I bought the car in March earlier this year (2002) as a trade sale from a local car centre. I bought the 1.4Si as a replacement for my first project Metro, 1.1S that was written-off in January (See Gallery). When I bought the car it was in fairly tidy and original except for the wrong wheel trims. The 1.4Si had 185/55/R13 tyres and 5.5J steel rims as standard, along with GTa wheel trims. My car was fitted with the 5.5J steel rims but the wheel trims are as fitted to 1.1Quests, Cs and Ls. Whether they were fitted from new I am unsure of. The 1.4Si was introduced in early 1993 and replaced the 1.4 GTa, the specification was much the same too but the insurance group was lower, group 6 instead of group 7. On top of the standard GTa specification, the Si had remote central locking and alarm, red seat belts and half colour-coded bumpers. The rest of the specification is as follows:

• 1.4 K-Series,
• 76 BHP,
• Single Point Injection,
• Front anti-roll bar,
• Sports interior,
• Sunroof,
• Rear Tailgate Spoiler,
• 4 Speaker Cassette / RDS Radio.

With the rebuild I want to turn the specification of the 1.4Si into the specification of a 1993/1994 GTi Mpi (Except for the 16Valve head at the moment). This will hopefully include:

The car was bought as a project car and at the time of buying the car we knew that the car needed two new rear wheel arches and repairs to the inner and outer rear valance. We gave the floor-pan a good looking over with a screwdriver but were still unsure as to how much rot was covered by stone protection.

It wasnt until the carpets and interior were removed (see the photos above) that the full extent of the corrosion was revealed. The front corners at the jacking-points were very weak which continued up the inner sills up to the rear corners of the floor plan. The only repair for this was to cut away the rotten areas and replace it by welding in new metal. After the plates hade been welded in, the welds were cleaned off and all the metal was coated with a zinc based primer. To ensure that the repair was completely waterproof the welded edges have been seem sealed. At the same time the bottom edge of the sill was repaired as this also showed signs of corrosion.