1972 Granada Mk1 coupe build - Still going... 14-10-2024

[eurogranada]

Aug 7, 2013 18:09:41 GMT tonybmw said:

Great to see the update

and love those rear seats

Thanks!! Our welding is very good, but my panel making skills are still lacking... To me you are the guru for great welding, panel making and weld dressing skills.

I get close to the shapes I need (as I want to approach original look as close as possible) but have to do the hard parts in sections and it takes me a lot of time.

My body man who does the actual welding is good at making panels etc. but has to run a business so I only get help in that area when I'm really stuck.

But I'm very happy with the quality we are now putting into this car as opposed to previous owners plate over rust fixes with blobby welds. Motivation is at an all time high now after a fantastic summer vacation with loads od sun. I can't wait to see the car painted! But that will still be a while!

On the interior, well, I'm quite chuffed with that myself. The full set of seats will be going in soon for final fit so when I can I'll snap a pic. The challenges there are creating side panels that come up to the shape of the rear seat bench and back (the passat is a big car, but still it's seat is 10cm narrower than the granny one). And do so intelligently so the space is to be usable in some way and yet comfy as well.

[eurogranada]

Granadaman, PhoenixCapri, Naki,

Thanks for your support. It helps me to keep going. There were times when I thought of burning up the whole thing.... But as I'm now starting the right side, with the left side 90% completed I'm up for it again. And the vision in my head just looks so appealing to me that I can't wait to turn it into reality.

[stevietuck]

Great to see an update I love this car.

[maf260]

Aug 8, 2013 7:14:30 GMT eurogranada said:

Granadaman, PhoenixCapri, Naki,

Thanks for your support. It helps me to keep going. There were times when I thought of burning up the whole thing.... But as I'm now starting the right side, with the left side 90% completed I'm up for it again. And the vision in my head just looks so appealing to me that I can't wait to turn it into reality.

Please don't give up. This is the build I get most excited by when I see an update on Readers Rides. I've always loved the Granada Coupe and your vision and mix of retro with modern touches is fantastic. I love the updated engine, aircon and those gorgeous seats! Keep at it, I look forward to the finished car one day.

[eurogranada]

Aug 8, 2013 9:21:45 GMT maf260 said:

Please don't give up. This is the build I get most excited by when I see an update on Readers Rides. I've always loved the Granada Coupe and your vision and mix of retro with modern touches is fantastic. I love the updated engine, aircon and those gorgeous seats! Keep at it, I look forward to the finished car one day.

Rest assured I won't quit now. There's plenty of challenges left but I'll get there in the end. Plan is to have it finished next march. Tight I guess, but one has to have a goal, right?

While the welding is one big job that I work on twice a week, the next 2 things to do are assembling the front and rear suspension subframes. That means mounting the components and filling the diff etc. Shouldn't be too hard!

After that a trial of the engine is planned. This entails routing coolant, routing vacuum, connecting fuel and the full loom. Then seeing what does or does not happen! Quiete a big step. If it runs, next is thinning out the wiring. I've already determined what to keep and what not from the fuse boxes on. There is a big challenge left in eliminating the fuseboxes and replacing them with a custom one. This I'll probably ask for help on.

Possibly before or after this test the engine will be trial fitted to see how much room there is for the aircon.

As you can see...plenty to keep me going.

As it seems there is quite some interest in my project, I'll try updating a bit more often.

[eurogranada]

Well, here's another update for those interested! And to me it's quite a biggie!

The drivers side (left) weldathon is finished!!


But first, let me take you back to the final stages of seat fitment.

After having fit the driverside seat to my desires, I still had the passenger side to do. It wasn't very difficult, just a bit of a precise job to exactly match teh orientation of the drivers side.

Without taking time to really take pictures to show it off, I do have some in progress ones:



And both together:


Seat mounts beefed up:



So that is all interior floor/seating modifications done!

On to the welding then.

First I finished dressing all the currently welded parts where I hadn't done that yet. So I just went by every single fix and got to grinding. No holes appeared and I usually dressed both inside and outside welds.

Then I had a bit of luck! The body shop owner who does most of my welding had some time for me on friday late afternoon (amazing what can be welded in in 15 minutes) and the following saterday morning. Happy and determined to make as much of that as possible, I asked my mother in law to take my wife and kids to my daughters horseriding class so I could have the whole morning working on the car. We'd set a goal on friday which was to finish all left side welding.

As there is always a couple of people who just drop in or some calls to be made, it was still a bit of a battle getting it all done. But we succeeded! For starters we finished off the last 4 small holes in the floor fot which I had made the patches months ago. Then we fixed the last piece of the A-post. This meant that from headlight to rear wheel arch all repairs were made. I started dressing those welds while my mate was welding in the spare wheel well patches.

While fitting one, I wasn't to pleased with its fit, so I quickly remade the patch. In the end after seeing it welded up, I'm glad I did. The other patch would have looked far less good/original. It was a tricky multiple curved shape.

To let the welds cool down, we alternated between about 3 to 4 patches at a time. And after a full mornings work we could proudly say that all welding on the left side of the Granada is done. Some was tricky as despite cutting very liberally around the rusted holes, the original metal sometimes was very thin.

In the end we actually did slightly more then anticipated as we also let in the first boot floor patch and secured the boot floor with extra welds. In effect this means that I now have only the right side of the vehicle to weld up.

And I've even made a start on that as well. The separate patches to fix the rear boot side floor extensions are all made up. I also cut out an ugly (and not to good) previous set of repairs to the inner and outer wheelarch and made the patches to fix them up.

So I'm at the point that I need my welder to tack in some pieces so I can go on making repair sections. Working my way from the back that needs quite a bit of work to the front that needs relatively little work. At the back I have to do a litle boot work, a little lower rear wing work and a substantial amount of wheel arch work. The rear sill inner is gone same as the left side was but to compensate the floor is solid and the inner front wings need less work.

Quite a write up so on to some pictures!














All welding in the boot has to be dressed still, but that will be done tonight. And as usual pictures are taken at random stages so some things are shown midway, some finished etc. Off course I'll always try to fix up any and all work I do as bast as I can.

Hope you enjoyed this weeks progress as much as I did. Now to just keep the momentum up!

[eternaloptimist]

Looking good!

[xbo11ox]

BRILLIANT!!!! Those seats look fantastic man, you are doing great work. Loving the suitcases full of nuts and bolts too!!!!

[eurogranada]

Aug 26, 2013 8:58:19 GMT xbo11ox said:

BRILLIANT!!!! Those seats look fantastic man, you are doing great work. Loving the suitcases full of nuts and bolts too!!!!

Thanks for your very kind and enthusiastic reply. Means quite something coming from mr. xbollox, who I regard as a project genius (following your maserati thread). Positively a mojo boost!!

As for the seats, when I found them online I was instantly in love. I bought them in Germany and they were far cheaper then retrimming my original interior (which I had already done in cream as that was the original plan and which is now surplus). And they also added some modern comforts like electrics and heating. I loved the two + two feel the rear seat adds, having a storage bin instead of a seat plane in the middle. The seats meant a lot of conversion work had to be done, which added a lot to the welding to be done, but which was also a very rewarding and slightly challenging project.

As for the bolts... Many people declared me insane. First buying 45kg's of new bolts then splitting them in a batch to keep original and a batch to join the original car bolts to go to the coaters. After days of sorting them I now have the luxury of just grabbing the right coated bolt just from one of the cases. And for other projects I also now have a lifetime supply of regular bolts. The funny thing is that in the same case one can find black anodised and P1000 coated bolts and the anodised ones ar already rusty from sitting in the shed while the same bolt adjacend to it is still looking smart. I hope it's not all wasted effort and money in the end.

Work is moving along on the right side of the car now. And all welding so far has been dressed/finished. Hopefully tonight some patches will be tacked in, so I can get on making the surrounding ones.

I guess the body welding might now actually be something that will be finished before long. The hard part that comes then, is modifying the bulkhead for the scorpio heater/condenser combo which is huge. But I haven't been too succesful at finding smaller ones.

Plenty of challenge left!

[grifterkid]

Brilliant...!!! That is all there is to say...

[eurogranada]

Anyone have a good solution or good way of moving the wiper motor more to the passenger (right) side of the car? Or a small unit that can go to the left? I need the centre where the motor is now located to be vacated...

[sonus]

My MGB has a motor mounted to one side and drive to the wipers through a toothed cable

Volvo V50 wiper mechanism also has the motor to one side


Probably plenty other cars with an offset wiper motor, you only need to find one with the correct sweep and spindle spacing

[eurogranada]

I'll mount the original system first, just to see what options I have of just getting away with an extended arm or something. But I thank you, what you've suggested might work and is something to look into.

PS. How well do the original mgb wipers work?

[psychonaut]

Hi,

Just registered to tell you that you have a great project going! I have almost the exact same car in my garage, (72 consul coupe, 2 litre, "coke bottle" quarter panels) and this thread has given me much inspiration. My car is in roughly the same condition as yours ( prior to all that work you've put in) minus a huge hole in the roof and some other minor tragedies ( apparently the previous owner wanted a sunroof). I really like your idea with the seats, and I might do something simmilar myself. When I get that far. My plan is to remove all the rust, and put it back together, probably with a 3 l essex to begin with, and maaaaybe an aluminium chevy ls1 later (if the road authorities are willing:)
Sorry to invade your thread like this btw. Keep up the good work!

Lars, Norway

[sonus]

Aug 27, 2013 9:50:52 GMT eurogranada said:

I'll mount the original system first, just to see what options I have of just getting away with an extended arm or something. But I thank you, what you've suggested might work and is something to look into.

PS. How well do the original mgb wipers work?

MGB wipers are curse word

I'd go with something modern if I were you

[eurogranada]

Aug 29, 2013 15:35:41 GMT psychonaut said:

Hi,

Just registered to tell you that you have a great project going! I have almost the exact same car in my garage, (72 consul coupe, 2 litre, "coke bottle" quarter panels) and this thread has given me much inspiration. My car is in roughly the same condition as yours ( prior to all that work you've put in) minus a huge hole in the roof and some other minor tragedies ( apparently the previous owner wanted a sunroof). I really like your idea with the seats, and I might do something simmilar myself. When I get that far. My plan is to remove all the rust, and put it back together, probably with a 3 l essex to begin with, and maaaaybe an aluminium chevy ls1 later (if the road authorities are willing:)
Sorry to invade your thread like this btw. Keep up the good work!

Lars, Norway

Thanks, sounds like you've got a pretty nice car yourself. And yes, Granada/Consuls do like to rust... Mine has suffered most from bad repairs, new metal over the old rust. But I'm getting there... slowly.

I've now also started to finish up the mechanicals that have been reconditioned, but are waiting for reassembly.

It's a massive project to be honest, also because of the many modifications I made. But I love it.

Last friday I got my color sample on an old slightly damaged audi fender, it looks great! Haven't decided yet if I should show or not...

When are you starting your project? Do make a post here and...we love pictures!

[eurogranada]

MGB wipers are curse word

I'd go with something modern if I were you

Thanks, from the description of the system I had my doubts. I'll first be looking in to just moving the wiper motor. If that fails I'll start looking at other systems.

[eurogranada]

So after another week of working on the car, I'm quite happy!

My painter made me a very nice color sample on an old and slightly damaged audi front wing!! And I love it....

We'll still be playing with it somewhat, but I just love it!

Wanna see?? Or keep "secret"?

[eternaloptimist]

Show us the colour!!

[sonus]

Sept 2, 2013 18:08:39 GMT eternaloptimist said:

Show us the colour!!

+1