1985 Reliant SS1: Zetec engine - page 6 video added

nice... I have a strange soft spot for these odd little beasties...

And to think, a lot of people insist that the MX-5 relaunched the small sports car!

Nice project. Should be plenty pokey! Later ones of these used the 1.4 K-Series engine. Imagine one with a VVC! Zetec should be rapid too mind.

More ....... lots more!

About a month ago I dropped the car off at the welders so that they could replace both sills & do any other repairs to the chassis as necessary.


Here's the car pre-stripdown ¡t doesn't look too bad does it?

Here's a shot of the passengers side sill after the door & both wings have been removed ¡t doesn't look too good does it?

Oh dear oh dear! Close up of the rear of the sill - showing rust in the sill section & also part way up the B post.

Sill partially stripped off the car ¡t's rusty along its entire length

Shows the rust in the B post more clearly - the reel for the seat belt mounts to this!!

Shot showing the front outrigger & jacking point on the passenger's side - they've started cutting the rot out in this pic. The two bolts at the top of the pic mount the body tub to the chassis.

The front outrigger again but this time with new metal welded in & the old jacking point removed.

Old vs new - here you can see the state the old jacking point was in! I jacked the car up on this many times without any problems, I'm glad that I never used the jack alone & always added an axle stand under the front outrigger.

Shot showing the rear outrigger/jacking point - part has had to be cut away to remove rust.

Rear outrigger rebuilt with new metal - old jacking point still there at this point.

One shiny (well it's not that shiny actually because it's galvanised) sill section in place. The old rear jacking point can still be seen just behind it.

View from the front - showing the new sill & the new shiny jacking point

Here's the new sill sprayed up & painted - looking very good.

Right all that's left to do now is post some pictures of the same treatment being dished out to the driver's side & the rear of the chassis! I'll post that little lot when I've managed to upload them to Photobucket!!

Many thanks for looking

Yet then another update!!

I've been told that the SS1 engine mount brackets would fit the Zetec block but not without some modification. I wanted to see what modifications were needed for myself & I also wanted to get the mounting brackets modified before fitting the Zetec - so that I wasn't pulling the engine in & out all the time while I modified the brackets that are currently fitted to the CVH engine (they're in a lousy state so replacing them isn't a bad idea anyway).

I bought some mounting brackets through a Scimweb forum member & they arrived in excellent condition - already cleaned & primed for painting!

It looked as if the water pump side mounting would fit the pre-tapped holes on the engine block but that the alternator mount was in the way - so this had to be cut off.
Here's the bracket with the alternator mount cut off. I'll keep this bit but I'm not sure if I'll have a use for it or not.


Here's the bracket fitted to the Zetec block - no problems at all - the water pump outlet can be seen above it & there looks to be plenty of clearance for the radiator hose ..... which is good!


Here's the other bracket fitted - 3 out of 4 holes lined up without any problems. The 4th hole isn't a million miles away though so it should fit after I've drilled/enlarged the hole in the bracket a bit.


Here we can see the clearance (or lack of) between the bracket & the oil filter housing. I'm planning to elongate the holes in the bracket so that it can be moved up slightly, or the engine can be dropped down slightly. I don't need much clearance (only a couple of mm or so) but some clearance would be nice! I was planning to use a remote oil filter anyway - looks like it'll be essential now!


As for the alternator well a search of the kitcar manufacturers (many of whom fit the Zetec engine in their cars) turned up Tiger Racing & this natty little alternator mount. I'll purchase one of these next week .... after payday!



That's all for now but I'll post some more when I've done some more

nice to see another odd old car being saved. kinda remind me of boats these do. What are they like to drive? I'm guessing fun

Time to resurrect this thread with a long overdue update - wooohoooo!!!

This weekend I made a concerted effort to get something done on the Reptile. The Zetec engine has been patiently waiting in the wings for a while now!
New timing belt & tensioners fitted? Check.
Water pump changed for one that rotates in the correct direction? Check.
New sump, pick-up pipe, gasket etc fitted? Check.
New flywheel & clutch fitted? Check.

So this weekend, with the help of a borrowed engine hoist & 3 willing helpers, I removed the original smoky old donkey so that I could clean up the engine bay in readiness for the shiny, new (well still quite old actually) 2 litre Zetec lump.

It all went pretty smoothly really. We did think we were going to have problems clearing the front cross-member but we then realised that it was removable (thank you Reliant!) which made the job much easier. Once the cross member was out of the way it was all plain sailing & engine was out in about 15 mins. Biggest job after that was getting rid of the old exhaust. I did want to trial fit the new engine but there really wasn't any time (or light) left so we called it a day. The engine bay is filthy so I could really do with cleaning & painting it before the new engine goes in. I've bought some Gunk so I'll have a go with that tomorrow evening (it was too cold last night)!
More pics as & when

Here we can see my friend Mohammed (he's car mad!) bent double over the front of the car spannering away like a good'un!


Another shot of Mohammed still spannering away (on the same bolt no doubt)!


Here's a shot of the CVH lump - rope for hoisting duties is attached but the hoist isn't. No shots of the engine being actually hoisted I'm afraid as it took all 4 of us to guide it out of the engine bay! Mohammed at front of shot again - he get's everywhere!


Engine removed & this is the hole left behind, just begging for to be filled with 2 litres of throbbing Zetec ;D Engine bay definitely needs cleaning up somewhat - after 24 years on the road it's a wee bit grimy!


This rather boring shot shows the threaded hole left by the passengers side engine mount. This was easily removed with an oil filter chain wrench - unfortunately the drivers side mount was seized so had to be cut away leaving the backing plate (which has the stud that screws into the threaded hole welded to it).


Here's a shot of yours truly (that's my arm!) applying a bit of brute force (& ignorance) courtesy of a cold chisel & lump hammer to the aforementioned backing plate. It gave up without too much of a fight so I'm now left with a totally engineless car which is, at least, easy to push in & out of the garage!


That's all the pics for now - apologies for them not being very good but I had other things on my mind. I'll post some more when I've cleaned the engine bay up which will be a filthy horrible job

I was beginning to lose my mojo for the project a bit but I'm glad that progress has been made & I'm still keen to get the car back up & running

In the early 90s a colleague bought one of these. C plate 1600 CVH. Had a newish MoT and he paid quite alot for it.

After a couple of weeks he started complaining of strange handling..... he wasn't kidding - it was trying to get in the left hedge under power and the right hedge under braking and the rear end was horribly wriggly all the time.

I made the mistake of allowing it into my garage for inspection where we found the rear cross rail completely detached from the sill due to rot (car only about 8 years old). I got landed with repairing it......

this is what it looked like



I'd suggest sticking to the later galvanised ones. Back then you could still buy the complete (galvanised) chassis new - he didn't want to pay for one though.

Nick

Yes it was a most unpleasant thing to repair. We used a new sill assembly but the B pillar had to be constructed from guesswork and imagination and the tube/jacking point had to be re-created too. Then there was the small matter of repairing the main chassis where the cross tube movement had caused flex and cracking......

Oddly the other side was absolutely fine. If it had been mine I'd have gone after the vendor and MoT garage - the thing was lethal!

Nick

Aye up chaps – just when you thought it was safe to go back in your garage here comes Paul with another SS1 (Reptile) update!!

Due to other committments I’ve not had much time to spend on the car so progress has been slow. I did take a couple of days off work during March & used these days to try & fit the roll bar that I bought from a seller on the Scimweb forum.

Late last year I fitted the hard top - mainly to free up some space in the garage - but having it in place didn’t exactly leave me with a roomy working environment. It’s too big/heavy for one person to remove so I was stuck with it! I'd already taken the passenger’s seat out of the car so decided to take the drivers seat out as well to maximise the available space – it would have had to come out soon enough anyway as I had some MX5 seats that I wanted to fit (more about these further down). The roll over bar went in the car no problem & using some pointers I'd printed off the aforementioned Scimweb forum I started the job! The first mistake I made was that I didn't mark where the feet of the bar went when the carpet was in place . So once I'd fitted & bolted the bar in place without the carpet in the car I realised that it'd all have to come out again so that I could refit/mark/cut the carpet!! Do I feel a numpty? Yes I do

I have a non-galvanised car so I wasn't sure whether the captive nuts for the roll bar feet bolts - as fitted to some (all?) of the galvanised cars - would be there or not. It turns out that they aren't fitted to my car so I had to drill some 10mm holes to accept the bolts that had been sent with the roll bar. Unfortunately these bolts weren't long enough so I had to make a quick trip to Screwfix (there's a branch close to our house) to get some long enough bolts & also some nyloc nuts. This is turning into a longwinded way of saying that the bar fits fine & feels reassuringly solid when it's all bolted up. It feels as if it should increase the strength of the car quite a lot even though it is only bolted in place. I suppose that welding it in position would be better but I'm not sure how I'd do this given that there's a layer of glass fibre between the rollover bar feet & the actual chassis & I have no great wish to take the car to bits any more than it is already! The bar is also held in place by three bolts at each of the B-posts, as well as the three M10 bolts that hold each of the feet down, so it’s held in position by 12 bolts (6 per side) in total. It feels as solid as a solid thing & should increase the strength/rigidity of the car quite a bit. I have been told that the strength of the actual bar can be increased by welding a diagonal bar across it - I have suitable bit of bar but I’m not sure if it's really necessary or not.

Anyway here are a few pictures of the job – the first pic shows the roll bar foot & the three M10 bolts that hold it in position. I’ve used thick washers/spreader plates & nyloc nuts to secure them. Access was a complete pig & I had to remove the rear shock absorbers to give me more room – even then the rear suspension arms got in the way & I ended up using just about every extension I had in my socket set to reach the nuts. Pig of a job & the bar's in for the duration now!!!


This pic shows the roll bar in position - all holes have been drilled & the bar's partly bolted in. This is the stage I was at when I then realised that it'd all have to come out again so that I could fit/mark/cut the carpet


This photo shows the clearance between the roll bar & inside of the hard top (it also shows that my hard top needs retrimming - yet another job for yet another day). Clearance with the hard top fitted is fine, so it should be ok with the soft top fitted, but I'll just have to wait & see. The soft top's pretty much shagged out & could really do with replacing so I'll probably end up using the car with the hard top fitted most of the time - which sort of defeats the point of having a soft top car doesn't it


And here we have the finished installation - carpet fitted & cut, roll bar in position & all bolts tightened up. I like the way it looks & it feels proper, & I mean PROPER, solid & I'm chuffed with it. I'm not sure I'd want to do the job again anytime soon though!!


After fitting the roll bar I had a few days off the car but got the urge to work on it again this Saturday .... which I spent hacksawing, drilling, tapping, sweating, straining & swearing as I adapted the Reliant seat runners to fit the pair of MX5 seats I mentioned earlier. The seat blet mounting points are part of the original seat runners so I thought it best to use them if possible! I'd already fitted the passenger’s seat once but removed it so that I could copy the adapters I'd made for the seat runners. I made the adapters out of some thick (10mm or so) iron plate I had in stock – my idea being to bolt these adapter plates to the MX5 seat bases using the old bean holes already tapped into them, I'd then bolt the Reliant runners onto the plates into which I’d tapped another old bean hole. I didn't take any photo's of the adaptors I'm afraid (sorry about that) but they seem to do the job well enough. They were fiddly & time consuming to make though - the worst part being hacksawing through the 10mm plate! Both seats feel very secure & still move forwards & backwards - the drivers side is a little reluctant to move though! The seats themselves are much comfier & more supportive than the originals (which were flat, soggy & knackered) but they also felt overstuffed ..... almost as if you were sitting on top of them rather than in them (if that makes any sense?). So I removed the seat covers & attacked the seat foam with an electric carving knife (as you do ) to try & reduce the height of the seat cushion but while still keeping the same(ish) profile. It seems to have worked well enough & both seats (the drivers side especially) feel much more “buckety” than they did whilst still being comfortable to sit in. The seats do sit a bit higher than the originals though. This shouldn’t really be a problem for me & Gillian as we’re both 5’7”ish but it probably will be a problem for anyone much taller than us as I can see heads hitting the hard top & knees attached to long legs getting in the way of the steering wheel. The seat rails can be lowered which means doing a bit of cutting & welding & then re-fibreglassing the floor! It’s not a massive job (apparently), & plenty of people have already done it, but it’s not really something I want to start right now.

So that's the interior more or less sorted, next on the agenda is to try & get the engine running. I need to pull it out again so that I can fit a new clutch release bearing - I should have fitted one when the engine was out but, like a plonker, I forgot! The lack of a sump is still a problem but I’m hoping that it’ll be sorted soon! Then I'm probably going to have to leave the car for a bit until I can scrape the funds together for a fuel pump, carb(s)/manifold, megajolt ecu, starter motor, alternator mount/alternator, exhaust etc etc etc!

I'm getting married at the end of July ;D, and then I’m off on honeymoon for 2 weeks ;D ;D, so it looks as if life may well get in the way of the project for a while.

Anyway here are a couple of not very good pics of the seats installed.

Ta for all your support & I'll update the thread when I've got more to show - opinions welcome as always