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Wow - Last progress update was nearly a year ago !!

Well, I finally bought a house (or should I say 'we' bought a house - me and the GF that is) and last week went a brought the Ghia back home.

I hired a trailer, and armed with a 3 tonne trolley jack (see posts above RE forklifts and trailers) went a picked it up from in storage at my works factory. This time I left the trailer hitched to the car and jacked up the rear of the car and trailer together to get the angle of the trailer right so that the Ghia didn't bottom out. It was a bit hairy but worked well.

The journey home took it's toll on the rear arches which will now need to have a new lip welded on, but that's not too bad - there's a couple of little dings in the paint from where it's been in storage which will need to be sorted - I'll take it to the paintshop and have them fixed when it's on the road.

After taking check of the car I've decided to start off with getting the sunroof in and working. I've taken the front rail in to the chromers (somehow this part missed being painted so I decided to chrome it instead) I've temporarily installed the guide rails and the opening mechinism and have tested the motor, now I just need to make a mount for the motor and fabricate some front guide mounts that were missing when I got the sunroof.

The motor was a good find and is courtesy of of 'Sunroofghia' from the Samba - he gave me the motor and a transfer gearbox for the price of the postage - Generousity for which I am forever grateful as the sunroof did not come with the motor and the gearbox that I had needed an overhaul as it was slipping too much.

Unfortunately when I installed the roof I cut off the original motor mounting bracket as I never thought I would find a replacement - I was intending to install a motor that I got from a Renault as it was small enough to fit in the limited space. Hopefully it shouldn't be too hard to make something up.

Once the sunroof is working I will take it all out and clean everything up, this will then let me install the headlining which has to go in first as the side trim and front / rear screens mount over the headlining.

Hopefull I will get the sunroof working this weekend.

Next week I am taking my driver side hinges into work to get them machined out and have bushes fitted as they are pretty worn, I've already had a trial fit of the vent frames and just need to get some window scrapers before I can reassemble the doors.