998 A-Series Metro SpecialDotMatrix |
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 Expert Posts: 4458    Location: Jelling, Denmark | So this is another of my metro's. I decided to start renovating it as the GTI will be off the road for some time with the pending engine restoration. The car has been driven by my little sister who rearended another car in it giving it this alternative look which is now what me and my dad will try to straighten out. besides the bump it has a few rust spots in places. the rear panel and both underneath and directly on the rear end, but I looks repairable. I have gathered all the parts I need for it I think, which is a new front panel, new headlamp, used bonnet, used wings, used grill, used radiator, two new bumpers and a used windscreen           Edited by DotMatrix 4/12/2012 11:18 PM | ||
| Metromartin |
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 MP Admin Posts: 17870   Location: Gloucester | |||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | Metromartin - 26/12/2011 12:21 AM Good luck with the restoration, what year is it? I spy mk1 MG metro seats!! rear archs look original and good considering the age of it. what are the sills like? Is the car driveable at the moment? I notice a battery on it? Good luck, hope thats another metro back on the roads! thanks. I will be cracking on with the work in the following days now that I have a week off. I hope the corner with the dent will prove to possible to straighten out, although it will be exciting to try using the hydraulic straightening machine (don't know the correct term). yes its the mk1 mg metro seat I had in my blue mk1 prior to stripping out out. I have thrown out the original and very worn non-split-folding rear seat and the front seats and I am currently considering weather to fit a full mk2 mg metro interior I have laying about or to just fit the seats from my blue A-series The sills are fine, only a few holes in the rear end in front of the rear wheel, they are coated with some sort of stuff. the only rear rust problem the body has is the rear panel and sill or what ever its called (where the metal continues from the bottom of the outer rear panel and up to the buttom of the car) its quite gone the entire way across, but I will just cut and weld that. the arches could well be original, it hasn't done so many miles (cant remember the exact number) the car drives fine, Christmas morning I changed the petrol adjusted the carb and it started right up sure its an other metro back on the road, my plans are to fix it, MOT it and drive it while I fix my GTI. when this is done, the plan is to just generally use it as my spare car, maybe lend it to my girlfriend edit: its a 1989 Edited by DotMatrix 25/12/2011 3:36 PM | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | removed the left wing as it was quite rusty. also found an other wing to fit in its place. A bit of rust was to be found behind the wing, but over all the front left inner wing and headlamp mounting plate is very solid, probably due to inner wings being fitted to this car. if anyone wants a pair for their A-series I have two sets, one alu and one plastic        Found a wing for the otherside   Edited by DotMatrix 27/12/2011 12:01 PM | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | removed dented material in the front and found a front valance that was not damaged which I cleaned and prepared for fitting         | ||
| Metromartin |
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MP Admin Posts: 17870 Location: Gloucester | |||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | Metromartin - 28/12/2011 12:42 PM good progress! Have you got a tidy rear bumper? I think all the a-series metros have wiring for both fog lamps if you want to fit the pair if you didn't know already, is that an e-type jag in the back ground? nice! Once its done I don't mind adding it to the 1.0l section on the home page gallery! we are rather short on 1.0L metros!! yes its a series 3 v12. Its a customer car, personaly i like the series 1 better, but any e-type will do  it would be great if you could ad it to the gallery when its done 1.0 metros are a rare sigth on this page yes. I think i wil leave this as a 1.0 though and try and go for mpg instead. I almost never use the rear fogs, so wont fit a second one i dont think so, but what about wiring for a tow bar, do al metros also have that? I think i will fit one of the tow bars i have for a-series just for fun i bought two new bumpers for it on sale at rimmer, so have oile new bumpers yes Edited by DotMatrix 28/12/2011 6:25 AM | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | welded the a rust hole in the right hand side inner wing, the bottom of the A pillar behind the wing in both sides, welded three holes in the front valance, welded in the new headlamp plate, welded in the front panel, cleaned rust off the inside of the right-hand-side wing and painted it, straightened out a dent in the wing and fitted the wing. all in all good progress I think, its starting to look like a car again left to do now is rust in the inner rear valance and outside bellow the bumper, rust on the panel where the doors shuts to in the right side, rust futher up the A-pillar where the door meets it and then replace rusty brake pipes, fit clocks and interior, fit an other windscreen because this one has a crack in it and then fit lights and bumpers.   Edited by DotMatrix 1/1/2012 12:16 PM | ||
| Roger Red Hat |
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 The TV star Metro GTa 1.1i Posts: 1061  Location: Early, Reading. | |||
| kemp21andy |
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 Elite Veteran Posts: 1003 Location: berkshire | |||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | had another weekend with good progress. haven't got pictures of all the work yet, but will get some next weekend when I go to work again. Welded a couple of holes in the left hand side sill under the door, all three places have been welded and painted.    Took the rear bumper off as it was quite rusty and we needed to work on the panel behind the bumper. have bought a new one on clearance from rimmer  Holes in front of both rear wheels. one side have been welded up.   small hole in a arch have also been welded up  straightened out a dent in a front wing I plan to use, welded a spot of rust in the bottom of the wing and fitted it. both doors have a bit of rust on the outside and a lot on the inside, I think they have been filled with water, so I wont be doing them right now.      | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | rust in the rear valance to be welded up   welded two rusty corners on the bonnet.   started to work on the new head lamp I plan to use. its a universal headlamp which have exactly the same shape as the original one which was smashed in the crash, but dont have the correct fittings, so I am drilling and riveting the old brackets in place on the new headlamp to make it fit the original bracket.   glued the old grille together, it turned out quite good  started cutting out the rear inner and outer valance to weld in new material and found a small piece of rust in the other side which dont need welding, just cleaning, painting and wax.    Edited by DotMatrix 9/1/2012 6:34 PM | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | a few of the pictures from this weekends work, bad phone quality and one a bit dark, sorry about that. disassembled the brakes, greased the things that should be greased and made it all work again. all the brakes both front and rear should now be ready for MOT  two patches welded in.  a few patches welded in the top of the sill   and a very dark picture of a patch welded in on the inner sill or what ever its called, hope you can see what its supposed to be  | ||
| alexwuk |
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| Elite Veteran Posts: 931 Location: west bromwich, birmingham | |||
| Metromartin |
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MP Admin Posts: 17870 Location: Gloucester | |||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | alexwuk - 16/1/2012 6:15 PM looking good mate,keep up the good work and keep us posted Alex thanks will do Metromartin - 16/1/2012 6:36 PM Excellent work! that looks alot of work on that Metro! thats one of the rustiest bumpers i;ve ever seen. yeah, quite a bit of work needed on this metro, also more than I initially thought, but inspection revealed quite a bit of rust in all the usual places. If you didn't know theres a connector so you can unplug the rear fog lamp and front indicators just behind the valance. yes. that bumper is not salvageable yes, I know, decided to leave it hanging. have unplugged the front indicators though as we should weld there.Edited by DotMatrix 16/1/2012 6:22 PM | ||
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | just got round to uploading the last of this weekends pictures. I started preparing the front for painting, sanded down the paint on the wings and front, filler and sanded that down. not quite done with the filler yet though. here is a few pictures of the progress with this. also started with the filler in the other places where there have been welded.           | ||
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | welding looks like its done now. among other places welded the left hand corner with a lot of rust.      | ||
| kemp21andy |
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Elite Veteran Posts: 1003 Location: berkshire | |||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | |||
| Roger Red Hat |
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The TV star Metro GTa 1.1i Posts: 1061 Location: Early, Reading. | |||
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | Roger Red Hat - 18/1/2012 6:49 PM super work mate! got admit it, that was one poorly metro! thanks I don't know what you are talking about. this is (and was) almost a brand new car, almost, sort of | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | painted and ready to be put back together next weekend    Edited by DotMatrix 4/12/2012 11:42 PM | ||
| Metromartin |
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MP Admin Posts: 17870 Location: Gloucester | That wing looks like new! Makes the wheels look tatty now, your have to respray those too now! | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | |||
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | Metromartin - 22/1/2012 11:38 AM That wing looks like new! Makes the wheels look tatty now, your have to respray those too now! the wheels are tatty but as its millimeter rims i will be throwing them out when they are worn out. | ||
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | did a bit more work assembling the 998 A-series this weekend, and it looks great cant wait to have it MOT'ed and drive it things remaining to be sorted is: - new headgasket as the old one seems to be popped - the middle of the three plugs that push out if the coolant freezes (dont know the name in english) is corroded and leaking so will have to be changed - underseal the entire car (have done the arches) - put inner arches in the front again - change the fuel tank as its leaking - change the windshield as its cracked - change the oil and filter a few pictures of the car assembled with bonnet, bumpers, grille and lights and on nicer wheels than the last time          Edited by DotMatrix 28/1/2012 11:58 PM | ||
| ralphh85 |
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| Expert Posts: 9862 Location: Cornwall | |||
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | ralphh85 - 29/1/2012 12:45 AM whats the car sitting on there?? Ralph a one pillar lift which is a giant piston digged down in the ground raiding using compressed air. good for welding work but bad for exhaust work Edited by DotMatrix 28/1/2012 11:56 PM | ||
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | look what I bought  | ||
| metro dave |
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| Elite Veteran Posts: 823 Location: leicester | that headlight surround looks familiar  | ||
| Metromartin |
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MP Admin Posts: 17870 Location: Gloucester | looks like new! top work, weldone for saving another metro | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | metro dave - 30/1/2012 10:16 PM that headlight surround looks familiar how so? Metromartin - 30/1/2012 10:44 PM looks like new! top work, weldone for saving another metro thanks. I do have a thing for metro's a bit of work left in this one though | ||
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| Elite Veteran Posts: 823 Location: leicester | |||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | metro dave - 31/1/2012 12:43 PM the amount of time i was looking at it trying to work out if it was the right one for you, we eventually got there in the end yes. its is the right one and in brand new. only the wrong color, but luckily that can be changed | ||
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| Elite Veteran Posts: 823 Location: leicester | |||
| Roger Red Hat |
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The TV star Metro GTa 1.1i Posts: 1061 Location: Early, Reading. | |||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | did a bit of work on the car this weekend, found out that the tank was leaking, so went to my room of many parts to find another, the first I found was also leaking so went and found a third which was very nice, but a bit older than the car, but that will do (two lug petrol cap instead of tre lugs as the cars own tank) also found out that one of the rear subframe mounts had split. did you know that '84 and '89 mounts does not line up in the same way. with the '84 mounts the subframe sits about 1cm higher (closer to the car) than it does with the '89 due to the different way the rear of the subframe rests on the body I suppose.      Edited by DotMatrix 15/2/2012 7:13 PM | ||
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | Roger Red Hat - 4/2/2012 12:14 PM it was a new car?! what do you mean? | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | the car was running badly and was impossible to tune in correctly and was using a lot of water, so figured that the headgasket was probably damaged, but when I took the head off I saw that the head was cracked, so changed that. only have 1275 heads where the valves dont clear the block due to the bores in the 998 being placed differently than they are in the 1275, so pocketed the block and mounted the head and this made it work much better, although now the needle profile don't fit any more so it isn't getting enough fuel as you depress the throttle more and more but this is fixable. also the new tank I put in also has a leak so it only holds 15 liters and then the rest spills out, so that have to be changed again, the fuel level sensor dont work and the water temp dont work, but all in all fixable problems. put on the last bumper corner and assembled the front       Edited by DotMatrix 15/2/2012 7:15 PM | ||
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | fitted a new water pump as the old one was leaking badly from being cooked when the engine was ran without water for a period after it had the bump. other than that the car have been MOT'ed, had a nice new numberplate and being used daily. nice driving an a-series again   | ||
| R100_vvc |
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 Expert Posts: 2029 Location: sittingbourne, kent | Awesome work from a abandoned looking wreck on page 1 (no offence) to a road worthy tidy looking metro | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | R100_vvc - 15/2/2012 9:44 PM Awesome work from a abandoned looking wreck on page 1 (no offence) to a road worthy tidy looking metro thanks | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | fixed the petrol gauge and temp gauge, damn that dash is hard to get out! also filed down the needle to make it run better with the 1275 cylinder head, only have one spot left on the needle when on 75-100% throttle and in low revs, but I can live with that for now. also its not viable as a permanent car as you really cant drive faster than 65-70 mph with a 3.76:1 gearing if you want the engine to last. other than that it drives really well   Edited by DotMatrix 7/4/2012 11:31 PM | ||
| Metromartin |
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MP Admin Posts: 17870 Location: Gloucester | |||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | Metromartin - 19/2/2012 11:33 PM on the RHD cars people undo the speedo cable from the fusebox access, but not sure you can do that on the LHD so i can see why its a pain!! keep up the good work! speedo cable is easiest reched through the radio hole, the two wire plugs are hard to reach | ||
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | though the sound was a bit scratchy and squiky in the red 998 so took the door pockets out to see how the speakers looked, and they were definitely due for a change. probably as old as the car also took a picture of the mk1 mg interior which I think looks nice especially because everything else inside the car is also grey. balanced the wheels although one of them still jump so will probably need to be balanced again. and the last picture is just to show the strange bracket inside the passenger door pocket, I'm thinking its meant to be used for leaning your foot on or something, what do you think?     Edited by DotMatrix 7/4/2012 11:33 PM | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | found an other black headlamp surround on ebay that I bought  Edited by DotMatrix 7/4/2012 11:29 PM | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | the car was only running on 3 cylinders the last week, so have been out fixing it this weekend, turned out it was a burned valve, so cut the seat up a bit, found an other valve, cut that down a bit, and bedded the valve in with grinding paste, now it runs nicely again       Edited by DotMatrix 7/4/2012 11:37 PM | ||
| Roger Red Hat |
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The TV star Metro GTa 1.1i Posts: 1061 Location: Early, Reading. | |||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | Roger Red Hat - 28/3/2012 8:09 PM Seen this in the flesh! All though a little dirty, was in excellent condition! Was good to meet you mate! Sorry I had to rush off though! good meeting you to. It was nice to finally meet some one off here let me know if you are ever in the neightborhood again. I think you are being to kind about the condition of the car though | ||
| Roger Red Hat |
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The TV star Metro GTa 1.1i Posts: 1061 Location: Early, Reading. | |||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | my heater box was leaking where the pipe in the picture is connected to the heater element, so spend half a day removing the four bolts and two screws, replacing the two o-rings and then connecting it all again, and may I say curse that austin-rover employee that decided to mount the plastic retaining bracket with two screws instead of two clips. those two screws is virtually impossible to undo and then redo without removing anything from under the dash  on the bright side, my latest profiling of the needle has brought the mpg up to 37 from 29. still some profiling to do, just worried about taking to much off the needle or in the wrong place.   Edited by DotMatrix 4/12/2012 11:52 PM | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | |||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | this is a picture of the sparkplug I changes. it had gren-ish residue on the tip, so I suspected head gasket failure. but it turns out that sometimes you are allowed to get pleasantly surprised, so it turned out it didn't have head gasket failure and its running fine again now 36.5 mpg to those interested in that sort of thing  Edited by DotMatrix 4/12/2012 11:54 PM | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | back from a weeks vacation in sweeden in this lovely car. 2000km and it only used 5 liters of oil as you can see going on vacation with the girlfriend, two children and the bags that require is no problem in a metro     Edited by DotMatrix 12/12/2012 9:04 PM | ||
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | so the lovely little car started to run badly and on 3 cylinders so I took the head off this weekend and found a burned valve (same valve as last time). When we started to cut the valve seat the valve seat had a "shadow" that couldn't be removed and the seat started to turn in the cylinder head so off I went to my pile of may parts where I found another 1275 cylinder head with good seats and valves that didn't leak, a head gasket was bought from the very nice owner of nordisk morris minor lager (nordic morris minor supplier and producer of many minor parts), the head gasket was fitted along with the cylinder head and everything was adjusted and the car started up nicely on 4 cylinders again after this I fitted a ABY needle I had bought which after a bit of adjustment made the car run nicer than with the needle I was previously running. So all in all very few problems with this lovely car at the moment   Edited by DotMatrix 12/12/2012 9:02 PM | ||
| Pietaster |
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 Admin Posts: 1576 Location: Burnley, Lancs | Nice work, I'm impressed by your commitment to this car, most people wouldn't bother so keep it up! | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | Pietaster - 31/7/2012 1:23 AM Nice work, I'm impressed by your commitment to this car, most people wouldn't bother so keep it up! thanks ofcourse im keeping it going even though the engine is in desperate need of a rebore etc. Since my gti needs an engine rebuild this is my daily. Besides with all the welding done on it earlier this year the shell is completely solid. With the new needle the car is now up to 40 mpg and it is definetely better than the last, but far from perfect, but perhaps this also has something to do with the pistonrings and engine being worn out. | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | And its now a 2.5-3 cylinder again But at least it not cylinder 2 this time. Wonder when i will get time to fix this. | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | just a small update. adjusting valve clearances fixed this. they had become to tight | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | Not much to update, but had a bit of fun this weekend fitting a accelerator pedal (yes I know its for a mini) also made a shiny new wheel and touched up the exhaust    Edited by DotMatrix 12/12/2012 9:05 PM | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | Cleaned the filter inside the carb the other day which made it run very nicely right up until it decided to loose compression and use a lot of oil on cylinder 4 now as well as cylinder 2 as it did previously. here is a picture of the bottom of the carb. the filter is bellow brass bolt.  Edited by DotMatrix 12/12/2012 9:07 PM | ||
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | so decided to find out why this car had become a 3 cylinder, so removed the cylinderhead and this is how it looked then I found an other valve, cut two valves and their seats and lapped all 8 valves in again and assembled it all up.      | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | parked the A-series up friday at 4 pm in the underground carpark under the building where I live, and then saturday morning when I came down to take the car up to my parents place to work on the rover 400 and the car looked like this!!! the picture is taken a couple of km away from where I live. it seriously sucks to come down to this! and they haven't even taken anything worth taking! broken the parcelshelf bracket, looked at all my stuff in the toolbox, emptied my glove-compartment on the floor. looks like they first tried the two locks, but couldn't figure that out, then tore one of the door handles off, dented both doors and then ended up pushing a screwdriver in next to the window to make it shatter. The things I can tell is missing is a small crowbar, a long yellow screwdriver, a pair of duckhams sunglases, and an old headset for a nokia that doesn't work. neither of which is worth any money at all!! so after the coldest drive in history (1.5 hours with a missing window, wore gloves and a hat though). so instead of working on the rover 400 I started my saturday fixing this crap! also fixed a total collapsed wheel bearing on the right hand front side. the one you see on the floor is the used one I took off. The missing ball-joint was the only good one as the bottom ball-joint was worn out. but the good top ball-joint on the used hub with bearings I found and put that on the car and assembled it all up again.      Edited by DotMatrix 2/12/2012 9:23 PM | ||
| mini-mad-craig |
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 Elite Veteran Posts: 978 Location: Walderslade, Kent | Oh man sorry to see that, what a bunch of sorry losers! glad you got it fixed and hope you don't get too worked up about it, very annoying though. Somebodys pride and joy to Nice work on the bearings and on the Rover 400 | ||
| Marv_666 |
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 '88 MG METRO 1300 Posts: 1117 Location: Dudley, Midlands | |||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | |||
| Marv_666 |
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'88 MG METRO 1300 Posts: 1117 Location: Dudley, Midlands | |||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | we had some snow here in denmark this sunday  Edited by DotMatrix 18/12/2012 7:12 PM | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | if anyone needs salt for their eggs you can have some here  | ||
| 111Sli |
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 Transport Guru MP Moderator Posts: 4947 Location: Bromley, Kent | Looks like you could do with fitting some head lamp washers into those light recesses. Just add some early K series bonnet washers [sinlge jet so less pressure required] into the front wash system.  | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | 111Sli - 19/12/2012 1:20 PM Looks like you could do with fitting some head lamp washers into those light recesses. Just add some early K series bonnet washers [sinlge jet so less pressure required] into the front wash system. yes. I could need something like that | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | The engine which the car was made is nearing its serviceable life at only 85000 miles with an astronomical oil consumption of 1.5 liters per 100 km. As I need two cars very soon (second one for the girl friend) I went into my room of many things and found a mini 998 engine I had. Its a 70'ies non A-plus engine with a MD256 cam 9:1 compression pistons small valve 998 head 3.44:1 final drive and a lucas 45D4 distributor. I took the engine apart, inspected all the parts and found that it was in really good condition, almost didn't need anything, only gaskets and stuff like that, no pistons rings or bearings. I will continue to clean parts and start to assemble next weekend      Edited by DotMatrix 23/2/2013 11:08 PM | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | did a lot of cleaning up this weekend, honed the cylinders, refitted the pistons and crank, mounted the short block ontop of the gearbox and changed some gaskets that was due.   | ||
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | took some days off this week as I had some unused vacation and what better way to spend those days than to work on cars I started by finding the 998 cylinder-head that had the least cracks in the valve seats. never seen this problem with the 1275 heads, but obviously it is a problem with 998 heads as 4 of my four 998 heads had cracked valve seats. I then proceeded to find a set of valves to go in the head and lapped them in. lapping in valves is not the most exciting job in the world when all valves were lapped in the valves was "pressure" tested using white-spirit. Besides lapping in valves I cleaned, sand blasted and painted most of the parts that was to be bolted on the the engine. I also disassembled, cleaned and renewed the distributor needed, mounted the cam chain and cover, oil filter housing and pipe and torqued down the head. the head looks very old, possibly off a morris 1000 but the chamber design is exactly like the head I removed from this care originally, so will be fine and not limit the all ready power limited car any more than the original engine anyway. pics:           | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | removed the engine from this car last weekend, looks very worn and corroded there are some parts off the engine like the clutch cover and starter that I need to reuse. Also cleaned a few surface rust spots, applied rust remover and applied rust proofing paint. will paint the spots red later when the sun is shining outside       Edited by DotMatrix 17/4/2013 11:17 PM | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | This weekend I finished assembling the engine, I made the mounting bracket that is missing as its a mini engine, and connected everything up and adjusted it all. Its now running and nice looking and I have covered the first 100 trouble free miles allready also painted the patches red that I painted brown with rust-proofing paint last weekend. Funny how the cylinderhead is from a 1966 mini 998, block is from a 70'ies mini and clutch, flywheel and starter is from the '89 metro and it just works together all of it         Edited by DotMatrix 21/4/2013 8:26 PM | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | So fixed a few other small bugs on the car this week also. The speedo didn't work so fixed that, the cable wasn't fixed properly in the drive. cylinders 1 was very lean and then gradually got richer ending with number 4 which was to rich, I blame the metro having a sandwich thermostat plate where the heater gets it hot water instead of the place where the mini gets its water and after all this is a mini engine, so I don't think the engine was circulating water properly in the end of the engine opposite the water pump, so removed the sandwich thermostat plate and moved the hose to the normal mini place as you can see in the pictures, found a nice suiting hose from an other metro heater that had all the right bends allready. also worked on my needling abilities and sew the rubber mat on again as it was catching my feet anyway, pictures.     | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | I adjusted the toe-out today as it was wearing the inside of the front tires. I found that it was toe'ing to much out and think this was the reason for this. While doing this I found a couple of holes in the floor at the usual spots and I fixed this.    | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | did a few things on the 998 this weekend. Renovated the carburettor, cleaned it, new gaskets everywhere, new jet, new floating needle, and that is going to help a lot with the indeterminism of the adjustment screw previously as a shim was missing in side the carb, I must have lost it last time I took it apart to clean it other than that I put some under-sealant on in places where it was needed, took a rear wheelbearing apart as it was rumbling a lot and put new grease in, not that it fixed the problem, but certainly didn't hurt, fixed a crack in the exhaust downpipe and took the brakes apart because it wasn't breaking even.          Edited by DotMatrix 1/9/2013 9:50 PM | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | A bit of work on the 998 this weekend. The cooling system wasn't holding water, it was slowly seeping out in each end of the cooler, you can see on the pictures where I have tried to make it hold water by making the plastic ends fit tighter. other than that the cooling cap was bad and the system wasn't pressurising, I found an other cooling cap on the old spare parts mgf I have out the back and that fit perfectly. The radiator in this car was of the thin type and was the only one of that type I had, so I made a reconditioned mk 1 brass radiator fit under the mk2 front, not pretty and hold on in one end by a zip tie but works really well other than that the drivers seat wouldn't fold forward because one of the cables had snapped, so I fixed that using a cable from another seat.     | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | changed two winter tyres that were worn down and put winter wheels on the car today, also let all the hydragas out and checked the radius arms for play as I thought one of them might be worn out, but it turns out none of the two rear radius arms wasn't luckily. also changed the grease in one of the rear wheel bearings as it had become dark brown and wasn't greasing properly. at the same time I put antifreeze in the cooling so it should be ready for the winter now.      Edited by DotMatrix 9/11/2013 10:06 PM | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | the car has to go in for its MOT today, so I have been doing some small things on it in the last week. changed the spark plugs, fixed a crack in the exhaust, changed the ignition-lock electrics, cleaned some of the oil off the back of the engine and changed the steering column plastics as it was fouling the hazard warning switch. lets hope the MOT goes well    | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | the car wasn't braking evenly on the two rear wheels, so I took the rear brakes apart and discovered that the side not braking well enough of the two rear wheel cylinders was leaking so I found a used spare I had and fitted and bleed that and changed the brake shoes also. the right hand side lower ball join had too much play in it so changed that with a new one I had among my spares. also bought a new radiator off ebay which arrived today. very nice reconditioned radiator I will be fitting this shortly in order to get a radiator that is the right type, fits properly and isn't leaking but now it has its new MOT for the next two years and besides the radiator which isn't changed yet it is booked for a rolling road adjustment session on the 13'th of february with the same guy that adjusted my blue racer, so hopefully this will make it perfect       Edited by DotMatrix 31/1/2014 2:31 PM | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | today I fitted new front rebound-rubbers. I have also bought new rear rebound-rubbers but cannot get the bolts out so need to heat them up in order to free the bolts. anyway. a few pics of the front bumpstops.       | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | today I had the car adjusted on a rolling road as it was running a bit badly, shooting back a bit when under load and didn't quite wanna "go" (as much as a standard 8.3:1 compression 998 wants to go anyway ) It was adjusted and is now running a lot better. numbers on the attached rolling road printout are the final and best run. It can be hard to see the graphs as we did a few runs, but it started at 41.7hp and ended at 45hp which isn't much of a change, but with a much nicer torque curve and up from 68nm to 73.6nm so I'm happy. although it does make me want to fit a sporty exhaust and raise the compression as something like 55hp would suit it much better  Edited by DotMatrix 13/2/2014 4:48 PM | ||
| R100_vvc |
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Expert Posts: 2029 Location: sittingbourne, kent | |||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | R100_vvc - 13/2/2014 11:27 PM Nice work, isn't 45hp spot on to the factory power it should be? its pretty close yes, it should be 48hp as this used to be a high compression 998, but the current engine is a low compression 998 from a 70'ies mini so it should have 41hp but as it is fitted with a kent 256 cam and the better metro manifold i guess that adds up to 45hp | ||
| R100_vvc |
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Expert Posts: 2029 Location: sittingbourne, kent | |||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | R100_vvc - 14/2/2014 12:12 AM cool, I don't know much about the A series. I have just bought my self a Austin metro 1.3 L not sure what power it will have, but seems pretty nippy Nice the A-series is a nice engine and they are pretty nippy yes, but you can easily feel the difference between the lighter engined mk3 with better front suspension and the older setup of the A-series when driving. I believe the standard 1.3 Austin has 62-63hp on paper. have you posted pictures of it yet? | ||
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Expert Posts: 2029 Location: sittingbourne, kent | No pics yet, will start a journal of it soon when I start work on it. It's only done 15000 miles too | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | R100_vvc - 14/2/2014 9:57 AM No pics yet, will start a journal of it soon when I start work on it. It's only done 15000 miles too ok. so it should be pretty good rust-wise I guess. any wild plans for it? | ||
| R100_vvc |
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Expert Posts: 2029 Location: sittingbourne, kent | |||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | decided today to paint a few rust spots on the rear and on the front of the car now that the winter seems to be over. removed the rust with a drill fitted with a spinning wire brush, painted the bare metal with rust resistant primer and then finished it with rattle cans. not the prettiest of jobs I know, but prettier than it was    | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | I know it's a bit cheap looking, but bought a cheap tailpipe and fitted which looks much better than the rusty bendy original one. now it only needs a set of alloys  | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | the right hand side wheel cylinder has been leaking for some time now and I fixed this today. I had initially bought two 1275gt clubman wheelcylinders as they are the right size for a metro and fit and I could not get the metro ones. unfurtunately these had inch thread where as the ones on the car had millimetre thread and I didn't have any inch threaded brake unions, so I ended up abandoning fitting new wheel cylinders for now and instead removed one of the cylinders from the back of the blue MG I bought some time ago. this wheel cylinder had the right thread and looked quite new, so I fitted this and bleed the system and all is now ok.   Edited by DotMatrix 26/4/2014 11:24 PM | ||
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | not much news really. the car is driving every day and its driving great. right now I am having a set of alloys sandblasted and painted which I bought a while ago from metromartin and you will never guess the color I found a right hand side rear fog lamp which I plan to install and also changed the windscreen wipers   | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | changed the radiator yesterday. the thermostat in the old one was not working so when driving in queue's the car got very hot, and was frequently over half way on the gauge under normal driving. Besides this it didn't heat properly in the cabin in the winter. To fix this problem I also plugged the bypass hose between the waterpump and cylinderhead as it was a mini engine, the theory is that this bypass hose was leading to much hot water around the heater making the car not heat the cabin properly. the reason for changing the radiator was that the old radiator was a mk1 radiator that was made to fit and the new fits properly in a mk2.   Edited by DotMatrix 10/6/2014 9:18 PM | ||
| Metromartin |
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MP Admin Posts: 17870 Location: Gloucester | |||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | I think the lamp is from a mk1. hasn't looked at the connector in the wiring yet, but I will work it out | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | have had these alloys for quite a while and have had them send away for sand blasting but the sand blasting guy didn't do a very good job as they were only half blasted. he said that it was very difficult to blast due to the paint being a thick layer of epoxy paint so to continue cleaning the wheels so that they can be painted nicely I bought a can of paint stripper which I used today and it loosened a great deal of the paint but I will have to continue applying and cleaning to get them totally clean. I will be using my own sandblaster and a wire brush to clean them.     | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | did some work on the 998 metro today and yesterday. it wears the front tyres on the out side, maybe it needs to be lowered a bit to gain some camber it is pretty high. Other than find four good used summer wheels and fitted them. cleaned and waxed some of the joins in the front inner wings that needed some waxoiling. changed the rear wheel cylinders and pipes (changed the pipes because these are mini wheel cylinders and have inch thread and the old ones had millimetre thread). then cleaned everything including the handbrake brackets and fitted used but good liners. bleeding the brakes was difficult as always because when the pedal goes to the floor apparently it lets in air. then today I drove up to my parents place to weld up a hole in the exhaust, but on the ways it broke in two just behind the downpipe which made a lot of noise. when I got there I found out that not only was it broken in two but filled with holes all along the pipe so I removed the old exhaust and went out in my pile of stuff and found another used one I had. I fitted the new exhaust and with some heating and bending it was made to fit without touching anything. We also welded a reinforcement on the downpipe right where it always brakes in the hope it would last longer.                   Edited by DotMatrix 17/8/2014 9:19 PM | ||
| Marv_666 |
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'88 MG METRO 1300 Posts: 1117 Location: Dudley, Midlands | |||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | |||
| Marv_666 |
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'88 MG METRO 1300 Posts: 1117 Location: Dudley, Midlands | |||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | as said earlier I fitted 4 used but good summer tyres. not the prettiest combination of wheels I know. I measured the height when we talked about the uneven wear and its 32cm on one side of the front and 33cm on the other so being to high isn't the problem. I have also included a few pictures of how its going with the wheels I am preparing for painting. I am currently done with one, another is almost done, a third is ready for some light sandblasting and the forth I haven't started yet. But progress is very slow as I am removing all the thick and very well attached paint using rotating wire-brushes of many sizes and small sanding stones etc. before removing the last by sandblasting.        | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | for long this car hasn't been able to heat properly and the engine wasn't getting hot, so I went out and found a thermostat I knew I had laying around and tested it and it looked good, closed properly and opened nicely when the water was almost boiling. then I changed the thermostat and went in to test the old one and as you can see from the pictures it didn't close properly, it looked crooked when open and the cap sort of thing wasn't attached so it was properly not closing like it ought to. so now the car heats nicely      | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | a couple of days ago I bought a can of rubber-like-oily rust proofing spray. My plan is that this should prevent the sand and other stuff from the road from removing all the rust protection and allowing salt in the winter to corrode the metal behind the wheels. today I applied this to the area behind the rear wheels. what I found when I removed the wheels was that not much rust protection was left in this area.   Edited by DotMatrix 27/9/2014 8:18 PM | ||
| R100_vvc |
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Expert Posts: 2029 Location: sittingbourne, kent | At least your thermostat bolts came un done, i ordered a new thermostat housing and stat for my Austin. Started to undo mine and all 3 bolts have now snapped the heads off  | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | |||
| MetroGaz |
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| Veteran Posts: 335 Location: York, tis Cold Up North! | |||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | |||
| MetroGaz |
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| Veteran Posts: 335 Location: York, tis Cold Up North! | |||
| forcker |
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 Regular Posts: 241 Location: Germany | In Germany many people (including me) use a product called Perma Film. It was initially used for salt water ballast tanks of ships, until the oldtimer scene "found" it useful. Is this available in the UK? http://permafilm.de/en/produkte/ It seems to be in Denmark: http://www.fluid-film.dk/ | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | forcker - 30/9/2014 8:24 PM In Germany many people (including me) use a product called Perma Film. It was initially used for salt water ballast tanks of ships, until the oldtimer scene "found" it useful. Is this available in the UK? http://permafilm.de/en/produkte/ It seems to be in Denmark: http://www.fluid-film.dk/ ok. I didn't know that product but am very familiar with other rust proofing products available in denmark which are all wax or oil based. I have emailed the people to see where there is a store you can buy this stuff in. thanks for the link | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | DotMatrix - 30/9/2014 9:08 PM forcker - 30/9/2014 8:24 PM In Germany many people (including me) use a product called Perma Film. It was initially used for salt water ballast tanks of ships, until the oldtimer scene "found" it useful. Is this available in the UK? http://permafilm.de/en/produkte/ It seems to be in Denmark: http://www.fluid-film.dk/ ok. I didn't know that product but am very familiar with other rust proofing products available in denmark which are all wax or oil based. I have emailed the people to see where there is a store you can buy this stuff in. thanks for the link they have only one store in denmark and its across two bridges and about 150 miles away so I will buy some of it the next time I'm in that area and try it. | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | so I changed the air filter and fixed a sticky rear brake. it turned out that the handbrake arm inside the drum was full of dirt and couldn't move so I cleaned it and didn't grease it in the join like I normally do, so now we will see if not greasing it will stop dirt collecting or make it go quicker than normally     | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | So I worked some more on the alloy wheels and now three of them are ready for the painter and the forth wheel is about half ready. I have removed the last paint from the three wheels using a dremmel like thing and sandblasted them afterwards to flatten the scratches made by the dremmel a bit. I will have the painter give them a coat of epoxy primer or something I can sand down if needed to remove the last scratches before the painter gets them back for painting.        Edited by DotMatrix 11/11/2014 9:42 PM | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | Today I changed the sparkplugs as the old ones had done 9000 miles. I also started to freshen up the winter wheels, removing the rust and priming, painting and giving them lacquer. Fitted two new winter tyres.        | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | More painting of winter wheels. they ended up looking nice I think      | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | quite a bad picture I know. It was very dark. anyway, winter wheels fitted now   | ||
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | better daylight pics of freshly painted steels   Edited by DotMatrix 30/11/2014 10:57 PM | ||
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | as its dark in the morning when going to work and dark in the evening when coming home from work it was irritating that the light in the car only turned on sometimes and I had no more good used door switches that were so I bought some on ebay and changed both.   | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | so the car is still being used every day and is running well since I changed the oil adjusted valves for the third time in a month, the adjustment seems to stick now. a couple of the adjustment nuts are worn I think. As you can see we went to the tip one day. practical to have a metro when the trailer is filled with other stuff also we had a bit of snow one day as you can see but not much.   | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | so I recently bought some metro bits here in Denmark which included this lovely tailgate which I will fix up as the on currently fitted has rotted away in the bottom. I plan on only painting the outside of the tailgate. I have welded the rust in the corner and treated the rust in the other corner. I have also filled sanded and primed it.         | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | finished the tailgate and will be fitting it soon    | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | So I took a compression test today as this car seems to be slightly 3 cylinder sounding and I don't feel it has the power it ought to so I decided to do a compression test to see how things were. it turned out it had a nice and even compression, but not that much. but then again it is an 8:1 compression engine. It could really benefit from a raised compression.  | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | managed to get the newly painted tailgate fitted today. It looks really good with a newly painted tailgate as you can see the old one needed changing I swapped over the window boot lock and everything and put the wires through and it fits and the rear wiper works. The brown stains you see is waxoil, I put waxoil in yesterday while the tailgate wasn't fitted yet and let it dry the night over. I haven't fitted the emblems yet as it got to dark but I will do so.     Edited by DotMatrix 11/3/2015 9:44 PM | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark |  | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | I changed the speedo today. the old one worked fine but didn't have a rev counter. So I swapped the existing one for this one from a MG metro, the new one have warning lamps for water temp and petrol level, everything works and it looks cool with the green lights but damn those lamps are hard to get out of their sockets! and the wiring in the car didn't have the wire for the rev counter as this is a cheap model, but I made one.    | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | So I have been noticing the unmistakable sound of worn out subframe mounts klonking, so I bought two new ones and fitted them today. Also I cleaned and wax-oiled the two rear inner wings and behind the subframe mounts.      Edited by DotMatrix 25/4/2015 8:31 PM | ||
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | got the wheels back from the painter. they are now primed and I need to sand them down before they go in to have some color put on  | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | the car had developed a slight misfire which I had a suspicion was due to the points in the ignition being due an adjustment (20000 miles since I last adjusted them). I removed the dizzy, adjusted the points and put it back but the car wouldn't start. I measured that the dizzy did not provide earth to the coil even though I new that the points were adjusted correctly. So I removed the dizzy again and removed the points and then I could see that the points were badly pitted which caused the real gap to be much larger then the gap I measured when adjusting them. So I removed the points and filed them down to remove the pitting, fitted and adjusted them and fitted the dizzy back in the car and the misfire is gone now the car also had trouble starting which I cured by fitting a new 12v wire to the coil, which brought on stopping problems as I took the power from the wrong place in the fuse box. I cured this by fitting the right coil (a coil meant for ballasted ignition) and changing the start relay. which was meant to switch between 12v and 9v when starting and driving but wasn't working. This cured my running problems with this car so now its running very nicely | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | I never knew that the A-series metros could have a low fuel warning light but this instrument panel I fitted does have one. also a picture of the start relay which I changed.   | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | The drivers side door is well rotten in this car and is beyond repair so I found another which is less rusty in my room of many things and started repairing it. So far I'm pretty pleased with the result although my welder still sucks. As you can see I'm not done yet.        Edited by DotMatrix 16/5/2015 11:48 PM | ||
| Marv_666 |
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'88 MG METRO 1300 Posts: 1117 Location: Dudley, Midlands | |||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | Marv_666 - 17/5/2015 12:31 PM Low fuel amber light and high temp flashing red light... handy to have!! I see you've done those types of repairs before! 'Almost' miss that kind of stuff... quick, noticeable results for your effort! Starter relay swap cured the problem with it?? yes it looks like the starter relay, the right coil, fixing the points and adjusting the ignition made it both start and run much nicer I have never had a running a-series metro before that had the low fuel warning light so its total luxury The welding isn't that great but it will be ok with filler and paint I think | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | So today I finished welding the new door, painted it and applied filler to the front of the door. ready for sanding tomorrow.        Edited by DotMatrix 25/5/2015 9:59 PM | ||
| MetroGaz |
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| Veteran Posts: 335 Location: York, tis Cold Up North! | |||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | MetroGaz - 26/5/2015 12:18 PM HI Excellent workmanship as always. Well done and keep it coming on. Garry thanks. I'm having fun doing it | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | So I have been sanding a bit on the filler on the new alloys. what an annoying job to do. all those small holes. only done one wheel now. any advice on how to do it quicker/better?   | ||
| MetroGaz |
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| Veteran Posts: 335 Location: York, tis Cold Up North! | |||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | |||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | so today I finally finished the new door and fitted it. it looks nice and the rest of the car ought to be painted in the same nice red color as the tailgate and door is but for now its nice to have a door without holes in.        | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | I also had time to fit a set of sun-blinds in the metro   | ||
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | The shaft in the old dizzy wasn't straight and it was impossible to set the contact breaker gap correctly so I ordered a new dizzy. So the electronic lucas 45d dizzy I ordered arrived. it was very cheap and it wasn't perfect either, the square rotor you see that triggers the ignition was too big and hit the magnet sensor when rotating so fix this if you purchase one like it. anyway, I fitted it and it instantly helped. I have great hope for this dizzy to continue to make the car idle less 3 cylinders-ish.   Edited by DotMatrix 11/8/2015 10:03 PM | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | did some work on the car this weekend. adjusted the valves (the two valves on the second cylinder becomes unadjusted quite quickly for some reason). changed the big plastic steering wheel for a mg metro leather one, I have an austin center to put in. also decided to repair two rust patches round the front windscreen which meant taking the windscreen out. I ran out of both primer and red paint which is why it still looks a bit unfinished, I will put filler on, sand and paint when I have purchased more paint. earlier this weekend I dug out several different speedo drives and pinions, calculated which combination I needed, put it in and now the speedo works and shows the right speed        Edited by DotMatrix 23/8/2015 9:50 PM | ||
| MetroGaz |
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| Veteran Posts: 335 Location: York, tis Cold Up North! | |||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | MetroGaz - 25/8/2015 3:30 PM Hi Martin Good work here and it seems to me there is nothing you can't do to these Metro MKII's etc! Wish I had the ability to do all you can. MG thank you for the nice words its nothing special, just start fixing stuff and ask when you are unsure of something and you will learn along the way. | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | yet more welding done. this time its the footwells where the stupid sound insulation mats as always makes water stay under the carpet. out with them, weld the hole, clean the rusty patches and paint it with anti-corrosion paint.    | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | finished painting and sound insulating the front floor. I have also waxoiled it underneath-   | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | So the car is doing great. The other day I took the cylinder head off its old engine to find out whether or not it needed to be bored to an oversize or if new piston rings could fix it and it needs to be bored an oversize or two, so slowly renovating a new engine for this car which it needs. other than that it rained a lot and was very windy the other day and that showed me that the new door lets water in which I have so far addressed by making room for the car in the carport  | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | took the high-compression 998 apart that used to be in this car. it is now ready to be bored to an oversize and have new pistons fitted.  | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | the block, conrods and crank has now been dropped of for boring and checking and they will call me later to tell me what size pistons and bearings to order it will be exciting to get it all back and start assembling | ||
| 111Sli |
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Transport Guru MP Moderator Posts: 4947 Location: Bromley, Kent | Nice work! Turbo?  | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | 111Sli - 4/12/2015 4:06 PM Nice work! Turbo? no not yet. but one day I will do it. I promiss the spec of this engine is going to be: 1014cc (+20 oversize pistons) 1275 cylinderhead (bigger valves than a 998 head) I will grind away valve guidecasting but not much else pocketed block flat top pistons approx 10.5:1 in compression cam will be a 264 degree inlet 268 degree exhaust standard electronic dizzy, flywheel etc. still considering fitting a freeflow manifold and aftermarked inlet manifold, but haven't decided yet. I'm aiming for around 60 bhp | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | I received a lot of parts for the engine today, infact everything apart from the camshaft but that is ok, I don't need that yet. here is a picture of the nice pistons. I will deliver the pistons at the boring place tomorrow so they can start the work.  Edited by DotMatrix 13/12/2015 10:42 PM | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | picked this up to day. freshly reground crank, fresly bored and planed block and pistons fitted to the rods. it will be very interesting to have it assembled and get it running  | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | did a bit of work on the engine but unfortunately couldn't do much as the big end bearings was the wrong size.   | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | did a bit of light porting on the 1275 cylinder head that is going on this engine. nothing major, just removed some material around the valve guide area. next thing for this is to have guides pressed in, get new valve seats inserted (lead-free) and then measure the combustion-chamber volume.   Edited by DotMatrix 1/1/2016 10:36 PM | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | changed a ball-join that was worn out and re-greased and changed the rubber gaiter on the other ball-join.     | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | The car has its MOT coming up in a month or so, so decided to fix it today.    | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | the other day I got the cylinderhead back from the machineshop with 5 new seats and freshly cut valves and seats. there were quite and edge round the valves so decided to grind some of it off.   | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | today I cleaned the gearbox and fitted it with new gaskets, I also fitted pistons and crank and placed it on the gearbox. Measured the timing on the cam to see what offset key I need in order to time in the cam.    Edited by DotMatrix 9/11/2016 10:26 PM | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | While fixing the exhaust which was rusted over near the rear silencer and had holes where it joins the middle pipe I found a hole in the rear footwell, right in the corner, and today I started cutting the rot out to weld new metal in. the hole proved larger than it would first appear    | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | no more hole in the floor tomorrow I will be wrapping it all up in sticky stuff  | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | The metro had its MOT and all that he didn't like were two brake pipes going to one of the front wheels so I changed those and went again and it passed with no trouble. Then last weekend I changed a wheel bearing in the same corner because it was rough when turning the wheel and had play in it. I guess the MOT guy didn't want to give me a fail on that as he looked at me when he checked it as to say that it wasn't good. But that's fine with me. Also last weekend I assembled the new engine to the point where I am ready to put it in the car. I am very much looking forward to that   Edited by DotMatrix 8/3/2016 10:02 PM | ||
| 111Sli |
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Transport Guru MP Moderator Posts: 4947 Location: Bromley, Kent | Now that new engine looks good | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | So this weekend I removed the old engine and moved the necessary things like clutch and flywheel from the old to the new engine and put the new engine in the car. It works nicely but needs to be run in and rolling road adjusted.    | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | wheels painted and back! tomorrow you can see a pic of them fitted to the car I like the color!  | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | so a picture of the new wheels on. red and gold is not to everyones taste but I think its ok. especially if the paint on the car was nicer. other than that I have fitted a brand new brake servo (the old one was leaking air) and I have fitted a second rear fog-light now that summer is comming the last picture is a picture of the optimal and very uncomfortable position needed when removing the brake servo     Edited by DotMatrix 2/5/2016 9:29 PM | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark |  | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | a corner on the right door had rusted away so I made a new corner, welded it on and painted it. I think it turned out ok.      | ||
| MetroGaz |
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| Veteran Posts: 335 Location: York, tis Cold Up North! | |||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | MetroGaz - 8/5/2016 9:54 PM Martin Well it kinda shows you love these cars and the challenges they bring. I like seeing what you have done and how easy you make the rot removal job as you are obviously handy with a welder (something I would like to learn) - so do keep us posted with progress and let us know how shes runs? Keep up the good work! MG thank you for the nice comment it is actually an interesting story about how it runs, it was running great before I fitted the K & N filter but then shortly after it started running really badly and it turned out to be the alternator that was bad making it run badly. but now it runs great thank you, really smooth and strong. and now within not so long it will go on the rolling road again to have the final tune up and then I will know what power it makes | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | I fitted an original digital clock instead of the dash blank that this car was made with which was a nice addition I think also changed the exhaust as this one was well spent and had been patched several times   | ||
| R100_vvc |
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Expert Posts: 2029 Location: sittingbourne, kent | Love the effort you put in. Should be a bit healthier when you drive it to England this year ? | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | R100_vvc - 31/5/2016 8:33 PM Love the effort you put in. Should be a bit healthier when you drive it to England this year ?thanks still a lot to do though. yeah its much more healthy now compared to last time I wouldn't mind attending trofest this year. that would be great. providing one will be arranged and that its ok I come over again? | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | I was tightening the bit centre nut at the left wheel as it had somehow come loose and I noticed a lot of play in the steering rack on the other side, so I removed the gaiter and found that the plastic bush had split and fallen out so I took a bush from a MGF steering rack I have and put that in the metro rack as it was the right shape and size and it worked perfectly so far. Also changed the track-rod end to a used one (I didn't have a new one here) as the old one had a split gaiter and a lot of play. I fitted a new gaiter and put new grease in the used track rod and it will be ok for a while.      | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | So had the car on the rolling road for its final adjustment and the result was better than I expected! I was aiming for 60bhp so really happy with the result! 65bhp and 90nm. 80nm from 2200 to 5700rpm! I still have ideas for performance improvements ofcourse but so far its very good. the ignition advance curve can be tweaked a bit to give better response in low revs (its 2 crank degrees out) but we set it up to be right in the top end. ps. don't mind the raised line, it was a run in 3rd.  Edited by DotMatrix 7/7/2016 11:05 PM | ||
| KLAS |
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| Regular Posts: 112 Location: Hamburg, Germany | |||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | KLAS - 11/7/2016 4:10 PM great results. maybe time to think about a programable ignition, like http://www.accuspark.co.uk/Blackbox.htm or http://www.123ignition.nl/ if you want to keep a dizzy. my best results always were with dizzy-less ignition, https://wiki.autosportlabs.com/MegaJolt_Lite_Jr. , if thats an option thanks I have often been reading about programmable systems. It would be very fun to play around with and would make the engine run even better. I have especially been reading about the specialist components system which is very pricey but includes everything and does both injection and ignition. but to be fair, the ignition is pretty good on this engine as it is. its only slightly out in the bottom, which can be corrected by taking it out and modding the total advance again. the prices of the megajolt system is very nice compared to other simular systems. | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | So the cylinderhead is off right now because I wanted to enlarge the cumbustion chambers to lower the compression as it was pinging a bit. I measured and calculated the compression to be 11:1 before the modifications and 10:1 after the modefications. This will probably have a negative effect on the horsepower of this engine I know, but rather that than burning a hole in a piston. Besides the material I removed from the cylinder head was removed in restrictive places as you can probably see from the photos so hopefully that will even the power loss out a bit.    Edited by DotMatrix 19/7/2016 10:06 PM | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | today I fixed the rear screen washer pump which had corroded inside and didn't spin when connected to power, this is quite easily done and worth while since these pumps don't grow on trees (at least not around here) I also changed the left hand side rear subframe mount as it had come loose. I must check this journal to see how old they are as I have changed both already on this car, not that long ago.    | ||
| Marv_666 |
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'88 MG METRO 1300 Posts: 1117 Location: Dudley, Midlands | |||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | Marv_666 - 14/11/2016 2:27 PM Old sub-frame mount looks ideal for knocking up polyurethane ones for the race car! It's something I want to do for mine... but don't have any knackered ones to experiment with. Go on, give it a go... you know you want to! first of all my race car uses the mk1 kind of rear subframe mounts second of all I have already welded them up. | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | this car has been having trouble getting really hot air out the heater, only lukewarm air even though its on its hottest setting and the water pipes going into and out of the heater are both very hot. this happens because the flaps inside the heater disintegrate and stop sealing properly to guide the air through the heater element. so today I took a heater apart and now the heater element needs to go to the radiator/heater guy to be tested and remanufactured and the flaps need to have new material applied but this I will do myself as its easy enough.     | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | a while ago the master cylinder had a lot of brake fluid drip down into it from a leaking master cylinder. I have noticed that the braking took more effort than it ought to with a working brake amplifier so I took it off and took it apart to clean it.   | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | so I have renovated this heater to go in. I realize that this is of the early mk2 type and there for not completely the same as the one in this car, but it will fit ok. the heater matrix is from a mk3 or mk4 metro and it was quite easy to make fit. other than that I put new material on the flaps inside. the material I used is a thick soft headlining from an jaguar xj6 which is about 5mm thick and works perfectly. the fabric is glued on with spray adhesive. the headlamp that I have a picture of is a headlamp that I have fitted to this car aswell to replace the original headlamp which did not have a nice light patern. this headlamp is from a late 80'ies jeep cherrokee and is exactly the right size. all I needed to do was move the brackets over. this new light has a h4 bulb and the old one has that strange bilux type of bulb.    | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | fitted the freshly renovated heater.  | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | fitted more sound and heat insulation to the bottom of the car. 1 square metre of 10mm thick rubber granules.  Edited by DotMatrix 2/1/2017 9:40 PM | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | so I have been having trouble starting some cold mornings, but only the first time. as this car has a ballast resister, the coil gets 12v from the starter when you hold the key in the starting position, otherwise it gets 7v from the loom. I have been measuring and renewing bad wires and connectors, changed the small starting relay, cleaned the terminals on the starter, changed the coil and all sorts of things. but in the end it turned out to be this. corrosion and a worn piece of metal inside the primary starting relay inside the solenoid on the starter. you learn something everyday the small copper piece that you can see had broken off was the one giving power to the coil when the starter motor was turning.   | ||
| 111Sli |
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Transport Guru MP Moderator Posts: 4947 Location: Bromley, Kent | Still great progress with this little Metro. Did you notice a lot of difference with the extra insulation? Do you plan on coming to England for PoL at all? 15th April | ||
| DotMatrix |
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Expert Posts: 4458 Location: Jelling, Denmark | Thanks when the summer commes i think i need to do a bit of painting and possibly welding, there are rusty patches. The extra insuæation made a noticable improvement in noise and heat in the car so that was nice but it didn't make as much of an improvement as i hoped. I think the next place to insulate if i ever get to it is behind the dash down to the pedals. POL would be great to attend yes but i have no current plans no, but who knows, maybe 111Sli - 23/2/2017 2:35 AM Still great progress with this little Metro. Did you notice a lot of difference with the extra insulation? Do you plan on coming to England for PoL at all? 15th April | ||
