I bought a 61 Metropolitan to fix up for the wife. Got it for junk price & I have plenty of time to work on it now that I'm retired. I've built 3 hot rods & some 50's cars over the years. Just looking for ideas or pictures, drawings or info. that would save me some time. Was on the 20 or so pages on here about Metro builds, but all the info is pretty generic & no real measurants or drawings. Thanks in advance for your time.
Having suffered through having a Metropolitan rag top in high school I'd think that a MII crossmeber would be quite a bit too wide unless you had a special narrow one made.
There's one that attends car shows in Southern California. I never took a picture of it because it's not HAMB friendly. Billet everything with a blown BBC and steamroller tires on back. The car gets trailered to all the shows and usually trophies. BTW, the last time I saw it, there was no floor, then again, there was no room. Talk about blower surge......... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrImFZqgvG4
I remember seeing one at Goodguys in Charlotte,North Carolina several years ago,,as I recall it had a tube frame and some sort of a independent front suspension,,pro street and huge blown Hemi. Way over the top but at the time I thought had someone with a budget could have made a cool car out of it instead of try to wow the crowds. Simple build can't be too hard and as another member pointed out,,Brett (Fatman) can probably supply you with a cross member to use the Mustang II. HRP
Fatman can narrow MII up to 11". this makes it 45-1/2" wide. Steering shaft will be nearly centered so some u joints required.
A friend of mine had the actual Lois Lane car from the tv series, and he put it on an s10 chassis with a v6. I am not a big fan of s10 chassis even though I have an s10 to chase parts, I don't know something about the whole kit car aspect, but he did it and he enjoyed it. There was also a fat tired one that went to the Adirondack Nationals blown big block, if I remember it was a beige color pretty wild.
There was a Met at the Mooneyes show in Yokohama this past December. The fella had dropped a turbo'd 4 cyl Mitsubishi in it. Motor was out of a small "jeep-ish" type vehicle so it had rear wheel drive. Regret I was not able to get close enough to it to see if he had mods to the front suspension.
mine [57]has a frt made up of tube A arms and a home built crossmember I made from 1/4" plate steel.....it has the shorter uppers that speedway sells for stock cars[with coilovers]. the stock MustII uppersand coil towers installed on a crossmember [narrowed enough for the tire inside the stock fenders] will place the A arms incredibly close together at the inside..... this will then make for having to do lot more setback on your engine.... no room for a fan blade..... Another thing on Mets is the floor where yor seats set is supernarrow between the doors and the driveshaft tunnel,so buckets are not always small enough to use. they came with a bench probably for the reason that it fits over the tunnel...... one big deal is tire turning clearances for and getting your tires on and off with those lowered factory wheel openings
Years ago I helped a friend do a body swap with a Met onto a complete Chevette frame. We did not do a whole lot of modification other than different back sets on the wheels. Although chevettes are probably more rare now than the Nash.... Posted from the TJJ App for iPhone & iPad
See about 0:33 ish. Don't help with cross members but its fun to watch. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoYs0jUOi0k&feature=youtube_gdata_player
I have put a 2 x 3 frame under a 71 Pinto w/289 30 years ago, but that car had a floor in it & had a good front suspension. Thanks for the info on Fat Man, he makes a Must.II
Finishing 55 metro at my shop right now. M II front Welder series 56" kit with 8" removed from the center. Maval custom narrowed manual rack. Tube a-frames. 91 4cyl mustang rear end narrowed 13". 170. hp duratec engine. I personally do not like the use of M II front end. I see it on vehicles that are way too heavy . For the metro...it was a good choice. IMO Dave
Cut the floor pan out of the Chevette with the sub frames etc, added frame connectors, and braces to the met body. I don't remember if we shortened the wheelbase or not. Was all done in a couple weekends. His wife drove it regularly for more than 10 years with no issues that I can remember before I moved away. Posted from the TJJ App for iPhone & iPad
dave lewis, thanks. Your info should save me some time for sure. I'm not getting any younger & any good information is very helpful.
And for the guys that had a problem with me spelling or writing Mustang 11 or 2 or II get a life. Go play Angry Birds or something.
Yes it was a good choice for the metro, it is also a good choice for a huge number of early vehicle upgrades. The reason has little to do with the weight of the vehicle rather the weight distribution and how much weight is on the front suspension. Because of the way the engine sits back behind the crossmember on most early vehicles the weight on a MII is close to the same as it was in its original location in most cases.
mustang II won't fit. I preface this by saying that I like their stuff and the folks at fatman are great to work with and as stated they have a kit. that said, the turning radius with his kit is very limited. we had one in my sister's met (with a 302/c4) and ended up taking it to a local race shop an having it re-worked further in order to get what we thought was a workable turning radius for regular driving. I'll also mention that you can just swap the braking components from an MG midget to get disc brakes. I'm willing to be they've also gut mg based component upgrades as well--springs etc. just food for thought.
I used the Fatman crossmember in a Met. Only trouble is the subframe has to be narrowed so much around the spring pockets that any engine with a low mount starter has to be set back a bunch. This car was not a hot rod (wife's car) so I just used a chevette engine with a higher mounted starter. I know a guy that built a couple and used a narrowed Fiero front crossmembers. He said they worked well. One of his was a 10 second, BBC, extended nose drag car. Blue
http://www.instructables.com/id/How-I-built-my-own-frame-and-installed-a-mustang-1/ this is how i did mine, it's for sale