56. The restauration is finished

From 2013 November til 2016 June I was very busy with the restauration of  my Marcos Mantula.
It is finished now  - but there are many ideas to realize...

See my ongoing modifications in the new blog here:

http://marcosmantulastory.blogspot.de/

55. The Mantula on the road

Here are some pictures of the car...

54. Adjust the Mantula for road use

After got the license, I was able to do similar test drives to check everything in detail. The TÜV only checks the security and the correctness of all mounted parts...

Adjustment of toe, chamber and caster was needd...

In the garage from Mario Minichberger, a professional race engine builder, we set up the axle geometry to "rear-wheel-driven" standards. Try and error with a lot of km to drive is the rule here...

At home I verrified the measurements with my own adjustment setup, which is not sooo accurat than a  professional one.

At the moment I try the following setup at the front axle:
- Toe                Toe in 0° 20"
- Chamber        - 1° at each side
- Caster            +4.5°

On the rear axle the setup minimal, I had to live with toe out 0° 30". Not the best, but lets see...

The engine got a Lambda sensor in the exaust.

See the mirror above the exaust. I had to use it to TIG weld in the nut. It was not a easy deal... but now I am able to mount a wide band Lambda sensor to check the carburator setting.

For all the other important measures I bought a logger from www.14point7.com
The iDash has a lot of inputs and is able to send the data by WLAN to a notebook or mobile phone. Hitech.

It looks a little bit chaotic, but now I am able to check my engine as well.
I will log:
EGT on cylinder 1
EGT on cylinder 4
Throttle position for both butterfly valves of the Holley
RPM from the ignition coil
Different temperatures in the engine bay

I want to ad oil temperature and oil pressure, but at the moment I am missing the correct sensors.


This tasks will take some weeks / months and the result will define my next steps...

53. TÜV on first run

At the last week in June I had a early morning date with the German TÜV.
At 8 o´clock as first of the day they want to see my car. So I perpared eveything the evening before and perfectly in time at the TÜV station.

And lets got...

After 1 and a half hours everything was done and I left the TÜV station with a smile.

The rest only was bureaucracy and I was able to drive legaly...

51. A lot of jobs

As the finishing line can be seen, a lot of jobs come up.

When I want to change a gear, I had to press the clutch pedal for about 30cm. After 10cm the clutch is released. Too long pedal way.

Horror.

First step was to vent the clutch hydraulic again, but this does not fix the long pedal travel. I had an other idea. I screwed out the clevis so the pedal is 9cm nearer to the driver. Then a screw on the pedal box push the pedal back to its place next to the break pedal. I know, why I welded a nut next to each pedal ...

The gear lever was still uncovered in the center console. I glued in a leather one.

To be prepared for some test drives a basic setup of  the axle geometries has to be done. I decided to do it roughly by myself. A friend lend me his tools for wheelbase, toe and camber setup.
I adjusted the wheelbase to the same size left and right. Then I set a light toe-in on the front and a camber of 1.5° on each side. Maybe 1.5° is a little too much, but so the wheels will be covered better by the fenders...

The doors have to be finished. As Mr. Brilliant dropped a side screen the glas exploded in million parts. I did not even try to get a new window screen. I odered a piece of macrolon in the same bronce color with a scratch-resistant coating from www.gropp-racing.de. They are the "standard" supplier of macrolon windows for nearly all motorsport guys in Germany. Looks good, is much lighter and - I think - cheaper than glas.

Next issue I had was the Holley carb. I had no idle on low rpms. I tried "everything" ( evrything is here too much to list - even there will be listed a lot of bad bad words about American carburators ...) but nothing fixed it. The first step to find a solution was, when I had seen, that fuel is dropping from the right venturi funnel onto the throttle flap. On the left side you saw a nice even spray. Unmount, clean it up, mount and test - and again and again and agian...
Until I found a note in the web about the metering block. Inside the metering block is a fuel well which can not be cleaned without removing the brass plugs.
A new chance...
Drill in a small hole, turn in a screw and pull out the plug. I cleand the block and the mixing tube as good as I can ( by the way, I did not find any dirt...). The plug I closed with a soldering iron and pressed it in again. Mount it again and press carefully the start button in the engine bay ( glad to have it ! ) and it runs !
Now I was able to set a stable idle of 1000 rpm at an ignition of 7° BTC.
Sounds good...

One of the lovely jobs was to try the new wheels. They are 7 x 15 ET 30 with 205 / 50 15 Federal RSR semi slicks. On the front I used additional 25mm spacers on each side.
Look good and rolls.


These jobs are not all by far - I think I write nothing new to you !
So, focus the finishing line an go go go...

50. Mount the front and rear screen

After fitting the interior carpert on the parcel shelf and mount the roll over bar and the safety belts the next step on the rear is gluing in the rear window screen.

The car was fitted with a glas screen with window heater for front and rear. 

I was happy to have these type of screens as they are not very common in classic cars. But when we cut out the screens one of the electrical connectors was cut off, too.

Sh...t

I was happy to see the little metal foil between the two glases. Soldering of even welding would not work to connect it again. I remembered the conductive silver lacquer I used years ago to heal my window heater.

Lets try...

With a fine grinding pad I cleaned both surfaces, added a drop of silver lacquer, pressed it in position and flooded it with epoxy glue.

Congratulations - it has electrical contact again.

The rest of the old glue has to be removed - this is much more easy written, than realized !

The bonding surface for the screen has to be free of dust, grease and paint - the pure gelcoat is needed to get the best adhensive joint .

I use a glue system called Terostat 8597 HMLC, a primer and a polyurethan adhensive.

The primer has to be applied on both sides, then the glue was added in a nice and regular caterpiller. 

Uwe has done this a few hunderd times, so he helped me with this job...

After that pressing the screen in position and apply the rest of the glue to fix the rubber between body and glas. 

It is a little bit tricky to find the right position for the rubber and not to have too much or too less glue. 

And by the way: If you have to wipe off some of the glue from the screen or body - 

follow the rule "one wipe with therag, one fold of the rag". If you think you can use the nearly same area of your rag to wipe again - you will end up with more glue on the body than on in the rag. 

I tried it for 20 times until I trust...  :-(

At the end the result was very well.

49. The gear stick

I still had some issues with changing the gears. The lever will not stay in the 3 / 4 gear channel. The springs do not work as they should. No way to adjust them.
OK.
With the pic search on Google I found some pictures of the LT77 which show how it shall look. The shortened gear lever is mostly a part from a Jaguar XJ6, a Sherpa lever or a TVR TR8 part.
They all look different to mine:

At my car they cut down the original one and welded it again - welding is hidden by that spring holder tube. The springs are press on the lever in a wrong angle so it can not work.

The German company Morganpark in Hamburg - I got the tip on Facebook - found a original spare spring from an old LT77 gearbox and sold it to me for a few Euros.

Thank you for your help Mr. Frank Schauer !

I figured a little bit around and was able to mount the spring nearly in the same position as it is original.

And the lever is perfectly positioned in 3 / 4 gear now. Every gear can be easy choosen.

But the reverse lights don´t work when the reverse gear is in. Unmount the switch and press it will light up the lights.
Bad.
With a mirror I saw, that the lower part of the lever does not touch the switch.
Has it ever worked ?

I soldered a small copper plate on top of the switch so the lever can hit it - and it worked.

This sentence was written very fast, but it took me nearly 3 hours until that copper plate was mounted. Don´t ask, what I was trying before I had the idea to use the soldeing iron...

48. The leather interior

The light brown leather is in a condition, which is much too good to replace it.
Some spots look awful - but with the right things they will look good again...
I found the Lederzentrum in the web. They are experts in taking care of any leather.
I send a sample of my leather - one, which is bleached in the sun - to them, so they are able to mix the perfect fitting color for my leather. I ordered a Leather Protector, a tube of liquid leather repair, a sander pad and a cup of leather grease.

The most worn spot was on the backrest of the drivers seat:

First task is to clean the leather and degrease it compleytly. Then I started with the sander pad to level the surface. The triangle ( nealy in the middle ) is a cut. It can be repaired with liquid leather. Apply it, smooth it and then dry it with the heat gun.

I didn´t know it now, but the heat gun will be my best friend for the next three hours...
After that apply the Leather Colorlock on a sponge and wipe it in circles on the worn spot.
That is what the instruction says...
Dry it with a heat gun an repeat it to intensify the color look... is the next sentence...
OK.
After 3 times you see a little bit of color on the worn spot.
And after about 20 times apply color and dry it with your heat gun it will look like this:

Wow - they deliver what they promise on their website. It looks fantastic. A minimal differences in color - but it depends to which part of the leather you compare it...

So I started to search for other smaller worn spots and after around 20 times apply in circles and dry it, the whole leather interior looks much better.
The 70€ were a good invest.




I let it dry over night before I use the Elefant Leather Grease on all the parts. It shall be the best to give back the leather all it needs to stay soft and robust.
Well, it is only two or three times to apply it - not 20 times per spot.

The parts are still so greasy that I will not place them in the car. I will wait some days until the grease is drawn-in.

47. The roof liner and the carpet

Lets go on at the inside of the car. The A-pillar and the roof liner will be the next part of the interior after all the noise isolation.

The A-pillar and the roof around the door are not filled , so I decided to fill them with 2K foam to make it easier get a smooth, flat surface on the inner side.
It was a mess - like always when working with foam - but it is not a exact to do task.

Its like making a sculpture - you how to do that ?

To make a lion sculpture, take a block of granite and cut off everything which does not look like a lion. Easy...

So, I startet to cut off...

As you see on the color, I need to add that beloved 2K foam for a second time.

But then it was ready to glue the foam lining and the fabric - I used Alcantara, as rest from the dash - on.

Now the foam liner for the roof.

 Here a friend helped me:
- he lend me his old spray gun with a 2.5mm jet at 6bar to spray the Patex
- he has done this some times before and he told me what where to push - pull - hit - ....

The result was OK

and after spraying 1 and a half can of Patex we both had a big smile in our face... ;-)

Going on with the carpet.
I used a very flexible on. It is a thick, thight velour which you can stretch in every direction.

I bought about 6 m2 not to run out of carpet at the last piece.

It was much easier that the roof.

Spray both sides with glue, let it dry, then press it in the correct position and cut off the rest.

On the rear deck I had to think a little how to do it in the way, that I can remove the roll over bar afterwards.
The idea, how to cover the boot hinges needed three beers...

...and yes, the roll over bar has still to be painted - but I can easily remove it.

Next job will be to refresh the leather...