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

[totti]

Well done ,m8!
This kind of work is a nightmare for me....

I rather scrape underseal from a rusty car than this.....

Keep up the good work...

Greet

[gess]

Nice work on your house! Quite an improvement from how it was when you bought it. I believe you have made a mistake on the homemade door in your garden house. The diagonal bars should have been the other way around pointing upwards from the hinges. You are more likely to have a sagging door the way you mounted them.

It seems like you are the only one of your neighbors with a bit of Christmas spirit, no one else has decorated their house :-)

Liking the TV stand, I assume you bought a lifting mechanism and installed. Never seen any for sale, not that I have been looking. You know, LG has just shown a rollable TV that emerges from a box. That will be released this year, but might be a bit pricey.

Looking forward to Granada related stuff!

[eurogranada]

Jan 10, 2019 5:58:07 GMT gess said:

Nice work on your house! Quite an improvement from how it was when you bought it. I believe you have made a mistake on the homemade door in your garden house. The diagonal bars should have been the other way around pointing upwards from the hinges. You are more likely to have a sagging door the way you mounted them.

It seems like you are the only one of your neighbors with a bit of Christmas spirit, no one else has decorated their house :-)

Liking the TV stand, I assume you bought a lifting mechanism and installed. Never seen any for sale, not that I have been looking. You know, LG has just shown a rollable TV that emerges from a box. That will be released this year, but might be a bit pricey.

Looking forward to Granada related stuff!

Thanks for the replies fella's!

Yes, the support bars on the door are the wrong way round. This is due to how I had the door on the floor when I put them on and not paying careful enough attention after some hours on this job. Well spotted! I will probably flip them round before painting the thing, or add the same bars on the other side of the door but then correctly... I'm not overly concerned about it sagging though. I have used three extra long heavy duty hinges that mean that the door is supported over much of it's surface, not just the first few centimeters from the side and then left to gravity. The frame is attached to every beam of the door on both sides and front and back, adding resistance to the sagging as well. But this has to hold up for 20 years or so, so I was planning on fixing it properly.

Well, we are the young'ns on the block! Most houses on my part of the street are populated by retired folk. I guess they're not the type to climb a ladder... Some more houses were slightly decorated by X-mass time though. Although one simple tree with lights was nothing compared to our decorations/lighting. One neighbour did a nice job and together our houses added character to the area. But I'm a big x-mass fan (being born the 26th of December might have something to do with it or the fact my parents always tried to make it a cosy period) so I tend to enhance the feeling in this way.

I saw that LG tv this week. It's very much out of my range. And also it's not suitable for my purpose. I need my tv to be hidden away, but when in use to be 90+ cm above grond at the bottom of the tv.

The tv stand lift system is also an expensive thing though. This is a heavy duty, remote controlled (with safety switch backup) one that can carry even the heavy flat tv's and that is around 350-400 euro's. As I felt that to be crazy numbers I did a clever thing 5 years ago. I bought a ready made TV kabinet that had the lift built in for less then half of that. I used that cabinet in the old home although I modified it to turn the tv lift around as the kabinet originally was meant for a living room wall and I was to use it as a front for our bed. But from the bed you don't want to be looking at the back of the tv... Anyway, the cabinet was too big to get out of the house so reluctantly I smashed it to bits, after removing the lift system naturally. The alternative was a 200 euro bill for some mover to get the thing out via the dormer. But then I'd also have the same problem of getting it in the new house on the first floor. Anyway I digress. Easiest option was to make a custom one for the new house as you don't find them second hand in the right dimensions or even new, and of course if you do, it's at a premium. If I was a real woodworker I'd probably use official joints etc. Now I just used countersunk screws to build the frame. I like screws as they make things easy to undo and if the lift ever goes wrong I need to be able to get access without damage. It's going to look the part though when finished!

Anyway, the thing will be finished when I have added three little shelves on the sides. Hopefully this weekend.

[therealpinto]

Nice news on the Granada up and running. A decent battery charger is a nice investment, doesn't even have to be so fancy.

Gustaf

[eurogranada]

I'm currently pondering chancing an MOT. As long as it runs it can only fail on the power steering I think. There's fluid loss, but it's not immediately evident. Given a good wipe before hand should see it through.

So an MOT would help get the car back home, meaning monthly savings on the hired garage and a chance to rip out the steering rack and send it back to the rebuilder as I think (pretty sure actually) it's filling up the bellows again.

So why the pondering?? Well it hasn't been road tested since it's starting issue. And testing it legally is only possible on the way to a pre-arranged MOT. And if it does fail on that test, well the MOT tester will see mee coming cancelling another MOT at the latest moment. But any other testing can't really be done on public roads and will need to be close to home if things go wrong...

So what to do?

[MaxN]

Book it in for an MOT, drive to the station, regardless of the result, you can surely drive it home ?

I'm not sure that you have to take it back to whence it came

[SamJ]

Hi Alex, realistically, whats the chances of it failing? you know its in good shape. I can recommend an APK station thats, err, "relaxed" shall we say

I would book it in, if it fails then at least you can take it home and work on the list of why.

[eurogranada]

Hi Sam,

Good to see you! Any updates on your own projects?

As for mine. I'm just worried that the starting issue introduced after the under bonnet wash is not really solved and that on the way to the MOT station I'll get stranded again. Once there I think the steering leak can be hidden long enough to get the car through MOT. My station is not particularly easy, but always fair.

So to see how much of a worry is warranted...... I decided to visit the car and see.

I knew I'd have to start the car with a jump from the spare battery, but I had not expected the car to not turn over at all. I changed the spare for the other spare and at first the same response. Not turning the starter at all. But quite suddenly after a few seconds, the starter spun to life, very slowly, picking up some momentum and just as I was beginning to doubt it would catch, it started and settled at a nice idle. Once it runs it runs, so after having given both batteries some time to recuperate I unhooked the spare and dropped the bonnet (ot closing it completely). I then backed the car out going back and forth inside the garage a bit as I had left it parked very close to one edge meaning I'd rip off the right mirror had I not compensated. But the day before I'd hit my head on a ladder, well the other way around actually, resulting in a splitting head ache. I just wasn't my normal self so it all took more effort.

Anyway the car was out, mostly to prevent the new tires from developing flat spots. But of course I also wanted to see if the car would actually drive without failing. Because of the afore mentioned state of my head I kept it short should the need to push arise. I went up and down the street a couple of times, in forward and reverse and no problem. The only issue being a slightly less smooth idle. But I think that may have to do with the car having only been started and run for very short periods of time. I think the plugs could do with a clean. I hope it's not the ignition system throwing a fit. I have to say it didn't do much for my confidence and I put it back in the garage. It still ran and it also responded to the throttle evening out some of teh roughness at idle. But these engines and even this particular example should run so smooth you'd hardly know it's running.

So this leaves me wanting a more thourough test drive of a few miles, but as the car is not road legal this is an issue. Or I should just chance the MOT, but I'd hate to have to cancel again on the way to the station like last time.

One thing I'd have to adress befor the MOT is the emergency brake. It's pretty tight and only has to be raised a little to engage. So a check of the rear wheels and how they rotate and an adjustment on the lever arm is on the agenda. But before any MOT I like to give it a once over anyway. Only in the cold and dark powerless garage that is not a convenience.

Anyway I'll ponder some more and hopefully get it ready for MOT.

After MOT I think it can come home and I can sort the final issues. Which are still a few: steering rack, temp and fuel gauges some grasing of the door lock mechanisms and making the side seat cubbies. Nice things to do this year!

[spot]

Give me a "M"
Give me an "O"
Give me a "T"

What'da we want.....

>>>>> "APK"! <<<<<<

You know there is no point in delaying Alex. A lot of lifes issues can be overcome by letting a weird fellow with greasy fingernails touch your beloveds body for an hour!

PS I've taken on the 'door lock mechanisms' defence and we'd like to enter a plea of Not Guilty m'lord. See you in court stool pigeon

[eurogranada]

With Anne having had eye surgery which meant rising to the challenge to run the house by myself for a few days and life being busy in general, I've not had the desire to put this on my plate as well. Also the prospect of having to work on the car on the cold floor of the too narrow garage box does absolutely nothing for my motivation.

I hope I'll get some mojo back and am planning for MOT on the 8th of February. We'll see if I make it and if the car makes it...

I sure could use the mojo boost of being able to legally drive the car again and getting it home once and for all. I have to admit to feeling a bit drained at the moment. I guess it's a winter thing that I'm just not very good at. The cold and wet are the ultimate mojo killers for me and I can't get much done because of it. Then the realisation of what is left to do both privately and at work makes my head spin and feels disabling. But as usual I try to give myself a little kick in the butt to keep going. So things will get done... Hey, after 8 months I finally fitted the plinths to the ground floor walls...

[eurogranada]

Jan 29, 2019 10:11:43 GMT spot said:

Give me a "M"

PS I've taken on the 'door lock mechanisms' defence and we'd like to enter a plea of Not Guilty m'lord. See you in court stool pigeon

Hey Paul, you've lost me there mate!

[spot]

<snip>some grasing of the door lock mechanisms</snip> A sad attempt at humour lol

Can you free up any funds to buy a new battery?

Give Anne my best wishes for a speedy recovery!

[eurogranada]

Well another update is due.

Time was an issue lately so I never made it to MOT. So last week I thought I'd make some room by planning a day off work for this week so I could take the car to MOT after all.

To prepare for that, this Sunday I had a little time slot dedicated to the Granada. It was superb weather for the time of year and the car was doing a good job of looking great and impressing people with its looks.

I had decided to do some test runs after the non running issue it had developed after washing under hood. Inpsired by it staying running for over half an hour on one of my previous visits I felt I should have at least some confidence in the old girl and set of....

So I hooked up the spare battery, jumped the car to life and rolled it out of the garage. So far so good. I noticed a few droplets of fluid left and right on a piece of insulation I had under the front subframe. This sort of confirmed my suspicion that the steering rack is indeed leaking again. Still I set of for some driving.

Ouch, that did not go as expected. The car was responsive enough from a standstil, but when trying to make haste, it would backfire and pop in the exhaust a bit. Ok, the engine ecu was probably also still learning from having been without juice or a while but still. A bit more driving and I felt the car could be faster, but only after having gone through that popping fase. And it still didn't feel quite as quick as usual. I parked and checked the engine at idle and it revved through the range quite ok, although it did sttle at a slightly uneasy idle shown by some movement in the block and the air cleaner. So I set out on another run, but again, under a bit more load to make some real speed it popped still.

I parked again and read the ecu. The P 1351 Ignition code was stored again. So that at least matches the situation. But why is it throwing the code? Still I felt I could make it to and from the MOT station and as pre 1973 cars do not require emissions testing I felt the car had a good shot at passing. That is....until I went to change the battery for a different one as to negate the need for the jumper leads and I saw a nice circular drip pattern on the street matching the turn I had just made into my parking space and a little pool where I had been standing to make the turn possible. Also after just standing there for 3 minutes with the engine running, there were also drips left and right under the subframe on the ground. My heart sank a bit. This magnitute of dripping and pooling would never make it through an MOT.

CURSE WORD!!!!!!!!

I guess I'm just not meant to enjoy this car as a car anymore.... it's always throwing curve balls preventing me from enjoying it as the fun car it is (I felt that even on the rough running engine and from the responses of other people).

So I'm at a crossroads. I'm not sure what to do just now... I want to be able to enjoy it in march and april as the season starts but with the rack having to be rebuilt again or possibly replaced that is unlikely to happen. March is coming at lightning speed.

Current thinking is something like:
- empty out the home garage ASAP
- find a mate with a trailer to help me transport the car home ASAP
- drop the rack and send it out ASAP
- strip the inlet and change over the wiring loom on engine and box
- fix temp gauge
- try and fit adapters for oil pressure gauge
- improve readout fuel sender/gauge
- MOT it

That would be it for this car I think to finally be able to enjoy it fully.

I just don't really know how to do that given the other things in life I need to get on with. Like finishing some things in and around the house which although relatively short is still a bit of a b..ch list with some tougher items on it.

I'm feeling rather ambivalent about it all at the moment. I feel pressure to do it all but it's just not possible all by myself. And still, as much as I hate having to dive into the car again, I also know I love it to bits (sunday's little drive proved that no end). And I want to do it and myself justice by prevaling and fixing the little niggles.

I'll try and find out if the one person I know with a suitable trailer even has time to help me move the car. I think that's the start I need to make anyhow.

I can't hate the car as some shakedown issues are to be expected, yet I'm pained by things lik ethe expensive steering rack rebuild failing within 1000 km's (although over a three year period).

As you like pics and vids I'll ad a video of how she's currently running. No pic this time as I was preoocupied with the running side of things.

[kevins]

Alex,

Does this run a Edis ignition set up?

If so you will only have the pip and saw wires going to the ecu, Saw is the ignition advance from the ecu and pip is the ignition pulse to the ECU, Is there any way your tacho installation could be interfering with one of these?
Even if it doesn't use EDIS the tacho interface may be a good place to start.


On the steering front, is there a non assist rack available?
If you it might be a better long term solution to fit a manual rack and electric column assist, there are places doing turnkey kits for around £500 and others using secondhand Opel Corsa columns and after market controllers which comes in at around £100 in parts.

[mk2cossie]

Feb 25, 2019 12:40:19 GMT kevins said:

Alex,

Does this run a Edis ignition set up?

If so you will only have the pip and saw wires going to the ecu, Saw is the ignition advance from the ecu and pip is the ignition pulse to the ECU, Is there any way your tacho installation could be interfering with one of these?
Even if it doesn't use EDIS the tacho interface may be a good place to start.


On the steering front, is there a non assist rack available?
If you it might be a better long term solution to fit a manual rack and electric column assist, there are places doing turnkey kits for around £500 and others using secondhand Opel Corsa columns and after market controllers which comes in at around £100 in parts.

If it is anything like the mk2, non-assisted racks are available, but are arm twiddling amounts of turns and also shorter. So they require a difference steering shaft too And there isnt a huge amount of room for the Corsa electric motor to hang from the side of the column

Nice idea though

[eurogranada]

Feb 25, 2019 12:40:19 GMT kevins said:

Alex,

Does this run a Edis ignition set up?

If so you will only have the pip and saw wires going to the ecu, Saw is the ignition advance from the ecu and pip is the ignition pulse to the ECU, Is there any way your tacho installation could be interfering with one of these?
Even if it doesn't use EDIS the tacho interface may be a good place to start.


On the steering front, is there a non assist rack available?
If you it might be a better long term solution to fit a manual rack and electric column assist, there are places doing turnkey kits for around £500 and others using secondhand Opel Corsa columns and after market controllers which comes in at around £100 in parts.

Hey Kevin,

Yes, EDIS 6 is what is used. I can easily enough unplug the tacho mod that I had to do to get the tacho working. But I don't feel this is it, as it has run months with this same tacho mod in place without issue. I still think this is something to do with the wiring loom having gotten wet. Also as part of diagnostics I put a spare coil/lead set on the car, so it could in theory be less good than the original.

I like your suggestion on power steering a lot. When I started reading it my first thought was "hold on, I don't want to give up the power assisted steering as the car really needs it". Then as I read on it made more sense. There is a manual rack that can be fitted, yes. Probably not to easy to find as the banger boys prefer them over the assisted ones and there are loads of granny's flattened every year by the banger boys. Not going into the discussion on whether that is a good thing or not (I've been helped more then once by them in my quest). I've seen conversions done using the corsa unit and a controller before. But I fear the dash space is a great concern as the area is rather filled and I'd really have to look into what else is needed. Custom shafts or joints are pretty expensive.

But, a rebuild of this rack may prove impossible and a new one from a reputable store is also 800 euro's if your core is deemed not suitable for rebuild. Else it's about 550. Shipping to be added which for this large and heavy unit from Germany will probably not be cheap either. A new manual rack is 560 if you have no core part, otherwise it would be 330 plus shipping.

Doing away wit the fluid, pump, reservoir and the rack does sound slightly appealing, but will come with it's own set of headaches and I don't think it's something I'd be able to cobble together in a month or 6 weeks...

[eurogranada]

Feb 25, 2019 13:40:27 GMT mk2cossie said:

Feb 25, 2019 12:40:19 GMT kevins said:

Alex,

Does this run a Edis ignition set up?

If so you will only have the pip and saw wires going to the ecu, Saw is the ignition advance from the ecu and pip is the ignition pulse to the ECU, Is there any way your tacho installation could be interfering with one of these?
Even if it doesn't use EDIS the tacho interface may be a good place to start.


On the steering front, is there a non assist rack available?
If you it might be a better long term solution to fit a manual rack and electric column assist, there are places doing turnkey kits for around £500 and others using secondhand Opel Corsa columns and after market controllers which comes in at around £100 in parts.

If it is anything like the mk2, non-assisted racks are available, but are arm twiddling amounts of turns and also shorter. So they require a difference steering shaft too And there isnt a huge amount of room for the Corsa electric motor to hang from the side of the column

Nice idea though

You beat me to it by minutes. But you share some of the same concerns I do. I think it's opening it's own whole new can of worms. But the potential is there and it would be relatively care free as knowing how prone to failure these power racks are it will always be a concern.

[SamJ]

Alex,

First things first, get the car home. Working on it in your own garage, with lights, power, all your tools, and when you can do a few minutes here and there will make things a lot easier.

There is a company just over into Belgium in Hamont that I have used to hire a proper transporter, only needs a cat. B driving license, but big enough to fit my yank tank on so your car will go on easy. A mate with a trailer is fine, but a proper transporter, when you want it, is so much easier.

Drop the rack, and go from there. Once you have it off and can really see where it is leaking from, what work needs to be done, you can then make the decision.

If my memory is right the error code is a cam position sensor circuit that does engine timing? I would suggest disconnecting the tacho also, before going any deeper with the running issue - if it is a corrupted PCM signal it's best to remove as much from the system as possible first.

When you are ready to start on it, let me know and I shall come help if I can. I'd suggest that we put an oscilloscope on the feed from engine to ECU and check what is going on.

[eurogranada]

Feb 25, 2019 14:32:13 GMT SamJ said:

Alex,

First things first, get the car home. Working on it in your own garage, with lights, power, all your tools, and when you can do a few minutes here and there will make things a lot easier.

There is a company just over into Belgium in Hamont that I have used to hire a proper transporter, only needs a cat. B driving license, but big enough to fit my yank tank on so your car will go on easy. A mate with a trailer is fine, but a proper transporter, when you want it, is so much easier.

Drop the rack, and go from there. Once you have it off and can really see where it is leaking from, what work needs to be done, you can then make the decision.

If my memory is right the error code is a cam position sensor circuit that does engine timing? I would suggest disconnecting the tacho also, before going any deeper with the running issue - if it is a corrupted PCM signal it's best to remove as much from the system as possible first.

When you are ready to start on it, let me know and I shall come help if I can. I'd suggest that we put an oscilloscope on the feed from engine to ECU and check what is going on.

Thanks Sam, I think it's time to actually take you up on your continued offering...

Working on getting the car moved as we type. I'll see how that develops.

[gess]

Really sorry to hear about you contiuned misfortune and the curse of the blue wonder. Parts for these cars used to easy to scource, but not any more so I see your problem. I would also encourage you to get your car home. It makes everyting easier. These drops of fluid you see, are they from the engine or steering rack?
I really hope you can get this magnificent beast roadworthy and put it to good use throughout the season.