1981 Reliant Kitten - Chassis paint 01-may

[Mr K]

Well, here is my project car, I have owned it for about 2 years now, but as I am starting work in about a month I can finaly spank some cash on it!

The gearbox and door cards are in my beige car, and a few other things ( like the engine) have been removed... leaving it looking like:




(hehe, looks like I made my own barnfind!)
despite its looks, its acutually realy sound, the chassis is rock solid, with surface rust just starting to show its face here and there, and there is only 2 patches of crazing on the body and a small area might need a repair!

however everything bolted to the body and chassis sucks major balls.

so the plans.... well the body will be removed from the chassis, the chassis will then be stripped, painted, and converted to run trailing arms, along with a few other minor mods. the front susspension will remain pretty much stock however the weak top arms will be beefed up, and an alternative ball joint will be sourced as I think that the £250 that the owners club want for a set is abit RUUDE.

stock drums will be retained, as they seem pretty keen on my car, and add to the old car feeling however a servo may be added, along with better shoes!

as for running gear, a stock but rebuilt axle and box (both good for 130hp so they say) will be fitted, and to power it all....... a Fiat 1108, or 1240 Fire engine! thast between 55 and 85hp strait away, I idealy want the 1240 dohc 16v MPI, running megasquirt.... but lets see what funds allow! it will probably end up running a 1100 on a carb to start with, to keep it simple to get it up and running. (anyone got one for sale?)

the interior will be stripped and all that...

on the outside, it will probably end up running on 10x6" alloys, with some crazeee camber to give me enough tuck to get them in the arches at the front.

all this will probably change, and I was in 2 minds aobut whether to post this up of not as its alot of work and don't want to be a unfisihed project reject, but it looks like its getting underway, and I'm sure that if I start to slack you guys will make me get on with it!

today I turned the car through 90degrees and got a good look all over it, tomorow I'm hopefully going to pop the body off the chassis.

[marcp]

Sounds like a qwality project, good luck with it!

[Davenger]

Looks like a good basis for a project.
I remember you talking about it at CaRS, top plan

[Mr K]

cheers, ive tried to stick to pretty simple plans, for example the f750 formula bolt the fiat fire to the reliant box, so i know what bits i need etc, and the fire is infact a smaller engine so that helps, bond bugs use a simular chassis so i can rob my rear susspension design from that.

the amount of research i have done is crazy but its pretty much all there now, just got to build the thing!!!

cant wait to get my first pay packet and go crazy on parts!

[daverapid]

8-)Great stuff mate....I bet you're itching to get started!

:)Just 1 thing though...drum brakes don't need a servo as their design has a kind of "self servo"action...it's only really disc brakes that benefit from the use of a servo.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

excellent! love the fiat engine idea. Is that a common transplant then?

[akku]

cool. I wanted to build a bike engined one of these.

[nwmlarge]

me too would be nuts with a bike lump

[Mr K]

daverapid said:

drum brakes don't need a servo as their design has a kind of "self servo"action...it's only really disc brakes that benefit from the use of a servo.

ah cool, it was on my list of things to find out out so you have saved me abit more time there! cheers!

e661301 said:

excellent! love the fiat engine idea. Is that a common transplant then?

well its not common to put it in a kitten (infact, i think its a first) as most people opt for a V8 or bike engine, but thats all abit cliche...
the f750 race formula who use cars like:

started off with side valve austin engines back in the 20's i beleive and later changed to the reliant ohv as it was a development of the austin engine and although carrying very few similarities it is a direct bolt in swap, however that engine has served them for atleast 50years now i think, and the fiat is its new replacement, it is about 4-5" taller (depending on if its 1108 or 1240) 15kg heavier despite having an iron block, and is also thinner and shorter!! there is one downside - the disi / coil pack is on the back of the head and needs to be right about where my heater is! so thats got to go!

i will have to mage a adapter plate, this is not tooo complicated and can be bought for about £130 (that comes with lots of other flanges for the fiat engine) if need be, and i will also need to make a front engine mount, after that its just a bit of wiring, a fiat clutch cover plate, mg midget 1098 clutch disc, and a proper release bearing from one of the MG racing places to replace the crude fibre one.

thanks for the kind words guys. now i had best get on with it!

Nick

[nwmlarge]

have you had a look on www.clubfirepower.co.uk there is curse word loads of info on the fiat FIRE series on there.
one guy "oldschool" aka peter is very knowledgable

[Mr K]

nwmlarge said:

have you had a look on www.clubfirepower.co.uk there is curse word loads of info on the fiat FIRE series on there.
one guy "oldschool" aka peter is very knowledgable

yup, i am indeed a member, I'm sure that will be very useful!!

well, today i removed alot of the bolts holding the body to the chassis, along with the drivers seat and both seatbelts. some of the bolts where a right pain and I'm left with 3 or 4 to grind off.

i also removed the rear door, the side windows, carpet, disconnected the brake lines...

that leaves me with the 3 or 4 bolts to grind off, the column to be removed, the fuel tank to drain and disconnect from the neck, the tank sender to disconnect, and the handbrake cable to disconnect...

[Mr K]

i had a crazeee idea about the outside, its a very low milage, example, and I'm only the 3rd owner (the 2nd ownder kept it in his garage for a few years and didnt touch it), i still have the original bill of sale, certificate of ziebart, and this pic:



of when it was new, i was pretty unsure what colour to paint it / what to do about wheels, except i wanted it to have 10's on it, and i like the red it was already in (in places), but waht about playing on its originality, unfortunatly the 2nd owner did do one thing, took the alloys off and put steels on it! so i would need ot find a set of gemini alloys, but what about:



i am also tempted to polish these to curse word and bung them on it.



hmm who knows, its a long way off thats for sure!

[Mr K]

Today i removed the handbrake from the body (couldnt get it off the wheel end rolling around in the dirt) as well as draining off the brown petrol, disconnecting the filler neck and breather pipe, and i also un did the few last bolts with the angle grinder...

beleive it or not that took most of the day, i don't realy know where the time went.

i then started jacking it up carefully on the floor until i could get some wood through under the back, the front was a little more tricky as i coudlnt use the wheel wells so it needed a few blocks between the footwell and the 4x2 so it didnt damage the sills, then it looked like this.







i then picked up the back end (!) and put it on some tressels, they looked proper sketch and all that but i had trust in them.

the front got slowly lifted up big by bit being put on breeze blocks until it was high enough, i then started to roll the body out but the back end was just a few mm too high and hit the rear fooywells, so i let the hugely over inflated tyres down and it just scraped under!

so it now looks like this:











i found this sticker that made me laugh:



yup, with my car, 27 liters of fuel, 4 people and a boot load of stuff it must not exceed 862kg!

and i can tow all of exactly 406kg, not 407kg.

the good news is the steering rack and column is in realy good nick with little play! so thats a saving a few hundred £££s.

tune in tomorow for more.

[slater]

LoL that chassis would look at home under a model T! major oldskool design there!

good work

[Bioshock]

Those kittens are such cool and unusual rides.
Am i right in thinking they did a commercial variant,the Fox? or is it a completely different model

[WillCarter]

Looks coolio

[phatphord]

nickyboi said:

barn find gasser kitten anyone?

so cool to see something so clean aweseomely aweseome (extra e's for emphasis) ;D

[casino]

this thread is ;D

lovin this pic too somthing about the precarious stack of breeze-blocks makes me smile

[Mr K]

haha, i thought it looked like a gasser too! oh so tempting...

beleive it or not it was rock solid on those breeze blocks!

Well, today i stripped off the front susspension, and inspected the rest of it, as well as measuring up the rear.



the bottom wishbones are shot, rather annoyingly! the tops are ok, weak as anything in stock form so they are beeing beefed up, the uprights etc all looks ok too.

the fuel tank is all lovely and shiny inside, and not too rusty on the outside, so thats anothing good bit that just needs TLC.

however the rear seatbelt mounts (where I'm bolting on my harneses) are rather shot, its the only rot in the chassis from what i can see and is right ontop of a big box section so that needs cuting out, and a new top welding in.

i have also started drawing up the rear suspension, should get teh designs finished tomorow for all to see.

[Mr K]

not got much done today, just alot of measuring and drawing realy, popped the fuel tank and sender out first, this all apears to be ok except one of the studs on the tank sheered but its easy to replace.

also slackend all the bolts on the rear susspension, now looks like:



since then i have popped out all but one of the bolts, which is on the rear hanger and wouldnt move and i didnt have the spanners with me to undo the one below it.

i then cracked on with the cad drawings, i am using the dimensions taken from a bond bug setup, using 420mm long trailing arms.



excuse the shoddy work but i was in abit of a rush.

the car will sit about 40mm lower at the back than the beige one, but the beige car has sagged abit. this is about as low as i can go before it all gets complex, this leaves a good 70mm of travel to retain a good ride.

cant wait to get on and crack the welder out!