The "BILLING" Project

[2908642343]

Nick;

Yours will be the last New Manta, mine is being painted, the interior seats front and rear are being retrimmed in 400 Blitz material and leather, front and rear door cards and parcel shelf are also being re trimmed. Have to say a big thank you to you and Paul Newport for all your help and advice.

Will be posting some updated pictures soon, as they say watch this space.......[]

Mvh

John

[Robbie]

Great to see that most of the welding is all sorted and the car is solid for many years to come []

Keep the pics coming

http://www.mantamagic.com

OMOC N,Ireland Rep

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OMOC 5706 A Series 16V Broadspeed Turbo Replica, V8 A series, I240

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

Email robbie @ mantamagic.com (without the spaces)

[andyc]

quote:Originally posted by CalCol

Yup, this is the car I was going to re-shell, although when I first made that decision this car was in much better condition. 5 years of storage on wet ground did some serious damage to it.

The problem is that every time I got round to breaking this car for parts I found a reason not to do it. In the end we realised that we'd have to save it and use the shell for something else.

So we shipped the shell back to the US in 2003 when we moved back here with the intention of re-shelling my orange B that's also in a pretty bad way. It needs the usual chassis leg repair on the right side, two new sills, new wings, right side lower rear quarter, new door and so on. Of course, when I sat down and thought what of that is shell work I realised there's no point in throwing a brand new shell at that, I might as well just fix the bits that are wrong.

So there I am, still with the new shell. The latest idea is to make it a brand new car with all the new parts I've got stashed away. Possibly the last ever Manta if John Rowbotham hurries up and finishes his! The plan is to make the orange car into a 400 replica, but one of the very early B-series 400s with black bumpers and square headlamps. Then the new shell will be a black Exclusive, very similar to Jo's but LHD (I have most of the conversion parts from RHD to LHD for it).

Well, that's the current plan. Dunno if it will happen like that though. []

Back to the silver car - I'm really impressed with Andy's and Barry's work, definitely a cut above most restorers. I think they're wasted in their current jobs, they need to do this full time. Anyone else want their car restored?

Cheers,

Nick

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we'd love to but at the moment it would only be as a part time job. having seen the photos of all the other bits its not just boby restoration but anything from a service to engine builds.

anyway let wait till billing and see what everyone thinks

cheers

Andy

(Drive Vauxhall Parts-day time) Iceni Automotive-evenings and weekends

s

[andyc]

ok quick update but no pics.

Last sunday, 10th Feb was the projects first birthday, yes one year has passed.

all the welding is now done, all the panel gaps are correct. The inside of the shell has been keyed as well as the door shuts and doors.

Started to skim the shell at the weekend so hopefully a couple of weekends getting all the panels nice and smooth and we should be ready for paint

More to come once all the rubbing down is done

Andy

[andyc]

Ok been a while but we are still ploughing ahead with the project. At last the metal work is finished and there are so many photos you can take of filler being rubbed down.

So whats been happening? Well we finished all the filler work to make sure the panels are straight by using UPOL Super Smooth 7 and then finishing with UPOL Gold Stop which is a really fine filler, It makes your P38 look like gravel.

Once this was done we had the painter come in and give it the once over and he picked up on a bit of a problem that we just didn't see and its something we should have.

If any of you are thinking of having any dipping done keep this in mind, you will need to re-bond the bonnet skin to the frame as the acid in the dip will remove it.

Pic of the shell finished, until we found out about the bonnet, and boot lid

and this is the amount of weight we had to place on the bonnet to get the frame & skin to mate up again

Once we re-skimmed the bonnet and boot lid then it was paint time. After de-dusting the first coat to go on was 1 ltr of acid etch 2 pack wash coat which only takes about half an hour to go off but took over an hour to clear the waorkshop of the overspray in the air.

Once that was done we then put on 2 ltrs of 2pack polyester primer which is really a liquid filler and is really good stuff but to spray it you need a gravity feed run with a 2mm needle and about 10 to 12 cfm from the compressor.

Once that was dried the hole shell had a guide coat put on then the fun job of flattening down starts. Using 120 paper the hole shell was done in two days which isn't bad going. The only thing to watch with polyster is that you can't get any moisture on it, not even from your hands as this will go straight through the poly and form mirco blister in the paint, so two pairs of pervy gloves were used.

This is the shell after falttening the poly down

Once that was done it was de-dusted againg and treated to5 ltrs of 2pack high build primer and then a guide coat. Its at this point the Barry tells me he used to do a bit of spraying so this was left to him to do. He was making a bloody good of it until we statred getting gun problems which cost us 3 hours and a pot of paint

Pics of the shell in high build

and some of Baz "shooting" the primer

So as of tonight both sides of the shell are flat, the nose cone is done and we have the bonnet, engine bay, roof, bootlid and back panel to get done....by this Saturday.

Shell goes to paint at the weekend and it will be there until the 7th of June unless i help with some of the prep.

Barry & myself have booked the week of the 9th off and we are also getting another pair of hands as Nicks flying in for a couple of weeks the help out.

So if you haven't worked it out yet we will have 5 weeks to get the car built, MOT,d and shaken down before billing

Hopfully next time we'll see some colour and that will be that last post on this project until after Billing. If you want to see the finished car you can at Billing

Cheers

Andy

[andyc]

Well finally the shel has gone to paint and we now have a couple of weeks to get the shop tidy and make sure all the parts are there and ready for the re-fit................who long to Billing??????

Loading up at the workshop

unloading at the paint shop (quick plug) Breckland Bodytech 01953 456738

Attleborough

We did have an 11th hour drama on Friday, I'd already book a flat bed with another company but got a call @ lunch time Friday saying they are double booked and can't help......cheers. So a big thankyou to Red Rocket Recovery for helping out at the last minute and for half the price

New home for the next few weeks. Its stable may is a Mk3 Capri, seems they rot in the same places as the Mantas

They are ganging up on the Opel. Capri to one side and the car in front is and Escort Cosworth.....

Andy

[andyc]

Well the time has come and after a days delay the shell was rady to pick up from the body, transport arranged for 9:30am Tuesday morning.

This was to be my first look at the finished shell but Nick had been over to the Shop on Monday for the first look, so Monday night i hooked up with Nick for a chat and to arrange a plan of action, thnkfully he's pleased with out come.

Tuesday morning and after picking up Barry from the local Seat Dealer, cars playing up again we headed upto Attleborough to me Nick & Keith at the Body shop.

While Nick & Keith sorted out the payment Barry and myself had a good look over the shell and on the whole, very pleased, even Keith finaly admitted that the pre was very good and that bodyshops would have a hard time getting the finish we had.

The transport arrived so we loaded up and to protect the paint on the journy back i put Nicks Cotton car cover over it, " that'll be ok its tied down.

We got within half a mile of Thetford whilst following the lorry when i said to Barry that i think the front straps had given way, right on que the cover coms flying off.

We all slam on the brakes and hit the fourways but not before it took my N/S mirror off. smashed the side repeater and broke my aerial, Nick just ran over it. . Sorry about that Nick

Once back to the workshop we quickly unloaded and set the shell up, on the stands, wheels, axels, bonnet and boot off then it was tape up time.

Using lo-tack tape we covered anywhere that might get damaged and masked up so we could start with the waxing.

While i got busy under the car, Nick begun on the inside with the dynomat he brought from the US and Barry got busy overhauling the fuel tank and steering coloum.

As of day one we had half the inside covered, the underside waxed and the tank and coloum ready.

The cover that blew away

Damaged Mirror on the Cav

In the shop, stripped and masked

Nick fitting the dynomat

Matting nealy finished

End of day 1

[andyc]

I'll split the days up.

Wednesday, Day 2

Today consisted of finishing the matting. The sound deadening pads cleaned and fitted to the bulk head in the engine bay.

Brake servor in and the pedal box, which went in three time in the end. After getting it the first time it came out again as the straight 9" clutch pedal had to be modded, the pedal plate faced towards the tunnel but need to face the other way. Back in again and niticed i'd left the return spring off

Pedal box in ....finally

Servo & Master Cylinder in

Coloum in

Tank in

End of day two

[andyc]

Thursay, Day3

No Barry today so it was just down to Nick & myself. All time consuming jobs today which consited of making all the new brake lines and getting them routed correctly. Nicks job was to finish matting the sunroof cassett panel and the pillars.

Nick also ran the main wiring loom and also the A/C loom. Its amazing how much time these jobs take up but the brake lines are now in and i've started on the fuel lines.

Brake lines in

Main and A/C harness in

End of day 3

[stradacab]

The best part of any project. Fitting up. You just can't help putting a bit back on and standing back to have a look at you progress.

Keep us updated.

[andyc]

Day 4

One of those days today where you seem to get nowhere. Nick finished of the wiring and has made a start on the a/c boxes, Barries re-furbed the instrument cluster and also re-built the fuel pump assy and fitted it

Me, i spent most of the day mucking about with the fuel lines

Hopefully we'll get more done to tomorrow

Baz Clocking, opps sorry, re-setting the speedo to 0

Nicks started on the window frame blacking

Barry's almost got the rear end fitted up

[paulmcclung]

That respray is looking gorgeous. Can only pray to get anywhere near those results when mine gets done at some point.

[CalCol]

Well, as those of you at Billing couldn't help but notice, we missed it, but it wasn't for the lack of trying. I think Andy must've slept at the workshop on occasion!

Things really worked against us. First my mum was very ill in the hospital so I had to leave the project and stay in Reading, then Barry got a girlfriend and disappeared off the face of the earth. So in the end it was just Andy working away after work. Not surprisingly things started to slip.

I did manage a couple of weekends there before Billing, my friend Preston came over from the USA and did sterling work with the soundproofing and engine installation, and we even used the Friday and Saturday of Billing to try to get closer, but we missed the Saturday morning deadline for the MOT so it was going to be another year with just Jo's Exclusive at Billing. Well, we really should have it done by next year!

Here are a few shots of where it is at the moment...

Andy catching the usual cuppa while the engine and gearbox swing on a bit of rope. This was actually the second time we put the engine in. The first time we realised that the measurements for the new gearbox support brackets (all nicely seam welded to the underbody) were a mere 2 inches out! Andy's reworking of the gearbox crossmember to make it fit are a work of art.

Engine bay as we left it on the Saturday of Billing. It's pretty much together with the exception of the A/C pipework (which I'll do later). The engine's a standard (rebored) 2.0, so don't let the 2.2 valve cover fool you. It's going to get a 2.4 eventually, but we ended up spending a lot on the 2.0 in the mad rush to get it to Billing last year so I'm going to get my money's worth out of it! Actually, Andy thinks it needs a 2.4 already, just to get the car off the line with all that soundproofing and extra equipment I've put in it. :-)

We had a weird problem with the engine temperature gauge sender that I finally remembered I'd had before. We used a new temperature sender and when we ran it up it looked like the engine was overheating as it went straight into the red. We did everything we could to find the air lock but to no avail. In the end we just left it running and it ran nicely with the engine just one tick below the red. I remember now that I had the same problem on my orange Manta and (after checking the injection sender resistance to check that it really was just the gauge that was wrong) I put a resistor in the sender wire to bring the gauge back to half way. I guess I'll have to do that on this car. Anyone else get that problem with a new sender?

Here's the interior, pretty much as we left it. The dash is back in and the A/C heater controls all connected up (a real pain on a RHD car). You can see the nice job Jo did on the Irmscher steering wheel - the stitching should be red but she spent a good couple of hours with a fabric dye pen getting it black. She also did a nice job on the centre console with some vinyl dye we got from Simon Peckham's mate, Darren. Looks like new.

The small box on the centre of the dash at the top is the GPS receiver for the head unit. It's a Becker system with a changer in the boot and it has a built-in satnav. I just couldn't resist the chance for another toy. We've not put an aerial on the car - Andy and I couldn't agree where to put it and I really didn't like the "bee sting" sort. In the end we've gone for a box that they use in the Senator B - it uses the heated rear window as an aerial. Fingers crossed it actually works.

The window winders are still on the doors because the electric windows will only go in once we've got the door working properly with the winder. All the wires hanging over the door are for the alarm. It's mostly in but these wires are for the central locking and total closure (closes the windows when you set the alarm) and will have to wait until the central locking and electric windows are in. One other part of the alarm I didn't connect was the immobiliser - I decided to wait until we'd got the engine started and running OK before adding an extra layer of complexity!

You can just make out the A pillar in this pic - notice the headliner isn't black or blue as you'd expect. We were going to use the original bits but as I was putting the headliner back in I noticed it had torn in a couple of places. Again, Simon Peckham's mate, Darren, who's a professional car upholsterer, came to the rescue with a brand new headliner made from scratch in practically no time at all. He even fitted it, nice chap. :-)

After running out of parts to clean, Jo decided to check out the interior for comfort...

A shot of the outside. The rear window still needs fitting and the GT/E decals need to go on, but it's looking pretty close. Notice the wheels don't have any centres - I bought a set off a certain Scot at last year's Billing without asking him where they came from (I just assumed...). Of course, they turned out not to be the ones for the ATS wheels but for steel wheels instead. I didn't realise there were different types until I tried to fit them... I must learn to ask, not assume!

Finally Andy's expression says it all. If there was one watch word for this build it's, "Andy, where did you put...".

So we ended up with three problems to keep Andy busy for a couple of months:

- I couldn't get the front windows to align properly. I talked it over with a few people at Billing and everyone suggested I might have hatch glass in there instead of coupe glass, something that Andy said couldn't happen because he doesn't have any green tint hatch glass in the workshop! In the end I got the tape measure out and compared this car to Jo's Manta. Unfortunately it looks like we need to bend the body as the top of the A pillar to the lower rear part of the window is 10mm less on the left side and 6mm less on the right side. If you remember, the car was heavily damaged by an accident that it had had before I bought it. I suspect that the car was OK until Andy and Barry changed the chassis leg on one side and brought the floor shape back into spec, but it stretched the upper part of the body back out, changing the A pillar angle out of spec. We need to get a hydraulic ram to stretch it back, but I'm worried we're going to split the paint if we do that too roughly and have to paint part of it again. Oh well...

- The other gotcha was the sunroof. I got the new roof all built up and fitted it, but as soon as I tried to close it I noticed the centre of the roof isn't bowed up enough. There is plenty of clearance each side of the roof, but the centre is so low it scratches the roof panel. We can get the panel re-painted but Andy's going to have to put a bit of a bow in the roof to match the shape of the panel. That one may even fix itself when we get the A pillar angles re-set, but if not it's a relatively simple job as the panel should be able to be gently worked back into shape by hand.

- The doors need to be re-aligned. They're too low at the back now. Again, I suspect then Andy sorts out the A pillar angle the doors will go back to the right position, but if not there's always the old jack-and-block-of-wood-under-the-door trick to get them right.

I guess the whole experience tells us that there is a point at which a Manta is past saving, and mine was there. It's only through Andy's skill that we've got this far, but of course there are always gotchas that you miss until too late.

Yeah, it's a lot of work and the three problems would probably scare you if they happened to you. I guess I'm past caring, it's only money and it's going to be right regardless of what we have to do. I'm really excited we've got it this far and I can't wait to drive it!

Oh, and the colour is perfect in the sunlight, it really sparkles.

Cheers,

Nick

[2908642343]

Looking good Nick; I Jo for having the best job, director of works sitting on the back seat with feet up and just chilling out.

[CalCol]

Hey John,

I think she'd see it as a well-deserved break :-) She did an amazing job with the upholstery cleaner, you should have seen the state of the interior after 19 years in storage and 2 years in a dusty workshop. Looked like a throwaway job initially.

Cheers,

Nick

[2908642343]

Hi Nick;

I wish a bit of Jo's hard work and magic and understanding would rub of on my otherhalf. Would save an awful lot ag. lol

When you and Jo are back in the UK, can i borrow Jo to help me with a few jobs. .

Posted up the Interior picks of mine. A few changes to be made but it looks good.

Mvh

John

[andyc]

Hi guys

Well it's been a bit quite on the project front mainly because i just haven't had time to do any updates.

Well today was the day MOT time and i felt like a test pilot in some new plane.

the good new is it went straight through and has gone back to have a bit of paint touched in.

I wont bore you with loads of drivel so here are some pics of the finished article

I think that is come out ok, there are still a few tweaks to do here & there but there always will be, nothings ever finished in this game.

So what's next, well my coupe so watch out for the

ICENI PROJECT coming soon.................................

Oh and commissions can be undertaken as well

Cheers for reading this

Andy

[garymanc]

beautifull

[pma]

SHED !!

Only kidding,you must be chuffed Andy,well done all,what can you say,STUNNING!! All the long hours and hassle have been WELL worth it.Nick,you must be VERY proud,what a motor.

[falk5150]

F%^&$*g spiffing chap!!!

P.s, did you get sorted wid the headrests?

Damo.

[2908642343]

Nick;

Truly stunning a real credit to you, Jo, Andy etc.

Just one thing that would really set it of is a set of black wheel nut covers.... lol

Have to say i love it

[Robbie]

It,s taken a lot of time effort and money to restore the car, but now it all pays of well done and congrats to all.

Sure wont need the rust removed for a month or 3

Enjoy

[Devil Fish]

Yeah, that is lovely.

[blacka]

well done so when shall i drop mine off

[Manta Mal]

Sure looks the business, stunning Manta