The "BILLING" Project

[andyc]

Hi Guys,

This is to follow on with the article in Manta Magic about the re-build of Nick Webb's Silver Coupé.

First of all a bit of background, Nick had the car in storage for the last twenty odd years but decided to help me out and go in with me on a unit as long as I looked after the two cars.

Fast forward to the beginning of the year when Nick & Jo came back to the UK for a week and spent a couple of days with us.

We dragged the coupé out from its hiding place and Nick got to work on sorting the fuelling and rear brakes out. Once she was running talk got round to what to do with her. Nick wanted to get her back on the road so armed with a big screwdriver we started to have a poke round the metal work. It soon became clear that this wasn't going to be a quick blow over and major work was going to be required.

So as Nick and Jo departed for the US we started stripping the car back to the bare shell with a finish date of Billing '08 to aim for.

Ths strip down only took a few days and then i opened my BIG mouth and said that "at this rate we'll get her finished for Billing '07. The race was on but if it wasn't for all of Nick's contacts it wouldn't possible.

We decided early on that the car was going to be dipped to have all the old paint and rust removed instead of having it blasted, the main reason is that all the box sections will get cleaned out as well. so the car was booked in with SPL in Dudley. If any of you have seen "campervan crisis" it's the same place.

While the shell has been away we have been busy doing all the other bits on the car as you' will see in the photos and as I write Ian Virco and the CF mover are on their way back from Dudley with the shell......I hope, cheers Ian. The clock is now ticking, we now have nine weeks to do this, yes Billing is only nine weeks away.

Well that enough of my chat here's what we have done so far

start of the strip down

O/S/F Leg

N/s/f Leg

Arriving at SPL

front axle before

front axle finished

Rear axle Before

Rear axle Finished

Gear box Finished

Loaded coil spring, don't try this at home kids!!

Servo & Master cylinder finished

That it at the moment, once Ian arrives the race for Billing is on

Cheers

Andy

[andyc]

WOW,Great work man![8D]

OMOC #6042

Wanted: 4OO Replica coupeid="red">

[Robbie]

Andy thats great work nice to see such a high standard [][^]

http://www.mantamagic.com

OMOC N,Ireland Rep

id="blue">

OMOC 5706

Please dont shoot me it,s only an opinion not a demand

Email robbie @ mantamagic.com (without the spaces)

[Joe]

All most impressive Andy. Your photos of the axles are now inspiring me to get out into the garage and get cracking on mine. That's just how I want them to look.

Cheers,

Joe.

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[MANTAMAN]

Its all systems go for this project,i fetched the shell from the dippers in Dudley ® on saturday 5th may on the back of the Bedford,plenty of rot to deal with and looks like it has had accident damage repaired early in its life,new rear quarter,nose section,part chassie rail,sill etc all the drivers side.

This is the Shell on the Bedford outside the dippers at Dudley ®

The shell in position in Andy's workshop

Behind the drivers headlight,the passenger side is as bad!

This is the brake servo area

The boot floor and righthand rear wheel arch.

Looks like plenty of midnight oil will be burnt if this makes it to Billing!!!

I've got piles of all sorts of Manta parts,i might even have something you need!

surplus parts bought,whole cars considerd. M/B 07947 640505

OMOC Member number 2658F

Ian Virco,area rep,Beds Herts and North Bucks.

[entwistlecymru]

Is that the etch primer coating or electro-phoretic thingy?

OMOC #5826..... 79 SRB coupe - 'interesting project', 79 Cav saloon - 'another interesting project', 1993 Senator 24v. Yakshimash.

[Snowy]

Can i ask how much this cost??

Thanks.

[mickappy]

thinking about having my coupe dipped, this is the site.

http://www.argweb.com/surfaceprocessing/index.html

omoc member 5918- 400r trackday turbo on its way.... http://www.vxopel.com/

[Sutty2006]

I like the look of the axles! Have you just stripped them down and sprayed black or is there more to it?

[Joe]

My only query about the stripping process is how, having had the shell coated in their rust proofing, you then repair the rusted areas without compromising this.

I wonder if it might be better to get all the welding done before you send a shell off to them so that it all gets protected?

It's certainly a great process though, considering what a dreadful job doing it by hand is. Has anyone else ever tried fully stripping a nosecone? It's almost impossible.

Cheers,

Joe.

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[mantadoc]

Deleted

Edited September 26, 2017 by mantadoc

[PassMeTheGun]

have you seen the pictures of the porsche 993 on that argweb site mick? More money than sense getting that dipped, doesn't look like there was an ounce of rust on it!

Pass me the gun and ask me again....

[mantasrme]

quote:Originally posted by Snowy

Can i ask how much this cost??

Thanks.

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id="quote">id="quote">

I'd be quite interested in what dipping a manta cost's aswell.

Also what prep did you have to do to the shell before dipping? I'm sure someone said the underseal had to be removed before dipping!

http://www.mantasport.co.uk

OMOC no:3325

[Shug]

I am curious about the cost. can imagine it being easily over a grand for that kind of treatment

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OMOC #5988

hmackay at opel-manta.com

I hae a few guid reasons for drinkin’

And yin juist entered ma heid

If a man canna’ drink while he’s livin’

Hoo the Hell can he drink when he’s deid!

[andyc]

Well as for cost i'll let Nick ield that question, if it was my money i would tell you but it wasn't. The thing you have to remember about having it dipped or blasted for that matter is you are taking a gamble, which is what has happened to us. We knew about most of the problems before hand but we didn't know about the 1/4 panel. I have to decide that if you send a shell of for stripping then there is no going back, well you can but thats alot of cash down the drain.

The coating is what they call E-coating and its the same sort of coating that a new panel comes covered in. Yes once you start grinding, filling , sanding the you will lose the coat but with welding in new parts you use weld through zinc primer on all mateing surfaces and the etch primer as you new base coat.

Billing is still go and so far we have removed the o/s/f inner wing, removed the front cross member and removed the chassis leg top panel. We have made a repair to the inner edge of the o/s chassis leg, fitted a new cross member, fitted a new chassis leg top panel and the inner wing is tacked in ready for fettling, not bad for 12 hours work

Barry's busy blocking the roof panel which is full of high and low spots and the next job is to make repair sections for the o/s/f inner wheel arch, hopefully by the end of next week we'll have the front end up to the bulk head finished

as for getting the shell preped for dipping we stripped the shell of all parts, anything that isn't steel will not be coming back. A good tip as well, if you have any captive nuts on the car like the front anti roll bar backet mount put the bolts back in, this will then give you nice clean bolts and the treads won't get full of coating.

Some more pics from the weekend

Cheers

Andy

(Iceni Automotive)

drivers foot well

left hand inner wing (front)

Battery tray

drivers floor pan

N/S/R Lower Arch

O/s/R Inner Arch

O/S/R Arch

O/S inner wing

O/S Chassis Leg

Boot Floor

Front Panel Removed

cHASSIS Leg top Panel Removed

New front Cross Member Fitted

That it for now

[CalCol]

Price... well I'd managed to block it out and had to ask Andy again! He says it's somewhere around £1700 all in for dipping and dip priming.

It's expensive, but it saves Andy having to find out piece by piece what's wrong with the car and maybe missing something that's going to be costly later on, and also saves warping panels by media blasting them.

Oh, and Joe, the major reason I wanted to have the car dipped in primer at the end was that I wanted primer to get everywhere it could. The other (cheaper) option was to have them spray it in primer, but that would have left the box sections rotting nicely from day 1. Believe me, with the cost of this restoration mounting I really didn't want to do it again any time soon! It's a case of bite the bullet and do it once. Right. []

Bad news on the panel front is that it needs a new rear 1/4 (thanks for the loan, Sean), new sills (OMOC stock), a new RH chassis rail (Louis found me one in Holland), new RH inner wing (Matz in Germany) and a new boot floor (Wolfgang... ouch). Still, doesn't look like I have to invest in a 2 slot front panel, but Andy's not 100% sure, based on the compressed timeframe we're trying to meet.

You know, it's beginning to feel like an episode of American Hot Rod!

Serious thanks to everyone that's helped so far, full roll of honour in the next Manta Magic.

Cheers,

Nick

[Shug]

quote:Originally posted by CalCol

Price... well I'd managed to block it out and had to ask Andy again! He says it's somewhere around £1700 all in for dipping and dip priming.

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id="quote">id="quote">

[:0][][xx(]

Was half thinking that'd be an idea for my A series until I read that!

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OMOC #5988

hmackay at opel-manta.com

I hae a few guid reasons for drinkin’

And yin juist entered ma heid

If a man canna’ drink while he’s livin’

Hoo the Hell can he drink when he’s deid!

[Robbie]

Great Job Lads [^] now thats a car thats going to last a long time into the future, its really great to see the bar being raised on restoration standards of Mantas, with cars like these around the value of decent mantas will rise []

http://www.mantamagic.com

OMOC N,Ireland Rep

id="blue">

OMOC 5706

Please dont shoot me it,s only an opinion not a demand

Email robbie @ mantamagic.com (without the spaces)

[h0tr0dder_uk]

while £1700 is a lot of money to have it dipped it has to be the only real way to truly remove the rot from your car. I'm sure this manta will really be like new when done.

I think about it along these lines - my B series that I am building will probably owe me the equivilant of a new base level mondeo when its finished. But who want to drive around in a base level mondeo?? I'll take the supercharged big block powered manta any time. Plus in ten years I won't have lost all my money in the car as it should still be worth a fair price while a mondeo will be worth peanuts.

[Devil Fish]

I don't think £1700 is alot of money for that at all...I think I may well be considering this...

Hotrodder, in 10 years time you'll be forking out shed loads of money for the environmentally friendly bio-goo conversion when they ban all gas guzzling cars[]

South Wales Rep

OMOC 5643

[paulmanta]

/// Stick on an LPG kit and run it on propane on the quiet. []

[h0tr0dder_uk]

I think I should pay less tax to run my big engine. Heres the reason why -

My engine is 8.2 litres and is supercharged. However by investing in some fancy shmancy programmable electronic fuel injection I should be able to get about 18mpg (tried and tested). My friend has the same engine and fuel injection but no blower and gets 20mpg.

Most modern cars do about 30mpg (for a 2.0 for example). So if you quadruple that engine size and divide the mpg by 4 you end up with 5mpg making mine very economical[][][]

Do you think i will be able to convince the gov't???

**sorry for hijacking the thread. Car looks ace**

[Joe]

"Do you think i will be able to convince the gov't???"

No, but I think you'll be in the running to take over from Mr Brown as Chancellor in a few weeks with that mathematical ability![]

Cheers,

Joe.

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[CalCol]

Well, we had to make the hard decision on Monday to pull the plug on the Billing 2007 completion date, it just wasn't going to happen. We were overwhelmed with all the rust damage, but that wasn't necessarily the end of the world. What killed it off was the horror story underneath the right hand rear quarter panel when Andy finally took it off. Here's a few pictures...

OK, bad wheelarch, but at least repairable. Notice how the panel is a little wrinkled, though:

But this is where it gets bad. Bottom of the B-post:

And now the inner part of the B-post, all nicely crinkled...

So basically Andy's got to put all that right without tweaking the shell at the same time (because it's mercifully and amazingly straight at the moment). Luckily he's got a sford capriper with a good right hand rear wheelarch and B post so he's planning to transplant that into my car.

Andy reckons another two months on the metalwork to get this right, then a month in paint and finally a rebuild. There just aren't three months left before Billing.

I'd have loved to get it to Billing, but I would much prefer to have it done right rather than quickly. Andy's been running at full speed to get this done, but I'm glad he knows when to call it a day and stop!

So the new target is the end of October, which should allow for a little slippage. If Andy's got the time, I hope we can get it along to the NEC in November, the last official OMOC show of the year! Fingers crossed.

It's not all bad news, there's some good news at the front of the car at least... it now has real metal in place of the brown crunchy stuff as the front half of the chassis:

The engine parts get back by the end of the month, so there's also more theraputic reassembly in Andy and Barry's future... []

Cheers,

Nick

[MANTAMAN]

When viewing the shell in Andy's workshop we where thinking it had suffered some 'attrition' at the rear,the mig welded on rear quarter panel being a telling clue.

What possible happened it got hit in the rear/off side rear quarter and all the panel work 'below' the surface got pushed forward,the inner arch,B post,floor etc and it was only the outer visible panels that were replaced.

Thought Andy might have been optimistic with the Billing deadline but it'll be much better to have it done to perfection rather than rushed together so as its mearly 'OK'

I've got piles of all sorts of Manta parts,i might even have something you need!

surplus parts bought,whole cars considerd. M/B 07947 640505

OMOC Member number 2658F

Ian Virco,area rep,Beds Herts and North Bucks.