Right, time for a project thread.
My Manta showed up today ready to donate some parts to my Chevette. I was worried I may be putting a tidy Manta to an early grave but it turned out that will not be an issue. Would be ideal for a rat look manta though.
The Chevette is going to be getting the engine and gearbox from the manta at the very least. This is a standard 1.8 putting out 90bhp thorugh a 5 speed gearbox, compared to the chevettes 60bhp 1.3 through a 4 speed. I also need to measure up the axles to see how hard it will be to get the manta axle onto the chevette, it's a touch wider but I may be able to work around that through a mix of wider arches and heavily offset/narrow wheels.
I've also got ~£600 bucket seats I got off ebay for £80 which will be going in when I've got some bars welded between the prop tunnel and the inner sill to mount them on. I've also put in a funky little blue backlit tacho I got off ebay for £20 which fit's in just fine with the 80's interior
. Also on the interior front I have a Mountney leather steering wheel from my mum's first car which needs a new boss then will be going in the chevette to finish off the interior changes for the moment.
On the outside I need to get the wings off to do some welding before too long, both on the outer wing to sort some scabbyness and to patch a whole in the inner arch where some filler or fibreglass has fallen out of a previous whole. I've also got some replacement arch panels for the back, one of which will be going on the OSR arch to replace the current rusty one.
Having written all this down I realise this could well be a busy summer
.
Once all this is done it needs a sump guard ASAP as I'm collecting huge clods of earth on my front cross member when I go down white roads. Then it should be all ready t go for some serious road rallying. The sump on the new engine will be needed to put a red top in one day so I don't want that getting damaged either.
Updates will come allong the way as I get round to actualy doing some of this work.
My Manta showed up today ready to donate some parts to my Chevette. I was worried I may be putting a tidy Manta to an early grave but it turned out that will not be an issue. Would be ideal for a rat look manta though.
The Chevette is going to be getting the engine and gearbox from the manta at the very least. This is a standard 1.8 putting out 90bhp thorugh a 5 speed gearbox, compared to the chevettes 60bhp 1.3 through a 4 speed. I also need to measure up the axles to see how hard it will be to get the manta axle onto the chevette, it's a touch wider but I may be able to work around that through a mix of wider arches and heavily offset/narrow wheels.
I've also got ~£600 bucket seats I got off ebay for £80 which will be going in when I've got some bars welded between the prop tunnel and the inner sill to mount them on. I've also put in a funky little blue backlit tacho I got off ebay for £20 which fit's in just fine with the 80's interior
. Also on the interior front I have a Mountney leather steering wheel from my mum's first car which needs a new boss then will be going in the chevette to finish off the interior changes for the moment.On the outside I need to get the wings off to do some welding before too long, both on the outer wing to sort some scabbyness and to patch a whole in the inner arch where some filler or fibreglass has fallen out of a previous whole. I've also got some replacement arch panels for the back, one of which will be going on the OSR arch to replace the current rusty one.
Having written all this down I realise this could well be a busy summer
.Once all this is done it needs a sump guard ASAP as I'm collecting huge clods of earth on my front cross member when I go down white roads. Then it should be all ready t go for some serious road rallying. The sump on the new engine will be needed to put a red top in one day so I don't want that getting damaged either
.Updates will come allong the way as I get round to actualy doing some of this work.
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I will have to go over and take a peek some time, I still haven't seen the chevett in the flesh.
. I'll make sure I make it to the next one, see if I can tempt fox with some retro lovelyness.
