The grumpy thread

[Captain Furious]

Have you tried a new flexi on the lh caliper, if it's diving left to me that suggests the lh brake is coming on first, it's possible for flexis to partially fail and do a reasonable impression of a oneway valve, the fact it's not as noticeable under heavy braking sort of backs this up in my own mind.

Both flexi hoses are brand new, I was of the same opinion and reasonably confident these would fix it, but it made no difference. So now I’m thinking the only other thing that would cause the left hand brake to come on first would be a master cylinder seal.

 

Even if they don't have original specs they should be able to tell you if both sides are the same

This is a good point

 

I don’t think it’s just an old ford thing, I mean, this is actually on the verge of being dangerous....ok I know that doesn’t rule out it being an old ford thing.

[Angrydicky]

Any pictures of said Grandad? I do like a MK2.

[twosmoke300]

Had this with my spartan mk3 tina based kit car . Was a slightly linked brake pipe in the end . Under slow application on the brake rollers it was perfect but a sharp stab or panic brake on the road and it would pull like feck. Was down to the quantity of fluid it was flowing rather than pressure I suppose

[Angrydicky]

Both flexi hoses are brand new, I was of the same opinion and reasonably confident these would fix it, but it made no difference. So now I’m thinking the only other thing that would cause the left hand brake to come on first would be a master cylinder seal.

That's impossible, sadly. It's just a conventional tandem master cylinder with one front circuit and port dispensing fluid to the front brakes, and one to the back. I would imagine there will be some kind of T-piece or valve a bit further down in the engine bay where the left and right rigid brake pipes are screwed into. I would carefully examine all the pipework from this point to the flexi for kinks, if not then unscrew the union and check for blockages or damage to the end of the pipe that could be constricting the flow.

[Captain Furious]

I actually have surprisingly few pics of it, but here you go, this was the day I picked it up a couple of years ago

 

 

And in the Lake District last year having just come over the Hard Knott Pass

 

 

Brake pipe kink is another good suggestion, I noticed while changing the calliper that the short solid piece between the fleet and the calliper was home made, entirely possible the rest of it is too, I’ll put it on the list to check. Cheers

[Captain Furious]

That's impossible, sadly. It's just a conventional tandem master cylinder with one front circuit and port dispensing fluid to the front brakes, and one to the back. I would imagine there will be some kind of T-piece or valve a bit further down in the engine bay where the left and right rigid brake pipes are screwed into. I would carefully examine all the pipework from this point to the flexi for kinks, if not then unscrew the union and check for blockages or damage to the end of the pipe that could be constricting the flow.

The master cylinder has 3 ports, the front are independent and then the back is a single port which splits at a bias valve I believe. The brakes are pretty heavily biased to the front so the rears hardly do anything until your braking heavily. However the rear brakes are all new too, drums, shoes, slave cylinders. The PO had spent a pretty penny on it..

[Captain Furious]

Oh and this is what i’ll be doing with it tomorrow, hence I was really hoping this calliper would fix it today, because an extra 1400KG shoving it along makes the braking issue even more, ahem, interesting

 

[danthecapriman]

Both flexi hoses are brand new, I was of the same opinion and reasonably confident these would fix it, but it made no difference. So now I’m thinking the only other thing that would cause the left hand brake to come on first would be a master cylinder seal.

 

This is a good point

I don’t think it’s just an old ford thing, I mean, this is actually on the verge of being dangerous....ok I know that doesn’t rule out it being an old ford thing.

It’s not an old Ford thing at all! My Granada estate (mk2) did something similar once though. I was forced to brake particularly hard one day and when I did so there was a loud bang and a very violent pull on braking one way only. I drove straight home after that happened, driving around everything was fine and you’d never know but literally every time you touched the brakes there was a clunk and a hard pull always the same way.

 

I checked everything and found nothing then spotted an odd orange coloured mark on the subframe where the front suspension tie bars mount into the subframe under the front of the car. I grabbed the tie bar and shook it and it was very obviously loose.

Taking it apart showed the old bushes were made of orange foam type stuff which is shit. The hard braking must have finished one of them off and it had torn.

I replaced both with a poly bush kit and tried driving. Problem solved!

If you do change them though only ever undo the big nut on the end of the tie bar to fit new bushes. If you move the inner nut it will alter the suspension settings. Saying that, it might be worth getting all that checked and adjusted regardless after this long!

[Pillock]

Used to be the same for any shortfall in money collected for fares when I drove buses.

I bet you didn't get to keep any excess though!

[Captain Furious]

Yeah I’ve already replaced the tie bar bushes with poly items. They were suggested by the faceache owners page. I was surprised at the shoddiness of the original items construction too, however changing them made no difference.

 

They also seemed like a likely candidate given the symptoms, but alas, no.

[Captain Furious]

I’m liking the kinked brake pipe theory at the minute, I have high hopes for this!

[danthecapriman]

Yeah I’ve already replaced the tie bar bushes with poly items. They were suggested by the faceache owners page. I was surprised at the shoddiness of the original items construction too, however changing them made no difference.

They also seemed like a likely candidate given the symptoms, but alas, no.

The original ones are pathetic really! Why would anyone use foam as a bush!?

 

Have you checked everything is tight? All washers in place? Is the subframe mount ok and not cracked or rusted? Have you checked the subframe to bodyshell bushes?

[Angrydicky]

The master cylinder has 3 ports, the front are independent and then the back is a single port which splits at a bias valve I believe. The brakes are pretty heavily biased to the front so the rears hardly do anything until your braking heavily. However the rear brakes are all new too, drums, shoes, slave cylinders. The PO had spent a pretty penny on it..

I should have waited until I'd checked the many Ford master cylinders we have in at work (I work for a classic brake specialist) before commenting! It would be worth unscrewing the relevant pipe from the side of the master cylinder and checking for blockages in the port or damage to the end of the pipe. A kink is more likely, though, so check for that first.

 

It looks a really lovely example, much jealousy here!

[Captain Furious]

It looks a really lovely example, much jealousy here!

Cheers, when I got it there were two main issues, the brakes, and it ran like shit. It was really down on power, wouldn’t idle nicely and drank fuel like nobody’s business (I mean like 12mpg). The previous owner had put a brand new Weber 38 DGAS on it so naturally I suspected this hadn’t been set up/jetted correctly. After much tweaking and googling it turns out it had, but no adjustment of either the timing or mixtures would make it idle. Eventually out of desperation I checked the valve clearances and discovered nearly all of the exhaust valves were completely closed up. Reset them and it instantly idled like a Rolls Royce phantom. It runs beautifully now it’s just the damn brakes

 

Also to add, the previous owner claimed it had been converted to run on unleaded petrol, but I suspect it hasn’t and valve seat regression had closed up the clearances. I just chuck some lead potion in it now.

[somewhatfoolish]

My Mk2 Granada has had a brake problem since the day I bought it. It pulls to the left, violently, requiring a fair amount of steering input to keep it straight. Previous attempts to fix it have included the obvious bleeding brakes, replacing tie bar bushes, ball joints, flexi hoses, working the calliper pistons in and out etc etc. All to no avail

 

Today I decided to replace the drivers side calliper, because if it’s pulling left logic would suggest it’s the right hand side giving less effort. Replaced, no different

 

Weird thing is it’s had multiple MOT's like this at multiple different test centres and none have said anything about any brake imbalance. My instinct is it’s suspension related but that’s practically all new too.

 

It’s pissing me off now.

Has it ever been on a jig to check everything's square/symmetrical? You could also try checking for matching cornerweights like racers do.

[matt79]

I'm attempting to sell a childs highchair for £20 on Facebook, WCPGW?.......

 

Person A (replies to ad 1 minute after its posted) - Still available?

Me - Yes it is

Person A - I need, Hw much?

Me - £20, as stated in the ad

Person A - No. wen I collect?

Me (a little confused by their message above) - when did you want to collect?

I never hear from Person A again, which is probably for the best.

 

A few days later......

Person B (gets straight to the point) - 8

Me - 8 what?

Person B then vanishes, presumably down the same black hole that Person A fell into. Again probably for the best.

 

At this point I think the high chair will be going to the charity shop.......

[sheffcortinacentre]

Check the lower arm to cradle Bush,if the bolt seizes in it causes the tube to tear out of the rubber & after time the bolt to wear the bolt hole bigger.

 

Jack car up & check the bolt is central, also try levering the arm by putting a crowbar between end of arm & cradle.

 

You can swap Bush on car by priseing arm out of cradle then Jack it back into place.

If the bolt hole has elongated then weld a thick washer back in the correct orientation.

 

If the bolt has seized in the tube you'll need to get your cutting implement of choice between the arm & cradle to cut the ends off.

 

The Bush is same one as fitted to mk3-5 cortinas. It's pretty easy to fit as it has no outer tube.

 

As said above the setting of caster is by the position of the two nuts & bushes on the frt tiebars, a basic check can be done by measuring the length of the wheel base on each side of the car against the original one.

 

Cortinas suffer from the same problem & is not easy to spot but a knackered Bush alters both caster & camber it only really shows up as a problem under brakeing.

 

The top wishbone bushes can also wear & cause probs but only with excess camber/tyre wear rather than swerving under brakeing replacement of these requires the front cradle to be dropped.

[Snipes]

In my experience any odd behaviour that couldn't be accounted for would nearly always be caused by tyres, for whatever reason.

[Captain Furious]

Cheers SCC, some other useful stuff to check. Would we normally expect things like that to be spotted on an MOT?

[sheffcortinacentre]

Due to its location & that there's few mot testers (nowdays) that have experience of this as a common cortina/ Granada problem it's often missed.

[Cavcraft]

*please be the terrible mini-based monstrosity I posted, please be the terrible mini-based monstrosity I posted*

 

LOLZ! Wish it was to be honest, that'd be mega fun.

[SiC]

Lovely day out there today and I've got all morning that I can be doing work on the 1100. Except I appear to have an eye infection in my right eye and now need to go to the pharmacy or maybe the eye hospital.

 

FFS.

[chadders]

Just had a windscreen fitted yesterday.

 

Went out this morning and put the wipers on to clear the screen - one blade flew right off and the other just managed to stay on the arm.

 

Both are now fucked - you'd think that they'd have had enough practice refitting wiper blades by now to do it properly.

[Angrydicky]

Lovely day out there today and I've got all morning that I can be doing work on the 1100. Except I appear to have an eye infection in my right eye and now need to go to the pharmacy or maybe the eye hospital.

 

FFS.

Sure you haven't got shards of metal in there from angle grinding? I've had that before. Definitely ranks at one of my most unpleasant experiences, lying back in a chair while a doctor digs around in your eyeball with a needle...

[SiC]

Sure you haven't got shards of metal in there from angle grinding? I've had that before. Definitely ranks at one of my most unpleasant experiences, lying back in a chair while a doctor digs around in your eyeball with a needle...

That is a constant concern and worry that happening! I always wear PPE when grinding to avoid that. Apparently it's even worse when the metal starts going rusty in your eyeball.

 

However I haven't done any grinding since last weekend. Also haven't actually done any real work on it since then either. Did throw some Polyurethane around it last night but my eyes were already sore before then.

[Richard]

I wouldn't bother with the pharmacy, get straight to a doctor. What are the symptoms? 

[mrbenn]

Could also give NHS direct a ring. I spoke to them when I knackered my foot earlier this year and they made an appointment for me at the relevant department in my local hospital for the same day.

[mercrocker]

SiC, if you haven't already done so get yourself to the eye hospital now.   Please don't fuck around where vision is concerned.

[omegod]

I had bits from grinding that went rusty and it was about a week later, hurt like fuck !

 

As a side note I had an MRI scan recently and they asked if there was any chance I had metal shards in my eye's , I asked what if there was , answer was the scanner will pull them out  ! 

 

I'd just pop to the nearest eye hospital mate as your doc/optician will just send you there anyway 

[dozeydustman]

Lovely day out there today and I've got all morning that I can be doing work on the 1100. Except I appear to have an eye infection in my right eye and now need to go to the pharmacy or maybe the eye hospital.

 

FFS.

 

Hopefully it's nothing too serious Si. Touch of conjunctivitis sounds probable. Itchy gungy eyes aren't fun. 

 

Sure you haven't got shards of metal in there from angle grinding? I've had that before. Definitely ranks at one of my most unpleasant experiences, lying back in a chair while a doctor digs around in your eyeball with a needle...

 

 

why is there not a puke emoji available?