Drove 730 miles and all I got was this XFi camshaft

[Wonderboy]

I drove to Campbell, OH (from Binghamton, NY) yesterday at 4am with one of my friends in hopes to bring back a $400 XFi with 140k miles on it. These long trips seem to yield interesting sights along the way. Last time it was a submarine, this time it was a DeLorean.


I arrived, and AFTER replacing the alternator and moving on to replace the brake pads, I noticed this:


So there was no way I was going to drive this car home let alone for too long. A couple bad potholes could do this in. That's the front driver's side control arm attachment point to the body. Much of it has already disintegrated, and the rest when pried looks like a loosening tooth.
At that point I showed the seller and asked if she'd be willing to let me take parts since there's not really any way it could be sold to anyone in his right mind in that condition. The car wasn't in that great of shape anyway, but I obviously wasn't that picky if I drove that far for an XFi . She agreed to let me yank out what I really wanted. I payed $100 for it. I could've gone lower but I felt bad for the seller.


She let me use her computer, and I got it out in about 45 mins thanks to Johnny Mullet's camshaft switch guide. I didn't really have the time nor the tools to get the tranny, so I encouraged her to repost it for parts for a while on CL, and make sure to put the magic 3 letters in her posting title (which she hadn't done before): XFi. I would encourage anyone in that area or otherwise willing to go get those coveted parts because all I took was the camshaft. ECU and Tranny are still there. The car looks like this now:



I have no reason to believe it's not a legitimate XFi.

P.S. I've been consistently getting 50+ MPG in my Civic for the last few tanks (aside from one fuel pump related hiccup), including this trip (53mpg). I reached my 50mpg goal already! I don't think I'll be able to reach 60 with my EX gearing without some serious mods, or the purchase of a suzukiclone, which is hopefully imminent.

[UfoTofU]

Submarine?

[MetroMPG]

Bummer that it was rusted out.

And that you didn't bring your tools so you could bring home the whole drivetrain!

[Wonderboy]

I brought tools, and I had a friend there with me, but I just didn't have time to do it. As it was we got home at midnight, which left me awake for 21.5 hours. I have no idea what would've happened if I had to deal with the DMV, or BMV as they call it in ohio.

As a possibly unfortunate afterthought, should I have taken the timing gear too? I thought it was just the camshaft. I'm looking over Johnny Mullet's guide again and I notice that he also replaced the timing gear that drives the camshaft. Should I be on the phone with the seller asking to get that shipped to me?

I hope someone on EM can go snatch it up, because I don't know if they're going to sell it to a scrap metal place or a junkyard. If it's a junkyard, there will soon be an XFi sitting in a Youngstown, OH junkyard.

[UfoTofU]

Originally Posted by Wonderboy

Should I be on the phone with the seller asking to get that shipped to me?

That can't hurt

[Southcross]

I've seen worse rust LOL would take a little love, but its fixable (for more than the car is worth.... LOL)

[Wonderboy]

So about a month ago now, I took another 730mi round trip, but this time with a dolly trailer to get the car. I paid 200 for the rest of it giving a grand total of 300 for the car, and 175 for the trips. For the last month I've been pretty busy, but I managed to (try to) reinstall the camshaft that I took out on my first trip. I got the timing wrong (blowback into the carb when trying to start it). My father advised popping the engine out and rebuilding it if I planned on making it my regular car and intending for it to last a good long time. I agreed and managed to finally get it out this weekend.




Not too bad. The worst part was getting the hub nuts off to remove the CV axles - I should've come in with the torch right off the bat.

This leads me to a couple questions: I've been looking around for overhaul kits/parts for these engines, and there are quite a few options. Any experiences on what I should do here? Things to look out for? Bad mistakes to avoid?

I'm also thinking it would probably be best to get another body and do a swap (ECU included) because I was just thinking of how much of a money suck this project this would be after staring at this for a while

The windshield needs replacing, the frame needs welding, a few quarter panels need replacing, paint will be needed... everywhere. Are there any caveats (or even advantages) in throwing this engine and its ECU into a same generation metro? a same generation metro with an automatic trans? A newer generation metro? One of those 1.3l swifts with the awesome gearing??!

And one last question:

See those teeth in the tranny? Should I be able to see them? It looks like there might supposed to be a cover over that. To current metro owners: does your car have a cover over that?

[Coyote X]

There should be a cover over that but it probably wont hurt anything if you can't find one.

I think if you pull up the carpet and look at what you have then a bit of welding isn't that bad to get it back into shape. But that depends on if you are able and willing to weld on the car. A quarter of a single sheet of 16ga steel is all you need to fix it and look at the various guides posted around on what others have done. 16ga steel is cheap so at most you will be out 50 bucks and several days of work to get it solid again. Here are factory measurements so you know where to put it all back together. Also a couple of old tires are all you need to roll it over onto its side so it is easier to work on. If you are careful it won't hurt the car, they are pretty light and easy to move around especially without the drivetrain.

As far as the body goes I would say use spray foam to fill the rockers in and sand it smooth and paint it. It is a Metro after all and it doesn't have to be a really nice looking one either. The only other option is to find side skirts off a swift and just cover the rust up

[Wonderboy]

Thanks for the advice.... compared to yours and other pictures I've seen, my control arm mount area doesn't actually look that bad: the bottom part of it is pretty bad (as shown) but above it it seems pretty solid. Just unfortunate the major damage is in the mount area. The kicker is that there seems to be extensive rust damage right under the driver's area, including the rear control arm mount. This mount rests on a ribbed area, and is on kind of a "ridge" (you can see two jackstands in one of the pictures above, one is just there, not supporting the car, the other is supporting the car right under said rear control arm mount). I guess it could be done, but I'm not a welder.... it just seems like this would be difficult to do. Would I just basically cut that entire area out (under where the driver's feet would be) and replace it with strong sheet metal? Should it be reinforced? Any suggestions on parts for the engine rebuild (best / cheapest source?) About the spray foam - are we talking like great stuff? Would it go "inside" the rocker panel, kind of "wiped" on the outside? or both? I know I can do this, but with all the stuff (new windshield, both front quarter panels, welding the bottom frame & up around the suspension towers) I'm still on the fence on whether doing this is worth it. Your suggestion however, is leaning me on the side where I embark on a big welding project.

Thanks

[McTimson]

Hey, I keep forgetting to tell you that I got myself like 10 sheets of this rubber-plastic stuff, it's kind of like linoleum, but it's working pretty well as a coroplast replacement, and it's very flexible. Let me know if you want any, I'm going to try do to a belly pan for my car, but there should be plenty left over.

That underbody picture definitely makes it look bad, and like a lot of work. But, it looks like most Metro's rust out anyway, so it'd probably be hard finding a shell that wasn't just as bad as yours. I would say to go for fixing it, unless you come across a decent body, for cheap.

Or, throw the engine/tranny into your civic