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kiwighia68 Samba Member
Joined: October 20, 2013 Posts: 2875 Location: Auckland, New Zealand
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Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2016 1:00 am Post subject: Re: Saving Emiko: 68 RHD Restoration in New Zealand |
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mcdonaldneal wrote: |
Those will look great Chris! A real improvement, and only detectable by a very experienced eye! :wink:
I presume you have tried sitting in them? I only ask because the seat base looks a little flatter in the Porsche seats, and if you needed to set it at an angle on the runners, now would be the time!
Good luck with the SA trimmers, are you taking them as outsize baggage? |
The angle and exact positioning of the Porsche seats on the Ghia rails will come later, Phil. I'm able to adjust the height with a couple of washers - which I think I'll need at the back to raise the seats just a tad there. I don't have to take the whole seat to SA. They make the covers using the old covers as a template - much the same as TMI. I'll be in Edinburgh the weekend of 15-16 July. How far are you from there? I still owe you a Guinness or two. _________________ Festina lente - hasten slowly
1968 Ghia named Emiko
Resto completed Dec 2015 |
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mcdonaldneal Samba Member
Joined: June 13, 2013 Posts: 2649 Location: Gullane, Scotland
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c21darrel Samba Member
Joined: January 22, 2009 Posts: 8211 Location: San Dimas
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kiwighia68 Samba Member
Joined: October 20, 2013 Posts: 2875 Location: Auckland, New Zealand
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Posted: Mon Mar 14, 2016 8:52 pm Post subject: Re: Saving Emiko: 68 RHD Restoration in New Zealand |
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c21darrel wrote: |
I vaguely remember someone warning you about those one year only high back seats somewhere early in your build... 8) :wink: |
Yes, you told me. But what was I to do? Stock was the advice everyone gave me, and customising was to follow later. But every time I deviate from stock, I keep the stock item in case I have to sell or go to a concourse d'elegance.
So far: Not stock height, back-up lights not installed, non-stock front luggage compartment liner, clear lenses on the rear, non-stock carpets, high stop light.
And I want to install a wood-rim steering wheel like yours, and the bamboo parcel tray, and venetian blinds for the rear window, and stainless steel exhaust/muffler. The list is long.
But first those Porsche seats. _________________ Festina lente - hasten slowly
1968 Ghia named Emiko
Resto completed Dec 2015 |
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carl4x4 Samba Member
Joined: March 20, 2012 Posts: 679 Location: United Kingdom
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Posted: Tue Mar 15, 2016 1:07 am Post subject: Re: Saving Emiko: 68 RHD Restoration in New Zealand |
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kiwighia68 wrote: |
c21darrel wrote: |
I vaguely remember someone warning you about those one year only high back seats somewhere early in your build... |
Yes, you told me. But what was I to do? Stock was the advice everyone gave me, and customising was to follow later. But every time I deviate from stock, I keep the stock item in case I have to sell or go to a concourse d'elegance.
So far: Not stock height, back-up lights not installed, non-stock front luggage compartment liner, clear lenses on the rear, non-stock carpets, high stop light.
And I want to install a wood-rim steering wheel like yours, and the bamboo parcel tray, and venetian blinds for the rear window, and stainless steel exhaust/muffler. The list is long.
But first those Porsche seats. |
I'd love a set of the blinds myself, It's a slippery slope, come across to the dark side _________________ 1969 UK Karmann Ghia build http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=518789&highlight= |
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kiwighia68 Samba Member
Joined: October 20, 2013 Posts: 2875 Location: Auckland, New Zealand
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Posted: Sat Apr 16, 2016 10:26 pm Post subject: Re: Saving Emiko: 68 RHD Restoration in New Zealand |
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The reason why I decided to replace my '68 stock Ghia seats is apparent from this pic. The seats are so wide that it is nearly impossible to extract the seat belt from the B pillar. The seats are also so high that my hair touches the headliner.
I bought 2 old Porsche seats - from a 928, I think - and sourced the cover materials from TMI via KGP&R - to match my existing upholstery. The Porsche seat (original next to the disassembled seat parts) has a similar shape to the original Ghia seat but is narrower and lower and looks like this. (The seat-bottom in the pic has been prepared to receive the seat cover. I used 4mm thin polyester sheeting called "Low loft wadding" at about US$ 9 a linear metre.)
I also sourced 2 Ghia seat parts from Dan in Seattle to fit onto the seat rails on the floorpan. These I had to cut from the seat bottom assembly and rustproof and paint. I had 3.5mm cross-members welded on where the Porsche seats will be attached with 4 captive nuts and their bolts.
The seat covers were made for me by a small upholstery firm in Pretoria, South Africa, during my annual pilgrimage. They used the original Porsche seat covers as a template. Cost? About US $ 160 for the two seats.
I've trial fitted the seat covers and the fit is good. I'll show in a following post how I refurbished the tired Porsche foam on the seat-back.
PS I'll be keeping the original Ghia seats, of course, in case I have to demonstrate the originality of the parts on the car. _________________ Festina lente - hasten slowly
1968 Ghia named Emiko
Resto completed Dec 2015 |
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kiwighia68 Samba Member
Joined: October 20, 2013 Posts: 2875 Location: Auckland, New Zealand
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Posted: Mon Apr 18, 2016 10:12 pm Post subject: Re: Saving Emiko: 68 RHD Restoration in New Zealand |
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The seat bottom looked like this after I had reinforced the foam with fresh polyester wadding:
And like this when the seat cover was on:
Yes, I know there is a bit of a wave towards the back, but these seats are not for show but for comfortable daily use, and anyway, I'm not a professional upholsterer by any means.
I'll tidy up the bottom of the seat bottom before I install the seats. I have some denim material which should do the trick. (I'll have to persuade my wife to do some sewing for me. Pic to follow.)
_________________ Festina lente - hasten slowly
1968 Ghia named Emiko
Resto completed Dec 2015 |
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Mellow Yellow 74 Samba Member
Joined: October 14, 2014 Posts: 1615 Location: Sydney, Australia
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Posted: Tue Apr 19, 2016 12:17 am Post subject: Re: Saving Emiko: 68 RHD Restoration in New Zealand |
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kiwighia68 wrote: |
I'll tidy up the bottom of the seat bottom before I install the seats. I have some denim material which should do the trick. (I'll have to persuade my wife to do some sewing for me. Pic to follow.) |
Why are you worried about what the bottom of the seat looks like? _________________ 1962 Karmann Ghia
1974 Deluxe Microbus
1985 Caravelle (Vanagon) |
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kiwighia68 Samba Member
Joined: October 20, 2013 Posts: 2875 Location: Auckland, New Zealand
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Posted: Tue Apr 19, 2016 12:26 am Post subject: Re: Saving Emiko: 68 RHD Restoration in New Zealand |
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Mellow Yellow 74 wrote: |
kiwighia68 wrote: |
I'll tidy up the bottom of the seat bottom before I install the seats. I have some denim material which should do the trick. (I'll have to persuade my wife to do some sewing for me. Pic to follow.) |
Why are you worried about what the bottom of the seat looks like? |
1. I am an obsessive compulsive. (Remember how I was mocked here when I painted over the POR15 on the underside of my car because POR15 breaks down under UV light? Someone said the underside of my car ought never to see daylight and UV unless my car landed upside down in a ditch.)
2. The foam on the bottom of the seat is brittle as you can see in the pic and I think it will continue to disintegrate and then make a mess on my carpets.
3. My mum taught me that I should always wear clean underwear even if no one would ever see them. That's how I feel about my car.
PS Have you got the measurement for the horn mounting bracket yet? _________________ Festina lente - hasten slowly
1968 Ghia named Emiko
Resto completed Dec 2015 |
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Mellow Yellow 74 Samba Member
Joined: October 14, 2014 Posts: 1615 Location: Sydney, Australia
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Posted: Tue Apr 19, 2016 1:52 pm Post subject: Re: Saving Emiko: 68 RHD Restoration in New Zealand |
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Fair enough!
Angus has offered to measure the horn bracket next time he visits his project but if you could measure yours that would be great because I am hoping to make up a new repair piece this weekend. _________________ 1962 Karmann Ghia
1974 Deluxe Microbus
1985 Caravelle (Vanagon) |
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kiwighia68 Samba Member
Joined: October 20, 2013 Posts: 2875 Location: Auckland, New Zealand
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Posted: Tue Apr 19, 2016 3:16 pm Post subject: Re: Saving Emiko: 68 RHD Restoration in New Zealand |
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Mellow Yellow 74 wrote: |
Fair enough!
Angus has offered to measure the horn bracket next time he visits his project but if you could measure yours that would be great because I am hoping to make up a new repair piece this weekend. |
The underside of the horn bracket on my '68 Ghia is 5" or 12.8cm forward from the centre of the crosshair indentation in the metal of the spare wheel well. (There should be a drainage hole in the centre of those cross-hairs.)
I used a compass to measure the distance, so that would be a direct (shortest) line between the two points and not the distance as measured along the floor (which is slightly curved). _________________ Festina lente - hasten slowly
1968 Ghia named Emiko
Resto completed Dec 2015
Last edited by kiwighia68 on Tue Apr 19, 2016 8:21 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Mellow Yellow 74 Samba Member
Joined: October 14, 2014 Posts: 1615 Location: Sydney, Australia
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Posted: Tue Apr 19, 2016 6:33 pm Post subject: Re: Saving Emiko: 68 RHD Restoration in New Zealand |
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Thanks Kiwi, that will be helpful when I install the bracket but actually I need to know the height of the bracket itself (or the distance from the bottom of the circular cut-out to the bottom of the bracket) so I can repair it because the bottom is rusted out. _________________ 1962 Karmann Ghia
1974 Deluxe Microbus
1985 Caravelle (Vanagon) |
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kiwighia68 Samba Member
Joined: October 20, 2013 Posts: 2875 Location: Auckland, New Zealand
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Posted: Tue Apr 19, 2016 8:30 pm Post subject: Re: Saving Emiko: 68 RHD Restoration in New Zealand |
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Mellow Yellow 74 wrote: |
Thanks Kiwi, that will be helpful when I install the bracket but actually I need to know the height of the bracket itself (or the distance from the bottom of the circular cut-out to the bottom of the bracket) so I can repair it because the bottom is rusted out. |
Okay, got it. The height of the bracket is 11.02cm or 4.75".
The distance from the bottom of the bracket (where it meets the metal of the spare wheel wheel) to the cut-out for the rubber cover is 3.8cm (38mm). _________________ Festina lente - hasten slowly
1968 Ghia named Emiko
Resto completed Dec 2015 |
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Mellow Yellow 74 Samba Member
Joined: October 14, 2014 Posts: 1615 Location: Sydney, Australia
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Posted: Wed Apr 20, 2016 2:07 am Post subject: Re: Saving Emiko: 68 RHD Restoration in New Zealand |
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Excellent, thanks Kiwi - it is a little taller than what I thought! _________________ 1962 Karmann Ghia
1974 Deluxe Microbus
1985 Caravelle (Vanagon) |
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kiwighia68 Samba Member
Joined: October 20, 2013 Posts: 2875 Location: Auckland, New Zealand
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Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2016 1:14 pm Post subject: Re: Saving Emiko: 68 RHD Restoration in New Zealand |
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I worked on the second seat yesterday. The work starts with de-rusting the seat base and springs. Lots of scrubbing, sanding and rustproofing. I use a Holts product and then paint it over with a Zinc based paint.
Mellow Yellow asked why I was concerned about the underside of the seat bottoms. The reason is that the old foam and bolstering is, well, old, and it is prone to disintegrating. Here's a before shot.
In order to protect the old foam and bolstering from the springs, I intend to place a 4mm foam insert between the springs and the seat bottom. Like this:
I intend to do the same on the upper side of the seat bottom to firm the seat up a bit. Like this.
The diagonal mark on the foam is where the heating coils sat. I removed them.
After adding the blue foam bolstering, the entire seat bottom is covered with wadding before the seat covers come on. Like this:
_________________ Festina lente - hasten slowly
1968 Ghia named Emiko
Resto completed Dec 2015 |
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kiwighia68 Samba Member
Joined: October 20, 2013 Posts: 2875 Location: Auckland, New Zealand
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Posted: Sat May 07, 2016 9:03 pm Post subject: Re: Saving Emiko: 68 RHD Restoration in New Zealand |
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I'm still working on the Porsche seats but waiting for one seat cover to be re-done. (TMI is unbelievably slow, and no matter what their website says, they don't (or won't) respond to an order from outside the USA.)
I was talking to another novelist yesterday and she asked about my Ghia. After I had talked - too much, no doubt - she said, "It's like writing a novel, isn't it? Getting the car back on the road is the equivalent of the first draft. And then you do the editing to make it better.
There's a lot of wisdom in that, as my long list of "editing" projects testifies. This week:
Finish and install Porsche seats
Install fire extinguisher somewhere (maybe just in a box behind the seat, as Rich has done)
Squeaky clutch cable to be removed and lubricated before re-assembly
Front fender flanges(?) to the ground down and rolled to prevent rubbing _________________ Festina lente - hasten slowly
1968 Ghia named Emiko
Resto completed Dec 2015 |
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kiwighia68 Samba Member
Joined: October 20, 2013 Posts: 2875 Location: Auckland, New Zealand
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Posted: Mon May 09, 2016 4:42 pm Post subject: Re: Saving Emiko: 68 RHD Restoration in New Zealand |
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Still waiting for one seat cover. So:
Excerpt from the novel, Saving Emiko-
De Villiers walked back into the store. 'Where is he?'
'Who?' the shop assistant asked. 'There's only another woman here.'
'I mean the other woman, whatshername.'
The shop assistant pointed with her thumb towards the back and De Villiers walked through without asking permission. Whatever was bent over a box with bubble-wrap.
'I'm not ready,' Whatever said.
'Change of plan,' De Villiers said. The idea had come to him while he was sleeping. The subconscious solving problems while the conscious mind was offline.
Whatever straightened up. 'Like how?'
'Like I think we are going to need a bigger and more powerful drone. One that can carry some weight and deliver things.'
'You mean a cross between a drone and a robot?'
'Are there machines like that?' De Villiers was surprised. He knew about drones and he knew about robots, but flying robots?
'For sure, but none legal and none available except from the Dark Web. Or hand-built from imported kit parts.'
De Villiers knew about the Dark Web. Policing that domain was part of his remit as head of the International Crime Unit. To detect and prevent terrorism and drug dealing.
'What do you want the machine to do?' Whatever asked.
De Villiers explained.
'I have one at my house. A prototype of my own design.'
'Does it work?'
'I'll make it work.'
De Villiers took a deep breath. 'Let's go then,' he said, 'but bring the drones you have in the box anyway. Our flight leaves in an hour.'
They stopped in front of Vaishna's block of flats. 'I'll be back in five minutes,' he told Whatever.
De Villiers took the stairs. There was a faint smell of curry in the air.
'Are you ready?' he asked when Vaishna opened the door.
'Can't you smell it?' she said. 'The neighbours have been complaining for the last two days.'
'Okay then. We move tomorrow morning at first light. Final briefing at my house at 21:00 tonight.'
The road to Ardmore Aerodrome took them along the backroads of south-eastern Auckland. They watched the Beechcraft Baron land. Barefoot Matt and Anonymous loaded their guitar cases in the boot.
'We're ready, Colonel,' Matt said with a mock salute at the driver's window.
'Get in,' De Villiers said. 'We're on action stations now.'
'Battle stations, you mean, Colonel?' Matt teased.
'I'm a navy man, Matt,' De Villiers responded. 'Battle stations is for foot-soldiers.'
'Who's this?' Anonymous asked when he slid into the back seat next to Whatever.
'You're going to have to give us a name,' De Villiers said.
'Call me Sandy,' Whatever said.
The three men shook their heads.
What a bunch of misfits! De Villiers said to himself as they sat down to work through the final details of their plan. A cancer-ridden policeman who doesn't follow orders. Another police officer, a deadly shot with the mind of an assassin, who might, De Villiers suspected, have been a member of a terrorist group in Sri Lanka. Two foot-soldiers of the Angolan War, and a transgender drone and robot specialist who looked and spoke like a hairdresser.
'The good news,' De Villiers said to the others, 'is that no one is ever going to believe that the five of us could pull off an operation like this.' _________________ Festina lente - hasten slowly
1968 Ghia named Emiko
Resto completed Dec 2015 |
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John Moxon Samba Moderator
Joined: March 07, 2004 Posts: 13957 Location: Southampton U.K.
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WooleyNelson Samba Member
Joined: July 13, 2012 Posts: 191 Location: Kokomo Indiana
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Posted: Tue May 10, 2016 11:15 am Post subject: Re: Saving Emiko: 68 RHD Restoration in New Zealand |
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^^^ Yes! Me too! Was wondering if the tale would ever continue.
(Kiwi too busy driving that beautiful Ghia to write...) |
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kiwighia68 Samba Member
Joined: October 20, 2013 Posts: 2875 Location: Auckland, New Zealand
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Posted: Tue May 10, 2016 11:31 am Post subject: Re: Saving Emiko: 68 RHD Restoration in New Zealand |
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WooleyNelson wrote: |
^^^ Yes! Me too! Was wondering if the tale would ever continue...(Kiwi too busy driving that beautiful Ghia to write...) :) :D |
Yesterday when I picked up the threads of the story I realised that I had written very little since the car was registered and on the road. In fact, since I got the car back and had to start re-assembling it. So you have a point there.
One final episode, maybe two to go.
(The problem with a plot - as Stephen King points out in his book, On Writing - is that the story develops in the mind of the writer with a will or direction of its own. So I'm not sure yet where the story is going and how it will end. And I'm as keen as anyone to find out.) _________________ Festina lente - hasten slowly
1968 Ghia named Emiko
Resto completed Dec 2015 |
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