A long overdue update.
I lost my job in January so all plans were put on hold. I’ve managed to get an interim job driving a recovery truck for pretty much minimum wage and I’m in the process of getting my HGV licence but that won’t be for a few months yet. All this has meant I’ve had to scale back my plans for the little Metro as I don’t know when I’m going to have a decent amount of money coming in again.
The bike head conversion will have to wait. I’ve got the spare block stored in the garage so that can be done one day. I’ve found someone locally that can modify the auto block to convert it to manual. He’s done hundreds of them for his race cars so I’m happy he knows what he’s doing. While the engine is out I’m replacing the various bearings to freshen it all up and I’m going to chuck a Swiftune cam in there to liven it up a bit too. Along with the manual gearbox and a slightly larger carb’ this should make it much more fun to drive.
I need to sell my F56 Cooper S as I can no longer afford the monthly payments or fuel in that so in preparation for finally using the Metro as a daily I decided to sort the cooling system out. When I drove the car to the Brooklands New Years Day Gathering it was getting a bit warm going along the A3. I decided to replace the water pump, thermostat and flush the cooling system through as well.
This is what I was greeted with this morning. The curse word weather the other day had blown the cover off the car.
I got straight on and removed the front fog lamps. I haven’t been a fan of them since I bought the car. The bumper isn’t great under the brackets but I can get another one at some point. Then the front panel came off and I started draining the coolant. I say coolant, it was more of a pinky rusty colour that came out.
Once the rad, alternator and coolant hoses were all off I got on with removing the thermostat and water pump. The pump didn’t look very old at all but I’d already bought a replacement so it was getting used. Annoyingly the only replacement I could find was one with a water bypass pipe. These aren’t used in the Metro so I tapped the hole and thread locked a bolt in there along with some silicone for good measure. Hopefully it doesn’t leak!!
With that done I bolted the new pump in and reattached everything. It started raining at this point so this is the last photo I took!
The front panel went back on but I’ve left the Rover grill off. I’ve got the proper Austin one to go on so I’ll give that a clean up and then fit it. I also realised I didn’t have any coolant so I’ll need to pop to the motor factors and get some during the week. Once it’s filled up I can drive it to work one day and see how the coolant temp is looking. Nothing was blocked when I flushed it so hopefully it was just a knackered thermostat causing the car to get hot.
Oh, I also found a nice puddle of water in the passenger footwells when I looked in there earlier. Looks like it’s coming through the passenger rear window seal so I’ll need to order a new seal for that. Not the end of the world. I think I’ll do the other side while I’m at it too!
I lost my job in January so all plans were put on hold. I’ve managed to get an interim job driving a recovery truck for pretty much minimum wage and I’m in the process of getting my HGV licence but that won’t be for a few months yet. All this has meant I’ve had to scale back my plans for the little Metro as I don’t know when I’m going to have a decent amount of money coming in again.
The bike head conversion will have to wait. I’ve got the spare block stored in the garage so that can be done one day. I’ve found someone locally that can modify the auto block to convert it to manual. He’s done hundreds of them for his race cars so I’m happy he knows what he’s doing. While the engine is out I’m replacing the various bearings to freshen it all up and I’m going to chuck a Swiftune cam in there to liven it up a bit too. Along with the manual gearbox and a slightly larger carb’ this should make it much more fun to drive.
I need to sell my F56 Cooper S as I can no longer afford the monthly payments or fuel in that so in preparation for finally using the Metro as a daily I decided to sort the cooling system out. When I drove the car to the Brooklands New Years Day Gathering it was getting a bit warm going along the A3. I decided to replace the water pump, thermostat and flush the cooling system through as well.
This is what I was greeted with this morning. The curse word weather the other day had blown the cover off the car.
I got straight on and removed the front fog lamps. I haven’t been a fan of them since I bought the car. The bumper isn’t great under the brackets but I can get another one at some point. Then the front panel came off and I started draining the coolant. I say coolant, it was more of a pinky rusty colour that came out.
Once the rad, alternator and coolant hoses were all off I got on with removing the thermostat and water pump. The pump didn’t look very old at all but I’d already bought a replacement so it was getting used. Annoyingly the only replacement I could find was one with a water bypass pipe. These aren’t used in the Metro so I tapped the hole and thread locked a bolt in there along with some silicone for good measure. Hopefully it doesn’t leak!!
With that done I bolted the new pump in and reattached everything. It started raining at this point so this is the last photo I took!
The front panel went back on but I’ve left the Rover grill off. I’ve got the proper Austin one to go on so I’ll give that a clean up and then fit it. I also realised I didn’t have any coolant so I’ll need to pop to the motor factors and get some during the week. Once it’s filled up I can drive it to work one day and see how the coolant temp is looking. Nothing was blocked when I flushed it so hopefully it was just a knackered thermostat causing the car to get hot.
Oh, I also found a nice puddle of water in the passenger footwells when I looked in there earlier. Looks like it’s coming through the passenger rear window seal so I’ll need to order a new seal for that. Not the end of the world. I think I’ll do the other side while I’m at it too!