Rally Car With A Rat’s Nest In The Headlight Gets Its First Wash In 30 Years, Then The Floors Turn Out Surprisingly Not Bad At All, Very Surprised

Some cars arrive in the shop looking tired. This one arrived with a rat’s nest in the headlight. When the crew at Retro Restoration Garage finally got the rally car outside for a wash, it was the first one it had seen in the best part of 30 years.

Dirty abandoned rally car with a rat nest in the headlight next to a red rally car kicking up dust

“As you can see, it is absolutely minging,” the host says. He admits the car needs far more than a wash, but he adds that it is nice to work on a car that is free of “rat juice and spiderwebs.”

“There Was A Bit Of A Rat’s Nest In The Front Headlight,” And Then The Hose Came Out

The car is an old Opel Manta rally car, and the crew has been stripping it down for a restoration series. Before the wash, there was a rat’s nest down in the front and another inside the headlight. Nobody on the team wanted to touch that.

The jet wash did the heavy lifting. The car was covered in mud from years of rally stages, and the hose blasted off loose, flaky layers of it. The inner wings did not come up badly either.

“These Floors Are Not Bad At All, Very Surprised”

With the mud gone, the host can finally see what he is dealing with. The floors turned out much better than he feared. “I thought there’d be a lot more rot in these floors, but there really isn’t,” he says.

That means less welding. The boot, which was filthy and manky before, is also a much nicer place to work. The stains and flaky bits are on the surface, and the whole shell is much nicer to work on.

The heater box comes out next, so the team can check the bulkhead underneath. It is solid, just coated in mud.

Someone Welded The Axle Blocks To The Chassis Rails

Getting the front axle off was a struggle. Normally there is a big rubber bush block with a bolt sticking up through the chassis rail. Someone had welded those blocks to the rails, and the bolts were seized in the collar.

The team put heat on the bolts and eventually got them out. With the shell up in the air, he spots cracks in a chassis leg and in the inner wing.

The host calls it “a good solid shell” despite the dings and bangs from racing. What rot there is sits mostly at the front, in the A-pillars and the kick pan, plus a little in the sills and the rear floor pan.

The Bulkhead Was “Absolutely Battered” With A Hammer

The bulkhead is the real problem. Instead of forming a new gearbox tunnel from nice steel, someone took a hammer to it. The team will probably cut it out and box it in.

Still, the host is pleased. “On the whole, pretty happy that it’s not completely rotten like most of these are,” he says.

Paint Stripper Isn’t What It Used To Be

With the engine bay emptied, the old wiring loom and brake pots removed, the crew turns to the paint. They brush stripper on thick, two people, two brushes, and move the car into the body shop side so the mess stays contained.

They went over the car about five times, and the stripper only took off the top couple of coats. The host blames new regulations that took the strong ingredients out. The rest is a manual job to bare metal, and there was a lot of filler to scrape out.

The rear quarter took a beating. The plan is to hammer out as many dents as possible so less filler goes back in.

A Cracked, Twisted Wing Rail Comes Out

The upper wing rail is cracked, split, bent and twisted, and very thin in the front corner. The host has replacement panels for both sides, so he cuts out the old piece, marks up the new one and welds it in, seam welding on the inside. He stops where the metal gets soft, since he will be cutting that out anyway.

The sheet metal he needs is at his other workshop, where he has been restoring a very rusty car. So he cuts out more rusty areas to get them ready for welding later. Many panels for these cars are no longer made, he says, so there will be a lot of fabrication.

Seized Bolts, A Borrowed Body Hammer And Kevin’s Gonna Go Mad

Meanwhile Cal strips the axles. The lower arm bolts are seized solid, even after trying a three-quarter inch impact gun, so they are left for another day. The crew only has so much time each evening.

Then comes the banter. The host’s colleague uses a body hammer that is not his, and the host jokes, “It’s Kevin’s… Kevin’s going to go mad. Hope you don’t watch this video. He always shouts at me for hitting stuff with a body hammer.”

The Front Beam Goes In The Bin

With the crossmember stripped, the problems stack up. The engine mounts are welded on and no use, since the old engine is gone. The top arm is bent, another part is slightly bent, and a lower arm is “absolutely battered.”

A bent beam can throw out the geometry, he explains, and the car could crab down the road. So the front beam is scrap. He plans to keep the hubs, calipers, springs and a few other bits, and he has plenty of spare beams.

The rear axle is a different question. It comes from a Commodore-stroke Manta 400, so it is not standard. He needs to find out whether replacement bushes exist before he cuts the seized bolts out.

It’s A Rally Car, So It Doesn’t Have To Be Perfect

He cuts out the A-pillar, but leaves a section, drawing a line where it will be cut. He wants to build the lower part first so he has the right shape to build the top from.

The rule for this one is plain: “It is a rally car. It doesn’t have to be perfect. As long as it’s solid and rot-free, that is the aim of the game.”

Lessons For Anyone Starting A Barn Find Project

Wash first. A jet wash showed this team where the real rot is and where it is not, and it saved welding. Strip in stages and keep a messy job out of the main workshop.

Be ready to scrap parts that may be bent, instead of trying to save everything. And do not fight seized bolts when time is short. Leave them and come back with a plan.

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