Latest updates
Well Beppe has covered a lot of miles recently, first on our outing to Brooklands where he was the only Brava so I'm pretty sure he won rarest vehicle by default
We set off after the long day with a nice load of belt squeal which he has started to do after sitting in the sun, the aux belt is new, I think it's the tensioner...
Finally managed to sort my sunroof, lots of silicon grease forced into the runners followed by copious amounts of rocking it back and forth on the motor until it eventually agreed to open, its been flawless since!
In exchange for having a working sunroof the wipers no longer park at all, so I have no intermittent function and I have to carefully time when I turn them off... its not convenient...
Then a long old slog down to the very pretty Teignmouth and back, 430 mile round trip which happened nary an issue and achieved an astounding 53mpg trundling along at 60-65mph (indicated). The tall gearing and my very light foot help here, an indicated 60 is about 2300rpm. I'm genuinely astonished by this number but it all stacks up in fuelly which I've been using for years and years so I believe itAround 50 or so miles of that tank was town/city driving so I expect the motorway journey alone may have been up to 55/56mpg, not even my Twinair would achieve that.
Also replaced the rear speakers with some I had lying around, I'm not actually convinced they're any better than the originals which are in surprisingly good fettle
The bonnet catch has started sticking again, I think I need to take it off and clean it up, he still won't idle after sitting for an hour or so for the first 1-2mins of running. All things that need sorting but I haven't been bothered
This past month since the last update seems to have a flown by, and in many ways I don't feel like I'm much further along! But it's not for want of trying, it's just that theres a lot of prep to do before the comparatively quick and visually impressive bit of fitting the new front end panels.
My first move was to deal with the bottom of the A pillars. I cut out the rot and did a functional, although not super pretty, repair to both sides. It didn't need to be pretty as it will be hidden inside the front wings.
After that I continued to hide from dealing with the mess that is the inner arches by looking at the front bulk head. From the inside I could see some swollen areas under the passengers side strengthening plate. So I drilled the spot welds on the strengthening plate so I could remove it, then cut out the rusted part of the bulk head and then welded the strengthener back on.
It might have been easier to cut out a large chunk of the bulk head, but as the rotten area surrounded the steering idler mounts, I was keen to make sure they didn't move. With that in mind I did a number of smaller patches, one at a time instead.
This left me nothing for it but to get on and dig into the front arches. For the same reasons of making sure the front end geometry stayed intact, I had decided to repair my original inner arches rather that entirely replace them with pattern parts. This started with many hours of scraping and wire wheeling removing the old under seal and fibreglass and then I could see where to start the repairs. Starting with the drivers side, the strengthening plate around the front wishbone mounts was clearly rotten and so were several of the layers behind it. There was nothing for it but to chop it out.
Hmmm. what a mess. Still, once some new layers started going in things always start to look a bit better. With some metal back in here I could also cut away the many old patches to the lower rear edge of the arch. In some places the patches were 4 layers thick here!
This weekend I was able to finish the drivers inner arch off, which is now looking so much better, with new strengthening plate for the wishbone mounts, new repairs where the rear edge meets the floor and patches to the front edge and return lip. It's been quite the task.
Now I've got to do it all over again on the passengers side! Argh! haha.
Still, once this second inner arch is repaired I can start offering up the new panels which will be quite the moral boost
Well a few weeks have gone past, and while I have not updated, I have none the less been busy! As the work has mostly been a mirror image of the previous rear quarter, there’s not been much to show really.
Picking up where we left off, I finalised the internal structure at the rear of the sills and then got the outer arch welded on.
The closing panel behind the arch needed a similar repair to the other side.
The side panel for the engine bay was next. I take the silence in reply to my previous question to mean there was no repair panel available…
My metal shaping skills won’t win any awards here, but I did manage to make it from one piece, and it’s broadly the right shape!
And then, as before, I moved on to the inner sill.
All of which makes several weeks of hard work seem very quick and simple! Anyway, the good news is that with this work complete I hit a mini milestone, all of the welding rearwards of the A pillars is complete!
So that meant yesterday there was nothing for it but to reposition the car…
And to break out the grinder to be rid of the poorly repaired, fibreglass, filler, pop rivets and underseal mess that was the front end.
Eeek! It’s a little daunting seeing the car like that. Still I have all the new panels and such a nice feeling to know that the worst of the rust is now cut away and it’s all going forwards from here.
It’s good to see the A pillars are actually pretty sound. Much better than some I’ve seen in other restorations. A simple patch to the lower 6”, which I’ve started cutting back for on the drivers side, and a small repair where they’ve been buttered at the top when the last set on wing ls were fitted sill soon have them sorted.
What’s left of the inner arch isn’t so good, I still think I can patch them but it’s going to be a fair amount of work. They are available new, but as they hold a lot of the critical shape of the front end together, I fear that removing it entirely could lead to stuff getting out of alignment. I guess I’ll see how it looks when I start digging deeper into them behind the patches!
Replaced the rattly old HU with a new one, speakers all appear to be the original and I'm surprised they don't sound half bad.
The amp I had in my Forfour has been pressed back into use, mounted up behind the glovebox, good amp > speakers in my experience, no point buying stupid speakers if you're driving them from a weedy headunit, I'd rather drive weedy speakers with a good amp
I gave him a proper wash for the first time rather than just a hosing off which has been regular over the winter. I always find the first up close wash of a car reveals many things you've never noticed before...
Fortunately the pictures hide a thousand sins
Trust me there's dents and scratches a plenty
After a thorough soaking I noticed a lot of muddy water had collected under the scuttle,
I peeled back as much of the scuttle I could without removing the wipers (which I didn't fancy doing) and dug around, the whole area is full of sludge and presumably blocking the drain, after digging around for a while it was draining slowly but the scuttle needs to come off really to sort it properly.
Of course being an old Fiat the electrical problems are appearing slowly, sometimes the wipers won't park, they just stop wherever they were when you switch them off, most of the time they're fine. I'm guessing its either corrosion in the motor or the switch on the stalk, I suspect stalk more as when I first got him when indicating in either direction the lights would very briefly (less than a second) switch off and back on, this stopped happening after a few weeks of use, so I'm thinking the switches in the stalks have some crappy earths.
Secondly on trying to inspect my sunroof leak I found it doesn't open anyway, it tilts up no problem and it will tilt downwards ready to slide back but it doesn't budge even a millimetre after 'squatting' down, there's no motor noise or relay clicking so it doesn't seem likes it even attempting to move further.
Additionally I noticed the coil pack has a crack running through it, not sure if this would be contributing to my lumpy idle
Aside from the exhaustive list of things to do he's been running well and over the last tank returned 46.5mpg, lots of motorway work at 60-65mph but I'm impressed nonetheless, my TwinAir on the same trip at the same speeds might have managed 50mpg at a stretch and it was supposed to be ultra economical unlike the old 1.6 lump
This is my first update, to the new garage format of this thread. So if anyone is reading this in the garage, there’s a whole heap of other updates in the discussion thread that covers the months between introduction and this post!
I’ve had a couple of days off work this week, and so had a bit more time than usual to push on with the welding. I’m really grabbing every moment I can on it, as if possible I’d like the welding done before the heat of summer comes. It’s no fun being bundled up in overalls on a hot summers day.
I won’t bore everyone by going into the same levels of detail as with the other side, it’s all been very similar just mirrored, and it’s taken me less time as I’ve not needed as much thinking time.
The first job was to finish cutting back all the rot and poor repairs.
There was some lovely deep filler over multiple patches on this side.
Anyway, that’s all gone now, after that it was a case of fitting the new inner wheel arch, rebuilding the back of the inner sill structure and repairing the rear lower corner of the door aperture.
So that’s really good progress, it took me several weeks to get to this stage on the other side.
The next step is to fit the outer arch and then to deal with the closing panel, as with other side, but then before moving forwards, I need to look at this panel in the left hand side of the engine bay.
I had bought what I thought was a repair panel for it, but it is actually a very different shape now it’s here! I think it’s an under tray of sorts instead. Any of you folks know if this panel is available to buy or not?
first drive! probs the quickest car i've ever driven but it was an unprodictable thing due to me doing nothing to the suspention
first drive to work, if you followed my cinq build back in the day it didn't do that
gearstick was abit low imo so added a cheap extention along with a standard mx5 knob i had kicking about
got rid of the chrome strips was struggaling to find red in the size i needed or original gti bumpers so black it was
first proper run out to weston to make sure everyting was ok
then onto the suspention this included gti arbs and some valves
found some gti seatbelts
then off to the metro and mini show at gayden
picked up a gti interior and 1.4 si black carpet
then thought it can't be to hard to swap carpets at 7 on the night
then it was time to spend a weekend at work sorting the suspention out fitted mg f cans as they're 10mm shorted then metro ones already so no need to cut them
then cut 10mm off the rear this is so when i pump the hydrogas up to its proper pressure the cars then lower by 40mm but will be as stiff as orignally intended as before it was low on pressure also fitted the arbs the front front one hit the gearlinkage so made some minor adjustments to that
got some gti 130mph clocks
also fitted a vibe micro amp
couple more pictures now the everythings sat
engine mount wasnt looking very happy zr gearbox mount sorted it
shock mounts and gaz shocks
had no dipped headlights to find an earth come off the stalk
then it was on to upgrading the likes this led everything
then it was onto usc at pod were the metro done a thing the beautiful person @jatkinson towed me in after my pals pushed it into pod, ended up bypassing the matrix with a round metal powerbank with the internals gutted to get me all the way back to birmingham
annoyed with a 20year old pipe i made something better in silicone
fixed just before retro ride on the metropower stand
fitted some gti rear spats (theyre like little mudflaps behing the rear bumper)
this was a rare fine towing cover for the gti spillter its one of them things that get lost over time
dark ice short shifter fitted along with rebuilding the bushes on the front of the linkage
otherhlaf got me some replica dealer plates in pre 2001 font for chrismas took us ages to find our who the supplying dealer was and thats when we found out its been a birmingham car all its life but would recomend retro plates of any one that needs replica plates
and that brings us to this weekend were i noticed someones hit the metro while its been parked up pushing in the back panel and doing damage to the bumper and tailgate that put me on the hunt for parts so if anyones got any friends hiding old metro parts in NAL white dimond ill defo be intrested in buying them i'm looking for
a pair of front wings
tailgate ideally a proper gti one
rear bumper colour coded bottom ideally (changing the look up
gti/gta door rubbing strips
The pads were low so dicided with the future plans i'd do a brake upgrade to mgf brakes (same as metro gti)
decided to buy a private plate so the engine swap was set in stone
picked up a doner for its engine and gearbox
found a very cheap gti steering wheel on ebay
got the vvc on the stand and started cleaning and painting the block an gearbox
brought a metro gti engine loom and sent that along with the vvc engine loom off to mike a klooms to convert them to work togehter
big box of genuine parts inc'd timing belt oil filter and a few other bits
got some nice stainless rocker cover bolts
fitted my vibe slick 6 6.5 in the front doors
picked up some harder to find MPI metro bits to make the vvc fit easier in my spi heater matrix pipes throttle cable and ecu bracket
picked up a zr 160 airbox with k&n panel filter already in also got a lead cover to finish off the engine
got some black 8mm leads off mr retro leads
zr/zs pg1 gear linkage
road trip to the lakes
1.1 did me well but it was time to start puilling it apart, also fitted some polly bushes in the lower stabiler mount
engine bay cleaned up really well
picked up a 2.5" exhaust and vv160 6bolt exhaust mani of an ex metro cup car gave the dowpipe a quick coat of vht
pulled out the pedal box to make a start on coverting to hydro clutch could of stayed cable but that meant buying more thing and i wanted to use what i had so modifed the servo plate of the mgf to fit the metro servo as it was stamped for it but wasnt cut out, this also meant that the clutch master was in the right place i then fitted the f pedal to the metro pedal box the padle landed in the wrong place i could if welded a mount for the clutch master on the metro pedal for wanted to make sure the padal ratio was right so i choped the end of the f pedal off done the same to the metro one and welded it back on in the right place
gave the subframe a paint
it was raining but i wanted to get the engine in so made a canopy and got it done
found out the zr airbox wouldn't work with the mg hydro slave but i wasn't fitting a cone filter as i wanted it to look fairly factory so the grinder came out to chop the box up
with the vvc they tend to run hotter then the 1.1 and with the metro rads starting to get hard to find it was best to fit the mg f rad with some small mods it fits without to much hassle
with the fitment off the pg1 gearbox you need to move the lower stabaliser theres two ways of doing this one is to fit the mg f subframe i could of done this but didn't fancy doing that so we chopped the mount off and welded it to the metro subframe
fitted the orginal mg f in the metro hanger just like a 16v swap in a cento the orignal metro spi fuel pump is 1bar and the mg f fuel pump runs at 3 bar
made a servo pipe as i forgot to pull it off the mpi i pulled all the bits off
silicone 90 to the airbox just flashy enought but not in yout face
starting fiting the freshly painted gti splitter to the bumper
custom cluch pipe from hel and rover 25 upper water hose fits nicelly with a little bit of trimming
needed a way of switching on the fan as the metro orignally had the switch in the rad
pg1 linkaged shortend to fit the metro along with fitting the downpipe to the center
got the front bumper refitted
had to modify the bango on the cluch pipe slightly think i order m10 banjos but it was m11
So after the demise of the cinq i went looking for a metro gti, realised they was out of my budget and brought a mk1 punto sporting, after finishing the landrover selling the punto and using the landrover daily for a few years i decided on getting another daily, walked into dads work and this was in the show room
brought it and instatntly took it to longbride
wanted abit more sound so fitted a cheap hornet bomb
picked up some mpi gti wheels needed a refurb
cheeky picture of the landrover and the metro together
got my hands on a gti spoiler
first wash in my ownership after droping the wheels off to city wheel refurbs
got the wheels back and made sure to get some poorboys on them to keep them nice
got them wrapped in some toyo cf2s and fitted
got myself gti front splitter and gti skirts
got an updated longbride picture
fitted a sub
and a colour coded fuel cap insert
some mats
noticed when i was fitting the wheels it needed some lower ball joints found some genuine rover ones for less then what i'd pay at euro in trade also fitted upper ball joints while the hubs were off
