Ford Sierra GVG 510Y

[sierraman]

13 minutes ago, Tenmil Socket said:

I’m sure I’ve seen a MK1 Focus on XR2 pepper pots and it looked like a roller boot. 

Backwards fitting alloys always ends up looking cack. 

[danthecapriman]

Ages back I sold a set of the deep dish 5.5j dartboard wheels to some bloke who turned up to collect them in a mk1 Focus. He then proceeded to fit said dartboard wheels to said Focus out on the street outside my house!

It looked absolutely shit😆

[Missy Charm]

On 09/01/2026 at 10:49, adw1977 said:

No, the first 5 speed Granadas appeared in the October 1982 brochure, the same month the Sierra went on sale.

The humble 1.3 Escort was the first UK Ford to be available with a 5 speed gearbox, sometime between October 1981 and May 1982 ( I don't have any brochures in-between those months).

I never saw the point of fifth gear in the 1.3 Fords as it seemed to be slightly too high a ratio for the engine to manage comfortably.  There was no acceleration at all in fifth and the cars never seemed to be able to maintain speed on any sort of uphill gradient.  One could, if memory serves, actually go faster in fourth, too.  

Unbearable pedantry alert! (read the following in a nasal voice)  You might not quite be right about the first five-speed Ford in the UK, in that I think a few road-going GT40 Mk1s were built.  Those, as in the 289 cars, had a five-speed transmission.  Do they count as Fords available in England?  God knows, but I know which I'd have if offered the choice between a GT40 and a 1.3 Escort...

Incidentally, Ford's went back to four speeds for the GT40 when they moved on to the big-block cars.  

More to the point, it's great to hear nice things are happening to the Sierra!  

[vaughant]

On 30/12/2025 at 15:03, Peter C said:

@ianb Sierra

Any chance you could ask your contacts whether they have a set of four good doors for my Sapphire please?

Will Cossie doors fit? From a 1990 model? Pretty sure I have 4 good ones in my shed. I'd need to dig them out but they got painted 15 years ago and were the best of a bunch of other doors I had lying around. I seem to recall zero rust and they may even have had good seals on them? I might need to keep the "cosworth" bagged though 🤭🤭.

Might still have a few of those other doors as well.

Really need to go through all my spares, I've got probably a container full.

Don't worry there'll be no Cossie tax on the doors 🤣🤣🤣, but let me check what they're like first, they might have been fucked from standing although everything else I've taken out of there still looks pretty good.

[dozeydustman]

On 20/01/2026 at 20:36, Missy Charm said:

I never saw the point of fifth gear in the 1.3 Fords as it seemed to be slightly too high a ratio for the engine to manage comfortably.  There was no acceleration at all in fifth and the cars never seemed to be able to maintain speed on any sort of uphill gradient.  One could, if memory serves, actually go faster in fourth, too.  

Unbearable pedantry alert! (read the following in a nasal voice)  You might not quite be right about the first five-speed Ford in the UK, in that I think a few road-going GT40 Mk1s were built.  Those, as in the 289 cars, had a five-speed transmission.  Do they count as Fords available in England?  God knows, but I know which I'd have if offered the choice between a GT40 and a 1.3 Escort...

Incidentally, Ford's went back to four speeds for the GT40 when they moved on to the big-block cars.  

More to the point, it's great to hear nice things are happening to the Sierra!  

Ford were quite late on with 4 speed boxes as standard. First was the 105E then the Tincorna.

I know what you mean by the Escort 1.3 being better with a 4-speeder. The friends I had who drove Escorts mostly had 1.3s and I seem the remember the 5-speeders running out of puff quickly. Not sure of the ratios but it does feel like the 5th was a true overdrive ratio for cruising at speed. Different gate patterns between 4 and 5 speeders ISTR

[Peter C]

5 hours ago, vaughant said:

Will Cossie doors fit? From a 1990 model? Pretty sure I have 4 good ones in my shed. I'd need to dig them out but they got painted 15 years ago and were the best of a bunch of other doors I had lying around. I seem to recall zero rust and they may even have had good seals on them? I might need to keep the "cosworth" bagged though 🤭🤭.

Might still have a few of those other doors as well.

Really need to go through all my spares, I've got probably a container full.

Don't worry there'll be no Cossie tax on the doors 🤣🤣🤣, but let me check what they're like first, they might have been fucked from standing although everything else I've taken out of there still looks pretty good.

Based on @lisbon_road advice, my Sapphire’s doors are different to later model doors but apart from different colour window trims (mine are plastic chrome) I still don’t understand what the differences are. 

Post some pics if you can and I will compare yours and mine.

[lisbon_road]

On 23/01/2026 at 07:01, Peter C said:

Based on @lisbon_road advice, my Sapphire’s doors are different to later model doors but apart from different colour window trims (mine are plastic chrome) I still don’t understand what the differences are. 

Post some pics if you can and I will compare yours and mine.

I guess we'd better cover this again.

This I am certain of:

Mk1 Sierras had small windows with deeper frames in the pressed out doors.  The dimension of the frame is larger because the windows are smaller.  Mk2 Sierras after 1987 had larger windows and narrower frames.  

There were different basic styles of door card, which required different pressings in the inner side of the door.  Mk1s had one style, then a new style from 1987.  I think there might be a third style with late cars but I am not sure.

This is the part Peter refers to:

I believe that the earliest Mk2s had the smaller windows from Mk1s with wide window frames.  I remember a body shop man telling me that they used to replace these when relatively new with Mk1 doors with the inner section cut out and replaced with the inner part from the damaged early Mk2s.

There's a fair chance that Peters is one of these cars being a very early Mk2.

If you fitted a full set of doors, it might not matter as they'd all match anyway - depending on how obsessive you are about originality.  

I s'pose if you got some very late doors, and if the cards fit differently, you could also use the inner sections of your original doors, either welded in or possibly using panel bond and rivets or something.

This may seem a lot of fuss about nothing, but just imagine if Peter got hold of one or two doors, paid to get them painted, fitted them and the windows were a different size.  Wouldn't be good.  

@ianb Sierra has two Sierras at each end of the ages so could perhaps take a picture of a bit of door frame on each to allow Peter to see what his has.  If after all that Peter's are just normal Mk2, I'm leaving the country.  

Edited to fix an obvious mistake!

 

[ianb Sierra]

On 23/01/2026 at 15:05, lisbon_road said:

I guess we'd better cover this again.

This I am certain of:

Mk1 Sierras had small windows with deeper frames in the pressed out doors.  The dimension of the frame is larger because the windows are smaller.  Mk2 Sierras after 1987 had larger windows and narrower frames.  

There were different basic styles of door card, which required different pressings in the inner side of the door.  Mk1s had one style, then a new style from 1987.  I think there might be a third style with late cars but I am not sure.

This is the part Peter refers to:

I believe that the earliest Mk2s had the larger windows from Mk1s with wide window frames.  I remember a body shop man telling me that they used to replace these when relatively new with Mk1 doors with the inner section cut out and replaced with the inner part from the damaged early Mk2s.

There's a fair chance that Peters is one of these cars being a very early Mk2.

If you fitted a full set of doors, it might not matter as they'd all match anyway - depending on how obsessive you are about originality.  

I s'pose if you got some very late doors, and if the cards fit differently, you could also use the inner sections of your original doors, either welded in or possibly using panel bond and rivets or something.

This may seem a lot of fuss about nothing, but just imagine if Peter got hold of one or two doors, paid to get them painted, fitted them and the windows were a different size.  Wouldn't be good.  

@ianb Sierra has two Sierras at each end of the ages so could perhaps take a picture of a bit of door frame on each to allow Peter to see what his has.  If after all that Peter's are just normal Mk2, I'm leaving the country.  

 

Another job for tomorrow!

[ianb Sierra]

Carb has come back from the refurbishers, new leads, plugs etc.

All the new door seals have arrived and seem to fit OK.

Runs much better with some fettling.

I think I've located an original rear back box with the s tailpipe.

A bit more removal of bits as the paintshop is now next week.

Grey grill removed and sitting in the conservatory (it's not the worse thing I've had in there to my wife's despair)

[sierraman]

Great to see it’s getting jobs done that will ensure its survival. Looking forward ti seeing the paint job. 

[mk2_craig]

Can I ask a question about the wheels, which are presumably original and look identical to those on the early low spec Fiesta mk2 but I think must differ. Is there a size stamped on the rim anywhere? 

It might be that they have a deeper “dish” than the Fiesta type, different offset, or both. 

[ianb Sierra]

7 hours ago, mk2_craig said:

Can I ask a question about the wheels, which are presumably original and look identical to those on the early low spec Fiesta mk2 but I think must differ. Is there a size stamped on the rim anywhere? 

It might be that they have a deeper “dish” than the Fiesta type, different offset, or both. 

My step son looked at the weekend and they appear to be the same size as the fiesta.

[adw1977]

Early Mark 2 Fiestas (except Ghia) used an identical looking 135x13 wheel.

Base Sierras used a 165x13 for hatchback and 175x13 for estate.

[Bmwdumptruck]

55 minutes ago, adw1977 said:

Early Mark 2 Fiestas (except Ghia) used an identical looking 135x13 wheel.

Base Sierras used a 165x13 for hatchback and 175x13 for estate.

According to the brochure posted earlier in this thread the base Fiestas ran 135x12 tyres on just 4” rims, the base Sierra using 5.5” x13 rims with a similar look, but I reckon side by side they’d be obviously different.  Looking through the catalogue Ford in those days made quite a few styalised steel rims for various base models before offering a full wheel trim up to the Ghia alloys. 

[adw1977]

9 minutes ago, Bmwdumptruck said:

According to the brochure posted earlier in this thread the base Fiestas ran 135x12 tyres on just 4” rim

Didn't that refer to Mark 1 Fiestas?

At launch, all Mark 2 had 13" wheels.

Mark 2 Fiesta launch brochure

[mk2_craig]

16 minutes ago, adw1977 said:

At launch, all Mark 2 had 13" wheels.

Correct, but I was wondering if the rim was wider on base Sierra (and not sure whether these were the wheels also used on early L/GL behind those awesome wheel trims) 

[Mike D]

@mk2_craig I am 99% sure from my scrappy delving in the good old days that the Sierra rims are wider, as I had the narrow ones on my 950 pop mk2

 

*EDIT* bloody lovely to see this old crate getting such love lavished upon it, top work!

[greengartside]

There’s a chap in Birmingham breaking a red Mk1 if you require anything.
 

On Facebook marketplace.

[Noel Tidybeard]

i think one giveaway with mk1 vs mk2 doors is the radius of corners of the of the window opening with the mk1 being moar rounded & mk2 being a bit more of a sharp corner

[Peter C]

@Noel Tidybeard

You’re seeing something that my eyes and brain can’t comprehend. Along which end is the difference?

[Noel Tidybeard]

1 minute ago, Peter C said:

@Noel Tidybeard

You’re seeing something that my eyes and brain can’t comprehend. Along which end is the difference?

all the window corners are more round on the red one compared to yours

[Peter C]

12 minutes ago, Noel Tidybeard said:

all the window corners are more round on the red one compared to yours

Got ya!

You might be right.

Next question, show me the difference between my doors and later Sierra doors.

[greengartside]

The red one is the one that’s being broken for spares!

[lisbon_road]

53 minutes ago, Peter C said:

Got ya!

You might be right.

Next question, show me the difference between my doors and later Sierra doors.

Bear in mind that there may be no difference - on the outside anyway.  ie my crazy hypothesis was wrong!

[Rightnider]

GVG 510Y seems to have got the best custodian we could have dreamed of. 
 

Keep up the good work!

[ianb Sierra]

3 hours ago, Peter C said:

Got ya!

You might be right.

Next question, show me the difference between my doors and later Sierra doors.

Sorry, forgot to measure up.

One of the biggest differences in mk1 to mk2 is the door vents.

Mk1s have door vents, mk2s don't.

The window frames do seem smaller on mk1s as I got some outer seals, from a mk1 to fit on the mk2 estate and they were to small.

 

I think the doors fit OK as long as you keep the trim the same, but as mentioned there are small differences and it could look out of place.

 

[ianb Sierra]

3 hours ago, greengartside said:

The red one is the one that’s being broken for spares!

I've inquired.

Unfortunately, the door cards on the base are unique and different to all the other mk1s

[ianb Sierra]

So I applied for the cars history via a V888, which came back today.

It's seems it was sold by Pertwee and Back of Great Yarmouth, who do still exist today as a main Ford dealer. 

Due to data protection etc, it omits all names and addresses, but on what looks like the original registration form, it was sold to Zenith Motors of London, which I think is now Zenith fleet management.

That would explain the year owned in 83/84 and the fleet no smoking sticker on the driver window....possibly....

[greengartside]

Oh my goodness that’s amazing! 

Yes, Pertwee and Back are still trading. They moved address a few years ago but their old showroom still exists.

[adw1977]

I have this picture of Leroy, the owner in 2011 in London, he owned it for many years.