Rab Posted March 29, 2008 Share Posted March 29, 2008 Hi Bendy. Aye Louise wiz sayin thi Cali had awe sad endin shame wiz awe crackin motor, going bi yur piccy`s yul bi busy wi yon leg but now`t that canny bi fixed awe gid fun, well handy anawe when yae kin hiv the motor on its side as yur previous piccy`s have shown. Oniways keep up thi gid work lookin forward tae seein wan day doon at Knockhill or wan owe ower meets. Nae probs if needin tae git thi heed doon anawe doors awe wiz open. cheers rab. PS. If awe ever git awe nither resto job awe ken thi man tae send it to noo. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bendy Posted April 1, 2008 Author Share Posted April 1, 2008 Christ, take it easy Rab! Ill need to build the house after i get this done or the site will have eroded! Aye its brill having it over on the side, makes life alot easier. Well i got stuck in with a refreshed attitude and heres what i managed so far. Got the offending area cleaned up and starting making some wheetabix box templates to make up plates for the leg. Obviously got snapped by visiting freind messing about with the camera! After he delayed me an hour to change the brake pads in his bloomin seat cupra, typical german overcomplication. > Heres the finished results of the plate on this side. once i finished i realised an obvious mistake that its a bit thick so ive lost a few mm of the distance between suspension mounting points but i think the bushes will give and let me off. Before i tiped the shell onto the other side i did alot of other smaller welding jobs on this side and cut out the wheel well and replaced with a flat panel which i used a peice of the old sunroof housing for as its ribbed i thought it would be stiffer than a flat plate. So thats most of what need done on this side, need to spin it over for and start on the other side next. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bendy Posted April 2, 2008 Author Share Posted April 2, 2008 Got a bit more done, finishing this leg didnt half take some time but it should be stronger than when it was new. Heres the slight norror story at the other side once i flipped it over and stripped it down. Alot of metal, making up new bits and welding later. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devil Fish Posted April 3, 2008 Share Posted April 3, 2008 wow, this is coming along quickly! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bendy Posted April 3, 2008 Author Share Posted April 3, 2008 Im trying my best to get it moving faster but its not easy sometimes All the welding i can find is now done but im sure ill find more one way or another Today ive been mainly rebuilding the steering collumn since the bearings didnt even exist. I also soldered a few wires back onto the controll stalk and ive been stripping the front axle which has enraged me to the point of giving up, 2 lower arm bolts have sheared trying to undo them and theres 3 balljoints i cant get to let go no matter what i do. Not to mention one of my spring commpressors snapped nearly taking my hand off and i wrote off the ball joint splitter too so im out of ideas. Looks like it might have to go for shot blasting with them intact. Ill have another go tommorow once ive cooled off i think. Other problems that have cropped up today are engine related, Firstly ive just noticed the new water pump fitted to the engine is a late type square tooth one but its an early round tooth Engine so ill need a new pump. Secondly the water outlet on the back of the head is too corroded to use so god knows what to do with that, get a new fitting brazed on maybe? Thirdly ill need to blank off the where the dizzy was fitted so i dont know if anyone makes plates for that or if its a mock something up job. Will i need to do anything with end of the cam before that gets blanked or will it be fine Nothings really been photo worthy today and im having one of those days i just want to kick the living hell out of the whole thing and set it on fire Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bendy Posted April 4, 2008 Author Share Posted April 4, 2008 Had a better day today, Bought a new ball joint splitter and new spring compressors for a start as there is no point struggling away without the tools. Finished the front axle only to find the upper and lower ball joints are both had it on both sides, not that badly worn (bottoms are kinda slack) but the rubbers are totally gone on the lot. Whats the deal with the lower balljoints, do you get whole new bottom arms? decided to pull the rear chassis mount bushes out as they were well gone but left the bottom arm bushes for now till i find out what the deal is with the arms. used this thing i mocked up a few years back for pulling/fitting camber correction bushes in the calibra. I always hear of people struggling like hell removing and replacing bushes. Cutting them up, hacksawing, drilling them, blasting them with hammers and even burning them out! Theres no need, all you need is threaded rod, some nuts and some big ass/various sized washers. This took literally less than 10 minutes to get 2 bushes out. heres what i used To pull one out, stanley knife the flange off the rubber to get the tube sitting on the face of the arm, thread rod in, select washer, space with 24mm impact socket and start screwing it out! (also note new spring compressors) If you wanted to refit one heres how to arrange it to pull it back in. I tidied up all the mess after that hatefull job and cleaned the worst of the crud off the suspension parts ready for blasting. Then i cleaned the oily mess off the steering rack and it came up good as new. Turned my attention to rebuilding the carbs next, here they are after some scrubbing with degreaser on the outside, they are very manky but i got them and the R1 fuel pump and head rubbers from a breakers delivered for £115 which i thought was good. The guy assured me they were very low mileage but also from a bike that was obviously never cleaned! First i took the float chamber covers off which the screws were exteremely tight, i had to give them a light tap with the impact driver which was a bit nerve racking! Heres the float retaining pins pushed out to remove the floats and float needles. Heres the float and needle with the pin stuck back in for safe keeping. next it was time to remove the small filters in each carb, the screw retaining these were also very tight and a crap fit for most philips screwdrivers which was also a bit nerve racking. Removed the filters and cleaned them with carb cleaner. next remove the main jets and pilot jets, clean out the pilot jets with carb cleaner and make sure they are clear. these jets are alleged to be very tight/seized but they werent at all. the float chamber screws were 100 times tighter than these. drilled out the main jets to 1.8mm for the XE and them cleaned down the swarf with carb cleaner. After that i removed the diaphragms etcd from the top of the carbs and cleaned them up them liberally cleaned out the innards of the carbs, to be honest they were spotless with no black marks or varnishing so i believe the low mileage to be an honest description. During all this i kept all the bits for each carb in order and clean in some little tubs ready to re fit it all. Its just a reversal of removing. Not a difficult job at all. bogg bros are making good money doing this! With that done i turned my attention to starting the final steps of the new engine, heres the offending square tooth pump And then i got the sump off, pick up pipe off and the windage tray out ready to chop it down for the big wing sump. Im waiting for a full set of allen head stainless bolts to put all this back together along with rocker ones. And new sump gaskets, water pump, timing belt so hopefully ill have more soon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin Abbott Posted April 5, 2008 Share Posted April 5, 2008 Nice work, good pics, it's close up stuff like this that can keep you interested Make sure you modify that windage tray to clear the big ends and suit the 1800 sump Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted April 5, 2008 Share Posted April 5, 2008 Cracking photos Bendy. They're really useful for anyone doing bike carbs. I'm glad it's not just me that struggled with the float bowl screws. I had to drill the heads off all 12 of mine on my latest set as they'd been butchered by the last owner, who had clearly failed to get them undone. However, once the heads were gone, the remaining bits came out with little more than fingers. I notice you've a screw missing from the number 3 carb choke linkage too. Every set of these I've seen has this one missing. I suspect they don't come with it in the first place for some reason. Incidentally, most four cylinder bike carbs get covered in cack. They're usually very difficult to remove from the bike and all but impossible to get to to clean, so they tend to be filthy however good the rest of the bike is. Will this project be at Billing do you think? Cheers, Joe. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bendy Posted April 5, 2008 Author Share Posted April 5, 2008 Aye cheers guys, i thought i would switch the camera to macro and get some good shots for anyone wanting to have a bash at it themselves As for Billing, ive been meaning to get there for years, ive been to Th PV show at santa pod once and often go down to knockhill. The problem is its a Ferry crossing, 600+ mile drive one way, hotels etc etc it costs me alot of dosh! Plus since the split with my girlfreind and trying to get the ball rolling for building my house im pretty skint! hence why im going to have to sell my Astra 888 But if i can get it there i would do, to be honest i cant see it being finished by then, if not due to time due to lack of funding for parts for it. its a catch 22 as im having to work overtime these days to generate the cash but that takes time away from working on the car. this week ive been on nightshifts and working on the car during the day, only been having about 4 hours sleep in 24 hours so im slightly wiped out now! I noticed this morning on Dr manta that you can get new upper balljoints and also new rubbers for them all so i think ill take that approach as they arent worn out just the rubbers have perished. No point spending money i dont have to Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Danny D114BCW Posted April 17, 2008 Share Posted April 17, 2008 its looking better and better all the time Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bendy Posted May 13, 2008 Author Share Posted May 13, 2008 Been a bit busy with other things lately but heres another little update on a few things done. Firstly the engine is pretty much done as far as i can go at the moment, obviously there will be ancilaries to tidy up etc and alot more stuff to bolt onto it yet. I think ill probably paint the rocker cover glacier white too when i start painting the car but essentially all the hard work is done on it and the distributor front mounting is loosely done. Ive also mounted the new discs onto the hubs after i cleaned them up and got rid of the rust. gave the whole lot a few coats of gloss black vht paint, i cant stand rusty brake discs! With most of the work on the shell done for now the time has come to get the hatchback manta in and do the axle swap which ive not been looking forward to. The coupe shell is now outside under a cover and 2 of us easily mangaed to lift it out and carry it down to its new home for a couple of weeks! One of the guys from work came past on saturday as he was passing and his little boy was convinced i had the "back to the future car" hidden under there and wanted me to take the cover off so he could see it! The hatch is currently having all the nuts soaked underneath to try and make this axle swap a little easier. The GTE axle will suit what i use the hatch for better and ill have the 1800 axle to get sorted out with a quaife diff. If i can ever afford it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vauxsenb Posted May 13, 2008 Share Posted May 13, 2008 Thats not too tardy by anyones standards, getting on better than I am. Keep it up. Cheers, Colin . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Danny D114BCW Posted May 15, 2008 Share Posted May 15, 2008 its looking mint now , when you got in mind to have it done by? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bendy Posted May 17, 2008 Author Share Posted May 17, 2008 Well i would like to think ill have it pretty much done this year or early next year but as always things take longer than you think they will. Im having difficulties with getting an inlet manifold at the moment, Bogg bros dont seem interested in giving an accurate time scale of how long the waiting list is and dont seem to have a fixed price anymore so stuff it! This weekend im going to see a very skilled local engineer to see what he says about making me one up to suit it perfectly, only thing i need to find out is what the angle from 90 degrees the carbs need to sit at on the engine and also if the Bogg bros ones use the waterway on the head or can it just be blanked off???? Can anyone help me out with that information? Joe or Mick Appy?? any info would be great Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andy manta xe Posted July 9, 2008 Share Posted July 9, 2008 Any updates on this Brendan? How's my hatch doing? What have you done with the wheels? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bendy Posted July 16, 2008 Author Share Posted July 16, 2008 Alright Andy, how you doing? The wheels are back on it now and ive sorted one particularly bad bit out on the sill, along with sorting out the jacking point and chassis leg on the passenger side. Also had to get a new water pump and timing belt on it as it had a square tooth pump which had wrecked the belt. replaced the radiator and cooling fan for better ones and i also had to replace the wiper motor. just done a 500 mile trip and it ran perfectly, even matching the pace of a BMW 330D for quite a few miles on the A9 which was obviously irritating him! Ive also got 4 cibie oscars up front now too cos i cant see in the dark. Im hoping to get time to do the rest of the bits on the body soon but thats the coupe shell back in the garage so ill be trying to get a push on with that now too Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blueosis1 Posted July 16, 2008 Share Posted July 16, 2008 liking your project a lot . i,m fitting r1,s to my engine a some point and was good to see what there like to strip down.keep up the good worrk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andy manta xe Posted July 16, 2008 Share Posted July 16, 2008 Sh*t! I hope it didn't do any damage! The factors i bought that off aswel said that there was only one type of pump too, funnily enough they're not trading anymore! Get some piccy's up of the new shiney bits mate, glad she's alright. She should easily keep up with poerful dirty diesels! I'm good thanks mate, i'm missing Manta ownership though! May start looking for another soon... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bendy Posted July 24, 2008 Author Share Posted July 24, 2008 Ill try and get a few pictures up sometime, unbelivably busy at work just now. It didnt do any damage but it wasnt far off, one section of the belt had 5 teeth missing! Ive seen this happen so many times before with the different pumps. Ive got quite a graveyard of square tooth pumps in the garage! I robbed the pump and belt off the new engine thats built for the 400. Dont suppose yo want to buy it back do ya? The costs of building my house are crippling me and i cant get the 888 sold at all so i might be forced to part with the hatch. Dont want to at all but a guys gotta eat! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andy manta xe Posted July 27, 2008 Share Posted July 27, 2008 PM me bud, i wouldn't mind first refusal if you were to get rid. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rab Posted July 28, 2008 Share Posted July 28, 2008 Hi BENDY Thinks what we awe need is a National Scottish Manta meet. cheers rab. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bendy Posted January 7, 2009 Author Share Posted January 7, 2009 Well its been a long time and ive not managed to get anything done with the car at all. I just cant find time to work on it anymore and i also may not have the garage much longer to keep it all in. The whole thing is getting me down a bit and im considering selling it all up Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RECARDO Posted January 7, 2009 Share Posted January 7, 2009 hi bendy in the pic regarding the cutting the bulk head for the water pipe, is that all you need to cut out to fit the xe engine? it's just other people have hacked there bulkheads and removed loads, do you think it's nessasery? RECARDO Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mantamike Posted January 8, 2009 Share Posted January 8, 2009 only the little waterpipe on the back of the cilinderhead is in hte way of the bulkhead, so a little mod will need to be mad, but to chop out a whole lot seems a bit unnecesary. what people do do is to change the heatermatrix inorder to fit the distributor on an XE. love the project bendy, nice work Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RECARDO Posted January 9, 2009 Share Posted January 9, 2009 hi so with me fitting my xe with a electronic coil, i shoul'nt need to modify the bulk head because i have modified my head. i will get you some pic's over this weekend. got some pic's sorted not the best but it will give you my idea. from head till end of uj im hopeing for 36mm max hope it gives me clearence so i dont have to modify my bulkhead?? RECARDO Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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