Page 26 - Karmann Komment - V38 Issue 3

Karmann Komment Volume 38 | Issue 3
KEVIN HOPCROFT BLOG
Kevin Hopcroft’s 1971 VW Karmann Ghia Convertible Restoration
Part 15: Chassis Rebuild
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At last, the chassis is back in my own workshop. Now I can start the mechanical restoration,
to make the chassis ready for when the body arrives. See pic 1.
So the first thing to do is clean up all the areas that are still original and that means hours of wire brushing, cleaning and painting. See pic 2.
After removing 50 years of road dirt, the next job was to apply a coat of rust converter and then once dry a coat of “chassis black” paint. I’m a particular fan of Chassis Black as it provides excellent thick metal coverage combined with good road dirt protection and a good gloss finish. See pic 3.
My next job is to raise the rear suspension.
After reading about the rear torsion arm information on the internet, I found that one notch on the inner splines actually changes the height of the car by exactly 63mm. This can be reduced by moving the outer splines one notch should I find that it’s too much when I finally put the car back on the chassis. See pic 4.
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1https://motorcycletrailersandcaravans.blogspot.com/2018/03/ 2https://60sclassicmotorbikes.blogspot.com/2012/07/before.html
If you look at this original picture, you can see that the front of the car is high and the back is low. Now it is my intention to fit a tow bar to
this car when it is done and tow my motorcycle trailer1 with it. This will enable me to show both the car and two of my motorcycles2 at vintage rallies. I had lifted the back of the car on it’s suspension to see how much higher it needed to be for it to sit level before I started to strip the car and it appeared to need about 63mm (2.5”).
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