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Stradacab and Devil Fish's 400R road/track project


Devil Fish
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Sqeezed in a couple of hours last night, have glued the rear panels in place and secured the top of the c post covers.

Then the hardest part... taking a stanley knife to a brand new headliner with the knowledge tht you can only cut it once! I must have measured it, marked it, measured again, checked and checked before the blade sliced through.

The headliner clamps beneath the frame and then I installed the finisher. You have to be sure to get the right tension around the roof so you dont have any ripples/ sags. The rest will come out by gluing and tugging round the door openings.

IMG_3017.jpg

PS, I did think about those two guys on the Last Manta DVD, Yes they did fire that lining in, but I bet they have done a lot more than I ever have.

Edited by stradacab
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Cheers Mike, we ended up using mole grips, g-clamps, clothes pegs and trim! :lol:

Anyway its in...

Fits well and is really well made...But make no mistake, you got to take your time fitting it.

Difficult to take decent pic but here goes (for some reason it's come out looking blue, it isn't, it's actually light grey!)... apologies for the appearances of the garage clowns. :rolleyes:

headliner2.jpg

headliner3.jpg

headliner1.jpg

Edited by Devil Fish
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Nothing very exciting to report but we've done another two and a half hours tonight. My mantra is "at least do a little and often" to keep momentum and to move a project on.

We have fitted the windscreen and rear screen trims and sealed with goo. Done the rear cards, 1x seat belt, refitted the gutter and a and c post trims on both sides and put the door glass holders and drop glass seals back on. It doesn't sound like very much but its getting to look more and more like a car each day and all this detail stuff really takes up the time if you're gonna do it properly.

The headlining looks absolutley superb, I don't know what Darren was expecting but it has well surpassed my expectations of the finished product.

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Yep lots of fiddly jobs, but its really starting to come together now :D:D:D

Really pleased with how the headlining has come out, but thats mostly down to James's skills. There's no denying that Lenk's headlining is well made though, definatetly recommeded.

Anyway rare sight on a manta... plastic window seal beading that actually reaches the corners!

:lol::lol::lol::lol:

windowseal.jpg

all I need now is some new door seals with grey trim, new rear quarter glass seals and some black check recaros! <_<

Have a good weekend all.

Edited by Devil Fish
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(they only cover a small portion of the rad and aren't up against the core anyway (there's a good 10-15mil gap) .. if they do, will just drill some holes in them!

Anyway some more pics

rad2edit.jpg

rad3edit.jpg

As always, we love feedback, comments, suggestions from you guys (good or bad) so keep them coming!

Was looking at this, fantastic work by the way, just love it. With the fan cowl also sitting 10-15mm off the rad core. The efficiency of the fan could be affected. It might draw the air from the gap, rather than pull it threw the rad when sitting in traffic and there is no front air pressure. A soft rubber or foam lip round the edge of the fan body to bridge the gap from rad core to fan, would produce a better pull of air through the core. Or it could be made of alloy, a ring the same diameter as the fan body TIG welded to the rad core or fan brackets.

Only a suggestion, keep up the great work :thumbup

John

Edited by MadManx
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Were you after a full seat set of recaros or are you just having front seats in this? If it's the latter, a chap who bought my GTJ may still have the black daytona check recaros from that but of course being a hatch, only the fronts will fit.

His advert is in the classifieds as manta 1.8 breaking for spares or something along those lines.

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I can't help thinking it needs a gigantic turbo! :lol:

LOL, yeah that would give the rad a work out :lol:

a chap who bought my GTJ may still have the black daytona check recaros from that but of course being a hatch, only the fronts will fit.

His advert is in the classifieds as manta 1.8 breaking for spares or something along those lines.

That will be rust4life (username)

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Were you after a full seat set of recaros or are you just having front seats in this? If it's the latter, a chap who bought my GTJ may still have the black daytona check recaros from that but of course being a hatch, only the fronts will fit.

His advert is in the classifieds as manta 1.8 breaking for spares or something along those lines.

Actually the rear fits fine. You need the carpet bits off the arches to cover the inner arches and to cut a slot in the steel to hang on the hooks.

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Darren told me off for not updating the thread cause he's had 2 days off!

So...

External trims and screns all fitted

IMG_3041.jpg

Sunvisors, rear view mirror, courtesy lamp, rear cards, and seat belts in. We have sourced some grey door and window seals so it all matches better now

IMG_3044.jpg

Cut some carpet for Darrens custom Parcel shelf (although you can't really see it here)

IMG_3046.jpg

IMG_3043.jpg

Apart from rear windows, adjusting the front door glass and refitting the seats its ready to go for the suspension to be fitted and then MOT time

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More updates to follow, but it's time in James's garage is pretty much up...

fin2safe.jpg

At this point, it really is about time on this thread that I thanked James for all his incredible work on this car. Without him the car would still be sat in rusty bits in my garage or worse, scrapped/sold. Considering the project was initially sold to him as a "bit of welding to get road worthy" I'll be forever in his debt for all the work he has done on this car, including all the 'extra' work (such as fitting the 400 kit, the 16v, the headlining and so on...) that he has taken on and completed to a level of finish I never dreamed this car would get.

I've really enjoyed popping over every night and helping where I can, it's been a real education for me as well as a lot of fun. I am just extremely grateful to him!

Also, thanks to everyone on the forum (hope you've enjoyed it as much I have) for putting up posts and helping out with parts and advice etc along the way. In my experience the OMOC has some of the friendliest most helpful people I've ever met and long may it live.

Edited by Devil Fish
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Not quite! Still a fairly long 'to do' list, but I'll be holding back on some things so there are a few surprises for billing. ;)

Looking forward to seeing the car in the flesh. Bring on Billing :D

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I just wasn't happy with my attempt at cleaning up the subframes, so I enlised someone who knew what they were doing...

subframe1.jpg

subframe2.jpg

subframe3.jpg

Massive thanks to Paul Newport (legend!) for sorting this lot out, it's an absolute work of art, don't know whether to fit it to the car or put it up on the wall in the living room!!!

Edited by Devil Fish
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The pictures just don't do it justice.

Paul has sandblasted all the parts and repainted. As the car is running lower springs he has sliced the bump stops and rewelded to prevent bottoming out. The nuts and bolts have been dipped and stripped and reprotected. There are new polybushes, wheel bearings, rebuilt rack, roll bar links, new ball joints etc etc.

Hours have gone into it and it is as good as, if not better than, an brand new assembly.

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That's kinda between me and Paul, sorry fella.

But you are looking at fair bit just for the parts alone and I supplied as much as I could, bushes, ball joints, springs, wishbones etc (although some of them turned out to be too rusty). Obivously, if you do it yourself you won't incur labour costs, but then I could never have done this to the standard that Paul has, he's a certified Manta genius!

Edited by Devil Fish
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very nice i need to get that done to mine how much would that likely set you back m8?

Apologise for hijacking thread but just to answer question on price. I will remove if requested. :rolleyes:

I have had a lot of my front axle powder coated for around £120, not including steering mechanism. Rear Axle will be approx the same price and other parts from the car.

Polybushes "Suoerpro" I got from TJM, Full set Front and rear over £300, and a lot of other ebay and OMOC members selling (Ball joints etc) approx £100. I am still on the look for more spares.

Not cheap, but I have spare axles so carried oit over along period ;) and looking at everyone who has gone down this road well worth it.

Hope mine looks that good when rebuilt, nice work Paul :thumbup

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