Waderider

OK, so, a bit more about that car if anyone is interested?
 
As has been said, it was originally a van.  One of three, in fact, bought by a company but only used for a couple of years and scrapped.  My dad and a couple of colleagues (who worked at a Reliant dealership at the time) got wind of them and bought them.  My dad got there last, so he got the roughest one (ORJ179M) whose engine was in the back in several cardboard boxes...
 
It was bought as a runabout for my mum, to replace an ageing Citroen DS (out of which, the bottom had pretty much dropped due to rust).  Naturally, if you're replacing a DS, a Rebel is the obvious choice...
 
This would have been in the late 1970s, maybe 1977 or 78?  Using his Reliant connections, he secured a back seat and some side windows, turning it into an estate car.  It served us well for a few years in that guise.  By 1982, I was learning to drive in it.  By 1983, I was desperate for more power, so we found an 850cc Reliant engine and fitted that...
 
Around about that time, I also decided (like most spotty-faced yoofs) that it needed a more powerful radio  (which probably wiped-out the extra output from the larger engine)!  That's where those two huge holes in the inner side panels behind the front seats came from - loudspeakers.  Here comes the first confession...
 
...when cutting the holes for them, I was surprised to find a substantial lump of steel laid into the fibreglass.  It was some years later, as an engineering student, that I realised they were reinforcements for the top seat belt anchorages!  Unfortunately, that means the belt anchorages are unlikely to work effectively in a crash now!  Also around that time...
 
...the wiring modifications started...  (yeah, it;s a fair cop...it was me)!  However, I vehemently deny using red wire for an earth - I only ever had GREEN wire (...which I used for everything because I was too poor to afford lots of lovely colours)!!  Any green wire that wasn't put there by Reliant... was probably down to me.
 
Flushed with the success of the stereo installation, I went on to provide it with some spot lights and reversing lights too.  Can't remember what the third horizontal rocker switch at the bottom of the dash was for!  The pinnacle of my electrical achievements was the installation of a rev counter from a scrap (Renault, I think), because when you're serious about performance, you've GOT to have  a rev counter, right?  That, in turn, necessitated the finding of alternative homes for the fuel and temperature gauges, hence the odd cut-outs in the dash.  The red door trims and dash top were also my "craftsmanship"  (I never sought to make my living as an automotive trimmer thereafter, but to be fair, they DID look rather smarter when I first did them)!
 
I also dabbled with a pair of twin SU carburettors and home-made manifold and then with a twin choke Weber, neither of which seemed to liberate the few hundred horses I had hoped for.
 
Here it is "driftin" on Ainsdale beach with all that extra power in the early 1980s:

 
The story should have ended there, because one day, whilst minding my own business, a chap in a Cortina managed to drive into me (quite hard) and bent the chassis.  (Right hand front corner).  Ordinarily, this would have resulted in it being written-off, but as luck would have it, this driver was uninsured and was remarkably willing to donate a fair chunk of money towards the repairs in exchange for minimal fuss...  Again, my dad's Reliant contacts came in handy and they actually brought a fabricator out of retirement (the only one who could remember where all the jigs were!) at the factory to build a new Rebel chassis from scratch - which they then kindly galvanised. That's the chassis that is under it today.  It's probably the only Rebel chassis that was ever galvanised.  The bodywork was (less expertly) patched up, so the nose always was a bit crooked after that.
 
In the summer of 1983, I finished my A levels and along with two mates from school, we took it on a 4500 mile road trip around France and Spain.  (Why go Interrailing when you can travel in style eh)?!
 
In 1984, I went away to study.  I did use the Rebel for a few terms though.  Not a bad student car, in fact, and pretty darned exclusive, if I may say so?!  Here it is near Hatfield in Hertfordshire:

 
And Honister in Cumbria:
 

 
After a while, my mum still needed a runabout, and I was briefly seduced by a Bond Bug, so it went back home for a few years.  During this time, my dad was looking for a cheap runabout to carry his tools in, and purely by chance, saw an add in the Autotrader for a Rebel estate for not much money.  When we went round to look at it (in Manchester) we simply HAD to buy it - you'll see why:
 

 

 

 
"Rebeltastic" or what?!  That was actually one of the three vans that were scrapped at the same time!  (And yes, we used to call it "Orji" too)!
 
Now at some point round about 1988, the diff broke.  Rebel diffs were hard to come by and my dad no longer had any dealings with Reliant.  Three wheeler diffs were plentiful, but MUCH taller ratios, of course.  We tried one, but the extra weight of a Rebel (and my dad used to tow a trailer) made starting off (particularly on a hill) pretty difficult and the clutches never lasted long,  By this time, I had pretty much got Rebels out of my system, but it struck me that we either needed to find it a rear axle with a lower ratio, OR give it more torque.  The latter seemed the more appealing route, so that's where the Crossflow idea came from.   The front end was even more egshell-like by this time, as my sister had used the car in London for a while too.  The flip front was remarkably easy to do (with a chainsaw!) and the aesthetics were scarcely affected.  I did, however, learn that the body contributed more stiffness than I had given it credit for!
 

 

 
There are three reasons the engine is where it is at present.  Firstly, there was no way my mum was going to do without a heater!  Secondly, you'll see the gear lever was about to get into a fight with the handbrake if it went any further back.  The third reason was probably the most important one though.  Even with the 850 engine in it, there was a small fatigue crack starting at the bottom of one of the front suspension towers.  It was just along the side of one of the welds.  I hoped that by putting the weight of the engine mounts on to those towers, I'd reduce their tendency to bend inwards over bumps. Certainly, the crack didn't get any bigger over the next few years.
 
Lastly, being Triumph Herald front suspension, I managed to find some Vitesse front discs and calipers (because it really was pretty lethal with the 1.6 engine and the original drums on the front)!  The remote servo was from a black cab, I think, but never really worked that well.
 
After that, I sort of left home and left the Rebel behind.  My parents continued to use it for another decade or so, by which time, it was pretty tatty.  My dad sold it for spares and we really thought  it had been scrapped, so I was astounded (and delighted!) to stumble across it on here and find that Coalnotdole has given it a new lease of life!  I know nothing of the left hand accident damage mentioned in this thread though.  It looks like (rather than being scrapped) it spent a few more years on the road in "less-than-sympatheic" hands!  When the engine is running properly, it doesn't have THAT much power, but has enough torque to break traction relatively easily in the wet, so it could be that someone went sideways into a low post with it.  Other than that, the car is pretty much as I remember it!  We were very attached to it really.  It cost very little, served several members of the same family for a quarter of a century or so, taught three kids to drive, and generally had to put up with far more than could ever have reasonably been expected of it!
 
Good luck with the rebuild!
 

This is good!

Hey Midnite, if you join a car forum and the subject cars aren't to your liking, then maybe you joined the wrong forum.

Battery it is, what a numpty!
 
Thinking about it, last and perhaps only time I had a flat battery was a Mini 1000 with a carb and points. Never really considered how a 'modern' car would act with a flat battery. Thanks for the responses

Battery it is, what a numpty!
 
Thinking about it, last and perhaps only time I had a flat battery was a Mini 1000 with a carb and points. Never really considered how a 'modern' car would act with a flat battery. Thanks for the responses

Battery it is, what a numpty!
 
Thinking about it, last and perhaps only time I had a flat battery was a Mini 1000 with a carb and points. Never really considered how a 'modern' car would act with a flat battery. Thanks for the responses

Battery it is, what a numpty!
 
Thinking about it, last and perhaps only time I had a flat battery was a Mini 1000 with a carb and points. Never really considered how a 'modern' car would act with a flat battery. Thanks for the responses

Battery it is, what a numpty!
 
Thinking about it, last and perhaps only time I had a flat battery was a Mini 1000 with a carb and points. Never really considered how a 'modern' car would act with a flat battery. Thanks for the responses

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Volvo-740-SE-/111914197704

These things massively chaff my piss-tube. In fact I will go as far as saying the organisers can FROAD.
 
225 quid for two people plus 45 per passenger. Thats just for the fucking ENTRY!  It doesnt include ferry tickets, fuel, accomodation or any kind of backup or support......for your entry fee you get absolutely fuck all apart from a route map with some "wacky" challenges and a single meal on the last night.
All you achieve by entering this pish is helping to make the organisers several thousand pounds richer. 50 teams? thats nigh on twelve grand!
 
Yes people raise money for charity through sponsorship, but if it was REALLY about the charity the guy sitting at home getting paid 12k to draw a route with google maps would do that for nothing and the entry fee would go to a good cause instead of his bank account.

I've had mine for seven years now, very happy. Proof that buying a used car and running it into the ground is the cheapest way to motor!

My dad hand painted our Renault 12 in 1988 from Brown to blue. Only did it because the brown was oxidising and he'd basically t-cut the thing down to its last layer of paint.
 
He used stuff called Cannons repaint as I recall (could have been the same as Parsons stuff the honourable Mr Triple mentioned earlier) and again it looked OK. Not a spray finish by any means but acceptable. It would have been better if he had Farecla'd out the few brush marks but he never bothered with polishing it.
 
If I had a horrible old shitter I would consider doing it but might use a roller instead Vulgalour stylee. Certainly much cheaper than a respray
 
Something that made me grin - on Thursday I was walking to my car in a Canary Wharf car park. The place was fairly deserted and as I walked back towards my car a Clio suddenly reversed out of a space making me hop out of the way. He stopped and hopped out, looked at me and gave me some verbal, I gave him a little back along the lines of "your car is quiet and your reversing lights weren't on, I had no idea you were coming out, etc". Anyway matey thought that my walking past his car was a major slur on his character or sexual prowess so gave me some more verbal and hopped back in his car.
 
As I walked away I heard the scream of a 1200 Renault engine at 5000 rpm, a squeal as traction was lost twixt Tarmac and Ditchfinder, and I turned around to see this Clio rocket backwards and slam into a concrete post!
 
Guy sat there hammering the steering wheel and shouting at himself, the world, and me. I turned away as he revved the bollocks off this little thing and screamed out of the car park.
 
Best bit - when I got to the exit he was in one of the lanes screaming and shouting at the machine because it wouldn't let him out. I calmly inserted my token, my barrier opened, I turned to him and nodded as if to say "alright mate?" And drove off. I had to laugh, someone obviously had a bad day and anger issues but it seemed the world was really turning on this guy and he really wasn't dealing with it very well!
 
And that children is what Karma does when you call an innocent passer by a "total f***ing retard c**t" for daring to walk through a car park to their car.

I've had mine for seven years now, very happy. Proof that buying a used car and running it into the ground is the cheapest way to motor!

My 2003 Volvo V40 is still rolling with minimum maintenance. Everything still works. Noticed a rust bubble the other day though. Gutted - maybe time for a rebuild/restoration.

Torridon to Diabeg is the maddest road in Scotland.
 
Bealach na Ba is good in a car, but better on a bicycle
 
I like the A830 also, because I drive it all the time. It even has a shite song about it!
 
"
He was driving up to Mallaig Glenfinnan by Lochshiel
Heading for Lochailort content behind the wheel
The road was getting narrower the sign said slow
It’s the Highland daily dodgems it’s the 830
There is a natural assumption that A roads are wide
Enough to take a car and one the other side
Tourist information will never ever tell
It’s like driving through heaven on the road made for hell
For it’s a single track you can’t turn back
the stories are all the same
Of tourists leaving Corpach and never seen again
Don’t go on the 830
There’s a joke in the Highlands
it’s called a passing place
Where French stay for chips and Italians stay for days
When lorries lose control you’ve one last wish
Don’t let me die under twenty tons of fish
For it’s a single track you can’t turn back
a nightmare without end
It’s eyes ahead for Nigel Mansell’s
waiting round the bend
Don’t go on the 830
Whoever called this road a road is telling little lies
The 830’s a sheep track in very thin disguise
Italian caravanettes driving on the right
Meeting Wallace Arnold coaches in the middle of the night
Of the man who’s stopping progress
a theory’s gone around
That he owns the biggest breaker’s yard
this side of Mallaig town
You can see him in the gloaming
towing wrecks from where they lie
And he turns them into girders
for the bridge across to Skye
For it’s a single track he’s in Mallaig
and now he feels no pain
He’s dumped his car he’s in the bar
he’s steaming back by train
on a single track you can’t turn back the morals very plain
It’s grand to visit Mallaig but it’s safer by McBrayne’s
Don’t go on the 830"

Torridon to Diabeg is the maddest road in Scotland.
 
Bealach na Ba is good in a car, but better on a bicycle
 
I like the A830 also, because I drive it all the time. It even has a shite song about it!
 
"
He was driving up to Mallaig Glenfinnan by Lochshiel
Heading for Lochailort content behind the wheel
The road was getting narrower the sign said slow
It’s the Highland daily dodgems it’s the 830
There is a natural assumption that A roads are wide
Enough to take a car and one the other side
Tourist information will never ever tell
It’s like driving through heaven on the road made for hell
For it’s a single track you can’t turn back
the stories are all the same
Of tourists leaving Corpach and never seen again
Don’t go on the 830
There’s a joke in the Highlands
it’s called a passing place
Where French stay for chips and Italians stay for days
When lorries lose control you’ve one last wish
Don’t let me die under twenty tons of fish
For it’s a single track you can’t turn back
a nightmare without end
It’s eyes ahead for Nigel Mansell’s
waiting round the bend
Don’t go on the 830
Whoever called this road a road is telling little lies
The 830’s a sheep track in very thin disguise
Italian caravanettes driving on the right
Meeting Wallace Arnold coaches in the middle of the night
Of the man who’s stopping progress
a theory’s gone around
That he owns the biggest breaker’s yard
this side of Mallaig town
You can see him in the gloaming
towing wrecks from where they lie
And he turns them into girders
for the bridge across to Skye
For it’s a single track he’s in Mallaig
and now he feels no pain
He’s dumped his car he’s in the bar
he’s steaming back by train
on a single track you can’t turn back the morals very plain
It’s grand to visit Mallaig but it’s safer by McBrayne’s
Don’t go on the 830"

When i sold my CL500 I was looking for a MK2 16v Astra GTE so it's no real surprise I ended up with a tax exempt Rover P6.
The car doesn't run due to the previous owner starting to put a TVR motor in it. This involved partially dismantling the engine and selling the bumpers on ebay. As a result it doesn't run and it doesn't have any bumpers.

As can be seen here.



I knew it needed the inlet manifold refitted so ordered a new manifold gasket and seals from rim end bros. Well when I say seals I thought I was ordering 2 as there's a 2 next to the box.



This actually means you need two. I obviously wasn't atune to rimmers fucking hopeless ordering system so I'm now down one seal, which means I can't refit the manifold.

To add insult injury I took a guess on the temp sensor, which has been mullered in the removal of the manifold and it was obviously the wrong one.




You can see the hole at the front of the manifold this is meant to go into. no worries I'll just go onto rim-a-ding bros and get one.



Or not.

I also bought an SD1 haynes manual as I couldn't find a p6 one in a price range I wanted to pay (4 quid). The removal and refitting of said inlet manifold stretches to about 8 lines. Useful.

Plans?
Ovbiously no1 is to get it running. I recon I might need to just blank off that temp sensor until I can find the right bit.

Order a number plate as it it seems the front plate must have been sold with the bumper for some reason..

Get bumpers. I'm hoping oman5 is going to help here he recons he's got a front and rear in his stash. The rear may be a little bit bashed up then I can replace them later if need be.

Drive around using lots of petrol.

Sort the rear doors. The frames look okay so I'm going to see if I can get skins for them and probably pay someone to fit them.

The v5 and mot where supposed to be in the car but are not. I spoke to the seller who said, it's okay I've sent them off. I never gave him my address and the only address he could have is the one I gave for delivery, which just the house closest to my lockup I got off google maps! . Luckily he hadn't actually posted it yet so much embarrassed door knocking, shitey explanations about how my budgie typed an address into the computer and staring at feet has been avoided.

I lurk like a pro! I just enjoy reading. I refuse to countenance the madness of multiple cars, and one 2003 Volvo isn't very interesting.

Might have been drinking last night and came across some nonsense on the 'net that is borderline worth posting here. Hope these haven't been posted before!
 

 

 
 

I've had this for the last six years. Very relaxing to drive partly because it is a 1.6 so you kind of need to dawdle everywhere. Never let me down but brakes have needed ££ thrown at them. Car is mint except some stupid bint put a parking dent into one of the doors. As a run out model comes with all the bits and pieces. My favourite is the fully fitted rubber mats, for some weird reason........
 
Also got a C30 but that is too new for here.

I've had this for the last six years. Very relaxing to drive partly because it is a 1.6 so you kind of need to dawdle everywhere. Never let me down but brakes have needed ££ thrown at them. Car is mint except some stupid bint put a parking dent into one of the doors. As a run out model comes with all the bits and pieces. My favourite is the fully fitted rubber mats, for some weird reason........
 
Also got a C30 but that is too new for here.

I lurk like a pro! I just enjoy reading. I refuse to countenance the madness of multiple cars, and one 2003 Volvo isn't very interesting.

Well, I use SKF in 'my' day job hydro electric power generation turbine and generators, so if they are good enough for that, they are good enough for anything (think water and neglect).
 
Plus, as a fellow Volvo driver I can tell you Volvo parts are overpriced, and that Volvos are lovely

Just found this gem on the web, episode one is basically a shite recovery mission. I don't get excited by American cars but it is pretty good quality.

Just found this gem on the web, episode one is basically a shite recovery mission. I don't get excited by American cars but it is pretty good quality.