764 replies to this topic

[morley]

Chris!! Good to see your still moving on with this, the metro looks good, what's your plans with it? Racing?

Could you ask your dad if he's managed to get my wheels and seats back yet please?

Thanks

[Tupers]

The Metro is going to be rebuilt completely standard as I've got all the original interior parts for it. All I need is an engine so I may build a 1293 for it with a nice head but standard turbo. 

 

 

 

The other 4 mounting tabs are done now so the seat mounting bars can go in soon. 

 

The pedal box also need mounting so I took the air saw to the bulkhead and made some more clearance.  

 

 

 

I knocked up a new lower dash rail from some 32MM tube with 3MM spreader plates on each end. 

 

After a lot of measuring and repositioning I've got the pedal box to where it's comfortable. Now I just need to measure everything and figure out the mounts.  

 

 

[Tupers]

I've been making a few bits to mount the pedal box but nothing note worthy yet so until later here's a picture of the estate back on it's wheels.  

[Jared Mk3]

This is going to be a good one! Really looks good all round so far.

Edited by Jared Mk3, 20 May 2014 - 06:19 AM.

[SAL 821X]

That pedal box looks in a great location for some heal n toe action. 

[Tupers]

I'm not sure I'm brave enough to try any heel and toeing. I might end up stuffing my very expensive car into a hedge. 

 

I'm still yoyoing between mount the pedal and mounting the seats. This evening it was the seats turn. 

 

I had made a set of bars between the inner sill and tunnel but they sat too low so I've gone with two tubes that are the full width of the car and notch around the exhaust tunnel. 

 

I need to tack the mounting tabs onto the other side and straighten everything up but it works. 

 

 

[Tupers]

I took a little time to bolt my drives seat up just too make sure everything lined up. 

 

Thankfully it all sits very nicely. I'm thinking I might be able to get a decent sized speaker under each seat as well. 

 

Once I was happy with everything I got the other mounting tabs tacked on and then went over the whole lot with some nice wide welds. 

 

I also linishing down to allow the seat sliders to sit flat.

 

The bars are both back in the car now and ready to be welded in then it's back onto mounting the pedal box. 

[Tupers]

So the seats bars are tack welded into the car and the seat are mounted. I must say it's very comfortable and luckily there's still plenty of clearance to the rear seats when they folded up. 

 

 

I've reassembled the gear shifter so that I can figure out the internal gear linkage. 

 

As the shifter will be higher and further back than standard I'm fitting a universal joint at each end of linkage. The shifter side of the linkage is tapped with a 1/2" UNF left hand thread and the engine side has a 1/2" UNF right hard thread to act as a turnbuckle for fine adjustment. 

 

There's not much more to do on the gear linkage yet so I sorted the majority of the pedal box mount instead. 

 

It still needs a few gussets and a bit of tinkering but for the most parts is done. 

Edited by Tupers, 01 June 2014 - 07:25 PM.

[Minidarren83]

Hi there mate where did you get the uj for the gear linkage? it's just what I need

[Jared Mk3]

Those seats look comfy! Great job so far.

[Tupers]

Hi there mate where did you get the uj for the gear linkage? it's just what I need

 

I bought the joints from Car Builder Solutions and then got a friend to bore them out and tap them on a lathe. Clicky

[Minidarren83]

Hi there mate where did you get the uj for the gear linkage? it's just what I need

 
I bought the joints from Car Builder Solutions and then got a friend to bore them out and tap them on a lathe. Clicky

Cheers mate much appreciated!!

[Tupers]

So I've now pulled the mock up engine out and swapped the empty gearbox case for a full working gearbox to get the remote linkage set-up. 

 

I also got my engine steadies bolted back up and  tack welded the crossmember in. 

 

You can just about see the 2nd bush on the inside of the cross member here. 

 

I do like how these steadies sit. 

 

I found a use for the old record tube vice that I picked up for a couple quid recently and tapped the R/H thread onto the other end of my gear selector rod. 

 

 

And welded a 3/4" nut onto the rod as it will essentially be a turnbuckle. 

 

The selector mechanism has been moved back by around 6" to better suit the new seat position and the linkage is fitted up again. Now I just need to adjust it up and welded the selector mechanism bracket in . 

 

[Jared Mk3]

 

 

 

For some reason I really like this picture - probably because the steadies look symmetrical. Oh and maybe because there's an SC in there too! 

[Tupers]

 

 

For some reason I really like this picture - probably because the steadies look symmetrical. Oh and maybe because there's an SC in there too! 

 

 

To be honest the symmetry is part of the reason I did the steadies that way. I think they look a lot neater than the original set up. 

 

After removing the original seat cross-member and fitting the gear selector internally it became apparent I need to to shuffle the handbrake around.

I decided the simplest option was to copy the original mountings but slightly redesign them to mount the handbrake an inch higher. 

 

It now sits around 10CM further back and is nice and high behind the gear selector. 

 

I also finally got around the finding a drive belt the right length for the engine. 

 

The latching mechanism for the tailgate has been bugging me so I decided to have another try using an original estate latching mechanism and my own rods. 

 

The handle will lay flat on the inside of the tailgate and the rods will push out into the vertical section of the rear door frame. Now I just need to mount it.