1972 Granada Mk1 coupe build - Inching closer... 22-05-2023

Well this week I was one session short on working on the car. I only had one short evening and I used that as best I could.

I'm still prepping the car for the blaster. Almost done now. I have started sanding down the rear wings. This so the blaster only needs to lightly blast them clean so warping is absolutely not an issue. With full paint on it probably wouldn't be an issue eihter as the company doing the work is specialised in old cars but still, better safe then sorry.

I only have the roof to go and the wings to finish. It seems a fast job, but it isn't really. As there is filler on the car, it takes a while to get it all off with 80 grit paper. But it's the preferred way of my bodyman so....

This is how she looks now.




On other fronts there has been progress at last. It proved a lot more difficult then one would imagine to buy all nuts, bolts, rings, screws etc. all new and in a quality that can withstand the wheather and still look good in a couple of years.

I was thinking yellow passified (?), but that is still susceptible to corrosion after a while. So I decided to buy the bolts in standard zinc, and then to have them processed by another company. I'm having them de-zinced and then coated in P1000 an aluminium/zinc coating that far exceeds the quality of the yellow passivate.

Ok, it's going to cost me approximately 55-100 euro, but I'm having some 40Kg's done. And that includes hinges for the hood and doors etc. The finish will be a silvery colour, but not the blue silver. It's the first time I'm using this process as it is relatively new, but I have high expectations!

So in the next 3 weeks a lot should be happening. The car should be moved to the blasters and be blasted and the bolts should all be delivered to me and then processed. Once that is done, I will fully rebuild the front and rear suspension subframes. And it should all look like new. The suspension itself has been blasted and powdercoated some time ago and was fitted with Polyurethane bushes.

I can't wait and am quite excited about the progress. Just hope to be able to realise all plans!

Thanks!! The more people I can interest the better it makes me feel and it sure helps keep the motivation up!

Hi there...

The suspension components were first stripped to bare components. ball joints, bushes etc. were all removed first. Then the parts were shot blasted and powdercoated. I chose a metallic grey colour for that as it sets off against a black car bottom yet isn't too in your face. I showed some of that stuff in my second update post on page one.

All fasteners like bolts and nuts and rings will be coated in P1000. That is silvery, not blue silver like standard blue passivated zinc. It's a combination of aluminium and zinc coating.

I chose P1000 for one because it uses no hydrogenperoxide (?) which can cause brittleness in metal. You wouldn't want that in suspension bolts now would you? It also is much more corrosion resistant then standard yellow and blue passivates.

I have somewhere said where the seats are from. I don't want to emphasize that too much as they are non Ford, but I loved them from the first time I say them. They are volkswagen passat cc 2009 and up. They are also in the regular passat, but the rear seat doesn't have the 2+2 arrangement being separated by a small storage unit with cup holders. They will need considerable work to fit mind you. but nothing one can't handle with a welder.

The great thing is that on e-bay germany they are very easily found (although it seems to get harder then before) at reasonable prices. Reasonable in comparison with retrimming your original seats in genuine leather or even vinyl. Try doing that for under 600 euro! And they are heated and fully electrically adjustable.

As you can see, any questions one might have, I'll try to answer them as best I can.

Love this! Bookmarked!

Thanks a lot!

great looking project, will be watchin this with interest

Hi John,

I must admit, it is daunting at times!! A bare shell has to be really bare for blasting or chemical stripping. Really every grommet and every screw or bolt should be removed. That is a lot of parts!

But to me it's like this...If I were to continue with the car as it was, I would have fixed the visible spots, but never had known that there were patches on the car with rusted out plates underneath. Or I would have found them later on after a bunch of work and money. Like the first time where the car was super solid under the wings, but after a while I started finding rust flakes (big ones) in the engine bay. Shouldn't have been possible with a solid car so out came the grinder to investigate, and the result was shown in one of the earlier posts on page 1...

I wanted to prevent this from happening. Precisely as I am on a TIGHT budget. All the money going in has to count if you know what I mean. So doing things right is extra important to prevent me from spending money now and again in two years. Also I want the car to look new for as long as possible when finished.

Any process, whether blasting or chemically dipping, will never ever get all rust out, cause between two spotwelded joints, even the fluids won't fully reach and the sand has even less of a chance. But, it's better than not doing anything (unless you know you have a solid car with no patchwork over rust). And it's also why cavity waxing or painting or whatever one chooses still remains so very important.

But on the other hand, it's also an even bigger reward when you start building up the layers of paint and start putting on (new or reconned) parts to a bare shell. But admittedly, it's a huge undertaking. But the rewards should be huge as well.

On the V8 subject. If I had 2500 euro (or pounds for that matter) just lying around, my car would be a lot further along! That is to me a huge sum to pay for an engine and some saleable parts... For reference, my cosworth BoB engine and gearbox cost less then 500 euro's and we got the whole car with them... A V8 I'd have to have up and running for about 1000 euro's including a suitable gearbox... For relatively modern Ford V8's I have to shell out a lot more over here as they just aren't plentyful. But nothing beats the sound of a smoothly running V8!

I'm open to suggestions even if they are for the future! Is a project car ever really finished?? And to be honest it wouldn't be the first time plans have been radically changed.... So who knows. But for now I think I'll stick to the cossie V6 lump.

Thanks for reading though!

This deserves something much better and more refined than a rover v8, I reckon a BOB will work nicely in this. My dad had a scorpio cossie with that lump and gearbox and considering the heavy ugly lump it had to pull it didn't half shift. Plus wet roundabouts were EPIC fun!

This budget plan made me LOL! its probably not too far off the mark, but at the end of the day you get what you pay for, Rover V8's ingest major league dormouse knackers every day of the week IMO