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

Not had much time for the Granada...

This had to happen and it cost me my back. It's hurting quite badly. I had to call in help for the final third of the load as I could still load and unload the wheel barrow but my back did not support me "driving" it. Felt asif my legs would give out on me at any time. The effects of having been at it since november last year in the old house still.






And the job for today and tomorrow...

Moving 144 60x60x4cm tiles. I hope to be able to make use of a pallet carrier, but the pallets are a rotten shape. They need to go down the path in the length not the current width and that means jumping through hoops to get the carrier under.




But it's all for a good cause....

lived in assen for a while, and rotterdam, my first impression was that everything was block paved and looked very tidy

As city dwellers, gardens are premium. Our 8x8 meter plot of back garden is considered large. To us it is a huge improvement over our previous house. City houses with really nice big gardens are well out of my price range. But that's ok. I don't expect much from a garden anyway...

In the Netherlands we do like paved gardens. I think one reason is just as you say, easy to keep clean and tidy. It's also cheapish. Plants are expensive. The more rural areas often have more space and more planted gardens. Same with the higher price range city houses, you see more green there as well.

There's one category of houses that shows a lot of green, though they are cheap. That is the category of people who barely get by and have no means to do a garden and let it just develop on its own.


Our goals for the gardens:

Back should be a place where we can enjoy the sun, sit and relax and have dinners and enjoy time with friends and family. There's also a practical aspect of having to store 4 bikes and a mobility scooter. So a shed with a porch area is planned. So we are planning to pave most of the garden. Leaving room for two large enough planters. So we will have a stiing area under the shed roof and we will have an open sitting area between the planters.

Front also two large planters that meet in the corner of the garden. The rest paved so when the kids have friends over they can safely put their bikes somewhere and ....most importantly I can use part of the front garden when working on the cars. I can just put it in at an angle and have room to spare!

The drive will also be repaved. So in the next 2 weeks the house will have evolved quite a bit again!!

I love it, only drawback is it eats into Granada time. But as it is SORNED for a year, I can easily do what is important now and get back to the car in a month or so.

Ps. The pallet carrier helped, but did not fit the pallets. And any attempt to work around that just meant the pallets destruction as they are cheap expendable units. So in the end I had to lift each stone twice but was able to move them the 25 meters required 10 at a time on the carrier. Took just 3,5 hours by myself... ;-)

Well, not much to update on the Granada front. I went to see it a few days ago to make sure it's still in my posession. Now I have moved It's less convenient to walk over and check so it happens a lot less frequently.

Thankfully the car was still there. I did wonder if one tire was a little bit more flat, but that in my opinion isn't always easy to judge by eye unless it's really flat. I opened the door and the mirrors unfolded. The sound that produced inspired no confidence and sure enough, though the fuel pump in the back still pumped, the starter never even clicked. Just nothingness. Well, it's to be expected after weeks of standing. As my charger was dead, I have no way of charging the battery so I'll look out for a new charger. I have a spare battery that hopefully will provide enough power to get it running.

As it's been sitting for weeks now, I'm curious to see if things have resolved themselves or not. Any moisture must have gone by now surely?! Not that I'm expecting much, but I'm gathering the spares to change for instance the edis and the crank sensor etc.

Also I've not sat down for any length of time to actually really do much about the Granada anyway. As the pallets of stones were joined by a pallet load of 2000KG of wood. Over the past three weeks both gardens front and back and the drive have been transformed and I built my own house as well. Ok, it's a prefab package and not Mrs_Misfits summer palace, but still a huge amount of work to do by yourself (as I did)... What remains is putting in the custom flower beds and cross garden beams.

Have some pics. I'll spare you the account of the respective builds and all the work gone into it. And what my back thought of it all...

These you know:



Were joined by:


And after transferring the first 10.000KG's by hand to the rear of the garden fencing by:


To start this (back garden):














After which I could unload this, filling the garden with a sorted bunch of 44mm wood in max lengths of almost 6 meters:



Meanwhile doing this in between to give my body a bit of relief:



Somewhere in between I pulled the paving from the front yard to go into another bigger container:



As a few days later...front yard makeover:











And on with the back yard:



Prepping the beams of the garden house I will not be able to access:


And pulling the paving from the drive and repaving:





Back to the back garden garden house build. Old fencing removed and build started (took me about 2 days by myself from start to finish as a first time builder and it's all square and seemingly watertight!
















And currently working on:




Hm, doens't look like three weeks work when looking at the pictures though.

Anyway, I wish I was showing pics of a now fixed granada being put in it's rightful home instead of yet more DIY house remodelling. I miss my Granada. I miss how the sound system or the exhaust note or the continuous pull on acceleration make me smile and cheer me up....

I'll say you have gotten a lot done in three weeks. Everything takes more time than you think at startup :-)
I believed that my four weeks of summer vacation would allow me time to change the planking on one of the walls on my house, but in the end I managed to exchange two windows and the planking in between them. I also managed to lay down some tiles in my pavilion. not much done on any of the cars though. Life and more important family/house matters always interfere with my hobby.
Hopefully you will get your Granada home in the end and get around to fixing the last little niggles.

Mammoth amount of work! must have espcialy difficult being upside down !

the upside down thing is normally an iphone issue I think.

You certainly have been cracking on Alex! Some tough work done, my body hurts just looking at it all! That garden house is exactly what I would like in our garden, one of these days...

Time for a little update methinks!

A Granada related one even! Yes, call it a Christmas Miracle!

First of all: best wishes to all my friends here on RR, all my followers who have stayed with me throughout the build and all its ups and downs!

So as the company I work for is collectively closed over the Christmas and New Year period, I had a bit of vacation time. I added to that one and a half day to finish up last of the 2018 home renovation work. Not that it's all done, but it's 97% there and the remaining 3% I'll get on with from January onward! So after a very fruitful couple of days, I took a break from everything but family and the holiday induced obligations, which for me also include my birthday and my dad's birthday, so plenty of family time.

After having enjoyed a few days of partying and nothingness I decided on visiting the Granada on the 24th. I had recently bought a cheap charger with a 5 step program to top up and keep topped up any 6 or 12 volt battery. Didn't expect much for the money, but hooking it to one of my spare batteries for a bit it turned the black glass tell tale to green again so it must have been doing something right.

I took said battery with me as the second spare at the garage was probably not much good anymore and I knew the car fitted one was dead. I tried the spare that was already in front of the car first but unfortunately the car did not turn over. Changed the battery for the spare I'd brought in my Transit van and it got the starter moving. Felt a little sluggish maybe but it started in one go. Just as I thought it wouldn't be enough.

Felt good to hear the beast running. Doing some checks in the meantime, it kept running past the one and even 3 minute mark. I kept it running and it hadn't died yet after 10 minutes. I did feel the engine wasn't as smooth as it could be at idle, but that can also be fouled plugs or anything simple. At least it was running on all six. The ecu gave me two codes, one for a lean bank of cylinders and one for an ignition fault. I cleared both and they did not pop back up. At that point I tried shutting it down with the key and restarting, which it performed well at least three times by starting every time. Although the starter still felt a bit sluggish. Codes stayed away.

My thoughts are that having had the car stationary for a while (apart from rolling the wheels sometimes by hand) the moisture that must have caused the problems as they started right after having washed the under hood area, must have by now evaporated completely.

The running time was 25 minutes or more and no uncalled shutdowns.

I'm hesitant to go for a real drive though, for fear of being wrong and grinding to a halt in some inconvenient place (I was pretty lucky last time in that regard). I might have to find me a chaser car with a tow strap!

I'm thinking that if the car is good enough to come home, I should aim for February to do so and get to fixing that loom in it's official new home. But I promised my girl I'd finish her room first now, do the plinths in the house and then put up shelving in the garage so the floor is free and the car can come home.

The drawback of working alone on the house is that progress is slow, though satisfactorily nice. And to add to that, Christmas and New Year at the new place felt very good. We had a good time with friends and family and the house really feels like our home. I'll add some pics later on that subject.

But at least the Granada year ended on a little more positive note!