Geo Metro XFI Convertible Project Finished

[Coyote X]

I have more or less settled on using the convertible body as the base of my Metro XFI buildup.

I have stripped it down so far to almost the bare shell and will be finishing that up tomorrow if I don't get side tracked.



As of now my plans are to totally strip it to a rolling shell. I will remove everything that is bolted on the car except the suspension and maybe steering. From there Build a tube chassis to replace the unibody and add a roll cage of some sort. After that strip out the remaining unibody structure and leave just the sheet metal body. Inner fenders and other random covers I will probably replace with a plastic of some sort, it will be easier to install and lighter than metal. I will make a custom wiring harness similar to the one on my kit car that uses mosfets to control all the loads so the dash just has some 22ga wiring and is otherwise empty. This also keeps the amount of heavy wiring to a minimum but gives me the annoying part of having multiple fuse blocks.

I will probably lower the car by swapping the springs I have in my car right now into it. I am thinking right now of using these 175/70-14 tires on a set of 14 inch steel rims. I will probably flatten out the floor since it won't be a unibody so just welding in a flat sheet would be easy. I am still thinking that I could seal the underside of the engine bay making a smooth belly pan. If I raise the passenger floor 4 inches higher I could use that extra space as a duct for the engine compartment air and direct it out the back center. Managing the airflow for the required parts of the car seems like it should help me out some. I plan on closing the gap on the front wheels and adding deflectors on the front end to keep air off them.

So far this is about all I have planned. I will probably change my mind on stuff constantly up until the time I actually build that part. Anyone else got any ideas of suggestions on stuff I can do? I am thinking that since this is going to be probably 6 months or so to build that I have time to do some pretty complicated stuff. I am open to anything really, even putting the engine in the trunk and making a can am style nose is a possibility.

I will probably strip the car down the last bit this week and then not touch it other than spraying degreaser on it for a week or so. Rushing into doing work like this usually means you end up doing it twice

[Coyote X]

Well I just tossed out that can am idea but then I typed can am into google image search and found this:



I think I could do something similar to a convertible The only changes would be I would need a windsheild, wipers, and a top. This might require some more careful consideration.....

[SVOboy]

Looks pretty good so far! I'll be watching with bells on.

[Coyote X]

after looking around some more at the can am cars, they are all rear engine and have a very low sloped hood. That works for a car with a tiny windshield with no need for a top. But for a car with a windshield the width of the car it would not really gain anything it looks like. If I could find a windshield like in my kit car then I would maybe think about it a bit more.



A setup like that would be totally pointless to start with a convertible. Just start with a pile of steel and a bender and build a car like I did when I rebuilt that car.

I am thinking that maybe a little less radical of a build would be a lot faster to actually get running and maybe still be slightly reliable and practical to commute in.

[MetroMPG]

Wow. Nice to see you diving in and getting to it on the vert project. I smell a MetroMPG.com update...

[eta]

What tubing will you use for the frame and roll bar? DOM? What diameter and wall thickness? I want to build a tube space frame from scratch, and am planning on using 1 1/2" dia with .065" wall (16 gauge), which should be plenty strong enough, probably over-kill. The big diameter really helps the strength/weight. I might go with chro moly tubing and oxy-acetylene braze it, used that in other projects and like it!

[Coyote X]

Well the car is stripped down as much as needed now Lots of rust pics to follow...




I am not really sure what size tubing I will be using yet. I was mainly concerned with getting it stripped down first and seeing what it looked like. I will be talking to a few race car builders and seeing if I can come up with a plan. But I figure for this car it has no power and no weight so it can go pretty light with the frame and still be very strong.



This is the frame for the kit car I built, I figured I would do something very similar for the convertible. It was made with 2 inch for the main parts and 1.5 for the rest of it. For the convertible I will probably use 1 1/2" for the main rails, not sure of the thickness yet. I don't see a need to make it race car like though. I will add a roll bar but I am not sure if I am going to do the side impact bars or just leave the door ones in place. Climbing over bars every time you get in or out of the car is kind of annoying.

I think the 16ga thickness is probably what I will end up with in chromoly for the main frame rails and roll bar. All the supporting stuff and bracing I will probably go smaller. I would rather have a very stiff main chassis that is stronger than needed than have one right near what is considered safe, the extra 5-10lbs is not really that big of a deal but it can make the car a lot stiffer and keep the body sitting square much longer no matter the abuse it gets.

[Silveredwings]

That rocker looks like it's getting lighter all on its own.

[MetroMPG]

So refreshing my memory...

When you were only thinking about doing some aggressive aeromods to a Metro hatchback body, you mentioned you didn't think you'd have time to do the "XFi drivetrain into your Spitfire" transplant.

How is doing this convertible with a tubular frame going to be LESS work?

Don't get me wrong - I'm enjoying this immensely, and am looking forward to the rest of the show.

But, man - a Spitfire XFi would have so much more style!

[MetroMPG]

Originally Posted by Silveredwings

That rocker looks like it's getting lighter all on its own.

Mother Nature's doing some slo-mo ecomodding .

[Coyote X]

The spitfire project would be really cool but I had a few problems I was not able to solve. Main one was there was absolutely no way to get a strut front end under the spitfire hood. Second problem was I have not been able to find a decent spitfire to use The one I have here is my sisters car and I still plan on eventually building it into something useful for her but it will mainly be just put a reliable engine and wiring in it and send it on it's way. She has said she doesn't want it turned into a geo metro and wants it to be very close to stock, just reliable. I guess seeing the insane stuff I have done with other cars she is afraid of what it would be like if I went nuts on it.

I still make no guarantees that I will end up with a metro convertible when I am done. I had to weld some 1 inch square tubing all over the bottom of my xfi though to keep the doors lined up close enough to actually close. It has some really serious issues with rust so really this is a matter of I have to do something and it needs to be running this fall at the latest I figure. I have been looking for something easy to build my drivetrain into and this car happened to be cheap and made it into my driveway first.

Converting an existing car to a tube chassis is way easier than scratch building a chassis. I just have to start with the roll cage and go forward to catch the existing engine and suspension mounts, then go rear and get the suspension mounts. From there just hang the body on it and it is ready to reassemble. Everything fits since it was made to fit together properly to start with. Scratch building a frame takes a lot more effort since there are no existing mounting locations to use. It took months to build the chassis for the kit car and that was cheating and using existing subframes. The body was installed on it probably 300 times getting everything lined up.

After I get this one done I might decide it isn't finished and cut the body off it and make it something else later on, that airplane canopy site was a bad link for me to see.

[Coyote X]

Didn't do much to the car today cause it was 18 degrees F in my garage I did take a hammer and screwdriver to anywhere that looked weak and found tons of rusted out areas on the unibody. These cars really weren't built for long term use

Anyway, all the suspension points are actually in pretty good shape. So I have an option on something I could do now, I could leave the suspension alone and just attach the tube frame to the stock suspension mounts and leave that part of the unibody alone, or I could cut it away anyway and rebuild it like I was originally thinking.

If I leave it alone I could have it built much faster but the tradeoff would be a bit more weight since I would have sections of the old unibody frame on each wheel. It would also not look as professional. If I cut it away I will be taking longer to build it but the end result would be nicer and probably longer lasting.

Also I was suprised how much of that asphalt based sound deadening material is in that car, some parts have 2 layers of it! No wonder the convertibles were heavier than the hatchback, with all the crap they added to them it is not suprising they needed 4.39 gears.

[Coyote X]

Warm enough the water hose didn't freeze up today so I pressure washed the car


I will spray the engine bay down with oven cleaner again tomorrow and see if I can get the last of the grime off it. After that I just need get it up in the air enough to get the gas tank out and unbolt the shifter and remove it.

[SVOboy]

Looks pretty nice so far! You're really digging into it,

[MetroMPG]

The passenger side control arm mount doesn't look TOO bad in the pics. You think (if you weren't going tubular) it could be patched?

Also - who the heck would paint a white car yellow?

[XFi]

Wow, some nice progress...quickly.

[Coyote X]

I guess for some reason everyone wants a yellow metro convertible I will probably paint it back white unless I come up with some other random color

The control arm mount really isn't that bad and could probably just be welded up without needing any filler metal. I am halfway debating on just patching it really, I could do that over a weekend and just start reassembling the car and have it running within a month. It won't be a huge bit lighter than what I have now and really would not be what I want out of it.

If I did that though there would be no way to do the big engine vent duct to the back since the unibody would be in the way. I am not sure how much of a gain it would give me but it seems like it should be a pretty good thing to do.

[Coyote X]

Today I turned the car up on its side so I could get the gas tank and what was left of the exhaust out from under it. That front passenger side suspension mount that didn't look bad actually has a lot more rust than I thought. One of the rear ones is in just about as bad shape so it is looking like I won't be doing a quick fix on it after all.

I also have figured out more or less how I can run the air duct through the car and out the back. I can move the gas tank up about 6 inches higher so I should be set to get the air channeled without a lot of trouble. Now that it looks like I have a good possibility of making the duct work the question is how much of an opening do I need in the front bumper? There will be no air coming into the engine compartment except through that opening. I am thinking either open the entire stock bumper opening back up and ducting all that air into the radiator. It would be easy to use vinyl sheeting to build a duct for that purpose. Or I could also just open the bumper up and let as much air flow into it without forcing it through the radiator and just let the fan take care of radiator airflow. I am thinking with the duct out the back the more air coming into the engine bay the better with this setup.