Technical Stuff

Technical info & Services
Any technical articles for inclusion on this page or our Magazine, should be forwarded via the General Secretary. Remember to check the Magazine deadline dates here.
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Members Technical Helplines

Not sure whats wrong or which part you need ? Ring one of our Technical Advisors listed on our People and Contacts page.

Technical Quickies

Does your heater struggle to warm the inside of the car ? This could quite simply be down to an air lock.Set the heater controls to hot and either on windscreen demist or interior heating. With the engine cold, remove the expansion or header tank cap. Start the engine and let it get to normal operating temperature, (so that the thermostat is open). Some water will be expelled from the header tank, because there’s no cap. Then VERY carefully disconnect the upper heater hose connection. (I mean VERY CAREFULLY, because doing this with the engine hot, the water will be at nearly boiling temperature, so use a good thick piece of rag or some thick rubber gloves, to protect your hands). With a bit of luck, any air that is trapped will be expelled and normal flow restored. Be sure to keep topping the radiator expansion tank up while doing this so that the system doesn’t run out of water.

How many times do you have to shut a door to make it stay shut ? No, not a daft question, we were at a show recently and towards the end of the day watched a MK1 rear passenger attempt to slam the door about half a dozen times in a attempt to make it stay shut. The problem - the external door handle was stuck in the up (open) position, thee door was never going to stay shut ! The answer - take the internal door panel off and remove the door handle, clean it in a de-greasing fluid and lightly re-grease the mechanism and refit. The problem is caused, usually, by a lack of use and old grease then dries out and becomes thick and sticky, not helped, often, by dirt ingress. Simple, effective and should only take half an hour per handle.

How many of you get fed up with noisy tappets, even though you’ve adjusted them. Or not long after you’ve adjusted them, they’re noisy again ? Well here’s why. The rockers are case hardened steel. After a lot of use, particularly if the engine hasn’t had regular oil changes or poor quality oil is used, or the oil ways are partially blocked (see Paul Wansbrough’s article), the case hardening will eventually wear through. Resulting in a concave dimple in the face of the rocker that contacts the pushrod. When you slide a feeler gauge in to check / adjust the clearance the feeler will “bridge” the dimple, resulting in a false gap measurement. The real gap will actually be greater than the one measured.

The picture here shows the concave dimple at the bottom of the rocker, and helps to illustrate the problem. The cure ? New rockers. Once the case hardening has worn through that’s the end of the serviceable life of the rocker. You could, temporarily (I have) file the face of the rockers flat, but you will only be prolonging the inevitable, since the case hardening no longer exists.

How many of you have got fed up with a boot lid that insists on closing itself, particularly those of you with MK2s fitted with boot spoilers. To remedy the problem, simply re-tension the springs. On either side of the boot there is a bracket onto which the springs are fitted. Look closely, there are several different positions the springs can be set at. Carefully move the spring to the next slot along to increase (or decrease) the tension and therefore the effectiveness of the spring to hold the boot lid up. Be careful, though, the springs can be quite good at getting your fingers. Also, be careful not to over tension, the next time you open the boot it’ll open so fast it’ll try to take your face off. With a bit of experimentation, you’ll find the correct setting for your boot and the lid can be made to open gently on it’s own.

Oil pump drives, worn and a new one. Guess which one is which !!

These drive shafts are hexagonal in shape and connect the oil pump to the gear at the bottom of the distributor. The distributor gear is driven by the camshaft. Fairly obviously then, this is quite an important bit of kit within your engine. This applies to any of the engines found in the MK 1 and MK 2 Granada. On high mileage cars, it would be worth checking the condition of this drive shaft. This can be done by removing the distributor, having first marked it’s orientation to ensure it goes back where it came from, to avoid upsetting the ignition timing (or have a timing light available when refitting the distributor). Once the distributor has been removed, the oil pump drive may be pulled out by placing a plastic tube of suitable diameter (window winder plastic tube is the right size) down into the hole the distributor came out over, push the tube over the end of the shaft and pull. Refitting is can be tricky, it’s essential the drive shaft is relocated in the oil pump correctly and the distributor relocated properly to ensure the drive shaft has relocated in the bottom of the distributor drive. Once back together, check the static timing, start up and check the dynamic timing. If your not sure, give one of the technical advisors a ring and they’ll talk you through it.

Mk2 trip computers, can never get the dates to change correctly every month ? Well heres the solution. To change to year to give the correct date beyond 1997, change the year date, as shown in the table below to the relevant equivalent year. The day and date will match up properly thoughout the year. There are however, some years which do not have an equivalent. In those years, the days and dates cannot be made to match up.

Year Wanted Computer Equivalent Year
2008 No Equivalent
2009 1987
2010 1993

These figures have been given with the assurance that this will work as a compromise until 2010. This is obviously not a re-programming of the computer, but merely a neat trick to give you the desired result - well, in some years at least.

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