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A series project.


paulmanta
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I have fancied an A series for many years, so when i was offered one by a friend of a friend i went and had a look and eventually when the price became right i bought it, I picked it up on New years day (it is my new years resolution to get it driving in time for the summer) and towed it back to my garage where i set about finding its good and bad points, the good points were that it seemed structurally very sound, it was more or less complete except for the engine and box and the body had been lagged in waxoil some time ago.

The bad points were that it was partly disassembled, many of the parts turned out to be missing, broken or needing repair, also it had been painted red but this was badly prepped and was blistered badly.

So i got stuck in, the first thing to do was give it a good clean out, remove all the rubbish and other stuff from the cabin and boot then i could get a good look at the overall condition of the interior, i really wish i could find a good point about the interior, one of the previous keepers had decided he didnt like the tan coloured interior so he sprayed it MATT BLACK ! with a rattle can. nice, i tried to get the paint off but it just smudged into the grain of the viynl and looked worse, the dash was cut about, split and had a burnt glovebox door, evidence of welding perhaps ? the seats were the only nice bit about the car, rip free, complete, functional and not matt black, oh well i have a starting point ! they were however filthy, so i had to wash them several times with very hot soapy water and a wet and dry hoover.

My next decision was to strip the whole top side of the car of everything, wiring, interior, headlining, everything, which took about an hour all told, nice and simple to work on these A series.

I was then left with a rolling shell, and a big bodywork mission ahead of me, so i set about stripping all the layers of poor paint off it, i used 3 litres of Nitromors and 6 scotchbrite discs getting most of the paint off, then i switched to 80 grit on a DA sander and after that 120 grit, then 180 grit, it was a huge job but worth it to see the car in bare metal. the body turned out to be very straight, no filler or nasty surprises really, it needs a pair of rear arches and a bit of attention around the rear sill bottoms but it is very sound apart from these areas.

I then switched my attentions to the Suspension and as i now wanted the car to be a good quality restored daily driver i felt i had better investigate the bushes, good job i did as someone had used black silicone sealer to hide the split rubber and also filler and paper to hide serious rust in the lower suspension arms, replacment arms are not easy to come by unless you are a member of the manta club as less than 24 hours later i had one brand new one in my hand and a further two more good second hand ones on the way !

My quest for parts for this car is made all the more difficult by my very tight time schedule and my inconvienient location 8 miles from Lands end in Cornwall, fortunatly i have fellow A series owner Ron Martin living quite close and he has been a great help with body work, welding, and general manta mending duties. two pairs of hands make the job much faster.

I have also been very lucky to have had tremendous help from Mark Kinnon, he has been brilliant and has provided me with an incredible amount of trim and other parts all of which i had been worrying about finding, a big thanks to you Mark !

you are up to date so far.....more when i do more work ! [:D]

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Thanks for the offer, i have managed to borrow a new digi cam off my father and have taken about 40 shots with it, i am going to fill the memory card right up with the resto then whack em all on a CD.

once again thanks for the offer though.

Pics below show bare metal shell, its not painted silver !

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Thanks for that Robbie,

Be silenced mr Mather !!! [:D]

It looks a bit different again now due to a massive lot of work yesterday,

Part two :

After a while spent on the stripping the front and rear suspension i took all the components to be lightly blasted, this revealed the parts that had been eaten by rust, as mentioned before i was lucky to find new bottom arms within the club and i have had these blasted now as well, the crossmember spring locators were quite holed so i cut these off and made a new piece from a section of large tubing, they are thicker than the original but the coil located on them fine. All the parts were then covered in red lead to keep the rust at bay, soon i will re-prime with hi-build grey primer and then the top coat of gloss black will go on.

The shell has had the front wings removed, the inner wings cleaned off and the few tiny pin holes sorted out, then i did the whole lot with jenolite and after it dried seam sealer and then red lead, after all that was done i re fitted the wings and blasted waxoyl shultz under the wings till it ran out !!

My next mission was to sort out the rough paint in the door shuts, i removed all the old crusty stuff and went back to bare metal and with the heat lamps on full i primed the lot, now they are both as smooth as the day it left the factory, (this bit sounds quick when written but in reality it took hours ) Meanwhile while i was busy with the above Ron was welding away any small bits he could find, around the headlights has been an area of much activity due to poor previous repairs, all is looking good now and the front is getting ready for a VERY big design make over..Could be a Custom Solution [8D]

Also done this weekend was the finishing of the smoothing and general tidying in the engine bay, this area was really bad a previous owners had hand painted it in a variety of colours then decided it would look good in black shultz, every time you went near it you got lagged ! about a litre of Thinners sprayed at it then brushed off got rid of most of it, also got me high as a kite, then i used the trusty wire grinder brush, then 80 grit on a grinder to get rid of surface rust that was there, the upshot of this was that the engine bay was so mucked about with it would never be perfect so the decision was taken to lightly gravitex the lot, this gives a nice crinkled finish and can be over painted, it hides all the imperfections from years of owner abuse. its a compromise but i am not going for concours, i want to drive the car hard as often as possible.

more when i do more....

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  • 3 weeks later...

Part 3 :

After a very nice holiday in New York i came back fully charged up to really crack on with the car, i got stuck in on the rest of the body work, the wings and rear quarters were the bit i concentrated on the most and after a good going over with the 80 grit on my new air D.A. then over them again with 180 grit they were back to looking almost new.

It was now i noticed that the years of neglect coupled with the previous bad paint job had left lots of very small black spots in the metal, i reasoned that these were probably rust spots and that they would only cause me hassle in the future if not properly sorted, I decided to coat the whole car with Jenolite, i used a cotton rag to apply it quite thinly, this wuld show up any rust by reacting with it and killing it, i have so far given it one coat, i am waiting overnight to see what has happened !

more soon...

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  • 3 weeks later...

Well things have progressed VERY badly since i got back, the underside of the car looks really bad now i have seen Robbies pics in his project diary, so bad that i am really thinking about buying a sand blast kit, then going at the car in a frenzy. that will hopefully make me feel better about the whole thing.

By the way its raining down here in Cornwall and has been since i got back, hence the lack of progress, to work on the A series the white 2.2 GTE coupe has to go out and she doesnt do rain !

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Update :

Had a blistering few days on it, really got stuck in and have now finished the engine bay, i stripped it a while ago using thinners and a brush to get rid of the black shutz and then i went over it with the grinder and wire brush, once it was all clean i reust eatered (jenolite) the whole area and left it dry , once the jenolite had reacted and had done its job i keyed the whole area with scotch brite and then primered it, once that had hardened i then stone chipped the engine bay all over with 4 or 5 even coats to get a regular slightly crinkled finish, once this had cured in the warmth of the workshop lights i put another light couat of primer on and then put the top coat gloss black on, it has come out realy well and will be ready for the subframe and engine just as soon as i track down some engine mounts !

If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants

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  • 3 weeks later...

Update...

Ok, i give up. no really. i simply cannot do what i want to this shell without more time and money than i currently have.

So....

I have bought another one, yes its true, i decided to buy Mark Kinnons black A series shell and get that done for Billing this year, i have spent so much time arsing about trying to get the first shell right and i have so much left to do to it that i was not likely to finish it this year let alone drive it this summer which was my original plan.

The new shell is a coat of paint away from being done, it is very straight, black already and has had the trans tunnel modified for 5 speed. the suspension and axle i prepped for the other shell are going to go on this one now as is the steering column and wiring loom from the GTE, the Engine and box are almost ready as well.

could be driving this sooner than i thought, going to hit the bodywork tomorrow eve with a few mates so should be in paint in a couple of weeks.

Will keep updating.

The other shell will not go to waste, i will finish it off and then probably sell it as a whole to pay for the work i have done so far, need to put a pair of rear arches and new lower rear quarter panels on it first then finish primering.

Climbed a mountain and turned around

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The time scale for driving an A series around has just reduced itself by months, I was starting to feel like i was getting nowhere at all with the other shell, at least i can now get it finished to a high standard while i drive the other one around.

Billing ? i really hope so.

Climbed a mountain and turned around

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getting the shell sorted properly takes ages [:(] Thats before the upper body work even starts, think I have been at mine 9 weeks now Paul, hopefully by the end of next week the shell will be 100 solid again and the underneath and engine bay sorted, Then I can set the car to one side until the winter and get the V8 finished in the mean time.

Glad yours will be sorted for billing looking forward to seeing yours and Dawns there [^]

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Had a really big session at it this evening, Even got my mate Alan down and working on it. nearly all the celly paint is flatted off now, the windows are all out and the trim is all off, i cannot believe how straight this shell is, it is mint underneath, almost Robbie spec !! it has all been cleaned and painted at some point in the past and the gearbox mounts have been moved, the trans tunnel altered and the twin fuel pipes run through for the GTE injection. i cannot believe how lucky i am, i have had a big grin all day !!!

Need bits though !!! see Wanted section, Maybe you can help...?

Climbed a mountain and turned around

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Some of the parts may be dr manta jobs paul i had to get a few things for the project car, the front and rear screen rubbers rarely pop up, I think I have only seen one set and another rear rubber for sale on flea bay this past 3 years.

The insert if its the chrome one you could try a local windscreen repairer, if not wolfgang again or some of the big auto jumbles like Beaulieu. [:)]

Will have a hunt tmw and see if i can find a mount, the set i sent over were 1900,s but the other set i found here were 1600 and i dont think they are the same. miffed at those mirrors going awol [}:)]

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  • 4 weeks later...

Well due to a complete lack of funding all work has now stopped. The shell is mostly primed and nearly all of the suspension is back on it, unfortunatly i need to order some new bushes and this is not happening till i sell my soul or at least rent it out.

I also need to buy a new headlining, and make the carpets, then the actual re-spray is likely to cost a bit as well.

Unless something changes (like a lotto win *pray,beg,hope*) this car (or any of the others) will not be anywhere near Billing this year.

Even the Astramax van will be out of MOT so i might be hitchhiking or missing it completly.

[xx(][:(]

Climbed a mountain and turned around

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[:(] Sorry to hear that Paul, the cars are real money pits at times esp when your doing a bare shell resto job. I know the black one we are doing up at the moment is over 2.5k to date.

Dawn got a new head cloth made if I remember right from a UK company and I think it was around £80 which i thought wasnt bad.

With the fleet of Mantas you have, can one of them not be driving for billing [:(]

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i went to a local re-trimmers who made a new head cloth from the old one..and also re-trimmed my sun visors. £85 all in

i have booked 2 weeks off to complete my A with the intension of taking her to Billing.

Still can,t decide what flipping colour she,s going to be!

Paul really hope your luck turns round and you can take your A to Billing this year

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I am going to go at it running this week, all the bits i already bought will be getting sorted and the stuff i dont need money for is going to be done.

then i am going to call in some favours from mates to help !!

A manta will be at Billing more than likely !

Climbed a mountain and turned around

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  • 2 weeks later...

Haahh !!!

The progress is stunning, after a load of wet weather stopped play the showers are a little less frequent so i have made some progress worth writing down on here.

I recently visited a local scrapyard looking for a big glass sunroof to put into the A, i have a metal sliding roof in it already which i hate and have decided to remove it neatly and pop a big glass panel in its place, less prone to leaks and i dont have to do battle with a long toothed cable thing and lining it all up for a week ! A nice Britax sunroof was spotted and cut out with tin snips and aquired for £10, it is in new condition with perfect seals and lock mech, i also accidently found a frontera 2.4 engine still in the frontesaurus so i had to have that too ! the fact that this automotive beast was in one piece and i only had a few basic tools didnt matter, i cut the front of the 4x4 and then we rolled it on its side, its amazing how fast and engine comes out when you do it like that, we lifted it out and on to a trolly and the worst bit was lying in a puddle as i battled with the bellhousing bolts.

On Sunday i had a good day in the workshop with a couple of mates and we cut the old roof out and trimmed the new glass roof in, it went like a dream really and the biggest bit of the whole job was getting the old metal roof out in one re-usable piece, these cars are getting super rare now so any bits saved could help someone in the future.

Among other tasks complete were a complete strip down of the 2.4 which revealed worn bores but perfect bearings and top end, a bit odd but fixable, all be it at a price.

we were able to remove the rear axle and clean and prep the underside of the car as well, hopefully we will get a bit more done during the week, although i am now waiting for some rear axle bushes to come from Dr manta.

more as it happens folks.

I have always been here,

I have always looked out from behind these eyes.

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That made me laugh, a Frontesaurus!

visions of walking with Dinosaurs,a breathless David Attenborogh describing its last moments as it lays on its side in a puddle,its very innards exposed! 'a painfull end for such a large and noble beast that once roamed hills,vallys and moors of land not so long ago.....'

But hey,an A series Manta with a 2.4 and no roof rot,sounds like your onto a winner with that one Paul,see it at Billing?

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Now got all the under side of this car scraped off and sanded, all the oily ming removed and its all nicely primed and lightly stonechipped, after letting it cure for a day or two i then painted it gloss black to match the upper body, now waiting for the new rear axle bushes from DR manta, then the painted axle can go on complete with new brakes and cables etc, then its on to the front axle a refit with poly bushes and all new painted bits should look better !

I have always been here,

I have always looked out from behind these eyes.

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paul i've thought about blanking the rear pillars like yours (where the black plastic vents are) Doesn't this block the air ventilating in and out of the car?

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