Tommy's A-series Misery - Tinkering

[Tommyboy12]

I did more Reliant fixing! It started well and ended with me throwing the adult equivalent of a tantrum and taking an angle grinder to everything...

Firstly the good. I fixed the door handle first. For some reason the car came to me with it on the passenger seat. Based on the fact there weren't any keys with it I wonder if someone removed it to get the barrel number off the back. I thought maybe it had been ripped out but the threads were fine.

The missing culprit

Stripped the door card off. From the factory it's held on with flathead screws, phillips heads and plastic push pins. Why three? Just pick one!

Handle fitted. Now I can lock the door!

I need to tackle this interior at some point. It absolutely honks. It's musty, grimey and dusty but it's very unworn. I've had Reliant's with three times this mileage on and it's very obvious when they do

I then tackled some frayed wires under the bonnet. I'm not sure what's happened to them but they were severely frayed and chewed up. A few were also completely split.

Some soldering and all sorted

Next up starter solenoid. I didn't know I needed to replace this but it had a loose spade connector which had come away from the solenoid. As it's a Mini part I happened to have a spare laying around

The replacement

All fitted along with a new coil which came with the car. I mounted the coil in a new spot as someone sheared the old bolt.

Next up the HT leads. The ones fitted to the car were stiff and looked ancient.

Number 1 HT was amusingly short

My new racing blue HT leads, which I also happened to have in stock. These will add at least 20hp I'm certain!

The plugs looked to be brand new and none of them were tight so I nipped them up too. The engine bay is ridiculously tight in these. I have to do the rear three plugs from the drivers footwell and the front plug from the bonnet. Depending on the specific head casting you may not be able to remove plug 2 without taking the dizzy out... Thankfully I got lucky.

I then fitted my new battery that I bought. I may have failed in my battery buying escapades though...

I'll buy some adapters.

Lastly I had a nightmare with the front shoes. I fitted them as below but I couldn't get the drum back on.

I thought I had done something wrong during fitting and fought to get the drum on for over an hour. I eventually found that the cylinders were failing to fully return which kept the shoes pressed out. I fought to press them back in but they were refusing to return so I got stroppy and cut the flexible line only to find it had internally collapsed and was acting as a one way valve... That set me off and I chopped the lot out! But at least now I'll be getting new cylinders and lines!

So now I have a pile of bits that I need to replace.

So that's where I'm at. I have to buy cylinders and Flexi lines and then make new hard lines before refitting everything.

[plasticvandan]

I had a collapsed hose on the front of a kitten,took me an age to work out what the problem was.you can get plugs with a smaller hex on which helps,I think they were fitted on later ones as standard,I had a special collection of plug sockets that would fit without having to move the dizzy.

[Zelandeth]

Classic rodent chewage damage to that wiring.  Worth having a nose around behind the dash to make sure they've not got on there too.  Last thing you want is to find out that the answer is yes when something catches fire when you're on a main road.

These really are cars which I keep being tempted by.

[somewhatfoolish]

Definitely rodent nibbling.

[Tommyboy12]

I will be looking behind the dash as the ignition warning lamp wire has also been damaged and I cant find the other end. Without that I believe this model of alternator will not charge.

[plasticvandan]

Also,in case you haven't,it goes without saying,replace all the fuel lines with ethanol safe hose,and don't have a filter in the engine bay either,and make sure you have an overflow pipe routed either to the original charcoal canister under the lh wing or to the ground away from the exhaust

[tooSavvy]

6 minutes ago, plasticvandan said:

Also,in case you haven't,it goes without saying,replace all the fuel lines with ethanol safe hose,and don't have a filter in the engine bay either,and make sure you have an overflow pipe routed either to the original charcoal canister under the lh wing or to the ground away from the exhaust

Why would a car without EFI/closed loop emissions have a Charcoal Canister?

🚙💨

[Tommyboy12]

I am not aware of any Reliant's having charcoal canisters but I am replacing with good quality E10-rated fuel hose. The old line literally shattered as I pulled it off. It had gone fully plastic.

[Tommyboy12]

Front brakes have now been fitted on the Reliant. Everything from the master cylinder onwards is new except the drum itself.

At some point I'll paint the front arm and back plate but for now it's fine. I entrusted gravity to bleed my brakes. It works pretty well one single lines I have found and I now have a solid brake pedal!

And my nice new tyre fitted along with a greased kingpin and front bearing.

I'm glad to be rid of these asbestos shoes...

Finally I looked at my handbrake. The cable had fallen off the wheel under the body. A quick fix by removing the cable at one drum and pulling the cable back on

Now I have a full compliment of brakes and a working handbrake!

I also greased my shafts nipples...

[plasticvandan]

Didn't mean charcoal canister, but there is/was a domed bowl under the passenger wing that overflowed fuel went into,and fumes drawn back into the breather t piece.

[Tommyboy12]

On 11/10/2024 at 17:45, plasticvandan said:

Didn't mean charcoal canister, but there is/was a domed bowl under the passenger wing that overflowed fuel went into,and fumes drawn back into the breather t piece.

I found it. Given it's position and the fact it's not really needed I won't be reinstating it. I'm just going to vent to atmosphere away from the exhaust

[Noel Tidybeard]

[Tommyboy12]

Busy few days on the Reliant. Firstly I tackled the fuel system on Friday. I knew the tank was half full of fuel so I expected it to be decent inside.

Firstly I dropped the tank. Only 3 bolts on a Reliant so pretty easy.

This doesn't bode well....

Managed to knock out the locking ring and was greeted with this...

The tank was only about half full and I presume after so many years it's just turned to basically water and just set about destroying the inside of the tank.

@sharley17194 may be able to provide me a spare tank so for now I'm going to leave the tank. Although I did clean up the sender unit. It was jammed full of fuel that had turned to treacle. Nothing a 5mm drill bit couldn't chew out. I wouldn't have bothered saving the sender but they're basically not available anymore and those that are are expensive. I measured the resistance and it still works so it may be useful at some point. The blue paint is to present rust eating through the pipe.

I decided to move on by removing the next rusty item!

Mmm crispy. Not sure it's going to do much in the way of silencing anymore. Plus the tail pipe section completely fell off.

[Tommyboy12]

It rained yesterday so I didn't manage to do a lot. I fitted new centre caps to the Porsche. They make a world of difference.

They're £150 for a genuine set. Or £7 off AliExpress. I'm sure you can guess which ones I went for 😅

I also drove a GT40 replica. A belated Christmas present from last year

[Tommyboy12]

Today I sunk into the Reliant some more doing crappy jobs around the car

First off I fitted the battery properly and did a lighting check.

Mostly there. I'm missing one indicator but it's not a blown bulb. It seems to be a duff connector somewhere but that's buried up in the corner of the body and no amount of wiggling of wires brought it to life. A job for another day.

One headlight bulb was weak. I thought it was bad wiring but after fiddling with it I decided to remove the bulb. Looks like it was a very tired bulb

Removing the front grille has further highlighted to me that perhaps* this Reliant has been in a small* accident...

I also fitted the dizzy vacuum and a fuel overflow drain and refitted the air filter housing after I cleaned it out... This debris is *after* the filter...

Finally I cleaned out my bunghole

This bung at the back of the block is to help cleaning out the silt and debris that collects at the back of the block.

After a good screwing I had a clean bunghole

That's where I'm at! I need a few more small parts to start to get close to dropping it back down on the ground and I need to figure out what I'm doing with the fuel tank 

 

[sharley17194]

On 28/09/2024 at 17:16, Tommyboy12 said:

https://youtube.com/@sharleysgarage

I actually helped out @sharley17194 on his channel and we ended up doing a bit of a series on our last pair of Reliants that we took round the Derby dales on a rude place name trip!

Dooo eeet!

You committed to a video on your current Robin BTW! I'm just working on my half

[Tommyboy12]

A bit more Reliant work today. Mostly finishing off wiring. I did also fit a new drivers mirror as the current one was smashed.

Sometimes it's useful to keep old wiring looms. Especially with British cars as the colours are pretty standard regardless of brand and model. This mess happens to be the old wiring loom from my turbo Mini. I replaced it a couple of years ago after I got fed up of dodgy connectors and corrosion in the plugs.

I used it to salvage a yellow/brown wire for the alternator warning light which was chewed through as well as an earth and live lead for my power inside. You can spot my new cable in the bottom right.

I then fitted a new pair of leads direct to battery because I'm being lazy. Also I am aware I have no wires my battery clamps in a 'conventional' manner. But it works! The live has a plastic cover which I fitted after.

Then I drilled into my non-cracked, non-damaged, and therefore exceptionally rare, dashboard that's worth a quarter of what I paid for the car because it's so clean. I did consider this fact and drilled tek screws into a non-visible spot should I remove it.

I also fitted my new headlight bulbs!

[Tommyboy12]

So I decided to tackle the Reliant's fuel tank. It's not pretty...

Decades of fuel deposits are sloshing their way round the tank and there's a rather large baffle in the middle of the tank which I cannot get to the other side of.

Firstly I pressure washed it. I know it'll introduce surface rust but I think that's the least of my issues with this much crud in it. I couldnt reach a lot but it knocked a fair bit loose round the filler and sender. Then I sloshed it round and got as much loose crap out as possible.

Ive since filled it full of white vinegar. Literally filled it. The tank is 27L and I squeezed 25L in.

Mmm tasty. You can see a bit of surface rust has already crept in but I'm not too concerned.

I've wrapped it in a bin liner and left it outside to think about itself for a week or two.

Meanwhile I am planning to do some Mini-related jobs this weekend. I have a leaking timing cover and clutch seal on my white Mini so I'll be disassembling slightly and rectifying. It'll disable the Mini while I do it so I need to make sure I have all the seals and gaskets I need before I start

[plasticvandan]

I had great success on old two stroke bike tanks using soda crystals,water and a battery charger to use electrolysis to remove the rust inside,worth a go?

[Tommyboy12]

I'm thinking something like that is the next step. It'll definitely need more than one pass of treatment 

[Matty]

Some have had success with tank liners (I mean they must have, folk still sell them). I tried one on a Lambretta I built for my dad 20 year ago. It was a notable fail and I ended up just buying a better tank 😄

[plasticvandan]

The ethanol proofness is in question on a lot of the slosh it about liners,years ago I had petseal break up in an Ariel tank and that was way before we had ethanol in. I was staggered to see how much new tanks and sender's are now though,the tanks were always high,for some reason made in Canada now,senders now £90 each when I used to buy them for £20 10 years ago

[Tommyboy12]

Same problem with the Reliant. Tanks Are £230 and sender's are £80. Id rather not spend that considering the tank isn't rusted through

[tooSavvy]

Nuts/pea gravel + some rotary contraption Shirley....

🚙💨

[2flags]

I have heard walnut shells are supposed to be good and also kinder to the metal. How true this is I have no idea.

[Tommyboy12]

7 hours ago, tooSavvy said:

Nuts/pea gravel + some rotary contraption Shirley....

🚙💨

That's on the list! I am in the process of arranging a cement mixer to borrow!

[Matty]

4 minutes ago, Tommyboy12 said:

That's on the list! I am in the process of arranging a cement mixer to borrow!

Much as I'm laughing there's almost no reason this wouldn't work.

[Zelandeth]

4 hours ago, 2flags said:

I have heard walnut shells are supposed to be good and also kinder to the metal. How true this is I have no idea.

I tend to think that if it's fragile enough not to stand up to being rolled with nuts and bolts in there's a bigger issue than it needing cleaned - and I'd rather find that out when cleaning the tank than when it's full of fuel.

[MorrisItalSLX]

I remember seeing Edd China clean a petrol tank with nuts and bolts on a cement mixer. I think it was on his YouTube channel.

[Tommyboy12]

It would not be the first time I've strapped a tank to a cement mixer and tumbled it. It works really well