Jo and I have been trying to work out what to do with the next Manta project.The original plan with the Mantas over here was to turn the orange car into a narrow body 400 replica (silver, of course) and the new bodyshell into a LHD Starmist Black Exclusive, but without a rear spoiler. This worked well for us, since we both like both of those styles and it gives us something a little more modern (1989-style instead of 1979) to drive on a daily basis.The revised plan came about because of Louis. Rather than have so many cars, we would cut the orange Manta shell into spare parts and build the bodyshell into a Manta, giving us one Manta over here rather than two. Nice idea, but what should we make now? Will it be the 400 replica or the Exclusive or something entirely different? And what colour?So there's the problem... What do we make? Here are the candidates so far:
1) A clone of my silver Manta in the UK. I love the look (not surprisingly) and Jo loves it too. For both of us it's probably our favourite look. We have a nice 400 interior here, with new door panels and other bits, so rather than the blue interior we have in the UK car we'd use the 400 interior.
2) A Starmist Black Exclusive without rear spoiler. Yup, one possibility from our original list. We know we like the colour and the look of the car, but I think I'm getting a little "greyed out" and again, we'd probably end up using the 400 interior since it's so nice. The only problem here is that it's a black car with a dark interior. I'd need to find some way of turbocharging the A/C for use in California!
3) An Exclusive, possibly in a different colour. Jo suggested this one and the colour she thought of was a darker metallic grey, more blue-ish than yellow, much like the BMW in this picture. Interior colour TBD. Not bad, and at least it's not straight silver or black (it's a bit inbetween...). I'm just not sure I can handle a car that isn't black or silver. Of course, the other possibility is an Exclusive in the same colour as my silver Manta, maybe the best of both worlds.
4) A silver narrow body 400 (don't have a pic so the white one will have to do...). The other possibility from our original list and the one I'm happy to dismiss. Everyone and his brother has done a 400 clone (even spawning the "400R" fake model type) and I really don't want to do one unless I can make a totally convincing clone, complete with 400 engine, correct rear axle and 5-stud hubs. Just looking at what's involved to do that "properly" is putting me off and I think I'll just enjoy everyone else's copies rather than making another one myself.
- Neither of us particularly likes chrome bumpers, so we're not likely to start looking for them- No 400 spoiler- No matt black bonnet (Andy)- No orange
Other than that, we're still thinking about it. Not sure on the engine either - I've got an XE here that I could use and of course it has a 2.4 at the moment. I'm not going to put a 6-cylinder in it as it would never pass smog (even the most stupid testers can count to 6), even though that would probably be ideal for the type of car we want.Ideas / votes on email to the usual address... :-)
Five words you never want to hear (well, if you're a Manta owner, that is)...Jo yelled this as she got home last night and I was straight downstairs with a fire extinguisher in my hand. I got to the car, expecting flames but I didn't see anything. Initially Jo pointed to the vents and said she'd seen and smelled smoke, so I thought it must be either the A/C blower resistor or the fan that was overheating, but lifting the bonnet it looked fine. The only minor issue was the blower motor cooling hose had come off (must use a tie wrap to hold it on) and the fan was warm but nothing really out of the ordinary.I turned the heater blower up full and sniffed the vent and couldn't smell anything so I was reasonably satisfied that all was OK.No, says Jo, it seemed to be coming from the heater CONTROL, not the vents. Well, all seemed OK now so I told her to park it near the house as normal and I'd pull the lower part of the dash and the instrument cover off and have a look.Off came the lower part of the dash underneath the instruments. If there was any wiring problem then it was likely to be there as that's where the bulk of the wiring terminates (that's where the fuse box is), but again everything looked OK.The instrument cover came off fairly easily (I've done it loads of times in the 30 years I've had a Manta...) and nothing looked out of the ordinary either. One thing I did notice was that, there seemed to be a slight melted area around the lighting switch. I pulled the lighting switch out for a better look and it really did look like there was a problem. In fact, you could smell a little of the burning smell on the back of the switch, so it might be the culprit.I reconnected the switch and noticed that as the sidelights went on the engine note changed, suggesting a large current draw. Hmmm, that should only be a few amps, certainly not enough to drop the engine speed by a large amount. Turning round to the headlamps was more surprising - the headlamps didn't come on. That was really weird, because Jo had arrived home with the headlamps on so the switch worked a few minutes ago.I went and got a spare headlamp switch and tried it in the car, and the headlamps worked OK, so the switch had burnt out. But that wasn't the problem because I could smell the burning smell again...At this point I finally worked out where the smell was coming from - the fusebox around the number 1 fuse was looking slightly melted! A quick finger on the fuse (and a burnt finger) and I knew I hadn't fixed the issue yet. I pulled the (hot) fuse and realized why it was hot - it was 25A rather than the 5A it should be...The number 1 fuse on a Manta is part of the sidelamps circuit, and also powers the dash lights and the horn. This could be a big issue to diagnose as the wires for this go all over the car. At least the wires going from the fuse weren't melted (testament to over-engineering).So first things first, let's work out what's affected by the number 1 fuse. I put the number 2 fuse back in the box and turned on the sidelights. The dash lights stayed off but the left front and rear sidelamps came on. So the number 1 fuse had to operate the right side sidelamps and the dash lights. That at least cut the culprits down to just a few possibles.I decided to start at the back. Jo uses the right side of the boot a lot for her rucksack and gym bag, so if she'd disturbed one of the rear lamps we might have an issue back there. I looked in the boot on the right hand side and almost immediately found the culprit - the sidemarkers.In the US you need to have sidelamps visible from the side of the car and, since the Manta didn't have them as standard, they were (badly) put on by the person who originally brought the car into the country. To wire them up they used scotchloks to connect to the main wiring harness and then just ran a pair of wires over to the sidemarker lamps. of course, in an unlined boot like the Manta's, those wires can easily be pulled from the sidemarker lamp unit and just end up dangling in the boot.In a fit of uncharacteristic tidiness, Jo had obviously pushed them behind a piece of insulation and that had been fine, right up to the point where the live wire touched a rusty spot. The rust had conducted just enough electricity to avoid the fuse blowing, allowing the circuit to overload and overheat with the large current it was drawing. The 25A fuse had meant the circuit didn't blow as it should have done.Jo had stopped at the drug store on the way home and had luckily only had the headlamps (and therefore sidelights) on for a mile or so, otherwise it may have been a lot worse than it was...So everything's OK now. I checked each fuse and put in the correct one (most were wrong) and I've also reconnected the sidemarker lamp wires. I must make a better solution for the wiring for the sidemarkers when I have time, but at least Jo knows what can happen if the wires hit bare metal!
It's funny how things go when you're working on a car. I spent a full day on the Monza yesterday (Saturday was magazine day) and I've got very little visible progress to show for it. It was a lot of little things that needed doing, but I guess that's how it goes sometimes.In the end I got this lot done:- Reconnected the propshaft and crossmember link (the crossmember that is just behind the front seats with a connector that bridges across the transmission tunnel)
- Torqued up the bolts for the transmission, connected the speedo cable and reversing lamps
- Fitted the shifter gaiters
- Connected the heater hoses at the firewall and block, dum-dum'ed them up.
- Cleaned off the alternator and engine earth straps (boy were they dirty), clearcoated and then fitted them.
- Torqued up the alternator brackets, fitted the alternator.
- Cleaned up the wiring behind the front panel, refitted the grille
- Fitted new filler strips below the headlamps
- Connected up the headlamp washer jets
- Rebuilt the front bumper and refitted it (mostly - need to pull off the right side arch liner to be able to fit one of the sliders)
- Adjusted the clutch so it actually disengages when you put your foot to the floor
- Fitted the starter motor, cleaned the starter cable
- Fitted the crank sensor for the Motronic
That's about it. The only real visible difference is that the front of the car looks complete now. I got the bumper cover back last week from the bodyshop and noticed when I got it home that they had not painted it as they said they would, so the whole lot's got to come off again when it goes back for its final touch up.I seem to have lost practially all the bumper fixings (God knows where they went) so I've got to order some more before I can truly finish the bumper off. The fog lamps are the only real problem - they are missing 3 fixing screws so I woudn't want to drive it like this (some hope).I was hoping to get all the wiring connected up at the starter this weekend (I'm using the starter M8 bolt as a wiring junction for red (constant +ve) wires), but I found I had practically no M8 ring terminals, so I've had to order a bunch from the UK today and that's going to take a week or so to get here. Another delay.
1) A clone of my silver Manta in the UK. I love the look (not surprisingly) and Jo loves it too. For both of us it's probably our favourite look. We have a nice 400 interior here, with new door panels and other bits, so rather than the blue interior we have in the UK car we'd use the 400 interior.
2) A Starmist Black Exclusive without rear spoiler. Yup, one possibility from our original list. We know we like the colour and the look of the car, but I think I'm getting a little "greyed out" and again, we'd probably end up using the 400 interior since it's so nice. The only problem here is that it's a black car with a dark interior. I'd need to find some way of turbocharging the A/C for use in California!
3) An Exclusive, possibly in a different colour. Jo suggested this one and the colour she thought of was a darker metallic grey, more blue-ish than yellow, much like the BMW in this picture. Interior colour TBD. Not bad, and at least it's not straight silver or black (it's a bit inbetween...). I'm just not sure I can handle a car that isn't black or silver. Of course, the other possibility is an Exclusive in the same colour as my silver Manta, maybe the best of both worlds.
4) A silver narrow body 400 (don't have a pic so the white one will have to do...). The other possibility from our original list and the one I'm happy to dismiss. Everyone and his brother has done a 400 clone (even spawning the "400R" fake model type) and I really don't want to do one unless I can make a totally convincing clone, complete with 400 engine, correct rear axle and 5-stud hubs. Just looking at what's involved to do that "properly" is putting me off and I think I'll just enjoy everyone else's copies rather than making another one myself.
