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The Big Manta A Project (Pile Of Rust To Manta A)


mantaray
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Well a new project begins:

Some of you may remember a few months ago, a yellow Manta A that was on Ebay. Well Kev Finny (Mantai200) won it and it is now in my garage for the complete restoration to begin.

This is what the car looked like when Kev and I went down to London to pic it up.

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Got the car in my garage on Friday night and started to strip it, after about 8 hours work it is now up on my roll over cradle, and ready for the weldathone to start. Enjoy the pics . As we expected the Manta is in really bad state and a lot worse than we first thought, but that’s Manta’s for you.

Passenger side:

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Drivers side:

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As Chris has said, we spent approx 8 hours stripping the car to a shell ( I left Chris' house at 03:00 on Saturday morning ), what a late night but well worth it to finally see some work being done on my manta. We carried on stripping the car on Saturday evening and had a good poke around. When I bought the car, I knew it needed lower rear quarters, rear arches, lower rear valence, front outer wings and floor pans. I sourced the above panels within a week but could do with a reasonable second hand lower front valence as I can't afford a new one. The plan is to restore the shell, repaint it and basically keep it standard, for now,:), as I have a tendancy to modify my A's. The time frame for this project is almost as tight as an overhauling one,lol, but it will be worth it and I can't wait to drive a manta again :)

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Really looking forward to following this project. I am currently restoring my A which I am pleased to say is not as bad as this one looks, which is just as well for me as I am a novice. It will be good to see this coming along.

Mick

Edited by MickB
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  • 4 weeks later...

Up date.

Sorry we have not been on for a while, time just flies when your having fun.

Well there have been a few changes since I last posted. We have to admit that the yellow shell has beaten us. But only because, we have managed to find another shell in much better condition.

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The rear end is solid, but it does need both rear arches and n/s rear corner. N/s sill need a small repair and another small repair to the n/s front inner wing. The worst thing on the n/s is that the door hinges have been cut and so need replacing (at least part of the yellow car will live on.)

The n/s chassie rail is excellent only needing a small repair, not seen one as good as this for a long time.

So as you can see, once we had this new shell the fate of the yellow shell was doomed.

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The yellow shell has not gone to wast tho, we have cut all the good panels out to keep for spares and Kev wants to make a trailer out of the rear end.

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Bit more done today.

N/S rear is now all welded, had to fabrecate both front and rear sections of inner arch and rear section of sill.

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Inside of boot still needs a little work but almost there.

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Hi paul, when you said it was a good shell, you wern't joking :thumbup Not seen one as good as this in a long time.

need to get the car done, as I have a customer car waiting to come in , in a few weeks, and I've just sorted out a new company project car, so I need the space.

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Finished of the inner n/s rear corner and spare wheel well.

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Kev sorted out the welding that was needed to the n/s inner front wing and bottom of A post.

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o/s inner wing box section was totally shot, so I had a go at making up a new box section.

Made up a card template.

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After transferring shape to sheet of steel, started to bend.

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Not too bad a fit.

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All welded in, primed and seam sealed

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n/s door hinges replaced.

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  • 1 month later...

Sorry Ive not up dated for a while, but been away on holiday and just had too much work on.

Anyway, all the welding is now finished and we are on to the body prep.

Although the drivers side looked good, we found that the sill had been repaired by just welding a new one over all the old rot, so off it all came so the job could be done properly.

This was down to kev as I was on holiday.

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With all the welding now finished Kev was a happy man.

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He even managed to get his partner Ruth, in on the act, painting a high Zink primer on the new metal before a new coat of under seal.

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And so this weekend we started to prep the body for paint.

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