Members' Metros
Posted Dec 30, 2021
Read 8839 times

Josh's Rover 100... trailer!

What do you do with half a Metro? Josh Briody knew straight away... turn it into a matching trailer!

I wanted a donor car for Olivia (click here to read more) This was to get a spare auto box and wiring as I was having issues with mine. I was thinking about what to do with the shell. Convert it to a 1.8 manual? As you'll see below that wasn’t an option with what I found. So, a trailer was the best idea to save as much of the car as possible.

25th January 2020

I found an automatic donor on Facebook. I bought it blind as it was in Cornwall and I’m in West Yorkshire.
M199 SOA, June 1995 Rover 114SLi auto.

21st February 2020

I got A2Z Automotive Recovery to collect the car for me and deliver it. Once delivered I started to do some digging into M199 SOA. This found out some interesting details. She had been off of the road since 2004 we think and was involved in an accident that made it a total loss. The finding of salvage auction keyrings in the car had backed this up.

March 2020 – COVID Lockdown strikes

The shell was stripped out to inspect. With the view of repairing the shell if it could be saved. But this wasn’t to be as I found a few things that I was happy with.

The car had been involved in a collision at one point in the past. I found body jig clamp marks on the front sills. The driver’s side B post was bent, the bottom of the drivers' A-pillar was full of filler and with holes from a slide hammer.

This is when the shell got cut…it's scary when you realise it only takes a couple of minutes with a hack saw to cut the A-pillars and a few minutes with an angle grinder to cut the floor and roof. How safe are these cars again?!

April 2020

The front doors were cut up to leave just the door skins. These had the edges removed and welded together to make the front panel of the trailer.

Some metalwork on the shell was completed too. The B posts were boxed in to make them strong as the rear doors were quite weak. The front panel was now ready to be seam welded on. This is when the trailer started to look like a trailer and not just a pile of scrap metal. We are starting to get somewhere! Due to other commitments with work and the Covid situation, the trailer was put on the back burner for a good few months

August 2020

The start of August came round, and it was time to get back on the trailer. The upper front panel was tacked in place so I could cut the larger piece of sheet steel down to get it into a more manageable size.
By the end of August, the whole upper front panel was fully welded on and sealed.

March 2021

March was now upon us. We had the light at the end of the tunnel for the pandemic. It was time to push and get this trailer done. I know have a deadline, the Mini and Metro show at Gaydon.

At the start of March, I started to fabricate the A-frame. A piece of box section was welded to the middle of the subframe and protruded out the front of the tailer. This made moving it about easier. Around the middle of March, the lower portion of the front panel was now being fabricated and welded on. This meant the whole trailer now became fully 100% watertight. A big milestone.

April 2021

The second April in the build of this trailer was nowhere. I’ve been building this thing for over a year now. I got the swan neck fabricated by a professional company as I didn’t have the equipment to manufacture it myself. The rest of the A-frame was fabricated now the final part was sourced. The hitch and jockey wheel were fitted. After the wiring was connected, I took the trailer for a test drive on the back of my Rover 75. No issues or problems were found so all was good.

Mid-April 2021

The 100 (N883 VRA) passed her MOT after being off the road for a year with electrical issues. The trailer was connected up and off for a test drive. No issues with towing the trailer behind the 100 either. I did get a lot of funny looks off of passers-by.

Now we know all worked fine it was time to set about the typical Metro rust repair. Someone has been at the rear arches before me. They were full of filler, bad welding and rust. The rust and most of the bad welding were removed and so was the filler. New metal replaced it and a lot less filler.

End April 2021

Now we were coming to the end of April the whole trailer was complete again. This wouldn’t be for long as the strip down was in process ready for paint.

Filler applied and sanded, primer, filling primer, primer and finally a lovely layer of the finest colour that adorned a British car; British Racing Green.
That was left to go hard so the final assembly could take place.

May 2021

The interior was painted white, so it was not so dark inside. This was the start of the final assembly.
The rear lights went on followed by the door furniture and all the rear glass and spoiler.