Metro Thrashing

[Hacksaw]

Originally Posted by metroschultz

Rick got his pics up here before I did,
Good shot of my F.A. working over the Metro.
Most of my pics came out dark and I'm cleaning them up now.
Be Back Soon
S.

I curious if you had any pinging at 8 degrees advancement with that XFi on the way home? I read what Rick wrote about setting the timing to 8, so I ran outside and set both my Metros to the same...The '97s' 1.3 Liter was set at 2 from when I bought it last week. Let me know how she ran.

[metroschultz]

My deepest thanks go to
Rick Thompson
aka
CoyoteX
Computer geek
Eco nerd
Gear-head
and all around Good Guy.

What a weekend, It started for me on Thursday, 14 August 2008.
08:30 wake up and get ready for trip, (I will use military time stamp cause I don't wanna try and remember that am/pm thing)
Acquire supplies, oil, filter, etc. some I had ordered and some I needed to buy. load car, wash clothes and pack.
Blah Blah Blah
Credit my wife with a lot of help here
I had some extra time so I figured now is as good a time as any for wheel skirts.
Using cfg83's water heater pan idea, I went to work.


Half a pan and a Geo with mounts bolted in.
The mounts are from the bed frame leftovers of the seat install.
Cut one inch slices and drill as need for your mounting purposes.


Me screwing the first one in place


Needs some tweaking, but I think it looks good from here.


Couldn't tweak it enough to clear the wheel.
After some consideration I think the rear bumper needs tweaking as well. A little heat and some gentle massage should put the bumper out past the wheel and then the skirt will be perfect.
Drat (to quote Charlie Brown)
I removed them for the trip and it was time to go to my real job.
14:00 to 02:00 Work for Post Office
02:00 to 04:00 Pretend to sleep (I think I dozed in there for about 1/2 hour)
04:00 to 13:00 Drive from Virginia Beach, Va. to Kistler, W.Va.
Take another half hour nap in rest stop on west side of Richmond, Va. (3 hours from home)
coming up the mountains into Charlottesville,Va. I noticed the car was getting weaker and definitely not running well.
Crap (methinks to me-self)
Am I going to make this?
well we've passed the point of no return so it's either Kistler or the junk yard. (and I was carrying too much stuff to bring home on Trailways)


This is the last stretch of road before crossing the mountain,
Kind of winding, but fun to ride really fast on, and I didn't care about the engine any more. I made it this far and I've been awake so long my mind wanders from random thought to random thought.
Where was I now?
Oh yeah,


Kistler is on the other side of this
Isn't this Beautiful Country?


So



I get to
Ricks Mountain Metro Retreat
and we begin the change of the engines.
Most of the work was accomplished by Rick and his Neighbor Al.
I helped as much as they would let me, and I took some (not enough) pictures.


Rick and Al hooking the chains to the engine and Backhoe ( he-he he said "HO") bucket
until this point I didn't even think about my camera,
Couldn't think
No sleep since 08:30 yesterday now it's 17:00 (give or take)


Please don't eat my car mister bulldozer


Motors out, good time to check those control arm mounts.
Yup, this ones O.K.


This one too, although it is now a little oily.
"Don't hate me cause I'm beautiful"

A Tale of Two Engines

So we have one motor out and on the floor


Yup thats the floor
I have a Swift trans in the back of my car (what, you don't carry a spare trans around just in case?)
We need a clutch assembly,
Oh Yeah, lets pull the motor out of the '97 and get that clutch. (it was also the newest clutch on the lot)
We take the '97 clutch, mate it to the '91 Vert' engine and mate that to my '93 Swift trans. (oops no pics)
Out of the blue Rick says "lets do a compression test"
I thought you did that I asked, he said he spun it by hand and everything feels good, but lets make sure.
200 psi, good
200 psi, good
130 psi, not good, won't come up no matter what.
Crap again, work done without usable results.
"What about the '97 motor?"
different.
How?
front end, timing stuff, oil pump, you know, different.
well it just so happens that, all kidding aside, the engines are similar enough to allow this swap.
Compression good on all holes and it goes in the car
Now I drive a 1991, 2, 3, 7, Geo Metro, Swift, Integra, Xfi.
Whoo, say that three times fast.
We wrap it up around midnight and it is off to bed for this tired puppy. 39.5 hours after I woke on Thursday with a motor that almost didn't make it to W.Va. I go to sleep after hearing her run smooth and strong. Tomorrow we tackle the trans shifter issue and some other random stuff.
Saturday, 16 August, 2008 (notice that Friday was missing? Look up, its in there somewhere)
I get up around 09:00 and get to the garage.
Tighten up the intake bolts. (we forgot to do that and even left some out, oops)
Change oil and filter. (ran yesterday, got hot enough to clean the lifters and I brought Synthetic for the new engine)
Rick comes in and we get the car on the ground, re-position the jack stands and set the shifter.
The Swift shifter torque rod is on the right side of the shift lever/rod
and the Metro is on the left.
Hmm
Take torque rod assembly out of car, cut, flip, weld ,and lengthen
(add a piece of pipe in there).
Remove old camshaft (any body need a core to get re-ground? [free])
add Xfi cam shaft and re-time engine
wait it runs funny, what'd you do? me?! i dunno.
timing is off 20 degrees, you must have the cam in wrong.
No I don't. Lets move it up one tooth, (around 18*)
runs worse. !!WHAT!?!?
put cam back to center and set through the distributor.
wait, that's the '97 distributer.
SO?
won't work
whaddya mean? it fits and the plugs are the same.
Yeah, different computers
Oh.
'93 distributer
work good, last long time.
Drive around a little and make sure that she's in good running order.
Take a break and go get Pizza.
add rear hatch struts ('97 work but are too long, need to make new mount for them)picture of me pulling them from '97 is in Ricks post.
Time to go home. It is around 18:00 and I leave, following Rick and Sarah, in Sarah's car,


I didn't know he was taking my picture while I was taking his.
pretty funny.


This is my last shot of Rick, Sarah in the passenger side,
Good bye,
Thanks again for all you've done.
Now I must finish up some other stuff.
the new motor will need a little work
Fix oil leak (distributor "O" ring, or gasket to mount)
new stem seals (blows smoke when pulling from a light, no biggie)
But it ran great all the way back to Ole Virginny
75 or 80 or 85 most of the time, (f.e. be d@mned I'm on my way home)
Got home around 01:00, so with a good running car and the wind on your tail it really is only 7 hours away.
(btw the P.O. thinks I'm home sick today, cough, cough)
(I've been unloading the Metro and helping my friend Ralph with his semi )
Thats enough, this is too long
Schultz

[Johnny Mullet]

I may be interested in the cam core for a re-grind. I am glad you made it to Rick's all safe and got the swap done in time. I assume the Swift trans with a higher ratio in 5th made a huge difference at highway speeds?

Looking forward to your visit at GeoPalooza.

[metroschultz]

Yes,
I can hear the difference in the engine
bottom end pull is like night and day.
btw no ping on the ride home, I may go a couple more degrees.
S.

[Coyote X]

he also ran off in a hurry and forgot the 12" moon hubcaps I will bring them to the meet. Space permitting that is.

[pint]

Nice work metroschultz! I wish I had 1/2 the skills you do! By the way, those mountain shots are purdy...

P.S. Can't wait till I have my own Metro to work on!

[taco]

that is awsome, too bad i was out of town... justin nelson the computer destroyer counldnt laugh and help break something..........

[metroschultz]

Where were you?
Is there somewhere in W.Va. for you to ride coasters?
If you had come over we could have taken Ricks 4 wheelers over the mountains, then I would have had to stay an extra night.
S.

[taco]

i went to cincinatti, kings island.
hey that would of been fun, i like to do that.

[MetroMPG]

Epic swap story! Good pics. Entertaining commentary, as usual.

Now we all wait for the "new" fuel economy numbers to roll in once you're back to youre regularly scheduled programming...