1984 Granada BOA; small progress & Civic 25/10/24

[mk2cossie]

Aug 1, 2018 5:42:31 GMT mr said:

On the road and painted for 2019 maybe ?
I'm aiming for next year...........................unless mines just a pile of green paint flakes and rust dust by then...

I certainly hope so! Although I'm really impatient and want to drive it now!!

[mr]

I know that feeling..............

[mk2cossie]

Well, last night I finally managed to get the auto dimming rear view mirror fitted and the wiring loom tucked behind the roof console and down the A pillar





And a few weekends ago got literally a squirt of paint over the primer







And a bit more than just a squirt on the drivers part of the sill





Also got some on the nearside rear door skin and the nearside section of the scuttle panel, but didn't take any pics of those parts

[mr]

any progress is good,nice to see your back on the car again

[mk2cossie]

thanks mr

Was nice to finally get something done for a change, and may end up having some time on it again tonight

Need to get some seals for the rear light clusters, as the U channel rubber has turned to dust between the lens and the cast back plate

And a new boot seal and the sunroof weather strip/seal needs replacing too

[mr]

can you make up new gaskets for the lights,hobbycraft sell foam sheets. I made up a set of cork gaskets once using a sheet of cork that they also sell. give vic a text and see if he has a boot rubber seal,hes got a shed load (garage actually) of mk2 stuff and always has the random stuff I need.................or you could go to motomobil and get wallet raped. if its the foam rear light gasket your after,i may possibly have one that you can use as a template but will need to check as I had a massive de-clutter a few weeks back.

[mk2cossie]

mr, the gaskets for the lights to the body are fine. The big foam pad type things I'm guessing you mean

As for the boot seal and the U channel seal on the clusters themselves, I will get new. I know they can go back or it is only my fault if they are wrong or don't fit properly

[mk2cossie]

So, Saturday after work was a nice day, and I managed to get the silencers fettled and fiddled on to the car.

Had some skid plates made up and welded on to the silencers, and had the nearside silencer section chopped off and a sleeved section welded on



With the front of the car still up on axle stands it was just the right height to get the silencers underneath and heaved in to place.
Well, nearly! The sleeves on the exhaust are only just a bit bigger than the downpipes, and trying to line both up and "slide" the silencer in to place was not an easy task! I don't think the neighbours learnt many new words though, as the car was still covered up at this point with me underneath on my cardboard creeper mat



Also had my new Mikalor clamps turn up as well, so theres less chance of the swaged parts getting distorted from being done up tight





My trusty Blue Point jack helped enormously, as well as a rubber mallet I found in the shed

[mk2cossie]

Well, I would have added a video of it running with the silencers attached, but it ran out of fuel and I'm loathe to put more in it with an incomplete filler neck/tank setup!

Last week however, I had a couple of things turn up for tinkering time




And I had to purchase a new resettable 300 amp circuit breaker to the battery positive as the current 150amp one has burnt out

[gess]

Are you going to put curtains in your car, or will thy be used for something else carwise?
LED headlights? Are they replacement for H4 bulbs or a complete rebuild of the front lights?

[mr]

are they Laura Ashley ?
camper van conversion ?

[mk2cossie]

Oct 2, 2018 7:05:42 GMT gess said:

Are you going to put curtains in your car, or will thy be used for something else carwise?
LED headlights? Are they replacement for H4 bulbs or a complete rebuild of the front lights?

At 66x90inches each, they would do the whole car I think

I've been after some grey faux suede for ages, nowhere stocks it and if they do, it is a small fortune per meter! Found the curtains on Amazon cheap, and hoping to make a dash cover and trim the parcel shelf and both door speaker pods with it

The LED replacemnets are H3 fitment, to go in a set of Ring driving lights I have. Some one on here has given me a ribbing (mr) about the LED units under the front bumper, so I'm going back to the more traditional look of glass lens and rectangular bodies

Not feeling rich enough to convert the H4 headlights to LED, need a little longer for the manufacturers to suss the light source positioning

[mr]

deep down inside you know the oblongs will look better, looks like kitchen down lighters with the round ones.that said, people comment on the mods i've done to my car and it really doesn't matter, i'm not bothered at all. its your car and if you like it,nothing else matters. always better to do what you want instead of just following whatever the new scene thing is.what else is left to do to the car now? found someone to paint it yet? I would suguest a wrap but after the agro weve had with my wifes cars wrap, I wouldnt recommend one to anyone. its been in their place for 7 weeks since it was first dropped off on January.............and its going back again.you could opt for that spray on peel off paint to protect it for the winter,a local guy does it to his mustang on a regular basis. I could lend you a compressor and spray gun if you want.

[mk2cossie]

So, yesterday I went to B&Q to get some new material to remake the parcel shelf. I was just going to recover the one I made a few years ago, only water had got in through the rear screen surround and stained the fabric and swollen the mdf
Decided to go thicker for the board, from 12mm up to 18mm now. I can always tickle the edges to fit around the screen rubber and seat back!

Got a massive lump of mdf from a trolley of discounted boards in there, so it was 11quid instead 22, bonus!
They even allow 4 cuts on their big saw for free as well, so I have 3 pieces to attempt the parcel making and an almost square bit for making some pods

Would it fit in the Micra to get home tho?

[SmokeEm]

ideally you should use moisture resitant MDF but if you don'y have any, seal the edges before you cover it with neat pva glue. That will help stop it swelling again.

[mk2cossie]

SmokeEm thanks for that nugget of info

So, with the chopped 2.4x1.2metre mdf on the trolley and back to the car the challenge was set to get all 4 pieces in there, and still allow myself and me mam to get in and home

It took a little bit of fiddling with interior rubbish and....


Just about...



Took it very carefully on the way home, and not at all cornering like normal

So the plan is to make a new parcel shelf (Again!) although I do have the original cardboard type one to fall back to if nessesary



The previous replacement in 12mm MDF



And new material supplies to work from



Hoping to use the big square (ish) piece to make some speaker pods to go on the top of the shelf, open to suggestions of what shape would be best at the mo still

[mr]

id do something like this. I have some goodmans shelf mount speakers your welcome to cut up and use. they're not huge and only pack around 20-30 watts so theyd be more for midrange and top..........but having seen the sub you run and heard the bass you managed to get out the front doors I doubt thatd be an issue.personally id hunt for some old pioneers and take the fronts off,remake the speaker box out of mdf , merge them into the shelf,cover the whole shelf and then screw the speaker fronts back on heres a curse word pic of what I'm trying to say

[mk2cossie]

Some thing like that will be made mr:-)

Just not with old speaker pods, and using my almost antique Kenwood Dualmag components

[mr]

i was looking at doing that years ago on snotty. I was going to make faux head rests and fitting speakers into them. obviously that never happened in the end and ive got jbl 6x4 units in the rear shelf standard recesses.just need to reconnect them

[mk2cossie]

So, Saturday I managed to make a start of actually getting a board of MDF hacked out and made to fit as best as I can for a parcel shelf. Although the rear screen isn't in yet, so it will probably want more tickling back on the back edge






Bit of a levelled edge to hopefully miss and sit under/against the lower part of the rubber.
Also marked up the speaker holes and a plan for the speaker pods that shall be screwed on as well



Shall get my friend with a laser cutter to make the top parts of the pods, so that the speakers grill doesn't sit out of where they are mounted. Need to decide whether to make the pods from several layers of mdf stacked up or just mdf top and bottom and resin infused fabric stretched over