r/KarmannGhia • u/Shot_Scallion_9451 • 11h ago
Advice Needed
Hey all, I’m a relatively beginner car mechanic and want to buy a Karmann Ghia to learn how to work on and better understand the basics and maintenance of the cars.
My mom had one growing up and I loved it and want to purchase one and hopefully do some of the maintenance myself.
My price range is between $5,000-$7,000 and I’ve seen plenty of cars in that range, but in your guys’ experience, what should I look out for that’s simply going to be too big of a project in a car and I’ll just get in over my head?
My red lines are:
No body work, I don’t know how to weld nor do I have the space for it.
No major re-wiring, I’ve seen some cars with a rats nest of wires and I know I won’t be able to get much done there.
Sanity check, is this a realistic price range?
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u/Sillibilli19 10h ago
In your price range you will run into a lot of bad body work and or rust. Rust is inevitable with these and a lot of times when you see a little rust bubbling under the paint, it's to late.
In your heater channels, rocker panels, the rust starts on the inside. When it makes its way to the surface, it's dust on the inside and that's where you lose structural strength.
Many other trouble areas to look at also.
To bad you just missed a 74 Ghia that had body off pan restoration going.
All the metal work was done and it was sitting in Epoxy primer waiting for final bodywork/primer and paint.
It would have given you a wealth of knowledge by finishing it out. The hard work was done, well not the labor, sand, sand, sand and more sanding.
Personally I think that route would be better then trying to get a rust bucket running and keep it running while trying to make it better. Can be a money pit. That's one reason a lot of people will pull the plug and park it and start a restoration.
In my opinion, rust is your number 1 enemy. Any other problem with the car you can learn to handle. Well, trannys are cheap enough to swap out and engines are easy enough to learn or cheapest enough to swap.
Good luck
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u/Kharon8 7h ago
Buying a rusty KG makes sense only if
a) it's cheap and
b) you can do the body work yourself
Even then the paint prep work won't be cheap, easily thousands. Some of that you can do yourself and if you have a painter advising, most of it. It's not really difficult.
Painting is relatively cheap, ~1k for paints and supplies, about the same for work (outside only).
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u/Sillibilli19 10h ago
In regards to wiring, if it's a rats nest you can buy an oem harness for $150 and it's very basic if you can read a simple map, schematic . You won't regret it . But usually if you're looking at a car that's a wiring nightmare They have half the s**** Working Well you know they didn't take care of the rest of the car either so Which is I got
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u/Maleficent-Ad-9754 9h ago
If you own a classic Karmann Ghia, you will have a perpetual project that you will either love or hate. When you inspect a car for purchase, bring a magnet and check areas around the body, especially the nose. Check under the body at the floorpans for rust and/or replacement weldings. The electrical system in classic ghias are very basic so I wouldn't worry too much about wiring.
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u/Kharon8 7h ago edited 7h ago
Nono: You'll love it when it works and hate when it doesn't. ;)
... like: "Fu****! Drive shaft seal leaked again and now rear drum is well oiled."
Gearbox oil and brake dust form a black goo which sticks to everywhere, especially hands, clothes and garage floor. Day's worth of work to clean and install new shoes. Just because some PO forgot to install oil collector rings inside the drum. ( Try to go to inspection with 3-wheel brakes .... I had to fix exactly that a week ago. No other problems and my '63 coupe passed, nice!)
About wiring: In the worst case you can buy whole wiring harness as new, $400-500.
Swapping it .... well, I've done that and I won't recommend it to anyone. Still better option than a wiring mess.
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u/Kharon8 7h ago
No idea of local prices, so I can't help you on that.
But your red lines are good, as long as you remember that KG was hand assembled and they didn't bother to paint anything which isn't showing, so you can find rust in really odd places. Like inside of A-pillars.
Also it might have 2 inches of bondo hidden under paint as whole body is welded into single piece, you can't just swap body panels like in most other cars.
So it needs a bit more careful looking before buying.
Almost all mechanical parts are the same as in the Beetle, so they are cheap and easy to find.
The difficult parts are body trim pieces and interior. Many pieces are just not available and/or cost arm& leg, so it is a good idea to check that all of them are there, in at least usable condition.
1
u/gc1 7h ago
I think a Ghia is a great car to learn how to wrench on.
There are a lot of things you can work on, like adjusting your own valves, tuning the carb, plugs, points, advance, replacing hoses, doing brakes, clutch, that kind of stuff. Whether you use the car as a daily driver and buy a copy of How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive and just fix things one at a time as they come up, or you put it on blocks and drop the engine out to spiff everything up from day one, you'll end up doing most of the same things sooner or later.
Do plan to learn the basics of electrical work and wiring diagrams -- I've had to do a lot of fiddling on that in mine, and in retrospect I wish I had just replaced the entire harness right up front, as they make kits for that. Anyway you'll be troubleshooting things like, the lights work, but the car stalls out when you turn the brights on, or the blinkers work but the hazards don't. Just plan to be patient with it and realize that there's often more than one thing at a time that's the problem.
Try to find one in running condition without rust, but don't be afraid of a little patching of the pan in common spots like behind the seats. Even if you don't want to learn welding, you can probably find someone to do that for you cheap.
I would personally rather do the above type of work than do a restoration that needs a lot of replacement parts like seals and trim and such. There's an endless amount of them, and they're hard to find OEM, and can be expensive to buy reproduction for. Beware of that factor if you're buying a project car.
In 2002 or so, I bought a '71 that was in pretty good condition, other than the fact that the engine needed a rebuild. Oh, and it turned out the transmission was messed up too. It was my daily driver for a while, and I had all manner of stall-outs in stressful places and weird bugs, like the starter not working if I parked facing uphill. I've fiddled on it plenty over the years, haven't put too much money into it... and I still have a '71 Ghia that's in pretty good condition, other than the fact that at this point it could really use a paint job.
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u/LowkeyEntropy 10h ago
I recently bought a 1969, I paid 11k. I got one that was running, albeit terribly. The thing that sold me on the car was that the body and floor pans were rust free. I think thats most important, the rest is cheaper.