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

[gess]

I totally understand your concerns about the car, it has let you down a few times and it will take some time before you feel it is reliable. Listening to noises, worrying about play in the suspension or drivetrain, well I do thai in my Hyundai i40. Last year I spent a fortnight chasing down a non existing brake problem. I felt the brake pedal slowly dropping to the floor after reconditioning the rear calipers. I bled the system several times in different ways and in the end I gave up and sent the car to sevice and MOT. It came back without any comments. the brakes were perfect, I had created the problem in my head. you just need to press on, do the things you want with the car, and as rblote wrote, everyting is nearby, you might be stranded for a few hours, but it is summertime so it doesn't matter that much.
I will be looking forward to the next post no matter what, either a breakdown story or a carmeeting story. It is entertainment for the masses anyway.

[spot]

Ah rude word, I thought the boss and I would make this year too. We had planned to 'borrow' your car for the night after pulling out your tent pegs and kicking over your squat bucket!

Let me check the validity of my passport

[eurogranada]

Jun 12, 2019 8:24:13 GMT spot said:

Ah rude word, I thought the boss and I would make this year too. We had planned to 'borrow' your car for the night after pulling out your tent pegs and kicking over your squat bucket!

Let me check the validity of my passport

You really have a thing for that bucket, don't you! Haha, my tent stays up without the pegs, it's just less secure but with my weigth in it, it won't be going anywhere.

I would have loved to see you (both)... and you could have just asked if you could have the car for a night on the rural villages, lol. I'd have given you the key immediately....













....would have just kept the PATS key needed to unlock the security functions.

[eurogranada]

Well curse word, curse word, curse word! Threw my arm out doing nothing. One minute typing a message and the next I can’t move my left arm. I hurt it during the first day of the house move but hadn’t had much pain or issue with it lately. Hurts like hell! Great timing also.

Now on painkiller and soon under a hot shower. Hopefully it’ll be a bit better tomorrow. I won’t let this interfere with my meeting!

Sometimes.....

[eurogranada]

So, my arm stil is far from ok, but I'm determined to go anyway. Car is loaded, apart from the clothes bag and the cooler box which are ready to be put in at the final moment.

Plan is to set off at 14:00 hrs this afternoon.

I've got fluids, I've got basic tools, I've got basic spares (fuel filter and fuses), I'm going to fill up and carry a 6 liter spare as well. I'm ANWB (triple A) member for breakdown coverage throughout Europe so... Properly prepped I hope!

With room for the final two items:


Shame the weather forecast has turned from sunny to rainy. Ah well, we'll see how it all goes.

[eurogranada]

I'll just leave these for your enjoyment!
































































Well, the story goes like this…

I set of for the filling station at 13:45. Filled the tank and a spare. Found out the fuel gauge works, cause it went to full! Bonus!
Set of for the meeting at 14:00. A little uneasy at first, but as the miles flew by, the car behaved well. I stopped after a decent amount of miles to do a quick check op PAS fluid. At that point it was not noticeably down.So within 45 seconds I went out onto the road again.

I was rolling along with traffic more than nicely. The car is a little load so I'm pretty sure I'll be modifying the exhaust at some point. But it ran along great. Not a miss anywhere. Just comfortably cruising along.

After 70 or so kilometers, doing 120km/h on the left lane (our outside lane) I was just thinking to myself that the car was doing great and that trust or confidence was really coming back. I'd been worrying for no reason once again. I shouldnt't have, cause within 40 seconds from thinking that there was a noticable POP, my steering wheel suddenly went on an angle from normally straight (but I was still trying to go straight!) and the car felt like it was going through deep truck tracks, except it wasn't.
Alarmed by this feeling of not being in control of the car anymore, I pulled to the right and stopped on the emergency strip. I checked the obvious: PAS system and steering arm, coupling and joints. Pas was fine, some fluid had gone but not much. No drips anywhere under the car either. Wheels seemed attached to the rack still. Funny though, when steering, the whole front of the car would move, this was odd. Rocking the wheels I felt nothing strange. I checked drive shafts and all other mechanicals but nothing amiss.
I made a run for another couple of 100 meters, to see if the car felt weird, and it still did. I could now also hear a metal screeching sound. I stopped at the widest part of the emergency strip, and again checked the front. I could clearly see the left brake disk was rubbing something, it had a score mark, thankfully a very even mark.

I gave up and made the call. As I was in an unsafe place the ANWB was with me within minutes. And boy was I unsafe. Unbelievable how many trucks veer off onto the emergency strip. It's a miracle I wasn't rammed!! The ANWB man put up some cones as my safety triangle fell over in the wind every time. The cones were also narrowly missed by trucks. Honestly is it so difficult to keep lane?
Anyway a quick check revealed nothing to him other than the disk, so we were both pretty sure it had to be something with the left wheel. We made our way to a safer stretch of road which was butt clenchin in and of itself as we had to cross the motorway… Once there he checked if my wheels were tight but as they were he jacked up the front left. And then it was immediately apparent that the wheel bearing had failed. The wheel was flopping all over. Taking the hub cap off all seemed right. Nut was still locked in place etc. But whit the nut undone, it was easy to see the bearing had destroyed itself. Many of the rollers were gone.
The ANWB man not giving up in hopes of getting me to where I need to go, tried changing the bearing. Pulled out all the stops, but was met with an unsurmountable roadside challenge as the bearing had fused with the spindle… Obviously it had been tightened too far. Can only blame myself for this. It's the wheel that had excessive play before, so it needed adjusting. I followed workshop manual procedure, but something must have gone wrong. Maybe my torque wrench is off or something. Anyway the wheel spun fina and MOT didn't show up anything weird either. But that was only a 6km single way trip. I'd now done 70-75...

As there was nothing more to do and a bearing wasn't available I was to be towed to a depot and from there the car would later come home. And so it went. I made sure they can't start and drive the car, also that they know there is no wheel bearing in the front left and it should get it's own personal transport back home. But if this will really happen I don't know. It should arrive back today, but this is also questionable.

So I'm on the lookout for a set of new hubs and bearings will be ordered.

But the meeting is over for this year, too painful and not enough fun to just go with the daily. All desire to go has drained as well... Besides, I'm still trying to get over the feeling of (being a) failure... And whether I wanted to or not, it really hit home and is not so easy to put behind me for some reason. Don't know whether to hate the car, this cursed meeting or myself...

[The Doctor]

Oh no.... not again...

I'm intrigued by your comment about the torque wrench, do you need to to set the bearings with them?

I'm only used to Toyota in regards of conical wheelbearings, but I always tighten it by hand until it feels right.
That means tightening till it drags and then back a bit. Never gave me any problems so far.

[eurogranada]

Procedure I had said to torque to a certain setting and then undo for a certain amount of degrees. I believe 90.

[Deleted]

Alex - Really sorry to hear this - what a pain - at least you and the car are safe - car is fixable once you have sourced the parts but these type of things play hell with your conscience - slight consolation is that there are a handful of regulars on here all currently getting put through the wringer with various tales of equal woe & headbanging with there own motors / projects (myself included)


If I can help in anyway in sourcing the parts / shipping on this side of the water - please don't hesitate to ask - Chris

[eurogranada]

Jun 15, 2019 7:12:24 GMT @grumpynorthener said:

Alex - Really sorry to hear this - what a pain - at least you and the car are safe - car is fixable once you have sourced the parts but these type of things play hell with your conscience - slight consolation is that there are a handful of regulars on here all currently getting put through the wringer with various tales of equal woe & headbanging with there own motors / projects (myself included)


If I can help in anyway in sourcing the parts / shipping on this side of the water - please don't hesitate to ask - Chris

I’d rather have my problems than yours!

Thanks for your offer. I hope to source my spindles here, but if unsuccessful I know that help is available!

[SamJ]

Really sorry to hear that Alex. Does it need new hubs or spindles? Difficult to see from the pictures of its just the bearing races that are damaged or the spindles themselves.

[westbay]

Alex

If you need the Timken part numbers let me know , I have a listing /catalogue by maker i.e FORD ...

[eurogranada]

Jun 15, 2019 7:38:37 GMT SamJ said:

Really sorry to hear that Alex. Does it need new hubs or spindles? Difficult to see from the pictures of its just the bearing races that are damaged or the spindles themselves.

I NEED new spindles, the hubs are ok. But i’m GOING for new hubs AND spindles.

Spindle has been so hot that the metal properties may have changed. Visually after removing the remains of the bearing carefully it probably still looks fine.

Due to the powder coating I need to replace as a set anyway and it’ s a good time to try out a theory of mine.

Having spares is never bad anyway.

I have a lead on stuff already. Hope to be be able to confirm this week.

Bearings will be replaced new.

[eurogranada]

Jun 15, 2019 8:39:14 GMT westbay said:

Alex

If you need the Timken part numbers let me know , I have a listing /catalogue by maker i.e FORD ...

The bearings are thankfully pretty easy to find. I’ll give a shout if I need help. Thanks!

[peteh1969]

Alex

Sorry to see your trip to the meet did not go well, as Chris has said "at least you and the car are safe" the Spindles and Hubs can be replaced and it will be as good as new.

Pete

[mk2cossie]

If you want eurogranada, I can send you a little kit with a pair of R clips in to replace the split pins on the front wheel bearings

Had a bearing outer race spin in a hub on mine more than a few years ago now, and I think that was due to getting too hot due to either over packing the the bearing with grease, not enough grease or adjusting the bearing too much

But I have only ever used the proper Ford recommended setting for the hub nut once, otherwise it has just been nipped up by hand (with a socket or pair of grips held close to the nut) and backed off for almost an inconceivable amount of play with just the hub assembly attached and good to go!
Has had the added benefit of keeping a good brake pedal as well that way, due to lack of the disc knocking the pads back in the caliper

[gess]

Argh, bummer.
Really sorry to read about your misfortune. I have never had issues with front bearings like that. I have been on Granada trips where they needed tightening up a bit but they never failed. I have on the other hand experience with rear bearing failure, several in fact in a short period of time. After a lot of hasdle I found that the spindle part of the axle which is going throug the rear bearing had a bit of a scratch or damage. This was enough to make it not sit correctly through the bearing inner ring and even when tightened it would move around a bit and wreck the bearing in a short period of time. I went through some bearings befor I found out what was wrong.
Could this be the problem on your car? Some old damage to the spindle?

[eurogranada]

Jun 15, 2019 19:12:48 GMT peteh1969 said:

Alex

Sorry to see your trip to the meet did not go well, as Chris has said "at least you and the car are safe" the Spindles and Hubs can be replaced and it will be as good as new.

Pete

I'm safe, although tings got a little hairy on the emergency strip with mostly trucks going over the line way too close for comfort...

I hope to find out today if the car has really been safe since... But yeah, it's all fixable.

[eurogranada]

Jun 16, 2019 16:39:13 GMT mk2cossie said:

If you want eurogranada, I can send you a little kit with a pair of R clips in to replace the split pins on the front wheel bearings

Had a bearing outer race spin in a hub on mine more than a few years ago now, and I think that was due to getting too hot due to either over packing the the bearing with grease, not enough grease or adjusting the bearing too much

But I have only ever used the proper Ford recommended setting for the hub nut once, otherwise it has just been nipped up by hand (with a socket or pair of grips held close to the nut) and backed off for almost an inconceivable amount of play with just the hub assembly attached and good to go!
Has had the added benefit of keeping a good brake pedal as well that way, due to lack of the disc knocking the pads back in the caliper

Haha, well at least the split pin had done it's job. It was just simple failure to adjust correctly. I've had plenty of how to's by now on conical wheel bearings, lol... Still don't really know where I went wrong. But next time round will be different!

[eurogranada]

Jun 16, 2019 19:09:11 GMT gess said:

Argh, bummer.
Really sorry to read about your misfortune. I have never had issues with front bearings like that. I have been on Granada trips where they needed tightening up a bit but they never failed. I have on the other hand experience with rear bearing failure, several in fact in a short period of time. After a lot of hasdle I found that the spindle part of the axle which is going throug the rear bearing had a bit of a scratch or damage. This was enough to make it not sit correctly through the bearing inner ring and even when tightened it would move around a bit and wreck the bearing in a short period of time. I went through some bearings befor I found out what was wrong.
Could this be the problem on your car? Some old damage to the spindle?

Thanks...

Nah, this was just a home mechanic error... Nothing more nothing less. The parts hunt is underway and sounds like this will not be much of an issue if not a pretty long drive in the near future.