(picture) The Volkswagen Air Force
THE VOLKSWAGEN
AIR FORCE:
In This Issue: A Tale of the Wantabees - On Being King of Repro Ghia
Seals
Closing in on Hinges -- Part II
Questions & Answers:
Right-Hand Conversions
Convertible Snap Catches
Tired Rear Torsion Bars
CONSUMER INFO: Want to be King of Repro Ghia Seals? Mail a part sample to some Mom and Pop off-shore or South American machine shop. Learn to say "Make me this!" in Portuguese or Cantonese and wait a few months for a quote. Never accept the first quote! Hammer them on price. They are desperate for business from "deep-pocketed" North Americans. When a proto-type appears, knock it! If you don't show them whose boss, they'll use every one of those 6,000 miles separating your store from their factory to "walk all over you".
First Class Crud
When your finished part arrives after two or three misfires, it'll look pretty good. Now, saturate the market fast, before customers complain. And, "Why should they complain, you ask?" Your seal is junk! First class crud! "How did I end up with such a crudy product?" Well, your lips whispered, "Quality" while your actions shouted, "Cheap!" You got just what you deserved. "But, how did it happen?" you cry. First off, the guy who made the mold for your seal wouldn't recognize a Karmann Ghia if one ran over his Nikes. How was he to know there was a bend here, and the factory expected it to stretch there? Did you, in face to face conversation, let him know how it was to work? I'll bet your only meeting with people from this firm consisted of a session with a salesman whose favorite expression was, "No problem! We make, we make!"
Secondly, your insistence on low price (so you could make maximum profit) led to a number of compromises. The first extravagance your price badgering forced out of the quote on the seal was ozone protectants. It doesn't show! Next to go were longevity chemicals. Again, it doesn't show, costs more money, and won't at all affect the look of the part at that crucial step where the proto-type is accepted for production. Still hounding for a cheaper price? Out comes the clay and lamp black.
Clay as Hamburger Helper
Most of us think rubber seals are truly rubber. Tree sap, buckets, and all that. Wrong! Virtually everything we think of as rubber is a chemical stew called synthetic rubber. Developed by the Germans during WWII, the variant of synthetic rubber most often used today in car seals is EPDM. A pound of the stuff costs "X". Want 2 lbs of EPDM at "X" plus a few pennies. Add inert clay! Clay is the "Hamburger Helper" of the rubber biz. Of course, there are a few side effects. The more clay, the less stretch. Take a truck tarp bungee cord. If made of true rubber, it would easily stretch to double its length. (Remember, those rubber sling shots of your youth?) A cheapo tarp bungee barely budges. Excess clay encourages fast breakdown of synthetic rubber when the rubber is exposed to such environmental killers as sunlight and oxygen. Even moisture is more easily absorbed.
Why adulterate the product with clay? Remember, it's cheaper than rubber, and combined with lamp black (carbon) allows the "healthy" matte black finish we've come to expect of rubber. So, if your major goal is low price, thru the miracle of chemistry and greed, a so-called rubber seal can be made for every pocketbook.
Please don't get me wrong! This is not a "let's bash foreign firms" exercise, or an attempt to wrap House of Ghia in the flag!. Mom and Pop foreign firms are capable of stunning workmanship at incredibly low prices. "Besides, every day, when we start up our Ghia, we get a great lesson in foreign quality and craftmanship.This is a "let's get real" plea. Why do so many "wantabee" repro parts-makers urge going off-shore with Ghia parts in the first place? "Because labor costs are lower" is the reply. Mold making, production labor, packaging. Why then, if low labor costs are a foreign firm's strong point, hammer them mercilessly on materials costs (like EPDM rubber). "Well, ah, ummm!"
"Where's the Beef?"
The moment materials costs exceed labor costs on a part, the much ballyhooed price superiority of foreign production begins to disappear. Take a very simple mold/die/tool costing, say, $2,500 to construct in the States. The same mold might cost $1,500 if machined abroad. Now, have your new mold make 1000 parts (shots) at a material cost of one dollar a shot. Mold and parts would cost $2,500 if off-shore. Thirty-five hundred if USA made. A big savings! Nearly a third less.
Watch what happens if the number of parts needed is 10,000. Mold and
materials costs go to $11,500 off-shore and $12,500 if made in Uncle Sam
land. Oops! The savings is only a bit more than 7%. When long lead times
and communication problems are factored in, one could truly wonder, "Where's
the beef?"
House of Ghia currently makes all of its repro parts in the States, most
of them in Oregon. Communication is excellent, proto-typing is significantly
faster (mainly because of shipping times), re-order lead times are much
less, running changes can easily be made, and Americans are, well, Americans.
First, even if an American shop foreman isn't a car buff, he/she understands
the restorer mentality. (Try to explain to someone not steeped in a car
culture, why a mere 10% fuzzier finish on a chrome what-cha-call-it, isn't
acceptable.) And, secondly, Americans are what other cultures call brutally
blunt. The customer is not always right! But, who's to tell him? Americans
do!
. . . A Jackass Confrontation
I had one machinist flat out tell me, "You'd be a jackass, if you did it your way. (My way was a small-firm version of the original way.) The hurumph would strike the thing-a-ma-bob, ripping the wacker and putting the dilly out of commission. This is the way you should do it.!" Guess whose ideas were soundest? Guess who got the job? Guess what is one of our most successful parts!
Foreign firms care, it's just their culture approaches the "you're a jackass" type of confrontation less abruptly. If you're trying to speed a product to market to beat a competitor, diplomacy costs valuable time.
So, if you really want to be Repro Parts King, think baseball, apple
pie, and the lathe next door.
GHIA LOVERS LATE, LATE SHOW / MOVIE
/ TV
MAGAZINE / CATALOG SIGHTINGS
Rollercoaster: George Segal plays the amusement ride inspector who is jerked around by a mad bomber using radio controlled explosives. Near the end, the mad bomber walks to his car in the "Magic Mountain" parking lot. The bomber is going to construct a new bomb. His car is parked behind a nice, very new (the movie was filmed in '73-'74), green Ghia.
Sneakers: A recent release (Fall '92) has Robert Redford playing a character who is a confirmed VW buff. Not only does "Sundance" drive a Hippywagen during flashbacks of his youth, he drives a Karmann Ghia convertible as his scout car on his current caper.
TEST YOUR EYESIGHT! Does Redford drive a Ghia convertible whose passenger side door handle shouts, "I'm a '68 and later Ghia"? And, whose driver's door handle fairly screams, "I'm a '67 or older Ghia"?
(To help you focus: '68 and later Ghias had door metal which was cupped for ones fingers. The unlatching device was a visually hidden trigger. '67 and earlier Ghias used a handle bolted to the smooth metal of the door and whose unlatching device was a nickel-sized chrome push button.)
Thanks Sasha Jones
A "Wonder Years" episode has a scene in which the substitute
teacher arrives at school in a Ghia.
Part I: How Can I Tell If My Hinges Are Bad?
PART II: My Doors SUDDENLY and Massively Got Sloppy? Why?
Part III: Can I Rebuild My Own Hinges?
Remember how a castle door is hinged? Sure, a simple metal pin rides in a hole made in an interlocking metal hinge body. After maybe a hundred years, the pin will be worn smaller, and the hole bigger in diameter. The hinge becomes sloppy! Loose!
Beetles, and for that matter your home's front door, use only a slightly more sophisticated version of a castle's strap hinge. What to do for a worn Bug hinge? Simply replace the steel pin riding in the bore of the steel hinge body with an oversized pin. Now, the hinge would be good for decades more use. For really long life, and to avoid annoying squeaks, the hinge would have to be oiled occasionally.
Karmann fitted early Ghias ('56-'57) with strap steel hinges. Slightly later Ghias ('58-'59 1/2) received cast iron hinges. Both of these early style hinges used steel pins against metal hinge bodies. Wear was slow, but relentless. Like all Bug hinges, these steel Ghia hinges wore so predictably, one could be sure that a year from now the hinge would be just a little more worn, just a bit more loose.
Steel hinges did have flaws. They were heavy, needed lubricating, and couldn't easily be formed into intricate or petite shapes. Starting in 1959 (Ch # 2-395-181), Karmann cast a rather complex, lightweight, petite hinge body from aluminum. Soft, porous, easily gouged aluminum is a terrible material for hinges. Total aluminum hinges would last about as long as a politican's promise. So, Karmann made the hinge pin hole larger than the diameter of the pin. Then, they filled the hole with a special, sturdy, self-oiling nylon material. A nylon insert bushing. Now, a hole could be drilled in the nylon bushing, a steel pin installed; and Karmann had a quiet, light, long-lasting hinge that never needed grease.
Wear, of course, took place. But, since nylon is softer than steel, the nylon bushing took all the wear. (Want to be surprised? Your hinge pins, even after 30 years, are virtually perfect.) After decades, the hole in the nylon bushing became larger and larger. A predictable, even wear. Suddenly, without warning, disaster. The hinge became very loose, practically overnite. What happened? Think of a piece of candy. Do you remember as a kid eating a Tootsie Pop; a hard candy coating over a soft, chewy center. The unspoken rule was to lick the hard shell with your tongue until the soft center was uniformly exposed. It never worked! As the candy shell got thinner, it would break-up into thousands of tiny candy shards long before the hard shell was used up. The candy shell never completely disolved before shattering to expose the ambrosia at its center.
The insert bushing in the center of your hinge works much the same as a tongue licked Tootsie Pop. Instead of the nylon wearing evenly until it is all used up, at some point, it shattered into pieces when the nylon walls became too thin. Now, in effect, the hinge pin is free to roam around in the entire hole meant for the complete nylon insert. No wonder Ghia hinges, almost overnight, go from being moderately tight to massively sloppy.
Theoretically, a Beetle hinge would accept a 2nd, 3rd, and 4th oversized pin; each pin being slightly larger in diameter than its predecessor. But oversized pins, the Beetle hinge solution, didn't really work on a Ghia hinge. There wasn't enough "meat" left in the nylon insert to accept an oversized pin.
When a Ghia hinge will fail is wildly unpredictable. But, fail it will! And shortly after that, the companion hinge on that side of the car will also fail. Can one tell when failure is about to occur? Odometer mileage is not a good guide. Of more importance is: 1) How often was the door opened? 2) Did the occupant use the door to lever him/herself out of the car? (Because of its low, flat seat, many people do. This puts strain on the hinge.) 3) Was important maintenance, like check strap replacement, done faithfully, at the first sign of wear/failure? 4) Did the door lock or striker ever fail? (It's amazing how many times an angry or frustrated owner with a bad door lock, will slam the door in a futile attempt to get it to latch.)
However, a good average is failure at about 100 to 150 thousand miles for the left hinges, and somewhere between 200 and 300 thousand miles for the right hinges. (The right door is opened much less often.)
Many of you will gleefully say, "My Ghia has gone well beyond your mileage figures for hinge failure, and the hinges are as tight as they were new!" Bully for you! Care to try your luck at beating the averages at, say, a civilized round of Russian Roulette? Ah! Suddenly, the term "averages" has a little more meaning.
For Ghia owners, the lessons are these:
1) Ghia hinges wear slowly and then die unpredictably.
2) Ghia hinges of a certain age will fail without warning.
3) Doing a major restoration? Not considering the replacement of still functioning hinges is being penny-wise and dollar-foolish. There is no repair, short of replacement, that will prevent eventual hinge failure.
4) A failed Ghia hinge is sloppy and loose indeed! Far sloppier than some other hinges subjected to the same number of opening/closing cycles. (In exchange for a little less longevity, Ghia owners got a light hinge that never needed oiling or maintenance, always operated smoothly and soundlessly, and was a compact marvel of German ingenuity.)
Q #58 (Sex Change) - I am considering shipping my 1968 Karmann
Ghia convertible to my homeland of Australia. In order to register and drive
this car, I am required to convert it to right hand drive. Do you have any
information regarding this procedure? Is it very difficult to do? I know
that I can get a front axle and appropriate dashboard changeover in Australia,
however I'm not sure if that is what I'll need to do; maybe it is much simpler
than that.
David H Vancouver BC
A #58 - What you propose sounds simple. Kind of like a sex change operation. A little surgery, a quick cut with a knife, and presto, George has become Georgetta. Not so fast! George may now be a soprano in the church choir, but his/her choir robe would more easily fit a Green Bay Packer linebacker rather than a ballet dancer.
It will be the same changing a Ghia from left hand to right hand drive. Without attention to details, you may end up with a strange vehicle that satisfies the letter of the Australian law; but looks about as probable as that Mother Nature misfit, the Duck-billed Platypus.
There are three major areas you must think about in a left-hand to right-hand drive conversion.
1) Suspension/steering box
2) Dash/instruments/steering column
3) Pedal cluster changes
In more detail:
Area #1: If used parts are available, the front suspension/steering box swap is easy. But, new right-hand only parts will be very hard to find. Just an estimate, but I believe only one out of every fifteen Ghias was RHD. A part, say a new steering box for a left-hand drive Ghia, is tough to locate. Then, it follows that a steering box for a RHD Ghia is 15 times harder to find.
Area #2: Metal dashes in Ghias are part of the welded unibody. To convert to a RHD instrument pod requires laboriously cutting out the old LHD dash, cutting out the transplant RHD dash, and welding the transplant in place. The cuts are not just in the area of the instruments. The cut must include things like the steering column mount, the ash tray, and the glove box. The fresh air control levers and assembly should be changed to a RHD version. All of this is not a task for the faint of heart. No RHD wood-grained masks are available, nor are RHD padded dashes. LHD instruments, of course, work right-handed, but the speedo cable must be longer because it still feeds off of the LH spindle.
On '66 and later Ghias, the wire harness lays along the left inner rocker. Oops! Many of the electrical wires aren't long enough to go from their extreme far left entrance into the instrument panel to gauges now placed at the extreme far right of the dash. The wires must be "adapted". There are a lot of them, and no RHD wire harnesses exist. Glove box liners for RHD cars will not fit on the left end of the dash. No new liners are available for "righties".
Area #3: The pedal assembly is the most vexing. You must start with a complete RH drive pedal assembly. (You don't want make-do or cobbled together parts operating your brakes, do you?) Now, experience comes into play. You must cut and drill your tunnel so that there is a RHD access hole to the tunnel. The frame-head also must be drilled for master cylinder actuating rods. The size and location of these holes is critical.
Additional Inconsistencies: The thoughtfully placed vanity mirror on the back of the passenger sunvisor on LHD cars, if not changed, shows up as the driver's side visor in a conversion. Not a fatal flaw, but none the less, disconcerting. Potentially, more troubling are the mirrors. Outside mirrors that could let LHD convertible owners see in the "blind" spot, can't easily, if at all, be adjusted to work RHD.
You see, while the mirrors occupy the same relative spot on '66 and up doors; the arms that hold the mirror head away from the car are not symmetrical. For LH drivers, there is a definite RH mirror with a slightly longer neck than the LH mirror. After a conversion, the old RH mirror becomes the driver's main mirror, and the old LH mirror tries to look into the "blind spot".
On a converted car, availability and cost urge living with the mirrors one has. Safety and convenience say, replace both outside mirrors immediately.
Hopefully, this answer has been a weary, wearing, relentlessly negative
response. Good! Now, you know what must be done. On the brighter side, the
task is doable; and, Aussies, down-under, are quite daffy about any VW.
The car may well command a price in Australia that would take the sting
out of birthing a new RHD Karmann Ghia.
Q #32 (Snap-catch hinge) - I need the chrome hook found on the inside of my top frame. Tom R Olympia WA
...In the channel of the main top frame on my '67 convertible is a chrome
plate that has a hinged snout,looking like a short trunk on an elephant.
The whole thing isn't 3 inches long, but I think I'm missing something.
Does something fit into that snout?
Ronald Y , Sunland CA
...I was talking with another Ghia person the other day. She said to
be sure and latch my top frame down,when it is folded back, or I'll ruin
my new top boot. What's she talking about?
Lorrie, Manhatten KS
What all three of these Ghia convertible owners are talking about is what VW calls the top frame snap catch found on '58-'71 convertible top frames.
A #32 - As incredible as it seems, my experience has been, most convertible owners don't even realize their top frame has such a thing as a "snap catch"; let alone know how it works, what its purpose, is and why it so often fails. So, stick with me! The examples used may seem far-fetched, but the destination is understanding.
Imagine you're lying on your back doing the ole leg lift exercise. Legs lifted? Knees locked? Your legs represent a convertible top frame in the "up" position. Now, draw your knees toward your chest. Yep, a top frame in the "down", or folded position. Your knees and hips act just like the main hinges in a top frame.
Suppose you were in the knees-on-your-chest position, laying in the bed of a pick-up traveling rapidly down a cobblestone road. No matter how hard you try, your leg from the knee down is going to bob and flap with the jolts something fierce. Remember, the leg lift exercise requires your palms to be at your side; so, no fair controlling these spastic jerks with your hands.
Wouldn't it be great if mother nature had provided for just these moments by equipping each of us with a flexible hook on our hip, and a catch, or eyelet, on our ankle. In that way, the hook could engage the eyelet, and your lower leg wouldn't flail wildly.
The "snap catch" on each side of your top acts just like our imaginary hip/ankle latch and eyelet.
Why VW chromed the snap-catches, I'll never know. But, they did. It makes identification easy. The snap-catch is the only chrome gadget, the size of your thumb, along either side of the top frame rails. The snap-catch hook threads into a cone or snout-shaped piece. The snout is suspended between the metal tabs. A spring helps control the movement of the snout/hook. Incidentally, the chrome base plate with tabs is designed for one specific side of the frame. So, while they look identical, each snap-catch is left or right specific on closer inspection.
Far more than 50% of deserving top frames do NOT have the special snap-catch hooks (although the rest of the catch is still bolted to the frame). Why such a high loss rate? Remember, laying in the pick-up bed, knees drawn up to resemble a folded top frame. Constant road bumps cause your legs (remember, they represent the top frame) to bounce vigorously. The snap-catch stops the bouncing, flouncing around. But, the jolts are still there. What actually absorbs the jolts are the threads on the hook, and especially the cast threads in the center of the chrome snout into which the hook is threaded. Missing the hook? Just possibly you could get another. But, where are the threads in the chrome snout? Gone! Wiped out by a jillion jolts.
So, even if you could get a new hook, how would it attach? To test things, run a standard 8mm bolt up the snout. Enough threads left to hold the test bolt? Your catch will accept the hook. But, where is the lost snap-catch hook? Look on the pan just under the hinge covers. Not an easy spot to search.
My advice for non-working, non-existent snap catches? Do what a generation of Ghia buffs have done: use a rubber bungee cord to secure things, then cover the whole thing with the top boot. And, why not!
The snap-catch is like underwear, it's never seen. Go ahead. Secretly,
wear your briefs printed with, "I Luv Broccoli" logos; no one
will know. Similarly, use a rubber strap to hold your collapsed top rigid.
No one will know you used an inelegant rubber band instead of a classy chrome
catch to tame a flouncing, flailing top frame.
Q #57 (Sagging Rear Torsion Bars) - We have another question about our '73 coupe. When we bought it some 7 years ago, it was in outstanding condition, except that the rear suspension was sagging somewhat, especially on the driver side. This was diagnosed as tired torsion bars, so we finally had them replaced about two years ago.
Since then, the car is slightly higher at the back on the passenger side. The shop that did the work and others around here, are reluctant to try to level it perfectly until they are certain of the correct stock ride height.
Currently, on level ground, unladen, the car measures exactly 23 1/4" from ground to apex of wheel well on the driver's side; 24" on the passenger side. Because the rear passenger side appears to be a little high, the front driver side appears correspondingly slightly low. To our knowledge, the car has never been involved in a serious accident. We would appreciate your advice on the correct ride height for the rear of this car, if you are able to provide it.
A #57 - What has happened to your car is similar to an athlete who puts on a jock strap with the right cup two sizes smaller than the left one. That athlete is going to be walking with a pronounced list. It's the same with your car. Someone has installed the right hand torsion bar "just one notch off" from the left hand bar. That simple little difference is all that's needed to make a whopping difference in your side to side ride height. To understand your problem, and why it happens, and even more importantly, why everyone is so reluctant to do anything about it, you'll have to understand something about torsion bar suspension.
Imagine a 1 inch diameter, 2 foot long rubber rod. Grasp the rod and twist. The power of your hand, twisting on one end, was transferred to the rubber. When you let go of that end, the rubber rod will snap back to its original position with about as much force as your twisting motion it gave to and the rod originally. Now, image the rod was made of steel. It would take a lot more power to twist a steel rod, but it can be done. This twisting or torsion motion can be made to do work. When a wheel hits a bump (and the car is using simple shock absorbers), the upward motion of the wheel is directly acting on the shock, and it dampens, or absorbs the blow. Now, imagine the wheel as being connected, like your arm and wrist, to our 1 inch steel torsion bar. The energy of the shock of a road bump goes into making the steel torsion rod, or bar, twist. For energy to twist, or torque, the torsion bar, the ends must be held securely.
After a while, the metal torsion bars fatigue and tire. Tired bars aren't able to hold things up correctly, and your (in this case) rear end droops. Theoretically, all that's needed to get things back into the right place is to put the bars under even more tension (as if you were constantly going over a bump).
Remember in our examples, your hand held each end of the bar steady. In real life, that duty is taken over by a series of splines on each end of the torsion bar. Say our round torsion bar had 60 splines on one end and 60 on the other. Each spline is numbered clockwise around the end of the rod. If both splines were in a zero, and zero top dead center, there wouldn't be any twist on the rod. But, let's say, one end is at zero spline, and the other end is at spline 10. The rod is being twisted. Now, after twenty years, the rod has gotten tired, fatigued. If the torque, or torsion, is holding something up, like the back end of your car, your rear will definitely be sagging. To renew your sagging rear end, simply remove the torsion bar from its housing and reinstall it to zero spline and, say, spline 15. Now, the amount of twist on the bar is just about what it was originally. So, your rear end is back to normal.
Ever play the party game where you're to pick-up a Cheerio on the end of the toothpick held in your teeth. Not easy to do. Now, let's give you a two foot long tooth pick and turn out the lights. Think you could do it? Well, that's what you're asking the mechanics to do. They must "fish" around blindly with this two foot torsion bar and move the splines a "few notches" off of the way they were. What happened to your Ghia was that one torsion bar was installed at, say, spline 22, the other one at spline 24. Spline 24 gives more twist to the torsion bar, so that side is jacked up higher in relationship to the other side.
Now, a quick look at a VW service manual would make pulling and re-installing the torsion bars a piece of cake. In the real world, it's often more a matter of trial and error. Trial and error, at today's shop rates, can flatten ones wallet in a hurry.
One more thing. The measurements you made are exactly the kind of measurements we non-engineers would take. But, the engineers and rocket scientists among us would say you must meaure the height of your rear end in degrees of deviation from the horizontal axis of the car. (Things like tire size, depth of tread pattern, tire pressure, fuel load, even the weight of undercoating, or dirt on the pan, and suspension can effect ride height by several inches.) No two Ghias, especially after 25 years, are going to measure the same in the dimension you measured.
Great! To measure the horizontal, you need a suspension protractor, or
rely on our old friend trial and error. To summarize: Replacing the rear
torsion bars is a relatively simple task, that may have to be repeated numerous
times until things are "just right".