'76 Granatrot Rolling resto

[CharlieG]

Gruppe,

Figure this is as good a time as any to intro my latest project car.

It's a '76 Granarot 02, California spec, so the E12 head, 3.64 rear, etc, all that good stuff. 2375248. November '75 build date according to Mobile Trad. Looks like it was strictly a California car up until the mid/late nineties when it came to Ohio and just sat. Judging by the Bavarian autosport reciepts and unopened boxes from 1995, I'd say it was a multiple person "project car" that never got off the ground.

Mod-wise it seems to be pretty much stock save for a 32/36 and some bilsteins. Smog stuff is all long gone. It had a pretty tiny 12 inch lecarra steering wheel on it.

Plans for the car are to make it a nice little cruiser, keeping it fairly stock, at least for now. I've got an m50-swapped & gutted e30 on J-stocks and an 8 lb flywheel that's my track toy, so another "fun" car that stays a little more docile for the street would work.

The good: Very little rust, practically unheard of in an unrestored car that's been in the midwest for any amount of time. Rockers are good, strut towers are good, front quarters are good, turn signals are good, front pedal box is good. It's a solid car. Owner said it hadn't run in years. A new battery, new plugs and some carb cleaner and it fired right up.

The Bad: It's definetly a Southern California car, one that sat outside most of its life. The paint is pretty well baked at this point, and had peeled off in a number of spots on the roof. Little bit of surface rust, but nothing that had perforated. Wirewheel and some sanding fixed that, along with some primer and touchup spraypaint. Not real pretty, but prevents any further damage for now.

The interior:

Yea. Tan carpet spraydyed black. With the seats and floormats still in it. A nice touch if I may say so myself. The seats consisted of a few strips of vinyl over rusted exposed springs. Any remnants of horsehair these seats might have had was sitting on the carpet below them. The reclining mechanisms and cables were also broken. The wife, while wearing a skirt, was not a fan of the exposed spring seats. The back seat was nothing but an exposed piece of foam rubber, quite classy.

Anyways, work has begun on getting this car more roadready. Tossed some rebuilt calipers up front, replaced all the rubber underneath the hood, waterpump, tstat, etc.

I'd been poking around the forums for a while trying to find a decent set of recaros, but either ran into no one responding, people asking well above what I wanted to pay, or just dropping off the face of the earth. Then I saw Eurotrash's add for stuff out of the '69 parts car he snagged, which happens to be about 10 miles south of me.

The seats were pretty decent for being 40 years old, and still had *gasp* padding in them. Some black vinyl dye and an esty carpet kit later:

Obviously still a work in progress, but I'm gonna go ahead and call this an "upgrade" for now.

-Charlie

[CharlieG]

Tossing this up just because I like the pic. 1:18 & 1:1

-Charlie

[jetdog]

looks nice and straight. great job on the interior. did you try a heavy compounding on the paint? I like the fixed gear bike on the Jetta next to you as well.

[bluedevils]

Carpet looks great, like the factory German loop.

[rover1]

Looks like a pretty good transformation. Are you going to do anything with the exterior of the vehicle? for example convert the Federal bumpers front spoiler etc.

[jgerock]

Charlie -

Great project car and nice interior work! But what the heck happened to that 12-pack of beer? Did it come with the car?

[CharlieG]

Charlie -

Great project car and nice interior work! But what the heck happened to that 12-pack of beer? Did it come with the car?

That was actually the maiden run with the car. Figured a good first stop would be to get some good German beer.

-Charlie

[CharlieG]

One more shot, with "shorty" console installed. The 76/69 conversion is closer.

-Charlie

[Scott Sislane]

those rusted crack-o speakers in the doors must drive you nuts. Nice transformation though. Hows the motor?

[CharlieG]

those rusted crack-o speakers in the doors must drive you nuts. Nice transformation though. Hows the motor?

Big time. Door panels are next on the list.

Motor isn't bad, odometer is flakey, but it seems to have under 100k on it. Gonna pull the carb apart and rebuild it in a week or so, it definetly needs it and to be tunesd and it definetly needs the valves done, so that's on the list too. Little blowby on 6000+ rpm shifts, but the motor still pulls pretty well. Oil pan gasket looks to be original, so it leaves a few drops after every hard run. First gear is noisy in the trans, but everything shifts well.

-Charlie

[PSloan]

I like the shorty console.

[Scott Sislane]

That's great if she's hitting 6k rpm. Someone must have taken decent care of the motor. Is the oil dripping from the pan or possibly the exhaust manifold studs, toward the front. New studs will often cure that. You have to lift the motor a bit & move, to get the pan gasket replaced.

You can always find a 77-79(?) 320i tranny (4 spd) for small $ if you get ambitious. Minor diff's but same-same

Looking good-

Scott

[eurotrash]

Nice score on that console m'man. (wink)

[CharlieG]

A saturday's worth of cleaner wax and a buffer can be quite rewarding..

-Charlie

[CharlieG]

Few more progress shots:

No more park benches!

-Charlie