While I was on vacation last week, I got a pleasant surprise. Got home late Friday night and when I went out Saturday morning, behind the fence was a 56 metropolitan. My question is, what factory rear ends will fit up under one of these cars? My idea is to make another drag car with a turbo'd slant six in it. The rear will not have to be bulletproof, but be able to handle 200-300hp, hopefully. I was wondering if a Ford Courier rear or something similiar would work. Any info is greatly appreciated. Thanks, Robert
That's a real short car and not too wide ether,as for drags,I remember one with a 215 olds alum V8 in it,with the rear rims having all there off set so the rim and tire was hanging all in over the brake drum and the wheel wells was cut full size,don't know what rear it was ,but could of been nearly any with them rims(like stock ovel track car rim mounted backword. There no room for a inline 6 and if ya didn't have a V8 ya got LOL at in the 60's anyway,but for them dam ugly dunebuggys. who's hair will that ruff up!
looks like you are going to be best off narrowing something. That SOB is narrow as hell. Maybe the best thing to do would be to take some measurements for us. I ***ume that you do not intend to "back half" the car (tub it). so a good start would be to measure the distance between the inner fender openings. This will tell you your minimum clearance. At that point you find a rear end that will meet your needs hub to hub, and figure in wheel size/offset/tire width.
I think a traditional Nash would have just about all of the tires sticking out past the body. At least that's how Bob said his was set up way back when.
I built a frame for a metro a few years ago out of 2x4 rectangular tubing and narrowed a 9" rear for it. I used some 12" wide centerlines and the rear was only 27" from hub to hub. The rear fenders on the metro come down so low that you cant let the tires stick out any without doing some major cutting on them. Same problem with the front.
Squirrel, I thought about that, but did not want all of the tires hanging out. I know the thing is narrow and I have not measured anything as of now. As far as building a frame, yes I do know that I have to do that. And as far as there not being enough room for a six, there will be when I get through with it. I want to build this thing on a budget, so unless I can find a narrowed rear for it at a good price, I'll either hang the tires out or find something that will fit close enough. Keep them coming guys.
you either going to have to narrow something or let em hang....me and my pops built one about 15 years ago...stuffed a 460 in it (if a BBF can fit a six can as well...)and narrowed a Dana 60....it went like this, pumpkin, brakes, rims with enough shoulder to mount the suspention....twas a wild ride it was....
Robert, were it me, I'd want a rear that different gears were readily available for. I'd hunt down a '75-'78 Mustang II 8" rear. All of the V8 'Stangs had these as did the V6 cars, IIRC. You still might have to narrow it a bit, but an 8" would defintely be tough enough for the Slant or more. Jan
I have one in the Mothballs here....It has a narrowed 9" which as stated above is under 30" to accept 15-50X29" tire.. the front suspension is so narrow that the inner A arm bushing on uppers will not allow a fan blad between them...somethin like 11" if I remember corectly.....that slant six will be about a foot behind the dash when you are mounted.......mine is 400SBC and the carb is directly under windshield......it is 45" wide outside of tires TOTAL and 85" wheelbase....too short for almost any dragrace venue I know of.... PLEASE do not lengthen it like pinocchio's nose either -that would ****.
One other thing that I thought of, was sticking the frontend out in front of the body and run a tube type front end. That should give me enough room to do what I want to. I hope that is not what you are talking about lengthing the nose? As far as the drag racing, I'm talking about running it around here locally and maybe one year to the HAMB drags.
I got a Jeep rear for my daughters Nash. It's only 1" wider than stock. Maybe try that? Might have to play the wheel offset game too, we haven't gotten that far on hers yet.
go for a V8...Rover produced the 215ci (Buick) all ally lump for years i't's not that much heavier than a pinto and will go in the Nash without extending the front
choprods comment re: frontend got me to thinkin... Why not g***er-ize it with a solid front axle? That would look damned cool, methinks...
what 'shapes sez. in my mind's eye, a narrowed rear, fat-tired Met would look an awful lot like a Pro Streeter...makes ya wanna pop in your Scorpions c***ette and bang yer mullet - if you get my drift. A hotrod Met should have full wheelhouses in the rear - and a cut-down front end to open 'er up. with a tube ch***is- you could *almost* fab it up as a tilt body... Just a thought. Amazing that both above version are g***ers - one is the **** and the other the snot. Proportions, man...it's all about proportions.
If you're on a budget, certain Jeep frames fit under these pretty well. Someone had one on CL a while back that had been built back in the day on a Jeep frame and driven as a 4x4 Met. Wheelwells cut out on both ends - it didn't look too bad, except it was kind of goofy sitting up high like a truck. Anyways, like someone said a Jeep rear might be the way to go. I've been underhood on these and I'd sure try a V8 before a Slant-6 - unless you want to sit in the middle with the last cylinder in your crotch, it's going to be a tight fit. I'd even try a Pontiac Tempest slant-4 before the six. That gold/copper colored car looks good, I like how it went from a cute, innocent girly looking car to looking like a tough hot rod.
Looks like Squirrel solved a lot of the problems I may have putting the slant in the car. If it does not fit, I'll remove the front end and build it like a FED with the slant out in front! I kinda like the way that one looks any how. The one Metalshapes posted is a killer car, but I do not think I have that kind of body work skills. Mine would end up looking like it was hacked up instead of killer looking.
Why not run a modern dual overhead cam motor (VTEC or quad-4 or even a nasty aircooled VW, yeah, it can be done) mated to a t-5 to a super-narrowed 9 inch. Suspend the front with narrow, tube axle and transverse torsion bars. 15" spacesaver spare wheels front and skinny 16" spacesavers out back. 135/75 radial tires on the front and tall, narrow radials on the back. Deep drawn Moon discs. All hunkered down with unmolested fender openings, big rake, lotsa Dzus tabs. Something like that.....
We're putting a Ford 2.3 OHC 4 in ours. The small block Chevy of the 4 cylinder world! Hers will be stock, but Esslinger has all the go fast stuff.
It is real easy to theorize a cars construction ,however in the real world of building such a car I can tell you,It is bound by the parameters of space that you have and space that you NEED..... That is a commodity that a Met does not have much of to offer. My car and I suspect any others [that do not set up in the rear high] would have a real difficulty removing the rear tires at all. My car is such that the entire rear body from door line to doorline is removable in one peice much like a tilt front end... this was necessary to preserve the cool looking rear wheel well shape... It also has the same problem in the front....[that is UNLESS the car sits so high all around that it looks funny]. In addition to looks my thoughts were in the vein of hi speed handling capabiltys being reduced by a high stance... I built a 500 plus HP BBC powered street driven-48 Anglia once and I can attest that it was capable of driving you-even breaking loose-spinning and fishtailing at speeds in excess of 90 MPH.....not very funny when you are at the wheel of such a short coupled creation...... AND...YES that is a coffin trailer!
i seen a metro like this the other day behind a fence had the cut wheel wells and straight axle front looked sweet
Why not stick a turbo 2.5 and a 5 speed in it. The 2.5 was put in the Dakota trucks so you can get a block with the right engine mounts. The 2.2 and 2.5 with a turbo are great little motors. Should mke more power than your 225 --weight 1/2 as much and with a 5 speed o/d get 30MPG. If you set the engine back(in the stock engine bay) you should be able to pull the front wheels.
I'm thinkin a rear axle from a golf cart. Some of them [industrial units] used a ford 9 inch, already narrowed. Also, a rotary Mazda is a little, short mo-fo and makes insane power. I know a guy who used one in his Crosley wagon with the Mazda 5 speed and it was scary fast! All the wheels fit under the car too....used a custom made dropped axle under it with a narrowed rear axle. I also ran across a guy who used an Olds quad 4 in his Hillman wagon with a shortened 89-up T-bird IRS under the back...narrowed straight axle up front with everything tucked under the fenders.
...........or you could go nuts like my brother did with his 86 inch Morris Minor, which is a Metro with different body skin. We whipped up a stepped, Z'd 2X4 inch ch***is, narrowed 8&3/4 from an Imperial and a complete Opel GT front suspension ***embly. It unbolts from the unibody subframe like a chevy pickup front crossmember with all the components attached. He used trailer springs under the back and dropped in a 406 smallblock with race-powerglide trans...runs low 10s and he drives it on the street too.
Way back in the dim past known as the Late 1970s there was a localized trend in Southern Oregon and Very Northern California that put Jeep CJ running gear under Metropolitans. I've got a photo of one somewhere. These were 4WD vehicles and used as such in the rural communities and on logging roads. This was before the Japanese began to sell 4WD pickups.
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