1988 Austin Metro (Bike carbs fresh paint)

[gumpy]

Been a while since i've posted a build thread, life got a bit on top forcing me to sell all my retro's and focus on getting my life back on track. which brings me to this point..

After discussing with my other half i'd really love to own something 80's with potential i set my heart on a k10 micra or similar, with a limited budget and an itch to scratch i scoured the web and local papers and a friend of mine called me to say about a car he saw for sale in a quiet backstreet with a tiny for sale sign in the rear window. so me and the other half went to investigate...





i knocked the door and an elderly chap answered , we spoke about the car and he told me it had been in the family from new he was very attached to it but needed to make space in the garage, judging by the very minimal for sale sign in the rear window and no other advertising he didnt seem bothered if it sold and i was the first person to get in contact.

I got home that night and immediately researched all things metro, somehow a fire grew inside me for this little hatchback that 10 years ago i would've shunned!
so the next morning i went back and decided i was going to buy it.



seeing it in the daylight pointed out crusty bonnet and mismatched aerosol and hammerite red/orange coverups... but the arches were clean and solid and the sills and floor immaculate , he then told me he waxoyled it every winter and patched up any rust that appeared but was getting to old for it now.So after a quick test drive all the comforts of abs , power steering taken away, the memories of my retro cars i have owned came flooding back... i needed this metro.

so me and the wife arranged a day to collect it , i was so excited i talked metro's all day , searched metro's on the internet every chance i had , i was hooked... and slowly annoying the Mrs. , i woke up collection day and was ready cash in pocket. after chatting for a while to the elderly owner i signed all the paperwork and he asked me to return one day when its looking all clean and nice.

within the first hour i could smell hot rubber , then the fan belt started to squeel and then the battery light appeared, leaving us stranded on the A470 ,



after attempting to make a fan belt from wire and failing i gave in and was about to call for recovery when a mercedes pulls up and a guy gets out and shouts " if this was any other car i wouldnt have stopped but i got 4 metro's!"the gent towed us to safety and i left the little metro in a pub carpark for the night.
the previous owner called me to ask how i was getting on with it and i told him the story and he told me he had 4 new fan belts in his garage....

so off i went to get my metro home safe !

after driving it for a day i realised the gear selector was making a knocking sound and google returned results that the gearbox was failing , i decided to take it to my old boss who is a rover/austin guru...

up on the ramps the floor was solid and rust proofed which made me smile... but ! i still need to investigate the mystery gearbox knock/rattle.




Turns out the exhaust was touching the gear selector causing the knocking and popping the selector out of gear, so lenny fired up the acetylene torch.








quick bend of the downpipe and its free , a quick drive around the block confirmed how much noise the exhaust was previously making through the cabin.

so now some of the niggly bits are repaired my mind is focused on the bodywork and styling, after much thought i decided to go with a wheel that was 13x7 flavour from a mini and found a set of alley cat specials with new yokohama tyres on ebay , i bid and i won and traveled down to near reading to collect them only to find pitting on the rims which was a big dissapointment as they were described as new.

but after a bath and some wax they looked good.



I'm waiting on some alloy wheel nuts to turn up before i try them after a bit of research i see the metros have quite a high offset so I'm fully expecting these wheels to stick out and if they do I'm going to go down the route of fitting mini special or sport pack arches dependent on how far they stick out. hopefully can update soon with pics of bodywork being sorted and interior tiding up. thanks for reading.

[vulgalour]

Wow, a Red Hot edition Metro! There are not many left at all and yours still has the grille badge and rear quarter decals. The other option was the seemingly more popular Jet Black.

You got the bigger engine, red seat belts, specially trimmed seats, body coloured bumpers and all sorts of other little trim details that you didn't get on other Metros (at least, not all in the one package). It's the sort of run out model that was very much of its time. I'm really hoping that you'll modify it in a way sympathetic to its special edition roots so it's still a Red Hot but with your own stamp on it. Those alleycats are a great starting point.

Good luck with this one, it's on my bookmark list now.

[gumpy]

Nov 24, 2016 0:15:19 GMT vulgalour said:

Wow, a Red Hot edition Metro! There are not many left at all and yours still has the grille badge and rear quarter decals. The other option was the seemingly more popular Jet Black.

You got the bigger engine, red seat belts, specially trimmed seats, body coloured bumpers and all sorts of other little trim details that you didn't get on other Metros (at least, not all in the one package). It's the sort of run out model that was very much of its time. I'm really hoping that you'll modify it in a way sympathetic to its special edition roots so it's still a Red Hot but with your own stamp on it. Those alleycats are a great starting point.

Good luck with this one, it's on my bookmark list now.

Yeh apparently only 3 left in the road according to the old fella. Has some funky period 'red hot' seats. I'm not a huge lover of red paintwork if I'm honest , but I feel disheartened losing the red hot special'ness of it. I'm thinking of a dark grey paint job but could perhaps incorporate the rear qtr decals in red ?

[vulgalour]

Then it wouldn't be a Red Hot though, that's really the whole point of it. I know special editions are sometimes just a couple of stickers and little more, but these really did have some effort put into them and bright red Metros are always much more eye catching than dark grey ones. Not only that, bright red hides lots of imperfections really well so there's no worry about it being show quality if you want it to look nice the vast majority of the time.

It is your car and you should do with it what makes you happy, absolutely, it's your time and money that's going to be invested in it. But don't write that bright red off too quickly (I know, I'm bias, I have a bright red car) because it really is something that makes it special. I can guarantee it'll look a million times better on those new alloys in red than it will in dark grey and for anyone in the know, a Red Hot is something special that you never, ever see.

The bright red has one big advantage over the dark grey in that it hides a lot of imperfections, it looks good even when it's not and you're massively more visible on the road which is incredibly important in such a small car. So I will urge you to keep it red if you can bring yourself to do that.

A good deep clean, a bit of polish and some wheels that all look the same will make a huge improvement to what's already a smart little car. Keeping it red saves you a fair bit of cash too which means you have more time and money to enjoy it. Also, I suspect it will be Flame Red which is a colour Halfords stock so touching up those little blemishes should be fairly easy and cheap providing it stops raining for long enough to get the paint on the car.

[gumpy]

Nov 24, 2016 1:35:24 GMT vulgalour said:

Then it wouldn't be a Red Hot though, that's really the whole point of it. I know special editions are sometimes just a couple of stickers and little more, but these really did have some effort put into them and bright red Metros are always much more eye catching than dark grey ones. Not only that, bright red hides lots of imperfections really well so there's no worry about it being show quality if you want it to look nice the vast majority of the time.

It is your car and you should do with it what makes you happy, absolutely, it's your time and money that's going to be invested in it. But don't write that bright red off too quickly (I know, I'm bias, I have a bright red car) because it really is something that makes it special. I can guarantee it'll look a million times better on those new alloys in red than it will in dark grey and for anyone in the know, a Red Hot is something special that you never, ever see.

The bright red has one big advantage over the dark grey in that it hides a lot of imperfections, it looks good even when it's not and you're massively more visible on the road which is incredibly important in such a small car. So I will urge you to keep it red if you can bring yourself to do that.

A good deep clean, a bit of polish and some wheels that all look the same will make a huge improvement to what's already a smart little car. Keeping it red saves you a fair bit of cash too which means you have more time and money to enjoy it. Also, I suspect it will be Flame Red which is a colour Halfords stock so touching up those little blemishes should be fairly easy and cheap providing it stops raining for long enough to get the paint on the car.

Maybe you're right. I'll see if the red can win me over, although checked 'how many left' and it says the red hot is the last one on the road which makes me feel more inclined to let the red stay...

[87austinmetro]

Nov 23, 2016 23:47:00 GMT gumpy said:

My front valance was dented there as well. I've ended up cutting it out as it rusted through. Looks like a solid car, I agree that you should keep it red.

[skozra]

Awesome little car, never knew there even were "Red Hot" edition Metros (I remember the Minis well) and your one looks in great condition. Was nice of the previous owner to call you to ask you how you were getting on with it - can't see many folk doing that in this day and age.

I'd keep the car red as well

[stefan1971]

Great find mate, I agree you have to keep it red, and get the decals redone.rare little thing you got there.

[stefan1971]

Just had a look on how many left.
1 auto and 1 manual, so very rare indeed. You have to keep it original.

[darrenh]

Nov 23, 2016 23:47:00 GMT gumpy said:

he told me he had 4 new fan belts in his garage....

shame he didnt put any of them on the fffkin car eh?!

[farinafan]

Awsome cars iv been looking around for a red hot one couldn't find one for sale.
I had one back in 98 with the red seat pipeing, red Seatbelt and colour coded bumpers they also did a jet black edition

[gumpy]

Nov 24, 2016 17:46:48 GMT darrenh said:

Nov 23, 2016 23:47:00 GMT gumpy said:

he told me he had 4 new fan belts in his garage....

shame he didnt put any of them on the fffkin car eh?!

He thought he had ,amongst the distributor ,clutch cable, assortment of leads and plugs floating in the boot. Haha

[gumpy]

Nov 24, 2016 16:53:11 GMT stefan1971 said:

Just had a look on how many left.
1 auto and 1 manual, so very rare indeed. You have to keep it original.

This was the clincher that made me decide to keep the colour. Will copy the decals into photoshop and send them to my buddy to print and cut.

[rsmithy626]

Love it, looks good on alleycats.

[bmcnut]

Nice, a red hot. They were rare as minis, but I'm sure the metro ones were rarer, very nice find. It will look rather phat with the alleycats on it, tho ive gotta say given its rarity id be tempted to restore it to almost standard spec, with some MG metro turbo rims on it.

[gumpy]

been a while since ive updated but alot has been going on.

went travelling in Norway at new year and got back ordered my RRG17 tickets in feb and got a shift on getting the metro looking sharp for august.

i had a problem since buying the car with constant flat batteries and dim lights, turns out the alternator was toast after replacement still had the same issue and turns out the replacement was also knackered.

after the charging was sorted , i decided to get the wheels fitted , although after fitting 13x7 wheels i realised i could barely turn my wheels which i drove this way for around 2 months.



it was time to get my steering back ! i fitted some arch extensions and cut away the arches also ordered a 6r4 bonnet ( manufacturer taking the curse word now been almost 7 weeks) and started tackling the body work ready for a respray.













hopefully finish painting it next week when the bonnet arrives. updates soon !

[vulgalour]

The wheels suit it. Struggling to imagine a 6r4 bonnet on this without the rest of the bodykit. Curious to know what colour you're going and just how much of the Red Hot side of things you're planning to keep, if any.

[gumpy]

Mar 18, 2017 21:06:10 GMT vulgalour said:

The wheels suit it. Struggling to imagine a 6r4 bonnet on this without the rest of the bodykit. Curious to know what colour you're going and just how much of the Red Hot side of things you're planning to keep, if any.

ive re made all the redhot decals at work ready to go on after paint , and yep , its staying red i saw a picture of 6r4 bonnet on a mildly wide arched metro and it looked right.

[vulgalour]

Yay! That makes it so much more exciting for me, because I'm odd and get excited by things like this XD Red arch extensions and perhaps some Rover 100 sill skirts to compliment the chunky 6r4 bonnet (which I still can't imagine and haven't found an example of yet).

[stefan1971]

Looking great can't wait to see it finished. I think it's going to look great with the 6r4 bonnet.