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

[eurogranada]

Well I washed the car today as it had gotten dirty from standing and being worked on. Of course afterwards I had to test it out.

In general the car feels really solid and mighty fast now. And just as I thought I'd now lost my wheel wobble and the car was braking in a straight line, the car started pulling g to the right under braking. Heavy braking and it goes straight, but release somewhat or just brake a little softer and the car now pulls to the right.

I'm unsure of why. Contamination with greases I meticulously tried to avoid. But maybe it's to do with the disc being slightly scored from the bearing failure pushing the pads into the disc.

Otherwise I truly enjoyed my drive.

Any tips to investigate this? Calipers are new and never showed any (literally any) difference between left and right in braking force on MOT's.

[mk2cossie]

Glad to hear the latest updates have all been successful for you eurogranada

With regards to the brakes, are the pads themselves free to slide in the calipers?
Maybe some corrosion or dirt has got in them and causing 1 pad to stick slightly

[blackpopracing]

Not sure on braking bit give them a few days to bed in better and see if it improves. If no change try swapping pads to opposite sides of car and see if the pull follows the pads.

[eurogranada]

Because of this I choose not to drive the car to work today just yet. I'll do some more local driving and see how the brakes behave. I'll check what I can check. I like the idea of swapping the pads to test. Well, apart from the work required again, lol. Thankfully swapping pads isn't the hardest job to do.

[eurogranada]

Some pictures of yesterday washing the car...

It was dirty and dusty, but the wax I put on 2 years ago and keep up with just a very good shampoo whenever the car gets washed still worked amazingingly given how the water beads and flows!






And a quick vid..


Seeing the time stamps I realise that my drive last evening was probably over an hour long. And honestly I had great fun...

[peteh1969]

It's a credit to you Alex.

A very nice example.

[eurogranada]

Aug 21, 2019 8:57:00 GMT peteh1969 said:

It's a credit to you Alex.

A very nice example.

Thanks Pete. Yours will be even better!

Mine even would if I had to do it over again today... lol. You just live and learn from doing so every next project is better!

[eurogranada]

Took the car to work today....

Had a little anxious moment when after parking and getting to my workplace the pats key was missing. Couldn't find it anywhwere near the car but thankfully it caught my eye onm the ground near the entrance of the building... Pfew....

The car I tested some more yesterday. Got some pics of that...in a bit...

The car behaves rather well. It does pull to the right and at that moment it introduces a very slight wobble. I had that wobble with the previous hubs in a very much more pronounced fashion, where the wheel would actually shake. It's now just a little shimmy at best. I always attributed that to the possibly eneven powdercoating. I now know I have a flat and thin coat of paint on those parts.

When braking hard, emergency stop hard, the car behaves beautifully and goes straight every time. Repeatedly. At the same time, less avid braking results in the pull/wobble. So I do need to investigate.

Could the tracking being a little off as a result of changing over the rack be of influence? I can and will soon check/swap the pads as well. And as I had that woble before only worse, I feel maybe the discs have a slight warp? Could taht explain why when gripped hard under forceful braking there's no wobble or shimmy or anything and the car goes straight??

Also now I've done motorway speeds (oh this car has so little trouble getting up to speed) I do think the next thing on the list will be swapping front propshaft parts. See if that makes a difference. It's so hard to discern if the noise I have is propshaft induced or diff induced. But the diff/drivetrain is pretty silent on lower speeds. It's from 80 up that one starts noticing. Well, when the radio is off that is...

Anyway, it looks like I'm now finally in the territory of having the car working, at my disposal and in a state that you can just say... today I'll tackle this, next time that. That feels rather good. Still a few things to do though. Two gauges to fix, some cubbies to produce. Finding and fitting centre caps and possibly centering rings on the wheels, just little things.


Now the pics.....























































Oh by the way, Those marks were already there! Way too expensive to ruin my tires like that... Although I would have loved to see if my car even could!

[gess]

I was going to ask if you had bee naughty, but you already answered that :-) Will believe you have the power to make a it of tyre smoke and 11s on the tarmac.

When it comes to uneven breaking I would assume that something is not moving av freely as it should. With little pressure applied to the pedal there is a difference between the two sides and you get a pull to the right. That could mean that the left side is not engaging as hard as it should, either a sticking brake shoe or a slow moving piston. Could it be air in the system?

[eurogranada]

Aug 22, 2019 6:35:40 GMT gess said:

I was going to ask if you had bee naughty, but you already answered that :-) Will believe you have the power to make a it of tyre smoke and 11s on the tarmac.

When it comes to uneven breaking I would assume that something is not moving av freely as it should. With little pressure applied to the pedal there is a difference between the two sides and you get a pull to the right. That could mean that the left side is not engaging as hard as it should, either a sticking brake shoe or a slow moving piston. Could it be air in the system?

I'll start with the obvious when I get to it. I don't think the caliper itself is an issue. But maybe the pads have indeed stuck from having been pushed in a direction not normal when the bearing failed. It was mainly the caliper/pad combo that held the wheel sort of in place. Also as it pulls to the right and the problem wheel was on the left this seems to make sense.

[westbay]

As the problem was with the left , I would be looking at the pads themselves as they may have over heated and glazed or burnt during the wheel bearing problem ...

[vulgalour]

My only experience of a warped disc was less of a wobble and more of a thud-thud-thud through the brake pedal. It would get progressively worse as the braking force was increased gradually, but not really be noticeable if you really stamped on the brakes, it also didn't pull either way.

I wonder if instead of brakes or tracking it's a balljoint issue somewhere, they can behave a little strangely when they fail, producing wobble and wander that feels like other things. Don't forget road camber will sometimes make the car drift towards the curb, so you might only have that wobble and it's the camber of the road pushing you to one side.

[eurogranada]

Aug 22, 2019 13:55:52 GMT vulgalour said:

My only experience of a warped disc was less of a wobble and more of a thud-thud-thud through the brake pedal. It would get progressively worse as the braking force was increased gradually, but not really be noticeable if you really stamped on the brakes, it also didn't pull either way.

I wonder if instead of brakes or tracking it's a balljoint issue somewhere, they can behave a little strangely when they fail, producing wobble and wander that feels like other things. Don't forget road camber will sometimes make the car drift towards the curb, so you might only have that wobble and it's the camber of the road pushing you to one side.

Thanks for that. I'll keep it in mind. Hope to be able to do some investigating tonight.

It's not a repeating thud in my case. The pedal also isn't pulsating or anything. The braking induced wobble/shimmy is only felt in the steering wheel.

A balljoint issue I don't think it is. I had the wobble before and at MOT time they check with a pry bar so if anything was amiss with a balljoint it would have shown. Also I'm pretty sure the road camber is not involved. When braking the steering wheel really moves quite a lot/violently to the right. Road camber is only a very gentle pull on the car. I know the difference in feeling. I do feel that the alignment probably not being as perfect as it was could support it wanting to go right a bit more (although driving without braking in a straight line is tracking dead ahead without correction), but the pull is such that I feel other suggestions like pad damage or pads sticking could be contributors. Braking hard is straight as an arrow though.

[blackpopracing]

Do you have a dial gauge Alex? I'd be looking at the runout of the discs first. It does sound like you may have either a warped disc or a disc with a lump/dip in its surface.
It may be worth doing a quick bleed of the brake fluid in the front calipers, you may have a little air in one of them?

[eurogranada]

Spending the evening partly in the hospital with my father in law, I didn't get to checking anything.

I hope to find time this weekend to:
- remove the left caliper
- remove and inspect the pads
- refit if condition warrants
- check the disks for runout as best I can
- check for air in the line(s)
- change out the front piece of the propshaft

Apart from that the car could use an oil and filter change. So If I find the time...and parts.... I need to measure the hubs and wheels for centre rings and caps to finish that off. It's just small stuff now. But it seems there's always something to do...

Some miscellaneous stuff for instance:
- fix/test the other gauges (temp and mechanical oil)
- make cubbies for the back
- wire said cubbies for power
- dress the hole that the wiring loom enters the car trough to be more closed off
- dress the hole around the gear shift mechanism (which is mounted 13-15mm under the tunnel) to be airtight (something I should have done when access was a lot better!!)
- find a carpet set to cover my self made carpet

Little stuff that can mostly be adressed one at a time.

[peteh1969]

Great to make a check list for your checks Alex.

Sorry to hear about the problems with your father in law, I wish you and your family all the best for the near future.

[ballbagbagins]

Sure you don't need spigot rings on the hubs? I had a similar issue on a 3 series running 7 series wheels, the hubs were slightly different sizes so.i needed very think spigot rings to get a perfect seating of the wheel.on the hub

[eurogranada]

Aug 23, 2019 20:47:11 GMT ballbagbagins said:

Sure you don't need spigot rings on the hubs? I had a similar issue on a 3 series running 7 series wheels, the hubs were slightly different sizes so.i needed very think spigot rings to get a perfect seating of the wheel.on the hub

I'm adding those for sure. I call them centre rings as I didn't know the correct name for them...

Measuring the wheel presents a little challenge that hopefully work tools can negate...

[eurogranada]

Not much to update on the Granada break front. I think I may have overexerted myself during the weekend (probably the last few weekends) and had to pay for that.

Sunday afternoon after a pretty long day of work I just felt sick. Had a big day at work ahead on monday so went anyway but mid-day I was spent and went home on sick leave, feeling like I had the flu in the middle of summer... Quite a strange sensation... So I've been in bed or on the couch for many an hour since. Starting to feel better though! Hopfully back to work tomorrow...

I think what lead up to all this has been the last few weeks. Ever since we learned the news about my FIL, life has been messy at best, and I guess I'm trying to be as normal as I can while still being as supportive as I can. And in the normal section was some work to be done on finishing the aircon system and fitting oit the garage.

So, over the course of two Saturdays (I would have done it in one, but my aircon expert friend convinced me that we'd done enough for the day) we hooked up three aircons on a single outside unit. Not too difficult at all, but time consuming for sure. Second Saterday was only about two hours work including coffee breaks so afterwards me and the wife went shopping. Shopping for wood. I have to say it's nice to have aircon with the temeperatures we've been seeing. Although the living room is still hot as it's not cooled.





So what was I going to use more wood on? Well, the garage needed fitting out desperately. For tha past year, but even more since I gave up my rental garage I was constantly running in to knowing I have stuff but having to do too much to get to it. I was sick of it and felt that before any more DIY was in order I needed to sort this. So I designed shelving around the storage system I work with: foldable crates. I have a crate for paint stuff, electrical stuff, granada spares, etc. But I also had to take into account that there is a car to park and work on in play as well. And I wanted to keep the front wall clear for a movable workbench.

With the design to my wishes, I got the wood to build it and then sat down... How was I going to do this all in one day all on my own...? Wasn't much else to do than to just start. So sunday morning I put away the cars making room to work. First job: making room. Amazing how much stuff gets cramped into a simple 90*40 storage rack! The garage floor was littered with stuff and there was only a pathway to my workarea.



A lot of sawing and screwing later and some thing is taking shape...





Time went on and even though I drank plenty, my throat began closing up, swallowing became very painful and the heat, well I felt like I was on fire. But you can't just stop....

Thankfully the time had come to put some stuff back on the newly created shelves. They can handle a good load as the spans are small, they are locked into the wall with long plugs and screws and either transfer their weight to the floor or are solidly mounted to the roof beams.

In the end it looked like this:




I'm quite happy with this so far! I've got some leftovers that are best put to use as extra shelves but less deep. So I'll ad a "can" shelf and a "crew box" shelf below the high shelf on the back wall above where the workbench will be.

I need to find a solution for the spare engine though... Either storage or strippage... It's the one with the exhaust valve stuck open.

Although stuff is now more accessible I did see I have a massive cleanup on the books one day...

Well, on to work as soon as possible and hopefully granada time this weekend.

[peteh1969]

Good job it's left hand drive Alex.

Nice work on the storage in the garage.