One thing I haven't addressed this publicly, but have stated to a few of my Opel friends privately, my initial displeasure over "The Hood"

Let me state that after seeing it in real life up close and in person for just a few minutes before leaving for Carlisle. I still was not happy with "The Hood".

This was a budget project, and to have a large chunk of it go to a hood before the engine and transmission were in their final sitting seemed odd and a bit " Cart before the Horse". So, it did not sit well with me and if anyone knows anything about me it's that I find it really hard to bite my tongue, that is unless I am talking too fast. But I digress.

THAT SAID.. living with the hood for the last day.. I realize now that had the car come to completion at New Vintage, "The Hood" would be the highlight of the cars design, not even the engine. So while I didn't get everything I would have liked from Atlas' time at New Vintage, in retrospect, the money was worth it. :speechles

I say that, because needing such a large hood bump, it could have come off as crass, ugly, and misproportioned. Instead, while still large (nothing can be done about that.. ) it comes off as fitting, and works well with the shape of the car.

Keith even carried the lines of the fender in the the hood to make it more fluid a design. All I can say is that I couldn't have done it as well.

So Keith I would like to apologize for the talking ill of "The $1200 Hood" even as recently as this weekend. Overall in the end, it really does make car.. my only regret now, is that I didn't have the money to have had you finish off the car like a few of your recently completed projects. :notworthy

So long story short (Far too late I know)

This is not the end of the story or project, but just the beginning of a new chapter.

Thanks to everyone that helped get the project this far and back on track.

That does even include Jessie, if not for him it wouldn't have made it to Juan

and

DEFINITELY can't forget Harold for helping in bringing her home.

 

So lets see some pictures of the beast!!

 

Just about done.. have some issues to address with the foot pedal (Corvette pedal and Colorado computer not always seeing eye to eye), and wire up the dash.

Got the floor patched and covered and "Dynamatted" with Roof Flashing.

Then Carpeted, not a great job, but cost was only $60.. $18 6x8 indoor /out carpet from lowes, two cans of carpet adhesive, and a roll of the "Dynamat"

But Been driving it all weekend, and drove it to work today.. Not having a fuel gauge right now is making it a bit tricky. Ran out of gas on the way to work (10 feet from the gas pump.. )

BUT not sure if it was out of gas, and not the fuel pump, or possibly the tank vapor locking..

Will find out on the way home. Drive to work is 20 miles on the highway most the way.

>> Anyway..

Kieth couldn't have gotten the hood any better in regards to the wipers.. I have about a 1/4" to spare.

Overall though, VERY VERY Happy..

Got the heater box in just have to hook up the hoses. Then everything under the hood will be done.

Last but not least, thanks Pete for the seat belts

So anyway, for now budget is beyond exhausted, but car is driveable and I can have some fun with it.

If it survives autocross, maybe by next year, a more professional paint job and carpet will be in order, along with a nice gauge cluster, etc..

I know MANY thought the day would never come.. and I was one of them.

 

Car is gone, left today at around 1:00pm after being here for one year and one month. Lucky number 13 I guess...

Now it is Charles's toy to play with.

So long for now, until next tragedy :haha:

 

Pictures or it never happened :silly:

 

Please refrain yourself from commenting on the crappy, I mean custom 120Lb hood!

 

It's been really great fun following Juan's progress and "Git er dune" attitude since he took over this project. Every new post is a treat to read. Really nice to see this car on it's way back from an uncertain fate. Keep up the great work, guys!
Take Care,
Mike

 

Yup, but I also enjoy the fact that this hasn't turned into a mud slinging contest between the parties who have been involved at some point in this project.

Kudos

 

Progress continues.....

Thanks to everyone, all of the parts have arrived and we are ready to get this car done.

I also got in parts of the shifter linkage, cables and other electrical items to get the shifter finalized and the battery installed in the trunk area.

I have some odds and ends in the engine bay to get done prior to start on the front end, but should have nice progress and a few pics to share this weekend.

The big thing is the air intake, got it all pieced out and should be a nice fit.

 

Good News everyone!

I started to work back on the Manta today. I got all of the parts I needed and started to take apart the front end.

Right off the bat I see the engine is very wide at the bottom, there is only a 3" diameter area to work with and the new rack and pinion input shaft and hoses will not fit in the available hole. Not the ideal start but we will make do with what we have. In order to make the new rack fit, I would have to take the engine out, channel the cross member on the driver's side to gain clearance for the PS lines and then put all back together once again. I think the best course of action is to rebuild the existing rack and buy Charles a case of Wheaties so he'll be nice and strong to turn the wheel.

The two front coil springs measure 11" in height (I believe stock is 14") so I believe they have been cut or replaced in the past. The lower ball joints were basically crap, both turned freely and one of them had 1/8" up/down play. I will start to press out all of the joints and bushings tomorrow to get the arms ready for welding.

Finished piecing together the air intake and I believe Charles will be happy with it. The Air sensor now sits on a metal tube which is about 22" away from the throttle body. The current setup is more on the custom side and will make the engine bay look better.

I made a few changes to the tunnel and added a service port on the driver's side. This tranny is so big I just could not get my hands inside to gain access to install the shifter hardware. Should have the shifter in place and operational tomorrow.

On the bad side, the starter stopped working, The solenoid kicks in but the engine does not move. Engine and transmission are fine, all electronics are fine, starter dead. I have to take out the plenum for a totally ultra top secret experiment (I made a new plastic intake, don't tell no body), so I'll replace the starter then.

I will post all of the missing pictures on the last post, my DSL service is being upgraded so right now my data transfer rate is very low.

This car arrived here on 4/13/2013, if all goes well, the car will get over to a friend's shop for alignment and exhaust work by next Friday. Then replace all fluids (again) and ready for the trip home the following week, one year later.

Not bad for spare time work :yup:

 

Not bad for spare time work :yup:

Not bad a all !

Don't know how much all the great work is truly appreciated.

I look forward to getting him back, and finishing him up.

 

Brief update...

Got most of the suspension assembled, rack rebuilt and installed on the car. I just need to get a few nuts to replace the ones that have a bit of wear on them.

The battery is resting in the trunk and the power wires have been run forward. Once I get the car on the ground, I will take care of the wiring and the odds and ends to finish. Need to clean the fuel lines, check fluids, get the coolant replaced and bleed the brakes since the car been standing for the 6 months.

It looks like, unless something unexpected happens, it will be done this weekend.

 

It looks like, unless something unexpected happens, it will be done this weekend.

 

Progress continues

Got the odds and ends taken care of and wiring finalized, all that is left to do is hook up the battery and turn the key.

The front end is back together, all that is left is to install the sway bar and bleed the brakes. I need however to replace one of the hoses, I haven't a clue were it is.

Got the wheels on and quickly found out they would not turn. The caliper is rubbing against the rim so I will need to space it out or install a new set of wheels on the car. The picture enclosed shows what might be installed on the car.

The surprise on the build is the chrome intake, modified the mounting tab of a blow off valve and installed the AFM in its place. It will look awesome after the rest of the engine gets detailed. I had to take it off however because the hood would not close. I might just take the bloody thing off and put it inside the car.

Well, that is about it. Very very little left to do so the car WILL be leaving in the next week or so.

 

Skip the ad:

 

Tank installed, lines ran, etc..

Fresh Oil, Check
Fresh Fuel, Check
Fresh Trans fluid, Check
Wiring, Check
Bleed brakes and brakes are nice and tight..

Started right back up, but even better.

Even with an exhaust that only has the Opel Manta Resonator on it, it sounds like a factory exhaust and is QUIET..

No Leaks anywhere.. and everything is good.

Got the linkage in the transmission better. Have PRND, just not the other gears. Being I want to be able to put it in 1 and 2 for Autocross.. will work on that later. But it works for now.

ONLY issue.. the Throttle body was acting flaky, but once we cleared all the error codes out of the computer ( Think it was gummed up by the blow by of the rancid fuel ) it didn't give us any more problems. May have been a code issue or the motor is sticking. Easy enough to fix.

Some final welding to do tonight on the roll bar, and a few pinhole leaks on the exhaust. Then going for alignment on Wed, and all that will be left will be wiring up the lighting.

A little body work, reinstall the glass & lights, and its ready

Might even do some carpet.. and put the door panels in and stuff..

 

Nueropel

Juan your help or engineering expertise being that your a doctor and such is not needed nor required my work speaks for itself, You may visit my business pages on FB if so inclined to verify this ..........That is all. BJ:ugh:

 

Juan your help or engineering expertise being that your a doctor and such is not needed nor required my work speaks for itself, You may visit my business pages on FB if so inclined to verify this ..........That is all. BJ:ugh:

Nothing was meant by my comment, I am pretty sure the built will be awesome since you are thinking logically about the components to be used.

It is just that lately, for some reason beyond my control, I have been getting calls and emails about projects that have fallen through the cracks. I know this is not your case however, just threw it out there for sheats and giggles!

That being said, can we please go back to picking on Harold, we are wasting precious time...:yup:

 

I gotta say that hood "makes" the car.

 

The transmission that came in the Colorado (and in various forms about every GM product since 1999.. the 4L60E 4 speed automatic)

I may not be using my sons Manta.. as I have a line on a 73' Automatic Manta Rallye.. which would work a bit better.

But if that falls through I will use his car.

Figuring I will do a custom dash like I did on my 66 GTO using Aurora guages.

Overall I think this project will be super simple.. (as conversions go).

The only thing I may have to do is swap a differnt rearend in. Depending on the length of the 4L60. BUT it could be possible that an Manta driveshaft will work like it does on the S-10 tranny. Which would be sweet.

Charles

 

I'm stuck at the married,kids,running a small business, and devoting every available minute to HRCollinsjr's hero's car. I'm about to start torqueing everything with an impact.

 

I assume this would be on Harolds heros' car

Just so you can finish it and get on Atlas

 

Stand by, I'll see if I can "talk" to him.....

 

Chevy Colorado Thread update

BeforeI got a chance to get this off...Gene got excited. The car is coming to Atlanta...but please read and delete thread after, or merge them, but keep the original on track

I don't know why everyone has wanted to get into the middle of this, but so be it. The story started Charles wanted someone to finish the car, or at least do the metal work, and fix the floor, build a hood and get it running. He had a pretty good budget at first, with the sale of an Opel to fund it. By the time it was brought to me, the funds available changed to about 1/4 of that what was originally planned to put into the work. It sat for a bit until I could work it into my schedule, and work began. I decided as part of it, the hood would come first. I had 2 hoods and one fiberglass hood scoop from a Mopar that was totally wrong. So I figured with starting with a hood, I would eliminate at least 2 large parts out of my way. At the time it was $40hr rate. So yes folks, the hood cost $1000. If anyone can make templates, cut open another hood with the bare minimum exposed, and then make templates for a cowl hood, then produce them in metal, run a center bead in the panel and weld it all up for cheaper...great. Its still $40 an hour plus tax...so I had about 20 hours in it. You might be able to do it at your house for a lot less, cause labor to yourself is free. I'm in the retail/labor business. I didn't take advantage...I did a portion of the job.
So fast forward a bit, actually about 4 months went by and it looked like the project was dead in the water. I understand when times are tough or other things come up, but basically Charles' budget was gone, and I was storing the car for free.
The next thing I hear, is that Jesse and Charles had worked up some agreement to work on the car. Fine, I was willing to let it go. Harold came not too much later and picked up the car and hauled to Jesse for free as well.
From what I have heard from Jesse, he has done quite a bit on it as well, which has become free labor I guess as their communication together has failed.

Somehow I am in the middle there, cause I do communicate with Jesse.

Anyways an agreement between parties has been met, Jesse will be delivering the car to Juan in GA very shortly. The car wasn't being held for ransom or hostage. Juan it is big of you to offer to work on someones car for free, but make sure that you are not volunteering everyones time and energy and your own with nothing in return. The car still needs lots of parts and materials that hopefully Charles can figure a way to supply to you all. I am just glad to be out of the picture
Keith

 

BeforeI got a chance to get this off...Gene got excited.... The car is coming to Atlanta...but please read and delete thread after, or merge them, but keep the original on track

Juan it is big of you to offer to work on someones car for free, but make sure that you are not volunteering everyones time and energy and your own with nothing in return.
Keith

I learned the hard way that life is not always about billable hours, there is some give and take and sometimes you need to give some back what you have already gotten. I offered my help and though some of the guys would join in. If they do then we make a party out of it while helping some one get a project back on line. If they don't, all I can say is thanks for considering it. I am not volunteering anyone other than myself and my rate is far more expensive than yours so, I am really not doing it for the money.

But first things first, I need to evaluate what is there and what I will receive in the way of parts, schematics and so on, prior to formulating a course of action. If relevant work has been done and not gotten damaged by down time, then it should be very straight forward to get the car running and stopping. Again, I will know what to expect when I see the car.

 

Progress report

Very little to report but progress for sure!

The power steering pump is now clean and turns freely. Had it hooked up to one of our pump motor test rigs and there is good flow with nominal pressure. I say nominal because of the test plumbing and running at 1200 Rpms. The header is somewhat slowly becoming a header, had to weld, clean, re-weld, clean again and so on. End result is I still have several leaks that require attention.

Got a visit from the tooth fairy and she brought me a box of bolts from another LK5 engine. I got plenty now and should be good to go in the bolt department. The flywheel had the center dinged, one of my guys fixed it in about 20 minutes and now it spins true.

Other than the above, I am almost ready to kick this pig.

The engine comes out on Saturday for some repairs to the mounts and should have the flywheel installed and the engine back in place Saturday afternoon. While the engine is out, I am going to flare the firewall metal around the bell housing to add some clearance, allowing the transmission to be removed when the engine is in place. I will also make a few patterns to make plans of re-building the tunnel so I can have a place to mount the shifter.

The fuel tank returned and it is installed back in the car today. Will run the lines tomorrow if all goes well. I will be adding a fuel filter with a built in return line in the back of the car. This is commonly done in the S-10 and I believe in the Colorado as well, maybe, perhaps.....

All of the ordered parts arrived so if all goes well, the engine will make some sort of sweet explosions next week.

 

The fuel tank returned and it is installed back in the car today. Will run the lines tomorrow if all goes well. I will be adding a fuel filter with a built in return line in the back of the car. This is commonly done in the S-10 and I believe in the Colorado as well, maybe, perhaps.....

Is the fuel filter 18 or 80 clams retail?

 

I can think of many times of when it's best to "burn the bridges down"!

There's a few that I'm not going across again.

Been there done that and it was ugly.

Take this reply any way you want too.

 

Burning Bridges


I'm not saying to forgive is devine:haha: what I am saying is you have to apply the country boy version of the law of Karma. I grew up in the country, down in Swampeast Missouri and in that neck of the woods that law has been applied for generations. Simple stated the country boy Law of Karma says, "the sun don't shine on the same dog's butt all the time, sooner or later the sun or the dog one will have to move, and it will be your turn":yup: Keep smiling and and watching for your chance to return the favor. Another favorite saying that I have remembered through the years is "if you want to get even, get in their pocket they will remember that longer than anything else you can do".

 

Many of us will be curious to hear more about how it runs and drives. Kudos for pushing it through to completion - I'm glad to see that the car didn't just fall by the wayside, like so many other projects that get started.

 

I got the wiring problem fixed, actually it was the transmission PNP switch that was bad.

Since the transmission is not attached to the engine, I shorted pins 1 and 12 on the connector and my starting circuit is now working. What it does is, when the car is not in Park or Neutral, it places a ground on the supply pin of the relay so you can't engage (purple wire) the starter. While working on the transmission PNP switch, I noticed something sticking out of the cooling lines. I though originally that it was a cut line but in reality, it was a cigarette butt stuck in the hole. Considering how much crap is still inside the car, I somehow don't believe a cigarette butt jumped and inserted itself in the hole. Can't wait to see what surprises are hiding inside that pan, perhaps we should install a Nicorette patch after cleaning. Might not want to work due to nicotine withdrawal.

Had a visit from a club member while I was working on the car. He was amazed at the size of the engine and all the work that was done in a short period of time. He had a few very negative comments which were directed to a specific part of the car but that ain't nothing new. Overall, it was a nice visit and hope to get more in the future.

Here are a few pictures of today's activities, not much got done but we are very close to getting this engine started.

 

Had a visit from a club member while I was working on the car. He was amazed at the size of the engine and all the work that was done in a short period of time.

Hes not the only one..

 

Real good stuff today!

All this talk about loans and stuff, I just could not pass up the opportunity.:haha:

As I was typing the last entry, I got a call to pick up the drive shaft so in essence, I did get the shaft today. It took a combination of three drive shafts just to make a single working unit. But if you look at it, it looks like a standard Opel Manta drive shaft but 6" shorter. It was reworked, balanced and ready to go in place.

Sorted out the fuel problem and got a nice stream now with cut off at 80Psi. The problem was with one of the hard lines in the back. The line had massive amounts of crap in it which I guess shifted and plugged up during the initial tests. Flushed it all out but got the available fuel a bit contaminated but still workable.

Brake parts are slowly coming in so I should have everything in the next few days. PS hose however is going to be a challenge since Hydraulic supply screwed up and we can no longer use the existing fittings. Rear brakes are still to be determined which course will be taken. There is nothing usable in the back so all has to be replaced therefore, there is a possibility that rear disks will get installed. For now, the car will have fully functional front brakes.

Installed the final parts on the transmission, including the dip stick tube. The stock unit was 14" too long so I cut it to fit. But still there is a problem which you can see in the below picture. So tomorrow I will change the filter and put some tranny fluid in and we can start this puppy. The tunnel will need to be though out since the sensor at the tail of the tranny interferes with the passenger side hump. I might have to replace the PNP switch if I can't get the plug to stay in place.

I have said it many times during many years, if you want to work on a project, come up with a working plan and stick to it until done. The car has been here for 6 weeks now and it is almost done just using my spare time at minimal cost.

If all goes well, the car will done, running and driving by Friday. Imagine if this car would have been at the shop, would have cost more but would have been done in just a few days.:yup:

 

A lil somtin that goes like this....

Thinking with your dip stick is what got this project started :haha:

Got many emails and a few phone calls on the car progress, everyone believes I am joking around about getting the engine starting and running. Thanks to quite a lot of elbow grease and careful start up, engine has over 180lbs compression on all cylinders and runs very smoothly.

So in the spirit of not being full of it, I will let you decide for yourself with this very short video. :yup:

 

Progress continues

Had to take care of a few family problems but was able to work a little, while the parts arrive.

The booster is ready to go in and I also changed the port on the power steering pump to receive a standard -6an fitting. The original hose was made wrong so I decided to make it more of a universal fit. With this, the hose can be made by anyone at a reasonable price. The fitting is a GM standard 16mm to 3/8" O-ring which can be purchased at any Hot Rod shop.

The transmission is not done yet, I was told it would be either Thursday or Friday but no work has been done on it. A new promise was made for this Tuesday and I hope I get it by then.

Got all of the metal cut from the templates and I am now ready to interface the old tunnel with the car. A few modifications had to be done in order for the speed sensor to fit but should go in mostly unmolested. Got in all of the hardware needed for the shifter to be installed and the new index plate was mounted on the shifter, just waiting on the tunnel.

Since I am waiting on a few items to arrive, started on the setup for the rear brakes. What you will see in the pictures below is about one hour worth of work after you remove the unneeded stuff. The bracket is a tight fit over the tube so this area must be very clean to allow proper seating against the bearing flange. I normally degrease, scrape and then run a wire wheel to make sure it is clean.

Trimmed the backing plates and got both sides ready to install the brackets, rotors and calipers. I did not drill the caliper mounting holes since I like to check fitment of the caliper and rotor before I drill. I also drilled the rotor securing holes. This is an extra step that most people do not do, they just hold the rotor in place with lug nuts until the wheel goes on. I drill these holes to ensure the rotor will remain mounted perfectly square on the flange. Once the brackets are installed and the rotors resting securely on the hub, the I can add the calipers, pads and lines to finish off the area.

That is all for now, next week should be interesting if all comes in.