Electric conversion: Project ForkenSwiift

[MetroMPG]

53.5? nice!

yeah, parking lots suck. i hosed down my car this weekend (first time since last fall) and also noticed a good sized scrape on the rear bumper that wasn't there before.

i'll go head over to your rusty thread now...

[MetroMPG]

my friend and i still haven't had a discussion about the rusty swift. i spent an hour poking around this afternoon, pulling the front carpet up, pulling loose rust off.

i can say this: good thing this car didn't have a stronger engine, or it would have pulled its own front end right off! okay, maybe not, but it's pretty bad.

at least now with the extent of the rust fully exposed, we can make a better informed decision.

[SVOboy]

I h8 rust, noooo! It's the biggest fear in my life right now,

[JanGeo]

I used to get under the car every Fall and spray the bare spots with undercoat - guess I should have hit the suspension area where it rotted out. The suspension arms were amazingly thin metal and needed a lot of coating to protect them.

After the first couple of days I had the xB I got in the garage and pulled each wheel off and sprayed every bare piece of metal in the wheel wells with undercoat - I can't believe they expect a bare brake line not to rust out in a few years when exposed to wheel well junk and spray from the roads. Oh yeah the owners manual expects me to power wash the underside weekly DUH!

[rh77]

Speaking of the engine breaking loose, a family member was driving her almost new '05 VW Jetta Automatic, stopped at a stop sign and BICKETY BAM! The engine blasted through the firewall on the passenger side. No joke. Luckily no-one was in the passenger seat or they would've had a broken foot/ankle/leg. The dealer towed it in, and was like, "Crap, another one". Turns out it was a faulty engine mount. I guess it's a common issue -- kinda scary.

RH77

[Matt Timion]

Originally Posted by MetroMPG

wow. i'd expect this car to do that, but a new one?

well, put on your funeral clothes people, because we've decided the little red swift just isn't worth the work. there's too much daylight shining through where it shouldn't be. we're going to scrap it.

i'll post a couple of pics now that i pulled the carpet up.

so the hunt is back on for another host vehicle. i have a feeling it's going to be tough to find another one for $75. well, another one that looks this shiny up top for $75.

it would be nice if we could find a swift, since i already registered "forkenswift.com" in hopes of documenting the process on a dedicated site and forkenswift has a nice ring to it.

What year is your swift again? From what I've read you can easily part that thing out for a few hundred dollars on ebay. If you have a 96+ each rear view mirror can go for around $50. If your gauge cluster has a tach, that's another $70ish. Each price is USD, of course.

[JanGeo]

Bet the gas shocks in the rear hatch are dead - I could use those. Never has a rear wiper for mine either.

[rh77]

Originally Posted by MetroMPG

well, put on your funeral clothes people, because we've decided the little red swift just isn't worth the work...we're going to scrap it.

I'm tearing-up man. That Swift was (sniffle) such an inspiration.

Good luck parting it out. I saw one the other day and got to thinking -- how would the Ford Festiva handle the swap (too bad we don't get the Ford "Ka" over here, although they do sell them in Mexico). If millions of people can sneak across the borders, a Ford Ka could make it.

RH77

[MetroMPG]

Originally Posted by rh77

I'm tearing-up man. That Swift was (sniffle) such an inspiration.

deja vue! (deja lu?)

how would the Ford Festiva handle the swap (too bad we don't get the Ford "Ka" over here

yeah, the festiva was another somewhat popular lightweight host car.

i'd do something more interesting if the opportunity arose. rust sucks! there are probably lots of cheap, dead, interesting, rust-free, lightweight cars to choose from in the southern US.

there's another metro sitting in someone's yard a couple of blocks away. i think it was retired recently from daily driver status to lawn ornament status. i'll go knock on their door tomorrow.

[Matt Timion]

Originally Posted by MetroMPG

there's another metro sitting in someone's yard a couple of blocks away. i think it was retired recently from daily driver status to lawn ornament status. i'll go knock on their door tomorrow.

Are you sure we don't live in the same neighborhood?