10 replies to this topic

[BoXXerRACE]

Finaly got my Manta back on the road after long, painfull and expensive couple of month on public transport.
she's a 1987 GT/E Exclusive hatch and shes been a real labour of love, heres some pics


The guy before me gave her a full re-spray, replaced the wings and had all the welding done, meaning the body is in fairly good nick.


if you look carefully you can see a dint on the left side of the opel badge from a "good sumaritan" pushing me out of a parking space when the gearbox failed.




Stuff ive done
new gearbox.
new clutch - which is why the gearbox broke).
new clutch arm - from a cav.
new suspension - SPAX psx. the old springs had been chopped down 40mm and the rear ones had actualy snapped also all but one of the dampers were blown.
origional wheels put back on.
engine tuned - hydrocarbons where at 3000!
radio ariel reinstalled.
DAB radio from old car installed - oh yeah planet rock.
leaking fuel tank fixed - dangling breather pipe
hundreds of bulbs and fuses replaced.

Stuff that needs doing
spot lights have stopped working - not the bulbs or the fuses, mabey bad earth.
interia light missing inside roof somwhere.
anoying dint above the grill.
exhaust battered to peices - a result years of it being lowered and on low profiles before i got it.
Re-paint the rocker cover.
quite a few spade connectors and terminal blocks lying around not connected to anything.

if you guys can see anything else from the pics or know how to sort any of my problems out please let me know cheers.

[Rick-Manta]

Looks damn nice from the outside especially debadged. I take it you've given the engine a fluid and filter change as you're going to be relying on it again? The spot lights don't work as there aren't any and a place like 'Dent Wizard' or whatever similar franchise is local to you can sort out dents inexpensively and without knackering the paint.

[BoXXerRACE]

Cheers Rick, when i had her tuned they gave her a full oil, coolant and filter change as well and a new distributer cap and plugs, they also made the fuel air mixture a bit leaner. lol and by spot lights i mean the middle hi-beam lights, they worked intermitently for a while about 6 months ago when i changed all the fuses and bulbs but now they've died again ive traced them back to their earth points, screwed them out clean the ends with wd40 and then flux cleaned them and the holes and still no joy i'm gunna have another go today.

[pat]

there should be a relay on the feed to them coming from the starter motor, the relay is normally on the passenger inner wing or front panel, if the relays packed in they will have no feed , worth a look

[BoXXerRACE]

Summer 2010 Post crash "what can we do for £20 to make it look less crashed" Sesh

In January 2010 I managed to bounce the old girl off the back a Golf TDI by sliding uncontrollably down an Icy hill. The Manta, being a sturdy monument to “They don’t make’em like they used tuh” suffered a case of cracked bumper and light pod, with a dash of dented panel. The Golf however, being a 55 plate amalgamous crumple zone on wheels, (I don’t like little, fast, FWD hatchbacks, I blame them for the death of the working man’s RWD GT) Suffered £4,000 worth of damage according to the insurance company. But anyway, being in the Turd party, fire and theft crew, I broke out the fiberglass tape and covered all the smashed bits, finishing it off with a coat of light blue modelling tape.

One sunny afternoon during the summer, me and my mates decided to see what we could do with £20 to make it look at bit more presentable than my lovely tape job, while I tried to source replacement panels, bumpers and light pods etc. and since I was on apprentice money at the time cash was tight and parts were scarce. worst off all, the gold GT/J that i had been stealling things off at my local scarpyard had just been crushed

So this is the story, retold in epic Technocolor! Basically because I’ve just found the photos.



First the bumper had to come off, which it did quite easily untill my mate sat in the drivers seat to "Put some tunes on", crushing my head and slicing my nose open. Great start...



One of my mates thought this was really funny and took lots of pictures, despite me swearing my head off at him.



Gave the rocker cover a polish while the filler was drying, also put the battery on charge since we were using radio



Rebuilt the smashed corner with a cannoe repair kit £6 from the tent shop



And sanded it to shape...ish. it got alot more sanding than this don't worry.



Primer goes on, sun sets, car reassembled, driven to work for another week. Car dissasembled, cleaned, re-primed, it's paint time!



Bumper passes the man on a galloping horse test



Just as i finnish the first coat on the wing the heavens open and it rains non stop all weekend, too slow with the tarp, no paint left to do over, oh well it'll do till i get a garage.

Yeah still no garage now in 2012 and even less money since being laid off. BUT, I won't be defeated! I will still keep her running mechanically, keep cleaning her and fighting the sea air. I just hope she’ll forgive me for neglecting the bodywork until I have a place to retire her for a full rebuild…

On the upside though I have sorted the following since…

• New Exhaust - stainless and pretty much straight through (Gotta love being Cat exempt )
  
• Inner headlights now working
  
• Soldered new contacts onto the brake light mounts, who ever came up with that design must have been on something
  
• A fair amount of welding, not by me, yet...
  
• A proper, expensive, oem 2.0L clutch cable, not the £6 rubbish from Ebay that are too long and snap after a couple of months. (I'm now pro at driving without a clutch)

[adz the stig]

smashing work there mate! ha ha sorry about that. but really thats a good quick £20 fix!!!!

[Kevin Abbott]

I laughed a lot at the squished face pic, class.
I love Monaco blue as it was the colour of my first manta

[casper1483]

Smart looking car there pal, nice to see mates getting together to keep the car on the road on a budget, how do you get round not having side repeaters ???, I once used later vauxhall ones, there oval and fit flush, but if it dosnt need them leave them off

[BoXXerRACE]

I've had the car 4 years now and have had a few run ins with the law, normally because I’m under the bonnet after a break down and they think I’m trying to nick it, side repeaters have never been mentioned once. The best one was being pulled over for "aggressively" accelerating away from a roundabout, not speeding, just had 5 people in the car and needed more beans. He wanted to check I had an MOT because my car “smelled”…

[casper1483]

The smell is the best bit, I followed my mate back from a club meet on Thursday and that's all I could smell, un catalysed fumes and pure thrash mmmmmm

[BoXXerRACE]

£40 bargin! If it's nice next week i'm going to have a bodywork repair party. Anyone got a spare Pasenger side twin light pod? any colour will do.