Opel Manta Project update 30/05/2009

[Suz]

Ok well about time for an update. Sorry taken so long but with wedding now week and half away and all the planning had to do for that not had a chance to get online.
Well have had a guy come and look at the engine and carbs for me, a lovely chap called Steven James has his own small business specialising in the older and classic vehicles, he comes to your house and works so great if you cannot drive your car anywhere, really knowledgable and put up with and answered every daft question I threw at him, cannot recommend him highly enough.
He set the timing and adjusted the carbs a bit and decided carbs would be best to have service so he took the carbs and cleaned them all up giving me an A4 sheet of things which were wrong that he had sorted out came back and refitted them and reset the timing. she was still running like bag of nails, so had a further look at the distributor and discovered that it still had the original dizzy for an injection engine ie very little advance hence only being able to get it to run well over only 2000 revs of the full range. Then went from bad to worse when went to adjust the dizzy and discovered it is about as good a a chocolate teapot!!! Vacuum advance was giving between -7 and + 35 pretty much whenever it felt like it!!
Now probably going down the route of a megajolt system to do away with the dizzy. Not ideal or my original plan but probably by far the easiest and best system available and will make it easier to adjust in future.
However it won't be being done now as unfortunately MOT runs out and after a bit of investigation of the so called solid drivers footwell and the removal of large amounts of expanding foam and filler don't think she'll pass!!!!!



To be honest was never the plan to put her through another MOT would cause to much more damage/rust over the next year. So after having never actually got to drive her running properly just got to hope I love her as much as I think I will from the trips we have had, when she's finished!!!!!

So just as a reminder of her current state and as a fitting end to the whole will she, won't she run properly before the rebuild (and in true Manta fashion she never did!!!) Here are the last pictures of her in one piece before the rebuild







So next step when all has calmed probably in the next month or so after wedding I will start the destruction ooops sorry restoration !!!!:D :roll:


Suz

[duncan]

any progress Suz?

[Suz]

any progress Suz?

If you term progress as moving it into the garage to keep it dry and prevent further rust, only for my darling husband to park his skyline outside the garage door and promptly take all four wheels off it to get new tyres fitted (2wks ago I hasten to add) and block the manta in then yup we are progressing nicely :roll: :roll:

As soon as the GTR goes to Gary we should start making headway, I've got to book the acid dip shortly as they are currently booking for Jan 2009 so going to strip it down and weld it before it goes for the dip, will test my welding that way if nothing else :-D :-D

So watch this space over next few weeks we should be off.

Suz

[Suz]

Jay has moved the SKyline yippee!!!!!
Started to strip a few bits off tonight and turned into a rather major strip of the passenger side. Things are not looking overly great at present but as I was told in an earlier post "all things are repairable" so onwards and upwards. It is going to be a major job to fix the passenger side and going to have to be careful I don't end up with the whole thing bending across the centre as there is so little metal left!!!!
I have taken some pics so thought would post them up.

A lot of solid metal round the front


but not in the corner


The inside of the passenger sill yet another fibreglass bodge


after removing the fibreglass




inside the front passenger footwell


inside the rear wheelarch, yes that is the floor


Not looking good at all





Good thing is the drivers side doesn't look as bad (mind you not stripped it yet!!

Suz

[ScoobieWRX]

This reminds me of one of those Overhaulin progs where they get a complete rustbucket in and transform it into thing of beauty.

Opel Manta....you're about to be Suzerhauled!! :lol:

Blimey!! Good luck with that lot....looks like it's going to be a nut and bolt rebuild. :thumb:

[Nik]

That looks like a bit of a mission Suz. Best you get a crack on before it all dissapears.

Best of luck with it and i will be watching your progress closely.

[Ben]

Gawd that's a lot of rust Suz.

[Suz]

Just a quick update, will try to post pics up soon, have managed some parts which are going to make my life a whole lot easier and prevent quite a lot fabrication. :-D

Now have

replacement bonnet,
2 brand new wings,
2 replacement skirts,
rear Panel,
2 outer sills
The two panels that go under the wings
pair of headlamps
pair of rear lamps
New genuine non sunroof roof panel
Replacement boot lid
A~nd whole host of other bits and pieces that may end up useful


Just got to try and locate a good pair of doors, panel that has the bonnet release pull on, pair of inner sills and chassis rails although if necessary these will be fabricated.

Hoping to get the car over to parents house in next couple of weeks or so then I can strip down, (they have lots of space to store the engine gearbox and mountains of parts I'm currently collecting.) although probably going to leave the glass in the front and rear until have welded the sills up just to give it a bit more strength.

Suz

[ScoobieWRX]

Blimey Suz, You're practically rebuilding the car panel for panel. What a monstrous project it's turning out to be. Fair play to you

Best of britsih!! :thumb:

[duncan]

Great update and good luck.

Do you reckon it will be finished by next week?