a few times before the upholstery got done!

Anyway, when she came back after the first trip, I completed her - only leaving off the items that would get into CA Cover's way doing the upholstery like the glovebox, front lid, etc. (access for the dash and front glass). This involved installing the Antenna, the Driver's Mirror, completely assembling the doors (hinges, check rods, latches, alignment, glass, etc), assembling and installing the license light pod, bumpers, exterior trim, etc. Here she is being brought back to CA Covers a second (or was it third?!) time! You can see all this work completed - headlight ring left off as a reminder to adjust the headlamps:

The BLUE on the tires is a protective coating for the whitewalls!