Chevette Project

Daves being lazy... he's limited to the fact that the rear axle on the shuv is rated ONLY to 100BHP, anything above that and he runs the risk of shearing the rear axle.

BHP/TONNE is around 130 so certainly not slow by any stretch!
 
Damn, I wondered where penski was, I wanted to know how his shuv was going. There's plenty of other forums to find him on though. As Mr Newman says I was doing so work on the manta today in a rare burst of proactive-ness.

I got the head and cam carrier off which are two seperate parts on this engine, not something I've seen before. I've got a spare head which is replacing the one thats on there as there's a stripped spark plug socket on the old on. Everything came off quite easily apart from a tight exhaust manifold bolt and the head was stuck on quite hard once the bolts were out. Certainly not like working on a Peugeot:p.

When we got the head off though we found some weird orange gunk in one of the cylinders. Not sure what it is though, my neighbour/advisor thought maybe old petrol, not sure though. Any ideas?

Here it is with the cam carrier off.
(Dead Image):(

And with the head off, note the gunk.
(Dead Image):(
 
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Hmm, could be I guess. The HG seemed fine though and this wasn't the cylinder that was missing a spark plug so it wasn't open to the atmosphere. Very odd.
 
It would be open to atmosphere if any of the valves were open - so moisture could ingress and start to rust the bore. Might be worth getting an engineer to look at it to check the bores are OK and it's not in need quick hone, or at worst a re-bore and new pistons/rings :)
 
I've been doing a bit of work on the Manta over the last week or so. The head is now all stripped, and it looks like the HG was blowing a bit. The orange stuff turned out to be very thick coolant with rust in. The head should be going off for a skim in the next few days then I can start putting the engine back together witha new cam belt and water pump included.

ci_newman also gave me a hand yesterday looking over the car and investigating the rust situation. It looks like it needs quite a bit of welding, both sills need patches, needs a patch on the rear arch and where the front arch joins the footwell a seam has come apart so that needs welding. Should all be do-able though and it gives me something to learn on before I attack the Chevette.

We also got the wings off the manta to sand back and paint and did most of the surface rust on the inner wings. I'll grab some photos today so you can see the lovely "beige" hammerite No1 we stuck on to keep the rust at bay. I'm still not even sure why I'm working on the Manta as it's going to have no engine before long, but I guess I can use it for a while before the engine goes in the Chevette. We shall see.
 
Dogbreath said:
Why? Are you a Chavette then? :D

Back on topic the 1.8 gearbox bolts up quite nicely to a 20XE IIRC...
Click to expand...

All GM Family II motors will ;)

You need the sump and pickup pipe from a 1.8 to fit the C20XE.

Slap on a set of four Flatslide carbs from a big bike and you're sorted.

None of this EFi nonsense ;)

*n
 
The 'box, lump + half of the prop is going into the chevette meaning that the manta will need a huge overhaul as far as an engine and tranmission is concerned! He was thinking of a 3.2 V6 out of an omega... :cool:

As for the manta shell, most of its in pretty good nick! As Burns said, it needs patches in a few places but not too shoddy for a 20 year old car that hasnt been driven in 8 years!
 
As David and I told him on RR - he needs to fit the 3.2 and slushbox from an Omega, slam it on fat five spokes, leave the bodywork as it is, cover it in ankhor wax and roll.

*n
 
Works been continuing slowly on the Chevette project. Only it's turned in to a Manta project, a spanner hasn't been near the Chevette since I started this thread. The interior has all be stripped out now and a little more rust's been found in the footwells. Most excitingly though the engine is now back in one piece and turning over. Not starting though at the moment. I think the fuel pump may have gone, the fuel filter barely gets wet at the moment. The other posibilty is the hose out of the tank may not be properly submerged, we only stuck a few litres in the tank which was presumabley bone dry before.

(Dead Image):(

The worst rust we've found so far is this hole in the footwell/inner wing, goes all the way down the seam.

(Dead Image):(

So it's mostly putting stuff back together and fixing rust on the cards for the next week or two. Play was stopped for the day though when I squirted a load of carb cleaner (containing methanol and xylene) in my eye and ended up in A&E:(.
 
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