Project 1975 Ford Granada Coupe - Lots & lots of tinkering

[Dick Cheeseburger]

I think I'm a patient person. Then I look at the endless hours you've pumped into this granny, and realise I'm not actually that patient at all. Really.

Continued respect for the sheer quality of your welding and fab work. Other projects look interesting too - that Austin 16 is a bonny little thing?

[fordmad80]

Can't wait to see it getting it ready for paint

 

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

[Guest mullett471]

In the assembly shop I've just about finished this lovely 2.8 pre-facelift Mk2.  Finished in company car gold with a brown interior and automatic box.  Even managed to save the original Perrys number plates.

 

Mk2 finished.JPG

 

very similar colour to my sons XD Falcon (1979 Goldust)

[Guest mullett471]

 

In our experience the POR is much more durable than an etch primer.  Etch still does a good job but the POR has various advantages over it.  They do various things but the stuff you want is the rust preventative paint.

 

It looks like this and is available in various colours.  I personally like the semi-gloss black version but it’s not always in stock in the UK.

 

POR15.JPG

 

I see it says on the tin 'paint directly over rust' and 'no need to remove rust before applying'..do you use it this way or remove the rust first?

 

 

[adw1977]

 

I see it says on the tin 'paint directly over rust' and 'no need to remove rust before applying'..do you use it this way or remove the rust first?

 

 

Wash your mouth out! Of course he removes the rust first!

[TripleRich]

If you're into bodging you can apply POR directly over a knackered panel and get some more life out of it. 

 

However I'm using it as a poor mans E-coat giving an initial layer of protection over all the repaired areas before paint and stone guard.  It works best if the metal is seasoned (blasted) or roughed up.  It can peel if the metal is too smooth as its basically a tough paint so needs the relevant prep before application.

 

You can paint over it with just about anything.  Just make sure you follow the correct prep procedure for whatever you're covering it with.

[Hawkeyethenoo]

My late dad nearly bought one of these back in the day. I begged him to buy it, but he didn't in the end, sadly and ended up buying an XJ6 in BRG. Lovely motors and this one will be amazeballs when you're finished. Thanks for sharing as I've really enjoyed the thread.

[lincolndanny]

If you're into bodging you can apply POR directly over a knackered panel and get some more life out of it.

 

 

However I'm using it as a poor mans E-coat giving an initial layer of protection over all the repaired areas before paint and stone guard. It works best if the metal is seasoned (blasted) or roughed up. It can peel if the metal is too smooth as its basically a tough paint so needs the relevant prep before application.

 

You can paint over it with just about anything. Just make sure you follow the correct prep procedure for whatever you're covering it with.

Rich,

 

Alot of my resto project is DA'd good metal. I'm worried it'll all just peel off?

[TripleRich]

DA'd is fine provided you used a reasonably aggressive grit like 400 or lower.  All the repairs I've done to the Granada were prepped with 120 grit before POR.  If you have doubts have a go at trying to pick through it with a blade and see how it reacts.  We've only had POR peel once in the workshop and that was due to the panel not being degreased properly.  We've had it stick fine to fresh steel many times but the tin does recommend a rough or prepped surface.

 

You need to prep the POR before painting over it so any bits that haven't stuck will start to react when you run over them.  I'll be doing the underside of the Granada with 400 and scotch brite before over painting with Gravitex.

[lincolndanny]

DA'd is fine provided you used a reasonably aggressive grit like 400 or lower. All the repairs I've done to the Granada were prepped with 120 grit before POR. If you have doubts have a go at trying to pick through it with a blade and see how it reacts. We've only had POR peel once in the workshop and that was due to the panel not being degreased properly. We've had it stick fine to fresh steel many times but the tin does recommend a rough or prepped surface.

 

You need to prep the POR before painting over it so any bits that haven't stuck will start to react when you run over them. I'll be doing the underside of the Granada with 400 and scotch brite before over painting with Gravitex.

Best get some ordered then hadn't I

 

Many thanks for taking the time to respond Rich.

[TripleRich]

Managed to finish all the little bits and pieces on the underside today.  Finished all the seam sealer and got the last few bits of welding and painting done too.  Focused mostly on moving the fresh paint further into the engine bay.  Did some more of the bulkhead and the last scabby bits of both front chassis legs.

 

 

With everything on the underside now tied up I sprayed on the stone guard.  Prepped the underside first by rubbing it back, blowing off any dust and thoroughly degreasing it with panel wipe.  I used black U-pol Gravitex for the stone guard and applied 2 - 3 coats.  Making sure that anywhere particularly rot prone got at least 3 coats.

 

It's a big car so used five 1L bottles of it.  Have one left over which I'll use for the inside of the front wings.

 

 

A close up shows the finish you get.  You can change the smoothness of the paint by adjusting the air pressure.  I've gone for a high build which looks similar to factory and also helps soften some of the visible welds.

 

 

The combination of POR, seam sealer and stone guard over the whole floor pan will provide excellent protection.  From factory most of this would be just primer so no wonder they rotted out.

 

 

All thats left to do under there is to clean and repair the exhaust heat shields.  I've left them off so the whole floorpan could be painted.  Once they're welded back on I can remove the car from the body roller

 

 

Thanks for all the comments and interest.  Still a long way to go but the bulk of metal work is finished, paint shouldn't be too far away.

[vulgalour]

That's an astonishing amount of work.  It looks freshly made now, which it practically is I suppose.

[egg]

Fascinating thread. I wonder if all the 90's chod we on here tend to run around in will get the same treatment in years to come?

 

And do the advances in build quality and rust prevention mean that this kind of extensive fabrication work will be needed? 

[Parky]

I think it will, it will merely mean that work of this nature will take place on 40 year old cars instead of 30 year old ones. Paint and rust treatment technology has come on in leaps and bounds but steel in a wet/cold/hot/damp environment, under attack from stone chips, vibration, and external chemicals in the air will eventually lose the battle.

 

The only thing that could render these skills redundant will be if all cars are made of carbon fibre or composites. And even these will have issues with age (cracking, delamination) so repair skills will still be needed - just slightly different ones.

 

The work on this is absolutely incredible, it's almost going to be too good to use! But it shows that TripleRich is incredibly conscientious with an uncanny eye for detail to go with the fabrication skills and I expect we are about to see the worlds best Granada coupe emerge from his workshop

[Tadhg Tiogar]

This is the standard of workmanship that can make a man cry, because he knows he'll never be able to match that level.

 

It's a skill learnt over time that becomes an art.

[GrumpiusMaximus]

You sir, are a God amongst restorers.

[Angrydicky]

Absolutely incredible work. Also, as SL says, it's truly heartening to see that same standard of work going into cars that aren't old skool fords and therefore the cost of repairs will always well outweigh the value of the car. Too many people are in it for the money, so lower value cars never tend to get the same standard of work as higher value stuff.

I can relate to you having to make every panel for the 16 from scratch and how much longer it takes over a car you can buy everything for. I must have put a good six or seven sheets of steel into my A55 mk1 over the course of its restoration. I managed to buy new inner sills and front floor pans/ front outriggers (as they are the same as Farina models) and after a lot of searching a pair of outer skin sills, but everything else has been made by yours truly.

Once it's back on the road, I'd like to move the Somerset into the 'dry dock' for some TLC. It's nowhere near as bad (the chassis rather than monocoque construction helped I think) but the inner sills have been well plated, there's a hole in the drivers floor pan, and the boot floor is made of a sheet of aluminium, hammered into place and held in with pop rivets and pog.

[Guest Crazymonkey]

Hello Sir, your doing a first class restoration I am a big fan of yours and the work your producing it is spectacular. My father has the exact same car model GHIA from 1974 which hi bought 5 years ago and been sitting in the garage hi wants to start doing the body work and been wondering how many cans of POR15 haw you used so far and if its as good as they say it is? ah all-so  when its time to put top coat on it what kind of top coats can go on it like water based?

[mercrocker]

I am completely over-whelmed by that underside!    Looking at the inner wing, too, just shows how much potential there is for these to rot, unseen.   No wonder there are hardly any left.  Absolutely first-class save!

[Tickman]

This is the standard of workmanship that can make a man cry, because he knows he'll never be able to match that level.

 

It's a skill learnt over time that becomes an art.

 

It is just another skill like any other. 

I think the main issue for me would be spending hours making such a small visible difference but that is where the amazing detail in this thread shows what is possible with enough skill, time and patience. Shame I am missing some of those.

[TripleRich]

Last thing to do before getting the car off the roller was to clean up and refit the heat shields for the exhaust.  I left these off to allow for stone guard application to the sections of floor above them.

They were rather scabby but cleaned up quite well.

Painted both sides and welded them back onto their brackets.  I reapplied paint to the brackets after welding.

Bit of stone guard to finish the job.

Next I removed the shell from the roller by lowering it down onto axle stands. 

 

To keep the car mobile I've put some dollies under it and removed the stands.  When pushing the car around the dollies can cause issues as the shell is not heavy enough the keep them in the correct place.  A basic box frame between the dollies is much stiffer and allows one person to move the shell without risk of a dolly slipping out from under the shell.

Now the underside is finished I can focus on the outer panels and also continue to complete various interior jobs.  First was to remove the tar mat from the boot floor.  This is the same stuff as used in the passenger compartment and it causes rust.  It's a bastard to remove and the small boot opening on the coupe makes access very annoying.

As expected rust has started under the mat but thankfully its minor and just wire wheeled off.  I wire wheeled and paint stripped as much of this area as possible.

While I'm working on this area I also removed a small rotten panel in the corner of the lamp panel which I'll remake later.

I then continued to remove old seam sealer, paint and tar from the boot floor.  I also cleaned up some repairs I'd done a while back and painted the area with POR.  As usual I cleaned the area with panel wipe first.

Lots left to do but I think I can see a light at the end of this tunnel!

[Mally]

You deserve to see the light!

[TripleRich]

Made some progress over the last few weeks.  Mostly smaller jobs, but they take a surprisingly long time to complete.

 

Started off sorting out the rotten corner at the rear.  I have another rear panel in storage which allows me to salvage the part I need and save some time.  The rear is where the coupe differs most from the saloon so I'm fortunate to have a spare panel.  It needed some work once removed but cleaned up alright.

 

 

Fitted to the car in the usual way.  It's a tight fit so took a while to line up.

 

 

Painted as usual.  The other side is fine so that’s everything here finished.

 

 

Next I need to delete some holes where somebody had fitted a bit of Ghia trim.  This car is a GL so just had a painted rear panel with the standard Ford lettering.  I just welded the holes up holding some copper behind them so I only had to grind one side.

 

 

Next issue to address is the corners of the rear screen.  It’s a common rot spot as the rake of the window, shape of the rubber and lack of drainage means most Mk1 & 2 Granadas rot here.

 

 

It’s not easy to remove as the various panels are brazed and loaded with lead in the factory.  It’s done to ensure it won’t leak and hide the joins of the various panels.

 

 

I made up some repair sections and started welding them on.  Later the joint between the two bits will be brazed as per original.

 

 

Came out quite well considering the access issues.  I'll need to do the same repair on the other side.

 

 

Next I removed all the horrible tar based sound deadening from the rear seat base.  I've got some welds to clean up in this area before I can paint it.

 

  

 

Still lots of little jobs left to do on the shell.  Then I'll start sorting out the doors, bonnet, boot lid and wings.

[Dick Cheeseburger]

Still blown away by the level of detail in this resto, and can’t wait to see the quality of the finished product.

What do you do about protection behind welded repairs in awkward places, such as at the bottom of the rear screen? I see so many welding photos on here, but don’t always see any mention of protection on the back of the welded repair, which I guess will end up rogered again within a few years.

[TripleRich]

I'm painting everything as I go.  You can get to most places if your determined enough.  The rear screen repair I've done is easy to paint from the rear if you crawl inside the boot.  Areas that are hidden get paint sprayed at them from the nearest available hole.  Using that method I've managed to paint inside the arches and inside all the chassis legs.

 

Once painted I'll empty about 5 tons of cavity wax into the car using a lance.

[Dick Cheeseburger]

I'm painting everything as I go.  You can get to most places if your determined enough.  The rear screen repair I've done is easy to paint from the rear if you crawl inside the boot.  Areas that are hidden get paint sprayed at them from the nearest available hole.  Using that method I've managed to paint inside the arches and inside all the chassis legs.

 

Once painted I'll empty about 5 tons of cavity wax into the car using a lance.

Sounds like a plan and I thought you’d have it totally covered! Just bugs me when I see people on here doing a load of welding, and then doing nothing to protect the back of the weld and panel. Pretty much pissing in the wind.

[TripleRich]

Started off today with cleaning up and adding welds to the areas around the sills in the back of the passenger compartment.  The quarter panel needs to be welded to the outer sill and the various layers of inner & outer sill need puddle welding.

Access is a bastard here and I'd been putting this job off for ages.  Even with all the tools I'm using I couldn't find anything that worked well.  Just finding an angle to get a decent weld going was difficult.  Despite the issues I got it done on both sides and managed to leave both sides reasonably clean and tidy.  The visible welds further up the quarter will be cleaned back at a later date.

Added some missing holes in the inner sills.  All Granada's have these so I added them just to keep things looking right.  Will also serve as another place for cavity wax injection.  You can see the jacking points just inside.  They look different from each side as one is original and the other I had to re-make guessing what the shape should have been.

Finished cleaning up the seat base and part of the transmission tunnel.  Painted with the usual stuff including all the welding I did earlier in the quarters.  Also blasted some paint inside the sills from the rear just in case any of the new welds had burnt the existing paint I put in previously.

 

Plenty more little jobs left to go but I'm still on target for a paint job this year.

[TripleRich]

Elsewhere work on the customers cars is never ending.  Really struggling to keep up with all the jobs.  The below just covers some of the fabrication over the last month that's been going on.

The only known survivor of the few Oselli converted Capri's is with us for restoration. 

Converted by Oselli in 1983 using a standard 3.0s as the base car.  Its sat inside for the last 20 years due to an accident that was very badly repaired in the early 90s.  The jig says its fucked...

Further measuring shows the whole front end is off by 17mm.  Owner reports that it drove very badly after receiving it back from the accident repair center.  On full lock the offside front wheel scrubs the chassis leg.

Had an 05 Jag XK8 in for waxoil and stone guard.  Things were going well until I found rot in the floorpans under the dash.

A rather difficult job to sort out that required an interior strip down to reach.  Still it cleaned up well upon reassembly.  The repair is under the brake pedal and had to be done on both sides.  I ended up with that as the fabricators are flat out on everything else.

Mexico is nearing completion on metal work.  Saved one of the doors, rebuilt the rear end and repaired the rear quarter panels.

 

Elsewhere complete repair and reconstruction of a Renault 4 van chassis is going well.  Very little of it survived.

and this turned up...

[Rod/b]

I reckon you could give Fuzz Townsend a lesson or two, this all looks amazing.

[schonker]

I think that standard pickup was at Anglia Car Auctions ale in April.Very rotten but not messed around with if i remember