New Car Day (definitely) - Kitten Reliant

[Spiny Norman]

Looks ace, I always liked these, great colour too! 😛
I remember at school our headmaster had one just like that (or possibly the estate version) and since some of the teachers had things like a Lancia Beta Coupe, a Puggy 504GL estate and an old S1 XJ6 he took a bit of a ribbing for it. 

 

[wesacosa]

It definitely looks better in the dark 😅

still its 49 year old gel coat so it could be a lot worse 

apparently it had a replacement engine from a later Robin in 2007 but there are bills for an crank regrind, rings, head skim and bearings from 2008

Replacement second hand gearbox in 2023 too

loads of work done over the last few years 

hoping for a maiden drive tomorrow 

[HMC]

My housemate in Leeds had one in 2001 in a similar colour with Leopardskin seat covers.

[wesacosa]

4 minutes ago, HMC said:

My housemate in Leeds had one in 2001 in a similar colour with Leopardskin seat covers.

I think the leopard covers might be departing the scene pretty soon

I was at uni in Leeds in 2001 too!

[wesacosa]

as seen in the flower farm meetup thread the Kitten Reliant (sic) had it's first run out over the weekend.  I was working then out on Friday so Saturday I gave it a bit of a once over, fixed the non working wipers which turned out to be a very furry switch seen here part way through cleaning 

I also detected a faint smell of petrol around the fuel pump area. I wasn't sure if the top of the pump was weeping or it it was the pretty old looking inlet pipe. It was too late to do anything about the pump so I just cleaned it and nipped up the top fixing bolt and then replaced the pipe.  It took a bit longer than I'd hoped due to needing to drain the tank so I had more time to get the new rubber hose on the thin plastic fuel hose without fuel pissing at me. Seems to have sorted the fuel smell now but I think there's possibly a very tiny weep from the pump which I'll look to address 

By now it was getting late but had my first run around the local area on Saturday night. Its pretty hilarious to drive around town.  Loud, small, snicky gear change, revvy engine. Nothing broke or fell off so I called it good to go for Sunday morning.  Did notice once warm the engine is a bit tappy/rattly.  They do suffer from chain tensioner issues so hoping that's the rattle and they can also be a bit tappy, I'll check the valve clearances and inspect the tappets which can wear and get noisy 

Usual nervousness about taking a new car on a motorway followed Saturday night/Sunday morning but off we went around a 45 min motorway drive to the meet up.  Its not so hilarious to drive on the motorway. Its got a motorcycle silencer on it which doesn't do much silencing but we sat at 55 and cruised down there without incident 

spent a lovely few hours on a sunny Sunday morning with a great bunch of shiters and some nice cars then cruised home without incident 

Some issues did present themselves though. Bit of a pool of oil under diff and gearbox on the drive.  Front was up on jacks on Saturday though which may have made it look worse. I'll clean it off and investigate how bad leaks are. There didn't seem to be huge oil patches on the sellers drive