TeamSwift

So, I'm minding my own business, trolling the Seattle Craig's List for the next dirt-cheep project car for the kid (we haven't sold the first project car yet), and being unsatisfied with the result, I expand my search to other parts of Washington state.
Up pops this small, fuzzy picture of a purple-ish 1993 Metro convertible Lsi over in central Washington.

Not running. $1000 OBO.

Hmmm... 200 miles away, huh? Probably close to $500 to get it towed over here.
Left an email and received a call back from the owner the next evening.
The paint was described as little sun faded, but the body, straight.
Last time it was driven - coming back from Spokane - the car blew out a puff of smoke going uphill and ran ratty for the rest of the way home. The owner couldn't get it to start again after that.

That was 7 years ago...

Sounded like a burnt exhaust valve. Made arrangements to go over Saturday, loaded Copper Top down with all the parts, tools and supplies needed to do a valve swap since the owner said he would be satisfied with $500 for the car. I even took the battery from the project car for good measure.

This is now:
This is the dust that's been under the bra all these years until we peeled it off. (Copper Top is in the background. )



Now I wish I had left the top up!


When we got there we were stunned at the condition of the car - no dents and only one tiny spot of rust on the body of the car (trunk), although we may find more as time passes. The paint has some spots where it looks like a clear coat layer peeled off, and the front bumper looks like some of the paint was sand-blasted off.


The VIN starts with JG1M. Was this car manufactured in Canada or the other side of the pond?


I felt like Indiana Jones when we popped the hood. Cobwebs and dust everywhere!

We're going to have to pull the window regulators out of the doors and thoroughly clean/lube them (suggestions welcome!).

Pulled the spark plugs
Numbers 1 & 2 - clean
Number 3 coated with a thin layer of black carbon, but clean other than that.
Was expecting to see them all gunked up with dried oil and this clearly wasn't the case.

Had the kid (CellDamage) swap out the battery - it was so far gone, I could wiggle the positive post.
Had to run to the store to get a fuse for the starter that someone had pulled. Meanwhile, the kid checked the cam timing and found it was waaaay out of whack. We reset it after I got back.
Verified spark on all 4 wires.

Gas gauge was sitting on empty - no surprise there since the car has been sitting in the blazing sun. Dumped fresh gas in the tank and discovered not only was the gas gauge not working, but the fuel pump wasn't operating at all. Wiring/connection problem?
Swapped the pump relay with Copper Top since they are both the '93 model year.
Nuthin'...

When we originally pulled the gas line off the throttle body there was the slightest dribble of foul-smelling, brownish fuel coming out. About a half hour later, after we had fiddled with the relays, I switched to a fresh container and the fuel coming out of the line finally looked normal.

Checked the electrical connectors for the gas tank. The dual-wire connector did show voltage while trying to start the car. The single wire (gas gauge?) connector... I don't remember what we saw on that now That may have been a resistance measurement for the float anyway...

The kid dropped the gas tank and when he popped the pump/gas float assembly, we found the outside of the gas gauge sending unit was rusted. Also, the wire connections on the underside of the cover were both rusted... the nuts and the wire connectors, both. Finally, the intake screen and plastic parts of the fuel pump were coated with a red, gooey, tar-like substance. The kid used up the last of the carb cleaner before he was able to get all of the gunk out of the inside of the pump.
Then he broke the impeller! At that point, it was too late to get to an auto parts store so there was nothing left to do but pack it up, head home, and regroup.

Early tomorrow morning we'll pick up a new pump & head back over to see if we can get it home before the rains arrive in the evening (the plastic rear window was so brittle, it didn't survive putting the top down and then back up.
Also, we had to try a good 10 minutes before we could re-latch the top. The "fangs" - that's a technical term - were about a half inch short of being able to reach the slots along the top of the window. Would that be because the rag top has shrunk in the sun?


Here are the pics from Saturday:
http://www.teamswift.net/gallery/album.php?album_id=871

Haven't done a compression check yet to see if we're up against a burnt valve or not.
Haven't checked the brakes either.
No Idea at this point about the condition of the tranny.

Wish us luck tomorrow. With the back window out, we're in a race against a rain front that's moving in.

Oh yeah...
Fully loaded in the back, Copper Top still managed 50 MPG going over the mountains with regular unleaded gas.
Tomorrow we'll do it again, this time with premium.

I'll add that the timing was 180* out and the distributor was advanced almost all of the way. No wonder it ran like crap before.

The underside of the car looks like new save for the dust and rocks. Seriously. No road grime or tar. Just beautiful factory under-coating. A little surface rust on a few things, but better than either of our cars.

The seats will have to be reapolstered. There is a shiney black plate where a radio should be, but it has aftermarket speakers installed in the back panels. Had to be a radio in there at some point. lol.

The paint on the body is good except for a few small places, but the bumpers and the bumper splashes need to be repainted.

And to top it all off, it's a Japanese made 'vert. Sweet. We even got the Factory 1993 OWNERS MANUAL in the glove box with it. Including a little metal tag, I think, has something to do with getting spare keys made? IDK.

It's all in excellent, better than I could really hope for, shape. It full of dust and dry, dusty rotting things. This car need some indirect rainy weather to soften things up a bit and suck up some moisture. Hopefully before we need to replace the entire top. Dry as a bone and somewhat fragile but still works. Do these things usually need to grown men wrestling them back into place, or like Pa said, did it shrink?

Dust Bucket. That's an appropriate name.

_________________
1992 Geo "TIE Fighter" Metro 1.0 SOHC 5sp.

Better a dust bucket than a rust bucket! All verts were made only in Japan, it's not unique. And the top usually should latch easily, it likely did shrink in the sun. Throw a fresh new vinyl on that sucker!

Better than what you were calling it before you saw it!

Barney, folks...
He wanted to call the purple mystery car, Barney.


Dust Bucket is just a temporary name anyway.

I also toyed with the idea of referring to it as Hoffman...

Because of all the...
Dustin... Hoffman.

Barney?? That is just pathetic. There are some vert owners who just don't appreciate these cars for what they are. Every time I see a vert that is painted an ugly color or is abused by its owner, a little part of me dies...

What?!! I can't make an assumption? Turns out she's a beautiful car. We had a little father-son fight over who got the title, lol.

Anyways...I took some more pictures. I hope you don't mind a little story mode, lol.

The day started just absolutely gorgeous;


[Nothing but Blue skies and sun in the Pass in the beginning of the trip.]

With the usual delays...


[Horrible way of abondoning your old fith wheel trailer, but what do I know?]

We arrived to wonderfull afternoon filled with 90 degree weather.


[G-Wiz starts on removing the fuel filter and relocating it to the engine compartment (where it should've been already)]

I've never seen such a clean underbody!







[The only rust on the car besides around the trunk lid keyhole. It's on both sides.]


[You can see the dust built up under the trunk lid where the top is under it. Thick and nasty.]


[I spit cleaned a spot where the dust was under the diintergrated old bra. The paint should buff out if we're lucky.]


[Pleasent surprise! The hood badge is almost immaculate because of the bra.]


[Sweet, it has a tach!]


[Big blank spot where the CD player will go later.]


[Poorly installed cheap aftermarket speakers. These have to go!]

And at the end of the day we prepare for inclement weather on the other side of the mountains on the way home.


[Ugly, but necessary.]

So we have more story to tell, but I'll let Dad do that tomorow. It was a loooong trip home and we're both dead tired.

_________________
1992 Geo "TIE Fighter" Metro 1.0 SOHC 5sp.

After 7 years of sitting, one or more tires were bouncing and vibrating the car like crazy. Once we hit the road, it took a good 60 miles for them to settle down to just an annoying level of vibration.
Right after we struck out for home, I absolutely had to stop get this looked at! The one of them balanced just fine, but still, started to vibrate when spun up to speed. I had the tires rotated before we struck out, but it only helped marginally.
Whatever sensor/engine problem that originally sidelined the car back then was still there. It cuts out and back in and seems to be coupled with the trouble code 2-3 (manifold air pressure sensor probably unplugged while the motor was running).

Edit:
Resolved the bucking and jerking issue with the engine cutting out and back in while trying to cruise or accelerate at low speeds.

MAP Sensor.
I forgot to pack it before we took off to retrieve Dust Bucket. Grrr... Swapped it out tonight and the problem immediately went away.

The trip back was a looong adventure story of it's own, but we made it.
Dust Bucket rolled in to it's new home about 2:20AM.

(That's my cat, Stanley, in the foreground)

Before she took off to work this morning, my wife looked at it and said, "It's cute! But it's pink!"
"No it's not! There's blue in the paint coloring."
"Yes... it's called Fuchsia Pink. This is a girl's car!"
...
...
...
"I don't care! It's a Metro convertible & I've said for years you'd look cute in one of those. I'll even convert it (pardon the pun) to an automatic if you want it."

She was right though. The previous owner was lady who had traded it - dead - for a greenhouse. She absolutely loved the car when she owned it, but priorities changed after it died. The fellow with the greenhouse thought he might get it up and running someday but never bothered. So, after all this time, he finally put Dust Bucket on Craig's List, and the rest is history.

Very cool! You are so lucky to have no rust! My poor $500 Metro is a rust bucket...at least on the driver's side!

_________________
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2012 Fiat 500 Sport


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Nice.
I held back my tears (of joy in an altruistic manner of course).
Many pleasent miles in it. To whoever gets to ride in it.

Cloth top with a zippered window is my suggestion. You unzip the window before dropping the top. Thus it NEVER folds.
Gt seats are a must.
Sway bar front and rear ,I have a set for sale, dust cheap but you will need new links, those are available.
Clean out the rollers for both side windows or else it's going to be scratch hell....

_________________
Less IS more.

We took it to a do-it-yourself car wash and pressure washed the engine bay and the window tracks (loads of desert mud flowed out) and created some vacuum leaks, lol.

After all afternoon of trying to get the car to start G-Wiz comes home from work and fires it up after a good long crank. So, now that it was running we track down the leaks and replace a few hoses. Starts right up like a champ now.

G-Wiz takes it for a spin around the block and it's still surging. Well we know what caused the surging in my car, so we do a compression check.

#1 - 52psi
#2 - 68psi
#3 - 159psi

Houston...I think we have a problem...
(Over the pass with 1 cylinder? Impressive.)

Sway bars and GT seats? I'm all for that, but the misses G-Wiz (Mom) will have to be convinced. Dad and I want to keep this one, even if it is fucia pink. It's the gay (no offence, I'm just a man and that's the way things are.)pink and baby blue graphics that make it over the top girly for me, lol. The color is actually nice except for that.

The zippered window sounds like a plan. We'll look into that for sure.

JeepGirl, I've been following your thread too, lol. I know how lucky we are.

_________________
1992 Geo "TIE Fighter" Metro 1.0 SOHC 5sp.

Those numbers were for a dry test. We'll have the weekend to do a wet test before tearing the head off.
Cell Damage is expecting to see 2 burnt valves but I'm leaning towards a blown head gasket between the number 1 and 2 cylinders (and possibly a warped head) because the spark plugs were not oil fouled like they were when the kid burned the valves in his car.

I was going to do a wet test after work but the square dance class graduation got in the way and the Mrs. & I didn't want to miss out on hobnobbing with our friends from the club - we actually met and danced together for the first time at the square dance hall Saturday, 9 years ago, this Memorial Day weekend.

As for you bachelors out there (Cell Damage, are you listening?), here's a not-so-subtle hint... there are ALWAYS more single girls than single guys at the lessons and dances. So, do the math...

But I digress...

When I got home, We found the vacuum leak that nearly stranded us at the car wash last night after Michael (Cell Damage) pressure washed the engine and transmission. One of the hoses at the front of the throttle body that runs to/from the EGR plumbing had a hole in it.

It's late & I'm tired but in light of what we found earlier with the vacuum line, it probably explains why the motor got some fire in it's belly as we drove into the rain about 5 or 10 miles before we reached the eastern end of Snoqualmie pass (elevation: 3022 ft./921 m) . I suspect the rain water was just enough to seal the vacuum leak so the motor could easily pull 55-60mph up the final stretch and over the top of the pass.

What mystifies me is that with those compression numbers, how was I able to hit 80mph on a few downhill slopes while we were heading up towards the pass... and that was before we hit any of the rain? Honestly, the motor didn't sound like it was running on one cylinder after I got home from work tonight... it sounded... well... normal. Still accelerates on the slow side, but it sounds pretty much normal. If it starts easily in the morning I'll go ahead and drive it in to work just to show it off before it's put out of commission for the head work. If it has enough oomph, I might leave the head on until I get some SS valves, advanced cam and head bolts from 3Tech!

Funny side note from the car wash...
After washing the dust off the hood, Cell Damage hollered at me and said, Hey Dad! The bra left a tan line!
Sure enough, the paint hadn't faded where the bra covered it!

Took Copper Top to work this morning and over to Tumwater where the Mrs. works over the lunch hour.
Didn't work on it tonight, but to paraphrase the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland, "Off with it's head!!".
The beheading will commence tomorrow morning.
Just an additional observation here, but when the motor starts, it reminds me of a lawn mower that's just fired up & then it smooths out like it's running on all 3 cylinders.

And now, for the trip home from Desert Aire...
It was late in the day when we left and while the motor was cutting in and out while going driving on the streets out to the main road, the thing I didn't think the car could handle was the severe wobbling/bouncing at 45mph. The whole car was shaking violently. About 4 miles up the road toward I-90 was the small farming community of Matawa, so I slowly crawled up the hill to it in search of a tire shop. Didn't take long to find. Got the tires balanced and rotated but it didn't help all that much when I got back down to the main road. Turned around to see if there was anything additional that could be done.

The shop owner called a mechanic he knew to come down to see if he could make any sense of the bouncing and cutting out. That fellow tried his darnedest, but concluded I had a bad brake rotor causing the bounce. He suggested swapping a fresh throttle body onto the intake manifold so I whipped out my rebuilt spare from the "Copper Top" saga. It didn't make any difference, which truthfully didn't surprise me. I kept thinking about the spare MAP sensor I had left at home. The mechanic tweaked the rebuilt throttle body settings to give it a slightly higher idle RPM and then away we went, headed for I-90 & Snoqualmie Pass.

After this massive delay I think it was close to 10 PM and the last wisps of the sunset were barely outlining the the hill tops on the west side of the Columbia river. We were going to attempt the drive home in the dark unsure if the tires and body would survive the the shaking, and wondering if gunk/rust still in the tank would plug up the fuel filter and/or the injector. In hindsight, it was a foolish gamble. We should have left Dust Bucket over there until this weekend.

The car shook and wobbled pretty bad for what must have been a good 60 miles. The steering wheel wasn't twisting back and forth in my hands though.

After crossing the Columbia at Vantage we had a 10 mile uphill climb and the best I could muster out of the motor was 35-45mph, shifting up and down between 3rd gear and 4th. Stopped at a rest area at the top of the hill to calm hown and when I hopped on the freeway the car actually had a little bit oomph and I was able to get it up closer to 55mph. The more hills I went up and down, the better the feel I had for when to shift up and down. The tach played a HUGE role in knowing when to shift gears. Not much torque (accelleration) available in the flat below 3000 RPM, the best shifting-up point was 4000. I took full advantage of the downhill slopes, gathering as much speed as possible for the uphill runs that were waiting for me on the other side. First 60mph, then 70, and finally 80 on those downhill runs as we climbed further up into the heart of the Cascades, with the duct-tape reinforced plastic rear window snapping and popping in protest. Finally started slowly rolling the driver's side window down and found a sweet-spot where it reduced most of the racket. About 10-20 minutes before reaching the east end of the pass we finally hit the rain. About that time the engine suddenly got some fire in it's belly and climbed the final stretch like it was nothing. 55mph? No Problem. Even the kid was impressed knowing how steep that grade was. As I mentioned before, the rain water must have sealed off the vacuum hose leak. I was dreading that final stretch, but it was so dark and rainy I didn't realize where I was until right before I hit the east end of the pass. Not bad considering I was basically running on 1 cylinder with a dead MAP sensor.

The rest of the trip was mostly 55-60mph after we got out of the rain and fog, stopping in North Bend to fill up Copper Top and Dust Bucket. Good thing the kid had me stop. With the gas gauge stuck at 3/4 full I had no idea how much gas was left... I put just over 9 gallons in the convertible's gas tank... gulp!
(there was no way I could have made it all the way home on what was left!!)

Might as well pick up some exhaust valves, guides and this:



Then you should be good to go.

_________________
DIY Broken Bolt Removal: viewtopic.php?f=22&t=41042
DIY Clutch Adjustment: viewtopic.php?f=9&t=48281
DIY Wheel Bearings: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=29003
DIY Shocks: viewtopic.php?f=10&t=45483
DIY Wheel Align: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=42479
Once you get the cars dialed-in (compression, leaks, bearings, alignment, brakes) swap in new rubber and glass, you've got something which should last for years!

The big reveal:






We could have slapped some spare exhaust valves and had it up and running tomorrow, but no...
...it's time to contact 3Tech for some stainless steel exhaust valves, non-stretch head bolts, a performance cam and an advanced sprocket.
It'll be no Econo Bucket when I'm done.

interesting results
kid 1
dad 0

_________________
1991 Swift GT Build G10 +25 psi + other goodies
1996 Metro Build QR25de swap, still undecided where to take it
the lolcar family

Live and learn!

It was the dry spark plugs that threw me off the scent. I fully anticipated and prepared to replace burned exhaust valves when we got over there, at least until I saw the dry plugs.

Still, why would the kid's burnt valves cake the spark plugs with oil - twice, no less - and these two burnt valves leave the plugs dry as a bone?

Probably 'cuz my rings are bad, lol. It looses a quart every 100 miles or so. Which reminds me.. I need to replace the pan gasket...

_________________
1992 Geo "TIE Fighter" Metro 1.0 SOHC 5sp.

There was a minor point I failed to mention about the trip back...
Before we left Desert Aire, the kid dumped a third of a can of Seafoam into the tank, and being that we were dealing with 7 year old gas residue mixed in with the fresh gas, I dumped in a bottle of this Lucas octane booster "racing formula" to try to make the trip a little easier on the motor:


How much it actually helped is hard to say, but to be fair and give a complete picture of all that was going on, since I was running with that combination of additives and successfully made it home - they deserved mentioning.

As Cell Damage put it, the motor had to be running on the equivalent of methamphetamines. That might be true - at least until I filled the tank in North Bend. But even then, with the remainder of the bottle now diluted by a full tank of gas, there was no discernible decrease in performance for the remainder of the trip.

But then again, I had a pretty good feel for when to shift using the tach before we ever reached Snoqualmie pass.

I too will be contacting 3tech...just for the bolts and stainless valves though...I can't afford more. I found out that the spark plug holes were damaged due to someone cross threading the plugs...and that I have bad compression in at least the 2nd cylinder (we stopped there as it has to come off anyways). Yay.

_________________
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2012 Fiat 500 Sport


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Ugh... my condolences on the cross threading. Let us know what the fix is!

The exhaust valves and non-stretch head bolts are here now. No sign of the performance cam and sprocket though.

Saturday, Cell Damage & I pulled the valves. I watched and took pictures while he used a Dremmel cutting disk to create Singh groves on the underside of the head. He then took a small triangle file to them to widen them at the base. For those not familiar with them, my understanding is that they are supposed to channel a blast(?) of concentrated gas vapors/droplets at the spark plugs as the pistons reach the top of their compression stroke and the spark plugs fire. It supposedly improves the combustion, but how am I going to know without a baseline established? Answer: I'm not.


Went shopping earlier today at the wrecking yard & bought a replacement fuel pump & gas gauge float sensor in sweet looking condition.


(Added some more pics to my album of this for anyone interested in checking them out.)

http://www.helicoil.in/helicoil.htm
have used these to repair striped spark plug
holes in briggs & stratton and honda bike motors
eazy to use and work great easier for you because
the heads off and cuttings aren't going into the cylinder

Pulled the pistons and honed the cylinders tonight.

First, the good news. The rod bearings are in perfect condition!


The potentially bad news:
This...

... did this to the number 1 cylinder wall despite the fact that I cleaned and oiled the 3-bar hone and the cylinder wall. It looks like the pads were vibrating as they spun and to make matters worse, had larger pieces of grit digging into the wall. I couldn't feel anything with my fingernail, but it looks like hell!


I probably should have used a bottle brush hone. Grrr...

I improvised with the 2nd and 3rd cylinders, wrapping a sheet of sand paper around a partially used roll of Kimberly Clark shop towels. I turned the roll by hand as I slowly lowered and then raised it back out of the cylinders...

I had to tighten up the mid-section of the roll a little to keep it from getting too tight as it went in. Odd thing was it felt looser as I was raising it back out .

When I got done breaking the glaze on them - and getting better results as you see below- I discovered some rough patches on the 2nd and third cylinders that are barely detectable with my fingernail. Here's cylinder #2:

These two cylinders had the burnt exhaust valves. Coincidence? I don't know!

Cell Damage is bound and determined to drop the pistons back in with fresh rings tomorrow, but I'm wondering if the rings will be OK.

Woo-hoo!!!
Fired it up yesterday morning but junior had put the timing belt back on, getting the thing off by one tooth, he was in such a hurry to try to get it ready for the SouthCenter Levitz gathering last Saturday. He also missed the grounding on the back side of the intake manifold and then we couldn't figure out why it didn't have a reliable spark.
Too bad I didn't have time to look at it before the Southcenter meet. We were so looking forward to taking the car there.

Now... to slowly drive it to work and find replacements for the two bent-belt tires!

Edit:
Didn't make it out of the carport. Hard start with lots of smoke - to be expected, but better safe than sorry. Weather isn't supposed to be all that good until the weekend so Dust Bucket probably won't be going too far from home until then...

Ahw, poor Dust Bucket....hopefully he will be on the road soon!!!At least there is a light at the end of the tunnel!

_________________
MY VEHICLES:
2012 Fiat 500 Sport


Photo Album Squishy: From Start to Finish
Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/squishycar/
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We just got back from a long spin around the neighborhood. There was an accident of some sort just up the road that was bad enough it's still blocked off after an hour. Hopefully someone didn't jump of the overhead walkway.

Anyways, the car runs good enough for now I guess. I'll be pulling the gas tank out and replacing the fuel pump and sending unit in the next couple of days. Then it's time for cleaning and detailing...[sigh]. This is where it gets tough. The paint needs to be completely refinished and all I'm allowed to do is buff it out as best I can. The interior is what I'm really dreading however. It's dry as a bone and fragile. I'm not sure if it'll stand up to a good cleaning. The carpet is a mess of dust and probably needs to be replaced as ALL of our cars do. But since it's on the auction block that's probably not in any budget.

Can anyone recommend a good cleaning agent? Please, don't say Armorall. That stuff only makes things greasy and a dust magnet.

_________________
1992 Geo "TIE Fighter" Metro 1.0 SOHC 5sp.