4 weeks after delivery. Almost a bare chassis.

4 weeks after delivery....... 21-10-2014

80% of the car has been disassembled. Rust is coming out underneath virtually every piece of upholstery etc. Also the remains of mice nests are found through the entire vehicle. The heaterbox is packed with insulation material by mice and so is every other hollow spot.

Having said all the glass looks ok.... Unfortunately the windshield was broken during disassembly. Partly because of my own carelessness and partly just because it's old. New ones are quite expensive but now I will need one.  Fortunately they are still available (new!)

I try to disassemble little bits every day and hope to be taking out the engine and gearbox in the next few days......

Two weeks after delivery........

Well, a few weeks have gone by and they were mighty interesting ! !

On September 19th, the vessel delivered my Ghia to Rotterdam from where it was transported to my doorstep on Wednesday the 24th of September.

Almost two weeks later, the extend of the project is becoming clearer and clearer. I bought this car to stretch my limitations and...... oh, they will be stretched. Apart from the bad parts that were clearly photographed by the seller, the spare tyre box was pretty much gone altogether. Under the dashboard were some metalwork-surprises but overall it look 'manageable'. I will be having a challenge on the front end though. The left front fender seems to have moved a few millimeters caused by the little crash it had. This causes the left door to collide with the fender. I will have to find a solution for that, but I will. Also some Bondo-expert 'fixed' a right front headlight damage. This will need some thorough rework also.

Actually the metalwork 'from the waist up' looks pretty much ok. The lower 30 cm is rotten all around, but above the thick 1 mm sheetmetal held up pretty good. It also seems the car has been very comfortable to a number of mice in the glove box, some squirrels that used the car as a pine cove stash and a family of bees building a hyve inside the side mirror.

The car is pretty much complete as expected, the glass looks ok and the engine doesn't look too bad either. The no.1 cilinder has a piece of plastic stuck in the exhaust valve and no.3 cylinder has some rust issues, but nothing too complicated.

Ok, a few pictures; (Of course, you can see the entire restoration on https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/108612059034629510372/albums/6030825514521831649

The spare tyre box:

The front end, with the grill detached:

But even after all this abuse, she is still a very, very pretty car.

Now I am deciding on how to proceed this project. I have to do the rest of the dismantling first. The dashboard needs to be stripped, The engine and gearbox taken out, the last carpetry and headliner before metalwork can start. At some point the entire car will be sandblasted. I think restoration will start fabricating brand new metalwork in the trunk, including the spare tyre box. After that I will start on the rear fenders.

Wish me luck !