A 1600GT Crossflow Engined Reliant Rebel... Now with MOT!

[HillmanImp]

This is great. I am really keen on one of these after seeing several on here but fear that I am too old and would look like a tit driving one. 

[coalnotdole]

Right hopefully a slightly better crossflow post this time, hopefully with some more reasonable photos which I took this morning during a break in the rain. Sorry there are no work in progress shots as the work over the weekend was all a bit rushed.

 

Following on from the last decent post the MOT shortlist was as follows:

 

Fibreglass repairs to floor,

Fibreglass repairs to sill / wheelarch,

Replace outriggers on passenger side,

Secure a battery and the wiring loom.

Fit a drivers door handle,

Fix a blowing exhaust downpipe,

 

Dave and I had a few days to spare last week and began by starting with the fiberglass repair work, the cracks to the floor were easily ground back and prepared from the inside, but the sill / passenger wheelarch repair quickly became a pain consuming lots of time... The damaged section was mainly reattached with filler at a slightly wonky angle. Picking at it soon made the whole section fall off. leaving a section from sill to wheelarch which needed to be repaired properly. Its this bit here if anyone's wondering what I'm on about:

 

 

With the badly repaired section missing it was much easier to repair the floor which had distorted out of aligment and was no longer flat. Rebel floors and Coupe floors seem to be very prone to distortion around the outriggers which can result in cracks or deformation to the fibreglass as the floor is stretched by the weight of bodyshell over the years. I can only imagine that accident damage makes this problem worse.

 

The decision was taken to prioritise the structural interior work and worry about the outside at a later date.

 

These photos show the completed repair work to the floor:

 

 

 

 

 

The outer sill-rear arch section was reattached, it was held in place with steel strips which will be removed when the outside repair work is completed, with an mot in mind the part completed outer repairs were covered in tape to prevent any sharp edges being a problem.

 

 

 

Dave fabricated some slimline passenger side outriggers which actually to allow the exhaust to clear, (sortof)

 

 

 

Rear outrigger / seatbelt mount

 

 

A standard outrigger on the drivers side:

 

 

The wiring loom was bound up in new tape, the fuse box was secured with cable ties...

 

 

 

There was also a bit of time spent improving the brake line security and bolting the servo down properly.

 

 

The battery was borrowed from the blue rebel and bolted down properly (i don't have a photo of that but I do have a picture of the old setup used during testing which is a good example of how not to secure a battery:

 

 

The pedals were also de-mateyed a previous owner had welded a steel section into the clutch to improve the mechanical advantage and lighten the clutch this had in turn made the pedals very skewed. His modification was removed and the clutch was returned to standard restoring it to pretty much its factory positioning:

 

 

The exhaust was bodged up to stop the blow, it was too thin to weld, hence this awful mess which has at least stopped the blow:

 

 

it will likely be replaced with a decent replacement downpipe in the near future.

 

At this point there will doubtless be someone wondering why I'm doing only doing the bare minimum to get this on the road rather than going for a red rebel / scimitar spec proper repair, the short version is I don't know if this rebel is one to keep yet and with that in mind I've not wanted to tie up too much time and money in it until I know what its like on the road...

 

Its first long distance run was on Tuesday when Dave took it to the local test station for an initial test where it duly failed on:

 

Headlights not working (though they worked before leaving home)

Handbrake balance,

brake lines insufficiently secured (even though these were unchanged from how reliant had done it)

Nylock nuts on ball joints only having 1 turn of thread showing!

A Trunnion bolt missing a nut!

 

It was a pretty short fail sheet which Dave took care of that afternoon while i rushed of to work. I took it back for a retest on Thursday and it passed ok,

 

The mot flagged up a few issues we'd not been aware of; most importantly the rear wheel bearings are well past their best and need replacing as a matter of priory.

 

So how did it drive?

 

Well not that well but with potential... The biggest issue seems to be the carb which is a twin choke weber 36dgmv it currently only seems to fuel to half throttle. It probably has a blocked secondary jet or a fault with an acceleration diaphragm which will hopefully be cured by a service kit. It also has a tendency to stall at junctions probably caused by an excessively rich idle mixture. It wants a decent overhaul which will hopefully cure the fueling issues, Even at half throttle it seems to take of rapidly enough to throw you back in your seat, lurching forward with unexpected eagerness. The regal rear wheels are hopelessly narrow to apply the power and it seems to wheel spin very easily with a back end very prone to step out... which is entertaining but not especially useful on the road. Mid term wider banded steel wheels should help in this respect. Through the corners the extra up front weight of the crossflow is noticeable though fitting an anti roll bar will probably go a long way towards bringing this under control. The current positioning of the engine is not as far back as it could be so that's something else that might be up for adjustment in the future.

 

The following photos show that there is further room to move the engine back...

 

 

 

Engine mount which has been modified to fit could be replaced with a standard item if the engine was mounted further back.

 

 

 

I'll end this post with a couple of overview photos taken this morning:

 

 

 

 

 

 

So next steps? sort out the tax category with the DVLA and fix the carb then we'll see how it develops from there

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[coalnotdole]

I've not written about any of the rebel projects for a while... In a way thats because there's not been much to tell, both the xflow and the Red Saloon were neglected when both Dave and myself got involved with the "spares boat" project last summer. Winter was dominated by the need to keep the GTE on the road with a much needed gearbox overhaul and all of a sudden 2015 had come round and It had been months since the crossflow Rebel had been touched.

 

After its MOT last may the crossflow Rebel was parked up in one of my lockup garages and more or less completely ignored, the time and money being spent elsewhere. I considered selling it at the end of last year as I was concerned I was never going to get the time to put into it that it really needs. Recently I've been very torn between the need to thin out the amount of projects and the actual reality of getting rid of any of them! Part of me really dislikes the idea of not completing my vision for where I see a project going, this fear of unfulfilled potential is for the moment enough to keep me clinging on to this heap of shit.

 

With that in mind last month I actually got round to doing some work on it. The carb was rebuilt and refitted... and after months sat idle in the garage we finally found a day to spend driving testing and evaluating.  the brakes needed bleeding and the battery needed a jump start but other than that it sparked back to life fairly happily. A Bosch distributor was tried and removed again when it turned out the advance curve was completely wrong, an anti-rollbar was fitted and the timing was adjusted.

 

I took hardly any photos but did shot some video of it, its a bit long but if your bored you can watch it on youtube here:

 

 

Few Random photos:

 

 

 

 

After the test drives it pretty obvious it urgently needs the following things looking at next:

 

Its under-fueling quite a bit, to the point where it runs much better with the choke half on, possibly Carb jetting is wrong or possibly lack of a proper air filter is causing it to run lean.

Clutch slips under load, I've bought a new pressure plate to go on and will look round for a decent quality friction plate to go with it.

Rear wheel bearings want replacing or axle wants swapping.

The engine needs moving back as far as it can go, Ideally we'll do this when the clutch is done, The gearbox will need some revision to do this as will the passenger footwell,

 

Paint and cosmetics can come later, at the moment I'm only really interested in getting it running / driving well.

 

Comments thoughts & suggestions welcome...

[greengartside]

Awesome work so far chaps! Strangely the Maestro steelie on the front suits the van quite well, a nice nod to British car manufacturing too.

[Jim Bell]

Thats tremendous.  Don't paint it.

[coalnotdole]

Thats tremendous.  Don't paint it.

Sorry I'm definitely going to paint it! But not until it's bad a new front end made.

[Joey spud]

What a wicked little Rebel.

Reading this has re ignited my Reliant mojo so much so that i am going to have a good play with Dirty Harry my slumbering SE5 tomorrow.

[rainagain]

Love it!

[coalnotdole]

Holy Shit Batman: A Crossfolow update!

 

Well a small one anyway. After the last session of testing evaluation the crossflow was again parked in the lockup. With a busy summer ahead I couldnt find time or space to sort the carburation / clutch problems out and in reality both jobs would be better combined with the removal of the engine to allow for it to be moved back / lowererd.

 

In the meantime when the last MOT Ran out I stuck it on sorn and forgot about it. But earlier this week provoked by an impending storage problem I wanted to get it roadworthy again so It could at least be parked on the street for a while.

So after neglecting it for 6 months I went down the lockup and and dug it out. Even after a few months it was part buried under a huge pile of spare parts / car boot tat and autojumble junk. Once I'd moved all the shit off it I was ready to get the engine going again... To my suprise it started quite easily the scrapyard battery was assisted by a booster pack and after a few turns it roared to life. A quick drive round the block revealed that all the lights, wipers etc were all still ok. Some fresh black tape was appied to cover over some of the rough edges and it was booked in for another ticket.

 

While it is probably one the worst looking heaps around Its had work done to all the essentals; brakes, suspension, electrics etc. I took it to a different test center than last time but once again the tester recoiled in horror, asking not unreasonably: "Why have you bought that in for a test at 5, on a friday..."

 

I had concerns over some details such as the handbrake and the rear axle but they turned out to be unfounded. The brake test showed that the brakes were actually spot on and even the handbrake was up to standard. It passed with just the one adviasory for a blowing exhaust. which got quite a bit worse on the trip home. It runs like a sack of shit at the moment there is a desperate need for better carburation and a decent clutch.

 

The long term current plan is to Dry sump it, lower the engine and move it as far back as the engine bay will allow. It will be run on twin weber 40's and get some modest engine improvements. It will then either recive a reshell or a new, custom made front end. At that point it can be primed and an interior fitted out, theres a set of period bucket seats and race harnesses to go inside!

 

The medium term Plan is to park it in the street to fuck of my curtain-twitching neighbours.

 

Heres a photo of the interior as it was on Test day:

 

[Avocet]

Oi!!!  That's MY car!!!!

 

I can't believe this!  I was just telling my daughter, who has recently passed her test, about the old car I used to have (in fact the one I took my test in!) and (perhaps unsurprisingly) she didn't know what a Reliant Rebel was.  I quickly Googled-up some images of Rebels for her, and noticed one of a Rebel with a (somewhat home-made) flip front on it.  Further inspection revealed a Crossflow and I thought...  "there can't be TWO of those"!  A quick click on the image took me to this site where I have enjoyed immensely reading your rebuild account!

 

I have to say, I thought it had been scrapped years ago, so I was delighted to see it had been saved from the grave!  That car has quite a few tales to tell....

 

Keep up the good work!

[djimbob]

Just immense, these old Reliants get me unreasonably excited

[Avocet]

I think they were better cars than anyone gave them credit for - a sort of rear wheel drive Mini that didn't rust!  It's a pity they were so expensive to produce though.  I think that's a big part of what killed Reliant in the end.

[Avocet]

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!

 

[nacho man]

What a great story.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[oldcars]

Great story, loved reading it.

[Jon]

Fantastic back story, I'm sure any of us on here would love to know more about all our old cars, though you have the bonus of having modified it in the first place and your family also having allowed it to survive another (almost) 40 years, which is phenomenal. Top stuff Avocet and here's hoping you stay on here and contribute some more content around the place!

[vulgalour]

Random encounters with previous owners make threads on here very exciting especially when there's such a wealth of information offered up like that.  An excellent new addition to this little car's online story.

[Pete-M]

There was a red Rebel estate with a crossflow around Liverpool for years. Belonged to the Reliant bloke on Edge Lane.

 

Went bloody well.

[Avocet]

There was a red Rebel estate with a crossflow around Liverpool for years. Belonged to the Reliant bloke on Edge Lane.

 

Went bloody well.

 

Blimey!  This one spent most of its life in Liverpool!  (but it was white).  I never thought there would have been two of them!

[Avocet]

My sister has just reminded me that her husband (who was in the RAF at the time) once borrowed it for a couple of weeks when he was posted to RAF Marham.  As most on here will imagine, his arrival was greeted with hoots of derision from his colleagues!  They quickly called it "the fridge" because it was tall, narrow and white.  In fact, some wag even stuck a big "LEC" label on each side!

 

There was, however, also a queue of Tornado pilots wanting to take it on an unofficial lap of the perimeter rond the airfield!

 

I can't get this image of Tom Cruise racing an F14 (F16?) down the runway on his Kawasaki Ninja (pretty cool bike back then) in Top Gun....

 

 

My brother-in-law.... tatty white Rebel...  Tornado....

 

 

..yeah, I think I can feel an new British film coming on...!

[Anglevan]

great story and addition to the history of the little motor - thanks for sharing

[fordperv]

Avocet what a fantastic story thanks for sharing it, i would be on top of the world if I found one of my old cars that I loved.

 

I've just read the story of it to mrs fp showing her the pictures and she hasn't stopped awwing

[coalnotdole]

I've just seen you post Avocet!

 

Thanks for getting in touch and taking the time to write up such an great post. Its brilliant to learn more about this cars past, particularly as I knew very little about its history.

 

I bought it as one of two rebels from a haulage yard in Staffordshire a couple of years ago (the other was a blue estate) 

 

As far as I knew there were two owners before me so I'm guessing there is someone else out there who had a hand in some of the more recent modifications and possibly the damage down the side.

 

One thing thats been really clear when working on it that someone had clearly lavished considerable time and attention on it, it had fallen on hard times when I got it but beneath the neglect you could still see the enthusiasm that had gone in to it

 

I've not done any further work to it since my last post. but it is doing an admirable job of annoying my nieghbours who foolishly complained about having to look at (or rather listen to) Scimitar GT.

 

Feel free to PM, me if you want to get in touch to discuss it further.

 

Thanks again.

 

Joe

[Avocet]

Fantastic Joe!  Just sent you a PM.  Do, please, keep posting as and when you do a bit more on it!  I shall drop in regularly to see how it's getting on!

[DSdriver]

 

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...

Thanks for the tip, I'll try and remember. 

[coalnotdole]

What should you do on a spare sunday afternoon....? Well fitting the most festering vehicle I own with twin weber 40's seemed like a good idea at the time...
 
Sorry no work in progress photos but I can offer a couple of photos showing the end result and a rubbish video....
 

 

 

 

Its now been tucked away safely in the garage until I can get the bits together to sort out the clutch and the blowing exhaust... Hopefully this summer.

[garethj]

Epic video!

 

It's not exactly a refined drive, is it?  But nice to see the passenger going for the imaginary brake pedal and I like to think the revs rising wasn't the clutch but actually the back wheels spinning up, so good for keeping your foot in.

 

Get a shroud put on that fan, it will help the cooling no end.

[RayMK]

Well done!  I like the exhaust note.  Reliant suspension even when standard is not very yielding.  Always have to be ready to re-close the doors if caught out by a rough level crossing.

[jonny69]

Yep, that sounds like a crossflow with Webers!

[vulgalour]

The constant reminder to brake adds a pleasant dimension of mild terror to the experience there.  Sounds great, imagine it'll go great too when the clutch is taught to behave properly.