1972 Opel Rekord 2D sedan

That’s a really good looking car.

What are your plans for it?

When I saw Opel Rekord in the readers rides list my eyes nearly popped out of my head. Love Rekord Cs and Ds! I have a Rekord C Coupe awaiting some TLC. So yes....more please....I'll be looking forward to the updates 👍🏻

That is stunning I want it.

Oh yes. Love it!

If you haven't already, I strongly recommend viewing bstardchild build thread on his Commodore B. Its virtually the same car but with the bigger engine option. 

Alright, nice to hear that my writings won't be in vain. This will be a sort of retrospective story for a while, before we catch up to the current situation.

Not really. The Mk1 Cavalier is a relative to the Ascona/Manta B, which share the basic technical layout between them. I guess the FE Victor could be considered as a relative to the D Rekord.

After getting the car home, I started off with the basics. Brakes were shot and the reservoir was empty, so it was time for new drums, shoes, cylinders, discs, pads and fluid. I got the smaller 238 mm front brakes, that were installed on the early Rekord D models. I think it was around '75 when Opel upgraded the front discs in most of their models to 246 mm.



At this point, as I can't leave anything well enough alone, I started chipping off the dried up undercoating. With sweaty palms, I anticipated for the spatula to hit a rusty spot underneath at any minute. Luckily I didn't find any holes. What I did find though, were some of the rust repairs done in previous years. Some of the patches were obviously pretty old but all of them had been done well, and I had no reason to cut them open. It took a day and a half, laying on my back under the car, to scrape off the old undercoating. I only did the floor area of the car for now, as I needed to get it sorted out before I installed the engine and gearbox. The rest I left for later.

Here's some photos of the underside. I've honestly couldn't believe my luck, as this must be the healthiest underside I've seen on a vintage car. The car must have been rust proofed when new, and babied after that. I can't complain!







You can probably see that black, welded piece of sheet metal on the topside of the transmission tunnel. That was done by the previous owner, when he fitted an R25 five speed gearbox from an Omega A. There's nothing wrong with the R25 but I had a couple of Getrag 240's laying around and anticipated less hassle with the prop shaft using one, so I chose to put one of those in instead. Before we get to the gearstick modifications, here's a couple of photos of the underside after I painted it with epoxy primer and then with some black metal paint. Thinking about it afterwards, the epoxy was a bit of and overkill since the original paint was in such a good condition. Oh well, it's done now.







As the underside was now ready to receive the engine and transmission, I decided to look into the issue with the gearstick placement. So the hole in the transmission tunnel was measured for the R25 gearstick. I now had to make the Getrag's stick sit in the same place. Below we have the two 'boxes side by side. R25 on the left and Getrag 240 (with the longer, Rekord E stick housing) on the right. As you can see, on the Getrag the stick sits a few centimeters farther back.



After eyeballing the difference, it was then a matter of removing the shifter axle from the Getrag and shortening it.







I then found a Manta B Getrag stick housing from my stash, which is shorter than the Rekord E one. So I used that, as it fit without any modifications and the length was just right. Here are both of the gearboxes again, after the modifications. Seems to be close enough.



After I got the Getrag sorted, it was time to focus on the engine. Nothing special about that really. Just a 2.0E CIH that I've had laying around for years. Some scrathes on the cylinder walls got treated with a blade hone. I changed all the bearings and slapped it together with old piston rings. This engines main purpose is to get the car moving and later down the line, I'll put more effort in maybe a 2.2 CIH.





Next up, throwing in the engine with the transmission and some prop shaft modifications.

Hahah, you got me there. That was THE first thing my mates gave me grief for (one of them is a MOT engineer). It's sorted now, and I have the original five digit, black plates for it.

For other's wondering what this means. 1972 was the last year in Finland, when the black number plates were issued for cars. After that, they were changed to a white plate with black numbers, just like today. The thing is, the original black plates were always three letters and two numbers at most. So no six digit plates existed. The plates in these photos must have been a fluke of some kind. Someone, somehow talked to an attendant over at the MOT center to give out black, six digit plates. I guess that's not really that uncommon but it's not "right" either, and it looks weird.

So there's a bit of useless information for you all.