CptKirk said:
Where did you find a Metro that's not rotted out? Here in NE Pa those things disintegrated a long time ago thanks to all of the "liquid vehicle dissolving solution" they spray all over the damn roads so that morons in their 4wd/AWD vehicles can STILL drive 30 over the speed limit while texting full time!
At the risk of hijacking this thread, I bought this Metro 3 months before the COVID breakout in China (
late June, 2019). I was looking for a Metro here in Boise but the ones that were here were either (a) nice & still wanted by their owners, or (b) utterly shot up...and, in one case,
literally shot up!
I had the money at the time so I went on Craigslist for Seattle for a week...and an ad popped up: a guy in Tacoma had three Metros--white, white w/ blue body graphics or red--all the same body style, your pick, $500 firm each. I talked turkey with the guy, bought a plane ticket, 2 days later I was in Sea-Tac Airport. A friend picked me up, took me to Tacoma, looked at the lot...and fell in love with the white one. They all needed some sort of work, the guy told me this one was using a little coolant but had its engine rebuilt the year before...plus had new drive axles. I scoured it over, deemed it okay, paid the guy, got paperwork, loaded my go-bag & wheelchair...and off I went. Next day, after a sleepover, I got in, tanked up with 3 gallons of extra water and drove off for Boise.
Had to stop every 80 miles, let 'er cool a tad and top off the coolant. Further inspection showed zero rust but the paint sucked (
that cheesy low-cost, fleet-grade white amino-alkyd paint). Just kept goin', took it easy, got
great mileage, finally made it back after midnight.
Within a couple weeks, I saw that coolant was leaking into the #1 cylinder via a pinhole leak in the head gasket: the so-called 'mechanic' didn't torque
anything right on the engine so I did it right. New head gasket & timing belt...the #1 piston was flawlessly clean, the other 2 were lightly-crusted. The pistons also said 0.5mm...the block was bored 0.5mm over, new pistons. Did it up right, tuned it, new O2 sensors...flawless. It's a rolling restoration; hopefully by April I can smoothe her over, primer & repaint 'er. She also got an all-new exhaust, I redid the headliner, replaced the entire plastic dash.
I'm darn lucky to have her. Received three offers on her, one for $4,000, as she sat. Sorry...no sale. I love this car too much. But anyhoo...sorry to hijack and here's the thread back!