Ben Nelson's Electro-Metro Build thread

[RarestAce]

what about a set of these they slide over the shock and help the car carry a heaver load RIDE CONTROL HELPERS : JC Whitney: Auto Parts & Accessories

[MazdaMatt]

If you are going to stiffen the spring of your suspension you must also stiffen the shock. If not, you'll get a bouncy ride and a very short shock life. All the ricers put in stiff springs and bounce around till the shocks break. This should really not be optional.

[bennelson]

Alright, who ordered the weather?




How the heck am I supposed to get any work done around here.

If only I had an eco-friendly nuke 93 million miles away to melt all this snow.

[bennelson]

Hmmm - just fantasizing here.

[order99]

Whoa.

That Photoshop pic is like a moment of Zen...

[Tango Charlie]

I dunno. I kind of like Darin's kammback on the Metro better. But that's just my personal opinion.

Hey, where'd the four doors come from?

[bennelson]

Originally Posted by Tango Charlie

Hey, where'd the four doors come from?

The accidental benefit of cut-and-paste...



Last week, I was all excited about the battery box. Finally, I could get the car up and running to the point where I would have enough range the make the car really useful, even in the winter.

A few days ago, I got one of the rear springs out, exciting to have done, but my car sure isn't driving anywhere without suspension.

I gave an open invite for anyone to help me out with battery boxes, but it looks like it was just a bad weekend for anyone to do it.

So instead, I am in my driveway with the rear of the car jacked up, a hole through the back seat and no physical or moral support.

The one thing I have always been very good at all by myself, is systematic destruction.

I have completely removed the front-end of the car, and the interior, with the exception of the dashboard.

The front-end removal started with the plan of being able to move 4 batteries total into the radiator position. Of course, it didn't take long to see that everything was just exactly wrong for four batteries to fit there. The upright through the middle of the front takes up a few valuable inches, as does the hood release. I do remember seeing a Metro conversion somewhere which had the hood release specifically removed just because of this. Maybe I can get some racing hood latches instead.


Just need to cram three more batteries in there...


Since I obviously could NOT mount four batteries up front right now, I instead returned to chipping away on the inside of the car. Since removing the back seat to start work on a battery box, I have been progressively pulling up the carpet and body panels towards the front of the car. In daylight, I could now finish removing the carpet.


Carpet, as removed from car.


Once I had it out, I could see that there was some minor rust on the driver side, and a mouse corn stash on the passenger side.

The driver side rust seemed to be just on the surface, and since there was no matching rust on the passenger side, I think it is from wet shoes and boots of the driver. The moisture gets down in the carpet, has no place to go, and causes rust. I guess I will sand it down a bit and hit it with some spray-paint primer.


Driver side surface rust.


Passenger side, including rodent pantry.


I also noticed that there are some areas, directly against the sheet metal floor pan of the car of some sort of hard black plastic/asphalt material. What is this stuff? It's hard and brittle. Is it for strength or sound-deadening or what? Can I remove it? Some of it was already popped off from the car. I removed any that wasn't attached.


The mysterious substance.

Anywho. I threw a tarp over the front of the car, and closed the hood over it. I'm sure another snow storm will come through before I can work on it more anyways.

[Intrigued]

The mysterious substance is a sound deadener. Some types also/instead were to protect the carpet from the heat of the catalytic converter. Sure made for some interesting fires...

That's why I shy away from messing with lean-burn etc. Saw a catalytic converter actually melt off of a car once...

...oh, you can lose like 10 pounds weight if you'll throw it all away...

[electricman]

YUP, the drivers side floor rust cost me - along with the passenger side floor rust and the rusty Rocker Panels - $700 to get a Repair done at a body shop - just to pass the safety - and - that was less than the cost of the job should have been! Robert - http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...lectriclfy.com

[Christ]

That rust was easy looking, from what I can see of it.

The sound deadener, if you don't care about road noise, lose it. Matter of factly, if you don't care about the interior, you can lose the carpet and plastics as well. Might lose about a battery's worth of weight if you gut the interior.

Since you're adding A LOT of weight to the car in places it wasn't meant to carry it, you may consider stitch welding the seams of the chassis, while you still have access to them. This will cut down on vibration noise, and make for a less twisty chassis, and it doesn't take days to do. At the very least, you should drill and tack the flanges of the body panels, between the initial pop-welds.

More weight loss -
Lexan in place of windows (check legality)
Check the rear hatch, the inner *not visible* sections can have holes cut out from them.
Rear bumper, if you're feeling crafty, can be replaced with tubing/piping.
same with front bumper.
Mounting tabs for parts you've taken out and don't plan to put back in can be removed, as long as they're not "structural"

As long as you're not using the OEM hood latch, and you're getting pins or latches, you can remove parts of the webbing under the hood.