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

Not much news to report... The Granada is in hibernation basically...

It starts first time every time even in freezing temperatures after two weeks of not being started. I'll give it a short run as soon as the roads are cleaner.

Thankfully the garage survived the new years festivities and fireworks. I visit the garage at alternating times and days with no real patern, but I do keep checking if it's still there, lol.

Now just prepping for some work to do to myself (loose weight) and to the Granada (finishing touches in the interior)...

It is a good looking ride you've got there! Nice to see it performing well even during its winter sleep. The pictures, especially the first ones, were spectacular!
I hope you will find some time during this year to use your car during summer also. It deserves to be used!

Looks great. I bet it looks out of place over there!

Glad to hear Mrs Boss approves! She's got good taste!

I have to admit that this car is still a bit of a controversy. Most people really really like what I've done, but there are some who can't get past the non-original but period correct(ish) colour and the modern (actually functional and useful) mirrors...

I do get a lot of joy from comments like these!


To be honest, a winter fix was quite needed!!

As you well know from personal experience these restorations take time (years often) and all that time you are working toward a goal, but as much joy and frustration as the build may generate, you have to do without the mojo boost of actually enjoying the vehicle.

Mine was finished now for a few months, well some little details to do still, but I really felt almost the same as during the build as salty roads or rains saw me not being able (or wanting) to enjoy the car itself. So this little outing was great and put a real smile on my face. The fact that my wife also quite enjoyed it made it only better!

I love reading your threads and hope you'll get some more truck time soon! Say hi and thanks to Mrs Boss for me!

So, a little update on the Granada... We're in the spring now so the oldtimer meeting season is getting started. That means getting the Granada up to 100% finished.

Over the winter I had no opportunity to really work on the car. Having left the lovely barn I did my final stint up to MOT in, means I now only work in the outside. Weather has not been very permitting and temperatures are still behind on the normal range. So over the winter I did nothing more than recharging batteries: the Granada's and mine at the same time.

The Granada seems to behave well enough. It always starts in one go even after standing. The engine is a bit noisy if it has been stood for a while. It also leaks oil past the sump gasket and bolts. But hey this was considered a proof of concept engine anyway. And it has certainly done that. Proven by the fact that it even brings my wife to outright sounds of joy and laughter when I hit the go fast pedal! That says quite a lot.

I ave found by now that speed bumps are an issue, or better put, the low exhaust is an issue. Speed bumps that are flat, no matter how high, are no problem and the comfy suspension and dampers mean I can almost litterally fly over those. But as soon as the bumps tend to have a crest(?), a raised centre with it's high point right in the middle I'm in trouble. If the situation permits I can I can negate them by putting one set of wheels over the centre, but often there is no room to get so far out of lane or there are curbstones etc. And in those cases I hear a terrible scraping noise that scared innocent pedestrians every now and then. But other than that it is great fun behind the wheel.

So have some shots of one of those winter outings.





After having put some miles on the odometer and having ran into several of those pesky speed bumps, I felt it was now time to start the season prep.

An important thing to do was make an appointment with a befriended furniture upholsterer. As those of you who have followed the build know, I so far made all my own interior trim pieces, but now I've come to some items that gave me too much of a headache and this friend said it would be no trouble for him. So a meeting was arranged. That should see the last of the interior trim taken care of. And to be honest I'm quite looking forward to that! Seeing the full interior 100% done.

But, there's always a but right? Well the but here was that this friend has his workshop and life 160km's from where I have mine. So that means sort of a trial by fire for the Granada. Yes I've driven quite a few miles by now. But it's all/mostly local. Speeds up to 120-140 have been tested, but running times have usually been up to half an hour in one go max. That is mostly due to me not knowing where to drive off to when I go for one of those battery charging trips. So this trip will be 90 minutes to 1 and three quarter hours in one go and mostly at highway speed. The last time I heard my fans kick in was when the car was on the 4 poster during alignment. And still I always feel the engine bay is quite hot when I have abused, I mean driven, the car for a stretch. Still I've no reason to even think that they are inoperable. They just kick in relatvely late. Possibly as the 88 degree new thermostat means that the radiator is quickly in the loop. The only bad thing is, the temp gauge reads permanently high. And I've got both a good inkling why as well as a possible solution to getting it right. Thing is, I dread having to take the dash out again to look into this... So I've enlisted a mate from here to help me sort this soon. See I'm getting things moving...

Anyway in preparation for this long round trip, I thought it prudent to check that the wheels were still on tight, the wheel bearings still had no play and basically that all the botls verywhere were still tight. I'd once before in restoration one had a nice event where it turns out 21 out of 24 important bolts had come undone from driving and too much applied grease, so I was adament to prevent things like that from happening 160km's away from home.

So last saturday I chanced the weather and drove the Granada home for a checkup. With the front and rear in the air one after another I did my checks. Basically all was well. Better than expected really. I only found one issue which was the same for both sides: the top brake caliper bolts were not very tight. Now these were hard to tighten back then as the hardline connecting the flexline to the caliper runs across them, meaning no socket can be put on them. I had used a spanner before, but that had little movement so I guess I didn't get them as tight as I should have. And the locking tabs are hardly any use after 40 plus years. Safe to say I now slightly altered the hard lines so a socket could be used.





So with that out of the way, I decided I'd give the old girl a wash. It hadn't been washed in months but kept under cover not much dirt was accumulated on the body. Still a wash made a huge difference! The wheels showed the most improvement though as the brake dust was quickly washed from them. Using a good shampoo means it now shines quite nicely. Soon I'll have to make time to actually wax the damned thing. But I'm waiting for a sunny from start, but mildly warm day to do so. Somehow I just can't bring myself to detailing the car on cloudy days...

So that brings us up to date.

I'm going to focus on a few small things to get the car in top shape. I'm looking forward to doing so!

I'm only looking for a set of black (preferably) sun visors in good shape and the chrome caps for the hand grips to complete the interior.




I must say though. As nice of a guy I usually am, this car really turns me into a little devil. I feel 100% boy racer in this thing. I'm still a gentleman in traffic as far as driving correctly goes (signalling etc.), but I really do have to watch my speed...

And a final picture to prove it's being used (with the lights on as one person seems to find very important ;-0 )

Excellent to hear you're getting so much enjoyment from this car and giving enjoyment to others with it. Good luck on your journey!

It will be fine on the long run for the trimmings

Remember the first time I took mine from Ashford, Kent down to Le Man. That was 3-4hours of payeage motorway on the way, and fully loaded up with stuff as well

Are you having the other bits of trim done in black leather to match the Passat seats?

It's not that I really have a reason to worry about it's performance, it's just the fact that it's the first time it sees an outing of this kind that I feel some butterflies. If worse comes to worst, I have AAA support so I would always be helped/brought home. But I don't think I'll be needing that! I do feel prudent to prep and take some fuel, fluids etc. with me. But in all fairness to the car itself, as I don't want to jinx my trip, it hasn't skipped a beat since I did my much needed fuel tank cleanout.

On the other end of the spectrum, I'm very anxious to find out just how I'll feel after driving the car for long distances. Will I hate it, will I love it? I mean the exhaust is prominent and the car is far from silent inside. Ok, I have a sound/airleak to the outside underside of the car to plug yet (gearlever mount is cleverly made but harder to get closed off and the top of the console is also still open for the moment) so that may influence my perception a bit as well.

So in any event it will be a good experience to go through. I suspect it will further boost confidence in the car and prove to me it's ready for any gathering/meeting I want to attend close to home or far away.

The jobs I'm going to get a hand with are covering the speaker pods and widening the original Passat CC side bolsters to match the much wider Granada. I've given it quite some thought and have decided to use the same materials I used on my doorpanels (black vinyl with alcantara inserts). So the speaker pods as they are at the feet and will no doubt catch some dirt every once in a while will be black vinyl only. The side bolsters I hope to be able to spruce up a bit by combining the alcantara and vinyl but will be mostly vinyl as the alcantara is down to leftovers. I have a firm belief that the CC interior also was not 100% leather even if you had the leather seat option or my interior is a mixed batch (I bought from a wholesale vendor who had litteraly a wharehouse full of VW/Audi and other marques interiors in stock, salvaged from written off and also preproduction cars that are destroyed), as the factory side bolsters as I have them are also covered in vinyl. To be hones though, the vinyl I used is VW pattern so I've not once felt that all my custom covered items mismatched any of the original stuff.

Well I guess this update is overdue, well overdue in fact.

After the last update I left you with a planned trip and some anxiety about making it there in one piece as it would be the longest trip since the build was finished (if they ever are). So let's just pick up where I left off...

The trip was supposed to be about trimming the final pieces of my interior. But for that to be succesful, I had to at least have all of it installed! There were two pieces I'd not yet fitted: the rear seat side bolsters. I'd let that slide as for one it was never going to be an easy task and it wasn't an MOT showstopper back then either. But in order for the upholsterer to be able to see exactly what he would need to do to them, they now needed to be in place. It wouldn't be enough to just hold them there and risk a different fit once all the bracketry was made and fitted. So I set about making the brackets. It was indead a bit of a tough job, not in difficulty, but more in the sense of having to climb in and out of the car a million times. Removing and refitting the seat bottom a zillion times and marking up the items so holes and brackets would sit where I wanted them. The actual fabrication wasn't such a problem.

I created two brackets that allowed me to fix the bolsters to the devider between the passenger compartiment and the boot area. I screwed them to an existing mount in the VW bolsters and glued the bottom in place. It was just a support anyway. Next I had to find a way to deal with the fact that the lower bolster mount in my application would be 10 cm off the car floor. So I made a set of studs to position them. Although they do what they need to, they are not designed to take a lot of force. But they don't need to either. The forces that act upon the piece are handled at the top mount and by a support block attached to the back of the bolster. This will be held by a bolt within the rear arch. All this took several hours but I'm pleased with the results. Once widened it will all look perfect!






As weather permitted and I was already getting in and out of the back a zillion times anyway I took advantage and also created a bracket for my third brake light/rear interior lights custom module. Way back when I thought adding a third brake light would be a good thing. It has a reason that they have been mandatory for ages on new cars. Thing was that that light would sit exactly where the factory interior lighting would be. Now that factory light is nothing to be proud of when judging the amount of light it produces. So I had another thought, why not add bright white LED lights aimed in a fixed position at the seats like reading lights and hook that up instead. Makes the most of the brake light housing as well.

I need to wire it up still, so no lights are present in the pic shown, but you'll get the idea. Thankfully the Granada roof structure had a nice and flat piece of metal that I could mount my bracket to. Only hairy moment was when the drill suddenly bit into it and shot up! My heart going like mad, I jumped out and saw no damage, pfew...



With that out of the way I had spent a lot of my energy and decided to just prep the car, stuff in all I wanted to have with me in both tools + fluids and materials for the upholsterer I had left over from earlier.

Not much more to do than to store the car and wait for Monday to come...

Well Monday came and I was all hyped to get going. So at the appropriate time I picked up the Granada and drove to the filling station. I filled her up to the brim as 320km with an unknown quantity of Cosworth 2.9 litre fule consumption would no doubt mean it would be a pretty good bit less full once back home.

And that is where things went wrong... I had had the sanity to check for leaks now the tank was fuller than ever before, but I was totally not expecting to actually find one. And in this case one curse word directly onto the rear exhaust box. Thankfully with less then 2 minutes of driving the exhaust was hardly even warm to the touch. I quickly drove home to drain the tank. Of course it was raining the whole time. And draining the tank via it's fuel sender (easiest access) was a slow process. In the end it was all just down to one pinhole high up on the tank just below where it transitions to the top.

Not too difficult a fix really, but by now time had passed (90+ minutes) and my desire to undertake the trip had also plummeted. I smelled like fuel and was wet anyway. So I rescheduled for next friday. Hopefully we'll have more luck then!




I parked the car up with a temporary fix to the tank and called it a day...




As I had time off from work I took advantage of the weather another two times. Those were the only decent days we had, just 2.5 in 1.5 weeks...

One of those days I took my family for a nice walk, practicing my other hobby...photography.







The other I treated my daily Transit van to detailing the paitwork. As it had just had a service and was now running smooth as silk I thought I'd get the exterior to match. I've owned it for a little over a year now and have kept up washing it regularly but never polished or waxed it since. So this time I decided to use decent products and an extensive process. I washed, clayed, polished and waxed the full car by hand. Took me 6 hours but left the car looking excellent and the paintwork smooth as my ever more balding head.








And with that the vacation was done with... Other less interesting works undertaken were painting our 16 beam ceiling and fitting a new senior height toilet at my parents along with assorted other little jobs like fixing fawcets and floats. Typical jobs that lousy weather is good for.

So now it's on with the show. I'm pretty motivated to do the last of the little things to the car, but I do notice that the sun has to be out. In cloudy grey weather I have a lot more trouble getting myself to do stuff.

Anyway, here's to the 12th being a good day with the Granada!