How to spend $5k on a $2k econobox = NOT SWIFT (Geo Metro restoration & mods)

[samwichse]

Hm, Thunderer don't mention rolling resistance anywhere on their site, so probably not.

Leaves the Michelin Defenders as the only tire marked LRR for 13 I've found, and I've got some Defenders on my Civic hybrid (replaced B381s, which seem to be discontinued), my mileage dropped by a solid 3-5mpg.

Sam

[OG VX]

Originally Posted by samwichse

Hm, Thunderer don't mention rolling resistance anywhere on their site, so probably not.

Leaves the Michelin Defenders as the only tire marked LRR for 13 I've found, and I've got some Defenders on my Civic hybrid (replaced B381s, which seem to be discontinued), my mileage dropped by a solid 3-5mpg.

Sam

Dropped, or went up? I have the same tires, which is why I ask. They were on the car when I bought it.

** Edit- NVM: after lunch brain. I have Michelin Green X tires....

[samwichse]

Dropped. Michelin Defenders have been terrible for gas mileage vs the OEM Bridgestone B381s. They're 185/70 R14s. Ecopias are supposedly pretty good, but they only sell them in the US size 15" and up.

Continental sells 14" in the Ecocontact, which I hear is a really good LRR tire, but only in Europe :-/

Sam

[OG VX]

Yikes. Man, that sucks. Sorry about that. That kind of mileage loss really adds up $$.

I love Continental tires. My favorite set of tires ever owned were some Extreme Contact DW's I had on my old RSX. Used to autocross at their corporate center in SC years ago. Seemed like a very cool company.

[StudeChamp]

Been a while since I posted! Am winding down the build thread and will start looking to the future. Here's some more detailed info on the interior.

We gutted the car down to the dash, which stayed in place. I masked and sprayed the blue-grey dash to the granite satin that I used throughout the car -- it's within a few percent of the standard medium grey Geo used.

The door panels went. Rather than keep the seatbelts on the doors, we moved them to the B pillars like in a normal car. Interestingly enough, there were indeed mounting points on the B pillars for the belts, so some markets must have used that arrangement (or at least the car was so designed). We ended up using an extra set of rear belts up front.

I shot all interior pieces in granite grey satin finish spray, and then coated most of them in a clear satin. It is holding up OK -- the paint does scuff, but is also easy to clean and respray.

Most of the interior itself is out of the 5 door (rear shock tower/belt mount covers, spare tire cover, back seat, front seats, rear belts). I refinished the interior quarter panels from the original donor to match.

I kept the original window sill pieces from the door panels. Johnny traced a stencil on pegboard for the replacements and we skinned it with boat leather. It's a lighter grey than the granite, but is almost the same color as the cloth on the seats so, in my view, the two-tone thing totally works.

Windows are still a bit off track, the driver side exterior handle keeps getting disconnected from the pull rod, and we need to put in the interior door latch handles, so there's a bit of work ahead of us -- we hope to button it all up tomorrow.

Pics to follow in the next post.

[StudeChamp]

The last two photos show the interior in the 5 door before we pulled it.

Difference in the interiors: the 5 door rear bench has rounded corners; the 3 door is straight. When we dropped in the new bench on top of the donor carpet from the 5 door, the difference in shape left the floorboard exposed in the corners, as the carpet did not reach back far enough. I'll either put in cupholders, or drop in the bench from another donor we just picked up (more on that soon).

[StudeChamp]

Left to complete:

1. Replace the carpet in the baggage area/back of rear seat: what I've got is pretty bad. I am going to cut a piece of wood to size using the current carpet as a template, and then glue new carpet to that -- it should just drop in to the trunk area and look like a million bucks. Or so I hope.

2. Door handles - install.

3. Exterior door handle pull rod - repair (it keeps coming loose from the exterior handle)

4. Get the windows back on track.

5. New stereo.

6. Momentary switch for pushbutton start -- wire it up.

7. Housing for tablet displaying OBD1 data (more on that in a later post)

[StudeChamp]

And finally for today -- out of patience for A-B-A testing on just one car, Johnny went out and got himself an xfi. 1993, genuine article. Tow yard fresh. Which means, of course, that it's going to be a head-to-head. He's the master builder, but I obviously don't know when to quit, so things could get interesting. It's going to be a no-holds-barred brawl, so I think we are going to need a new thread to document it... The game is afoot!

[Xist]

Sounds exciting!

[MetroMPG]

Oh, fun.