1999 Chevy Metro 1.0L 5spd ecomodding thread

[Daox]

I'm not sure if you have sway bars or not. Here is a picture of my non-mounted rear sway bar though:




Apparently its supposed to look more like this:





Here is the driver's side control arm mount rust. From this angle you can see one hole, I'm not sure if there is more yet.





Here is another shot of where the charcoal canister should be. The rubber hose just goes right down where the can should be as if to bypass it. Perhaps it was deleted? Any negatives from not having this? Should I be looking to pick one up somewhere? I understand what it does, I just don't know how not having one would effect things. I'd imagine you just burn the gas fumes as soon as you start up.





And, here we have the $100 set of wheels and tires. I love cheap cars. The tires are a bit old, and a little on the dry side, but they'll do just fine. They are Hifly HF201.

[Daox]

After tinkering with the Civic last night, I had some spare time. I've been itching to work on the Metro ever since picking it up nearly a week ago now.

First things first, lets look at that control arm mount rust. It was about as bad as I thought it was...

Here I just started poking around with a small hammer to see what crusty rust was hiding under the flaking paint.





You can see, the control arm was literally PACKED with rust bits.





Here is the engine bay side of the mount. I did a bit more poking after this pic.





Here we have the very front side of the mount.





And, here we have the final shot of the outside of the mount again. I cleaned a lot of the rust out by hand, then took compressed air and blew it around until it was all out. It was very moist inside, no surprise that the rust starts and goes like crazy.





I didn't get around to any actual repairs. I'll let it dry out, then sand it down to get some good metal to weld to, and then make up some pieces to patch it up.

[Daox]

I'm also curious what other Metro owners have done to prevent this from happening again? A drain hole or two added? Oil sprayed inside? Paint?

[MetroMPG]

The reason for the rust is the way the drain from the A-pillar/cowl area is routed to exit at the large-ish hole in the floor immediately behind the front tire.

The problem is: the control arm structure isn't isolated from the drain - it's all part of the same cavity that water can get into from up top (A-pillar) and below (spray from the tire --plus road salt -- into the drain hole at the bottom).

Paint alone won't solve this, unless you're confident you can make a 100% barrier on all sides that will never break down. After you rebuild the area, you need to prevent more rust by regularly oiling inside the cavity including the control arm area.

Also, with that much rust on the control arm mount, you probably also have rust in the floor, inside the two longitudinal "frame" members that run backward from the control arm area.

[MetroMPG]

PS: good thing this car found its way to an owner with a welder who knows how to use it!

[24601]

That's one serious case of car cancer.

[Daox]

I helped BenNelson weld his Metro up a few years ago. They were a fair amount worse than this. One good night with the welder and it'll be all patched up. Not a real big deal thankfully.

The funny thing is, there are a few bad areas on the Metro. The rest of the car looks pretty darn good rust wise.

[2000mc]

Originally Posted by Daox

Here is another shot of where the charcoal canister should be. The rubber hose just goes right down where the can should be as if to bypass it. Perhaps it was deleted? Any negatives from not having this? Should I be looking to pick one up somewhere? I understand what it does, I just don't know how not having one would effect things. I'd imagine you just burn the gas fumes as soon as you start up.

i looked up the canister

Evaporative Emission Canister Replacement
Removal Procedure
 1. Remove the fuel tank from the vehicle. Refer to Fuel Tank Replacement.


... so if you really wanted to, you could probably roll around on the ground with a flashlight and find where shes hiding

[Daox]

Aha, so they moved it to the back. Thanks!

[Daox]

Last night I also took apart and cleaned up the PCV valve. They're known to clog up apparently.

First things first, I removed the air filter housing to find this. Just had a 'full tune up' the seller says. Its worse than it looks. Easy fix though.





So, under the air filter housing is the PCV hose and PCV valve. When I removed this rubber line, oil literally poured out. There was oil being sucked up into the intake housing too. I'm glad I took care of it.





All cleaned and back in place. The valve was totally clogged. I couldn't even see the hole in it when I took it apart. It took a fair amount of brake parts cleaner blasting to get it all out of there and freed up.




Now my 3 cylinder friend can breathe a bit easier!