Project 1975 Ford Granada Coupe - Lots & lots of tinkering

[uk_senator]

Oh, & loving the thread too! 

[TripleRich]

On 11/6/2017 at 10:43 PM, mat_the_cat said:

I'm really enjoying this thread and the quality of work which goes into it!

 

I do have one question/slight reservation though, and that's with the POR-15 you're using. I'm wondering if it is too rigid to successfully coat over spot welded seams, which will inevitably flex as the car is used. If the insides of box sections are also coated, any cavity wax cannot creep in. Then if the film cracks at the seam, water will creep in and sit against bare metal

 

I don't want this to sound at all negative, as there may be something I'm missing - you obviously have much more experience than I do in these things!

 

POR-15 is flexible so shouldn't have to worry about it cracking.  You have to paint the bare steel with something or the car will be full of surface rust by the time its finished.  Provided the POR gets good adhesion to the metal it works well and is a right bugger to remove.  Some areas on the car have been painted with it for over a year and no surface rust or issues have appeared.  Had I used primer it would be a different story.

The main protection for the car will be cavity wax which I apply using a shutz gun with a long flexible lance on the end.  I spray the wax everywhere until the workshop has filled with a mist of wax.

Below is me waxing a 1979 Merc SL before reassembly. You can see the mist of wax around the rear of the car.  The mist then condenses inside the shell of the car in all the really inaccessible areas like screen posts and scuttle corners.  That is the primary protection and the paint or E coat in this case sits below as insurance.  On warm summer days the wax travels deeper into the car with some leaving via drain holes.  Therefore its important to reapply the wax to chassis members and sills every few years.

 

[mat_the_cat]

Totally agree that no paint, or simply primer would be no good. Just that in my limited experience of POR-15 my remaining half a tin seemed to set absolutely rock hard! If as a thin film it has flexibility then all well and good

 

My personal preference for welded repairs is an coat of cold galvanising solution worked into the seam, which will work sacrificially if the film is broken. I've no evidence though that this is the 'best' way, just that the theory makes sense to me as a metallurgist! (Although I am carrying out a kind of trial here)

 

I've never done a proper restoration though, just worked on areas at a time then cavity waxed inside that area once I've finished. In the past I've thought of cavity waxing as a once only job, but I've since realised that as you say, it needs to be re-applied regularly.

[SiC]

How hot does it need to be for cavity wax to flow around a car? You say a hot summers day will do it, but is it the sun baking the metal work even hotter or will hot ambient do it?

 

I need to wax my MGB up, but being autumn I'm not sure if it'll flow properly. However at the parking garage at work, it stays roughly 25C. So if I park it there for a couple of days (or weeks), will that allow it to flow or still not hot enough?

[Mally]

 

 

The main protection for the car will be cavity wax which I apply using a shutz gun with a long flexible lance on the end.  I spray the wax everywhere until the workshop has filled with a mist of wax.

 

Below is me waxing a 1979 Merc SL before reassembly. You can see the mist of wax around the rear of the car.  The mist then condenses inside my lungs.

 

Merc Wax.jpg

 

FTFY

[TripleRich]

25C should be hot enough to allow the wax to slowly creep along things like sill seams.  Sun baked metal will accelerate the process.  Crucial thing with wax though is application, you need to get the stuff spraying everywhere under pressure.

 

Before application I also warm up the wax with a heat gun until it’s liquefied.  Then when sprayed it goes even further and fogs up inside all the closed chassis members ensuring all inner surfaces have at least one layer of wax.

 

Rattle cans of wax are fine for a small area (warm them up) but if you're doing an entire car then a compressor with gun will do a much better job.

[Talbot]

Last cavity waxing I did I may have gone slightly overboard with the heating. It wasn't a warm day, so measures were needed. Not only did the can of wax sit on top of a storage heater overnight to get as hotnas possible, but the compressed air lance I used was supplied with air that had been heated to about 300°c by passing it through a coil of copper pipe which was being blasted from a hot air gun.

 

It worked, but that wax got *utterly* everywhere. I learned that day that you really need to be careful which cavities open up into the vehicle. Waxoyl mist and cloth interior was not a good combination.

[TripleRich]

I've done a few more bits to the car over the last month or so but progress has slowed quite a bit as the workshop is bloody freezing this time of year.  5 days in there is quite enough so the weekends have been used to warm up!

I have remembered to take a few pics of the Mexico.  As of today its on the body jig (not pictured) ready for the front end reconstruction in the new year.  A great deal has been replaced already but there is still plenty to go.  

All the panels are a mix of original ford, reproduction and made in house.  We now have a structure ready to accept the front end.  The rear axle, rear suspension, doors and windscreen have all been trial fitted to make sure we have it right.

Hope you all have a good Christmas.  I'll be back at the Coupe in the new year.  Still more metalwork left to do but its not that far away from paint now.

Cheers

[danthecapriman]

Crikey that's a hell of a job on that Escort. Lovely looking work on it though, all that nice shiny metal and new welds.

I notice the Ex-pressed panels label. Something I'm certainly familiar with myself after the last couple of years!

 

Have a good Xmas and new year Rich, can't wait to see both the Granny and this Escort progress in the new year.

[fordperv]

Cracking work on that mex,fair play to the owner for not taking the easy way out and going the "reshell" route like most are

[JeeExEll]

Didn't even bother posting one "like".

 

Voted it TOTY 17 instead.

 

Fantastic.

[TripleRich]

Had a nice break from the car but now its time to crack on and get the metalwork finished.  I really hope I can have the shell painted this year.

Plan off attack for now is to finish up everything on the underside.  Once complete it can be sealed and have some stone guard applied.  Then it can come off the body roller which will bring it down to a more workable height allowing me to complete outer panel work repairs and gap all the panels.

Started things off with removing all the old schutz in the centre area of the floor pan.  I also removed the exhaust heat shields to ensure I could get to every last bit.  Good job I did as they revealed that one of the welded nuts for the seat belt plugs has fallen off. 

Continued sanding until I reached bare metal making sure as much of the original white primer is also removed to check for rust.

Only a small amount of surface rust was found.  I sanded the worst off and applied a rust treatment using the airline to drive the treatment deep into the various seams.

With the treatment now going off I turned my attention to removing the heavily corroded floor pieces from the transmission mounts.  The floor under these mounts always rots to some extent on Granadas.  These mounts are from another car as my original mounts were too far gone.  Rusty stuff like this can take hours to separate as the pitted metal no longer shows the location of the spot welds.  Finding and releasing them can get rather frustrating.

With the replacement mounts cleaned up I threw them on the car and took a few measurements.  They will fit fine with the floor underneath needing some dressing with a hammer to get everything back how it used to be.

With the rust treatment now finished I wire wheeled off any excess and panel wiped the floor clean.  Now finally a large part of the underside is repaired and protected.  Stone guard will be applied over this later when the underside is completely finished. 

[Datsuncog]

Great to see more progress here! Let's hope 2018's the year for your Granada (and Dan's Capri II) to stop being a load of components and finally become a car again. Your patience here is amazing - it's almost Zen-like to see each curve and pressing become sharp, whole and at one with the shell again...

Was flicking through a copy of Classic Ford round at a Cortina-owning friend's house the other day, and thought I saw something rather familiar... congrats on the write-up!

[TripleRich]

Another day of work completed on the car.  Made a fair bit of progress with most of the time spent removing old underseal.

First job was to rust treat and beef up the transmission mounts.  They have a reputation for the threads stripping out during gearbox installation and its a pain to fix.  Reason they strip is because Ford didn't bother putting in captive nuts.  All these have is a thread cut into the metal that was pushed out by the machine that made the holes.

I've changed these ones to some more robust M10 nuts.  I've also gone around and reinforced all the captive nuts on the floor pan as they are only spot welded on and its not uncommon for them to let go during assembly.

While the treatment was doing its stuff I set to removing more old sealant and schutz from the floor.  Found quite a few blisters under the original primer this time so made sure they all got cleaned up and rust treated.

I then painted the mounts on the inside and installed them using a gearbox cross member to make sure everything will bolt up.  These don't have to be mega accurate.  I measured two other Granadas we have in and their original mounts are quite poorly aligned.  I did these by eye and some measurements to known points in the floor pan.

With the welds cleaned up and the treatment on the floor pan rubbed back I set to painting these areas.  

Starting to look the part now.  Still more work to do under here though.  The diff box is very corroded and the rear chassis leg that isn't painted has rotted inside by the seat for the coil spring.  Once I've sorted those I've got some snags and little bits to finish before I can get the Gravitex out.

[TripleRich]

I've started work on the differential cross member.  Again its a common rot spot on the Granada but mine looks particularly bad on the surface.  I've not taken one of these apart before but on the surface at least it appears there is an inner strengthener attached to an outer skin.

 

To remove the outer skin I marked and drilled out all the spot welds.  This took hours and I reckon about 70 spot welds were drilled out.

 

 

Turned out the inner strengthener is only fixed to the outer skin and not the floor of the car.  A separate panel is attached to that.  So including the floor of the car the diff mount is made up of 4 separate panels spot welded together so that explains the rust.

 

I cut just above the flanges of the outer and then removed the section.  Then on the bench I was able to separate the two parts having drilled out the welds whilst it was on the car.

 

 

As you can see both the inner and outer are toast as I suspected.  I will need to make both of these again using these rotten bits as a guide.

 

 

Back on the car I had hoped the floor strengthener that I had thought was part of the inner strengthener had survived.  As usual with this car it hasn't so yet more spot weld drilling was done.  That leaves just the floor of the car behind (which also needs repair).

 

 

Next week I'll start remaking this lot.  Its not a straight C channel which is annoying as those are quick and easy to make.  Instead there’s a bulge in it around the diff bolt so remaking is going to take me longer.

 

Still, this is the last really rotten bit on the car and will mark a milestone in the restoration once repaired. 

[Mally]

I'd have chopped it out in one and welded a length of 50 x 50 x 3mm box across it.

That's the difference between a stock car builder and a sheet metal artist.

Well done!

[mat_the_cat]

/\ I'd be the same - neat up top, functional below. So hats off to someone who takes the time to make all the repairs invisible!

 

Strangely, with wiring I like all that to look factory, even going to the extent of matching the origininal colours for repairs/modifications. Even when it will all be covered by loom tape, because I'll just 'know'. Wonder why I don't feel the same about welding the underside?

[TripleRich]

Made some more progress on the diff box today.  First job was to sort out the boot floor where this lot is welded.  As you can see its quite pitted so I decided to replace a large section of the pitted metal.  

Before cutting the rotten bit out I made sure any dents and damage where dressed out with a hammer and dolly.  Floor sections like this will always get some damage when you have to remove large structural components from them.  I then cut out the rot and offered up a new bit.  Having removed the dents ensures the repair fits up to all the cut edges of the original floor.  It can then be tacked on and the clamps removed.

I ground the tacks down and seam welded the repair on making sure to control the heat as this 1mm floor is easily warped.

Next I remade the the floor strengthener using the original as reference.  This is made of 1.5mm steel and I reused the tube for the diff bolt as that hadn't rotted.

 

The remains of the diff box contain two jigging holes which allow you to measure the diff bolt position.  All cars have these holes on chassis components to allow for jigging during accident repair.

On the Granada the distance between the holes on the diff box is 600mm.  Therefore the diff needs to be central or 300mm from either hole.

With the replacement part correctly located I puddle welded it on.  Then I offered up the remains off the outer box to double check the diff will mount in its original location.

Of course I painted both the floor and repair section before welding so theres a nice layer of paint in that seam.  POR is very good at this.  You can weld through it and when its wet it runs back around the weld providing much better protection than weld through primer which just burns off.  

Offering up the rusty bits confirmed the repair is in the right place.  Thats completed 50% of the process.  Next I'll need to make and fit another strengthener and then fit a new outer case which will complete the repair.

[danthecapriman]

Lovely bit of fabrication there Rich!

[dollywobbler]

It'll almost be disappointing once it's finished, because there won't be any more of this magic.

[Alan_Green]

Fancy one but can't weld?  This one's just come up on Facebook. V8 Perana, RHD and in a rust free part of South Africa.  £11,200.

 

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

I wish I could weld like that.

 

I wish I could weld.

[danthecapriman]

Fancy one but can't weld?  This one's just come up on Facebook. V8 Perana, RHD and in a rust free part of South Africa.  £11,200.

 

Granada Perana.PNG

Oof! Want level high!

I always wanted (and still do actually) the Capri Perana, same engine etc in a mk1 Capri. SA only.

[LC Torana]

That's a Windsor 302 there.

 

According to the spec sheet, there's more than 250bhp on tap, 0-100k in 7.8 seconds, yet capable of 33mpg.

 

What sane person wouldn't want one?

[Datsuncog]

^^ Barring the custom decals, that Saffer V8 is rather lovely - and out of interest, does anyone know whether all UK Coupés came with the vinyl roof fitted as standard? I've never seen one without in the metal (though admittedly, I've seen very few). Some European pics show cars without a vinyl roof: although some appear to have been de-vinyl'd (like the brown 3.0 Ghia below) I'm wondering whether others were lower-spec cars not offered in the UK, where Ford were keen to stress the luxury element of the cars.

 

 

 

While looking at the bare shell pics taken during Rich's amazing build thread, I've been puzzling over whether these cars look better with or without the black roof. IMHO the line of the rear haunches is improved when not bisected by the slightly fussy roof trim. It doesn't seem to make as much difference with the pre-73 coke-bottle line cars, but I reckon the application of vinyl makes the later lowline cars look a smidge top-heavy. Just my view.

 

Anyone else appreciating that the car from Rustenburg is rust-free?

[Talbot]

Definitely looks better without. The c-pillar finish is fussy, and that little grille on the brown car looks good.

 

Never liked Vinyl on the roof of a car. Just another way of trapping rust, and I've heard that it can slightly affect fuel economy (detrimentally)

[Vin]

Totally agree that no paint, or simply primer would be no good. Just that in my limited experience of POR-15 my remaining half a tin seemed to set absolutely rock hard! If as a thin film it has flexibility then all well and good

 

 

If I'm not having a heavy POR-15 sesh and there is a bit left in the tin, I find putting cling film between the lid and the tin stops it from forming a skin/setting rock hard. Also store it in the fridge. That helps too.

[LC Torana]

Vinyl roofs on cars were popular in the 1970s, like window wind deflectors, red-wall tyres and sheepskin car seat covers.

 

And since everything was better in the 1970s, I have to say I approve of vinyl roofs.

 

(full disclosure - my 1970s car has a vinyl roof)

[Datsuncog]

Oh, don't get me wrong - I really like a vinyl roof in general, and a few of mine have had them (though yeah, rust trap issues).

 

Just not convinced it necessarily shows off the lines of the facelifted Mk1 Coupé rear flank to best effect.

 

 

 

Earlier versions look different but equally fine with or without the vinyl (and, because I'm weird, a near-boggo 1.7 Consul L Coupé really does appeal). Small grille for preference, too.

 

But hey, not my car! No doubt Rich will be doing whatever's right for him, and to the same jaw-droppingly high standards no matter what. But seeing the Perana pic above just got me thinking out loud about why I should crave a Mk1 Coupé but never quite took to them - and I think it's the vinyl roof on the more common later models that puts me off just a little.

[Tadhg Tiogar]

^^

The wheels look a touch too small for the size of that car.