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Building my Metro Supercar
Topic Started: Jul 31 2011, 11:28 PM (19,352 Views)
Coyote X


Body lifted 1 inch

After a overly long break from working on the car I finally got time to start back on it. I have most of the major frame work done but there are a few changes I needed to make. I don’t have enough head room in the car the way it is built so I needed to make some room somehow. The easiest way to get more room is to raise the body off the frame. I used 1 inch square steel to raise the body off the frame. It was a pretty simple mod but made enough difference I will have no problems fitting in the car now. The pictures are a bit hard to make sense out of but they are with the car in the air and the floor removed.

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With that change I lowered the car down and checked the headroom. I can now sit in the car straight up without hitting the roof. There isn’t much room around my head but I don’t have to drive it with my head to one side now. The car looks even funnier now with probably 6 inches from the tire to the fender. I will need to get dropped spindles for the front suspension to get it down low enough to look right. The good thing is I can lower the pedals to get them back where they were in relation to the floor and this gives me just enough room under the hood to get the master cylinder reservoir to fit now.
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Hydrojim
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What else do you have left to do on this before you can take it for the first test drive?
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Coyote X


The car is a long way way from being done. I am just about done fitting everything together. I still need to get the hydraulic hoses made up for the coolant system and get the heater and a/c box mounted under the dash. I also have to get a good wiper assembly on it. After I get that stuff done it is time to build a new dash and get everything sorted out where to put it.

After all that is sorted out then I can put the final bracing together to make it stiff. I need pretty much everything in place before I put the bracing in so it isn't in the way and stuff can be removed without having to cut structure. Right now the car is not real stiff so it needs a lot of reinforcement to be solid and for crash protection.

Then I can strip it down and weld it all up solid and paint the frame good. Once that is done then it is time to start building the car properly. Right now the engine is just held in with bolts stuck through the holes and no nuts on anything. After the frame and structure is finished I can actually bolt stuff together and do all the detail work that it needs. There is a huge amount of fiberglass work that is going to have to be done to get the car right. I know the motor and drivetrain are in good shape so getting it started isn't hard. I will probably not bother starting it till it is ready to drive though. I am still hoping to have it running and able to drive for geopalooza but that all depends on how much time I have to work on it.

Overall it will probably be 3-5 years before it is totally finished but it will be worth it once it is done :)
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Stubby79
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I've read a lot of threads on your various builds and I gotta say, you're very inspiring!

Seeing this oarticular project makes me want to make a tube-frame to stick my Fiero parts car's body panels onto and stick a geo (or better yet, a Swift GTi) engine in the back. Probably not worth the effort when I could probably get as good of MPG from my stock Geo, but it'd still be a great project.

Good luck and keep up the inspiration!
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Coyote X


I got the body lined back up on the car so now it is time to start fitting the interior of the car together. First thing is to get the seat area finished so I can sit in the car and test fit the locations of all the dashboard parts. I wanted a bit more head room in the car so I decided to lower the floor pans an inch from the frame rails. I ran out of square tubing so I didn’t get it totally framed in today. I will finish it as soon as I get some more metal.


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Coyote X


Back half of the floor area built

I decided to split the floor into two parts. The back part will be welded in and the seats and seat belt hardware will be mounted solidly on it. The front half will be bolted on so I can remove it to access under the dashboard. I just had to cut and weld on some 1 inch square tube to go around the frame to give me something solid to mount the floor to. I used the old floor and just cut out the part of it I needed I spot welded it to the frame enough to hold it in place for now.

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I will use square tube to mount the front section of the floor and weld nuts. I will most likely use angle to attach the front firewall to the floor. After that is framed up I will start building the dashboard and that should finish up figuring out all the locations of the components. Then I can brace everything up solid then strip the car down to do the final welding and rust proofing of the frame.
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Bad Bent
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Facetious Educated Donkey

Coyote X
Feb 17 2013, 12:41 AM
Overall it will probably be 3-5 years before it is totally finished but it will be worth it once it is done :)
:popcorn

But worth the wait. Thanks again for the pictures. :thumb B-)
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Awesome-X
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Wow, very nice! I can't wait to see it finished. Speaking of finished how did the paint turn out on your Astro?
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Coyote X


The Astro paint came out decent looking. It was kind of a rush job getting the paint on before cold weather but it came out good. I don't have any murals on it yet but that will be done in the future.

I am hoping it wont be long getting the last things done on the car so I can start putting it together and getting it on the road. At least I had it out of the garage the other day working on something else and got some nice pictures of it.

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Coyote X


Today I started by framing up the front section of the floor. I will make the floor later. I mostly wanted it framed in so I could start building the firewall and getting everything mounted. With the floor lowered an inch and the body raised 3/4 off the frame I have more room for the pedals. So first thing is figure out a template for the new 16 ga. firewall.

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Using cardboard I made a template for the firewall that fits pretty snug in the opening. The closer I can get it the better off I am with sealing it up and keeping it from leaking. Once I cut the pattern out in steel I marked and cut out the hole for the master cylinder mounting. The new location for the master cylinder gives me plenty of room under the hood for the stock setup to fit. I might still add a remote fill to it so it will be easier to top off the fluid.

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I spent a long time trying to connect the morse cable I am using for the clutch to the pedal but there just was no good way to get it working right. I finally just gave up and used the stock Metro cable to mount to the firewall and built an adapter to connect the two cables together. This will work out good since it gives me even more adjustment capability on the clutch cable. I will mount the adapter bracket in the front somewhere once I get more of it built and know where it can go.

Up next is to finish mounting the pedals to the firewall including mounting the throttle pedal. After the pedals are in place I need to mount a set of good wipers and mount the heater box. Then I just need to build a dashboard and the few odds and ends for the interior then it is time to start on the final build to get it on the road.
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Potter
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Col. Potter

rick.. we need to chat on f.b soon ... many questions about both car and van... mostly did you ever get the van lifted a couple inches?
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Coyote X


The van has a 2 inch lift on the front. It is ready for the 8 lug brakes and wheels as soon as I get around to installing them. Probably be a while before I get around to it since I need to get this car done. If you want you can call me my new cell number is 304-688-6765 if you don't have it.
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Coyote X


Today I worked on mounting everything under the dash. First was put the pedals back in then remove all the old stuff from the car.

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It took a while to get the pedals in place and get the steering wheel at the right height to be comfortable driving. But after it was in I checked the fit of the heater box and it has plenty of room on the passenger side. I then started fitting the Metro wiper assembly into the car. It is a different width between the posts and the motor will be in a different place but I think I can get it all working. I just need to come up with an easy way to modify the sweep angle of the drivers side wiper to get it to sweep a bit wider than stock.

I managed to get the holes to put the shafts through sized properly and get the wiper shafts put in place. They are not mounted yet. I will probably have to glue them in place to mount them. The motor will probably be the hardest part to get mounted since it will be mounted under the dash instead of through the firewall and will mount backwards. I will experiment with the mounting tomorrow and see if I can get a working setup.

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Potter
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Col. Potter

kick in the tail Rick..... Updates... c'mon lets get this thing on the road already.
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Coyote X


Not much to update is the car is sitting in the back of the garage. I managed to find side windows and a working wiper system found and ready to go in the car. Only thing really missing before I can get started on the final assembly is a windshield and that is hard to get. I have a lead on one I am working on now so hopefully soon I will get somewhere. I am still probably going to strip it to the frame and do the welding and reinforcing then start from the ground up putting it all back together. With any luck I might get it to move under its own power this summer.
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