So in this post I'm going to go through in brief the series of stages that occurred after the car was delivered back to Redline Sportscars.
Firstly was the joining together of all the panels which arrived back seperately from Ross' spray shop. (Cornelius restorations @Bodyshop Accident repair Melksham).
The panels were adjusted fitted, adjusted again and the story goes on, the Light wells at the front were in white primer at this point and one of the first things done by dad was to spray them satin black I know the rest of the car is a gleaming blue but there were practical reasons for being satin.
The front wheel arch fitments were the next thing to be done, now they look weird in the images thats because (And I kept saying this to dad, they don't look right!! they are too high) surely enough, I was proved right and subsequently they were adjusted to be correct.
At this point no interior was fitted at all, so some mechanical items started to be fitted, I forget which order it was done in now to be honest but from recollection Fuel tank was padded and slotted in, bushes for the shocks were replaced. (Yes, amazingly having not been road used the bushes had decayed!! the coil springs and dampers had been fitted back in 2014/15 so considerable time had passed which shocked me there did not expect to have to replace before driving it.
The carburettor was applied to the engine with the base rubbers put in also and I also purchased the correct fuel hoses to be able to connect the already in place fuel lines to the engine.
One of the major items burning up time on this resto was the heater unit, the original Smiths unit has somehow disappeared during the process of the rebuild, I cant remember if I have sent it away to be recoated or whether I actually sold it fully intending to get a much more efficient and powerful unit. As shown in the images i purchased a nice unit from demon tweeks this unit has a lot of outlets to cater for different areas of the car, the only issue apparent was that it needed raising from the original, its smaller than the original, but the old mountings that you can see in the dash had to be cut out we created a new plinth for it to go on and also had a part 3D Printed to go over the top of the unit and allow a similar outlet to before to be mounted up through the dashboard leather top. pipework was also routed through to the engine bay and Samco black hoses were used for this and properly jubilee clipped round the pipes. (Yes there's more Samco to come!!)
Also at this time I started to sort out the Gauges some needed to be polished up and cleaned but largely these parts of the car were never too bad, all had a few hours of my time. at this point the steering column had also been installed, We had needed to make up the final column from to older ones as the main one was not in as good a condition as it should have been. During the testing it was found that some of the cabling needed replacing and this was also done, (Later it was found that the indicator stalk was faulty so we had to replace one of them again I think I bought two new ones to prevent any further messing around when installed.
I then painted the steering unions and rods connecting everything up.
The car then came hoe from Redline and one of the first things Dad and I did was to start installing the various bits of carpet wed had prepped by Nightingale Coach trimming there was a nice edging added to the edges of the carpets once they had been cut to templates there is quite a lot of commonality between this old Marcos and some of the newer types, Mantula, Mantara & LM models and Mantis the interior body shell areas they are fitted to are virtually the same its just the exterior shape thats changed. (Why change something that already works!)
As my dad had gained a great deal of experience over the summer fitting and refitting Mantis ineriors with around 2-3 done over summer 21 it was time for mine. the first issue was getting carpet to fit over the very front under the dash board and along the tunnel so a thin section was cut to bend the corners and cover all the ply wood fascia and the tunnel sound deadening.
Once this section was completed Dad worked on the side curved panels and the footwell as shown in the next images, you really do have to ensure they are pulled tight and started correctly as you get gaps the rebate from along the sill to the back of the seat is trick as it all starts to overlap and fitting my leather seat backs at least was a bit of a faff to get fitted correct. there then followed a tonne of to-ing and fro-ing to get my seat backs and bases to fit right, the ply wood bases were machined both on back and sides to fit further into the seat well as I found with my height my head was right on the ceiling above me.
The floor carpets have not been stuck down as it is intended that they can be taken out for cleaning, plus they have sound deadening material mounted to the reverse also. the tunnel leather fabric goes over the carpet but in image 3 the floor is over it.
Also of note was the headlining Redline have trialled \(this car was the first to have it fitted) a new system for Marcos' whereby the headlining is a nice grey material that has sleeves folded and sewn into it to thread aluminium rods through so rather than glue the headlining to the roof of the car with a sponge back its connected to the roof through these adjustable rods. The advantages of this system over the old system is that
1. After 10 years you don't have to rip it all out again and reinstall because the glue and the sponge have failed.
2 if the headlining drops on this system all you do is retighten without affecting the rest of the interior and having to take the glass out as the headlining and lots of the surrounding is all locked in place by window rubbers and leather trim. (Photo update of this to follow) Since this system was employed, my dads V6 the yellow one had a headlining failure, (He was using the old 'glued to sponge and glued to the roof 'system, so the same new design adjustable rodding system was fitted to that car also.
