1979 Reliant Scimitar Diesel Conversion

[althebass]

Hi guys, I've been reading this forum with great interest for a while and its time for my contribution. My car is a '79 Scim bought around 2 1/2 years ago as a clean, well looked after example. It was more or less standard but had Spax coil overs and Goodridge flexis.



I drove it for a year but soon wanted more power and a car that used less water (2lt per day in the end). Now, the thoughts off tuning a car that was only doing 15mpg scared me, plus the fact is the Ford Essex is a heavy ol' lump thats never going to set the world on fire.
With these thoughts in my head, flicking through an old copy of PPC I had stole a good idea: fit the 2.5 straight 6 diesel from a BMW 325 tds. The car in question was and earlier Se5 Scim so I knew it would fit in my Se6 which is bigger. So I did some shopping...



500 quid delivered bagged me a rough but good running '96 325 tds. Time for a bit of work then. First thing to do is get the engine, box and wiring loom out of the BM. The shell was only fit for scrap so took the front end off with a hammer for better engine swinging.



Although this engine is pump injection, the timing of the pump is controlled by an ECU, and with them comes wiring...



...Here's the whole loom from the Bim and a few able helpers (my son and brother). Two long days and a head full of schematics later I was left with a neat wee loom that when presented with some + at one end and some - at the other should run the engine.



Boy was I happy to finish that, check out the bags of wires cut out!

With the boring bit done it was onto the fun part - attack the Scim



Garage up, and on with the work. Take this:

Click your fingers

You've got this:


In Scims there's a cross member and steering rack in front of the engine so I can't come forward with the longer engine, so out with the grinder and back we go. Some to the nearest half inch measuring and some quick reckoning I decided this was enough:



So, the 500 quid question is: will it fit?
On your marks...Get set...



It does GO!





Phew! Thanks for reading so far guys, I'll carry on with this soon. This car has been Mot'd twice now with this conversion done so I'll finish the build log and then do some up to date posts with current pics and details of the next phase...
Cheers, Al

[ettorebugatti]

Interesting concept

Love to see how this turns out.

[Mike]

Looking forward to seeing the finished article, excellent conversion.

[B-8-D]

love it cant wait to see the finished car..
brillient....
si

[chamba]

Brilliant stuff! Such a wise conversion, I bet it goes very well on not much fuel.

[waveman1500]

Nice work! Very cool idea.

[althebass]

Ok folks, time for the next installment. As I mentioned before this project is finished so this won't be chronological, I'll just cover the various aspects of the build. If you've any questions or want me to go into anything in more detail please ask.
Some of these photos are new if you're wondering.

With the engine poked into the hole we had to start thinking about mounting it. It turns out that in the BM there's 60cm between the engine mounts, which sit at the same level, and there's 2' between the Scimitar chassis rails. Using a Land rover rubber bolted to the top half of the original BMW engine mount, the engine was set down and we ended up with this on both sides:



Sitting like this the engine was at the perfect height. It was close in places but fitted.



To get the alternator on I had to put a cut out in the chassis which was then plated over. I had to do away with the power steering pump, this was replaced with a Saxo electric one.



With the engine in place and aligned it was time to make engine mounts. The way I chose to do this was simple: I screwed a nut onto the stud shown above and then attached the nut to the chassis with 4 triangular plates to give a pyramid type thing with a thread in the middle, once welded up I simply screwed the rubber into the mount then set the engine down and bolted the engine to the rubber.



The plate shown nearest was brought down the side of the chassis a bit to give more area to weld.

As this car will have a 2 piece prop, the back of the gearbox was lined up with the centre bearing mount then the original gearbox crossmember was used to mount it. These mounts were folded up and plated and attach to the BMW rubber gearbox mounts.



I've ordered a drive coupling after taking this shot!

With the engine in, a custom prop was commissioned using the BMW front yoke with the rest of the prop made with new centre bearing, universals and slip yoke. Apart from the donor car this was the single biggest expense at £300, and the only part I didn't do myself, but I have peace of mind that its a good job and not 2 shafts bodged together.



That's it for now, in the next posts I'll cover plumbing and wiring.
I didn't keep track of what I spent on this project but to give you a rough idea, not including buying the Scim, it probably cost around £1200 to complete the conversion. Once again, any questions just ask and thanks for your comments so far.

Al.

[datman]

Great conversion. Surprised those BMs can be got so cheap.

[autohausdolby]

That's awesome!

[rwdrules]

SO WHERE IS THE PLUMBING A WIREING post am awaiting this with bated breath??

[l10mcu]

Nice unit, like this idea :-)

[75nut]

Love it! Nice work! What horsepower and torque is the beemer unit?

[jomfun]

Like it. Need more... whats it like to live with and take for a blast? any plans to run it it on veg ??

[franko14]

brilliant, can't wait to see the rest of the conversion.

did you use the beemer gear box?

[JoeySully]

I had to do away with the power steering pump, this was replaced with a Saxo electric one.

Ohh we will need a whole new thread on that topic

How is it working for you ?

[althebass]

A few of the Scim this weekend:







I used the rad from a Ovlov T5 which had the outlets in the right place and fitted nicely between the chassis rails. The BM rad was quite shallow but very wide.
I used the expansion tank from the BM donor along with most of the hoses, cut up. I brazed up reducers where necessary.
The electric fan is from something 'European' and 'Boxy' in a scrappie nearby.



The air filter is a universal one connected to where the BM air box went with an aluminium elbow.



The standard BM intercooler fitted nicely behind the dummy grill on the Scim, so I cut the grill out and fitted mesh instead.
This was plumbed into the plenum using a mixture of BM parts and formula ford exhaust.
The alloy BM pipe had nice ridges on either side of the jubilee clip to hold it on, the other steel pipes for inlet, oil and water had either grooves cut in on the lathe or blobs of weld/braze to give the hoses and clips some purchase.

Fuel is provided using the original tank's feed and return using a Facet solid state pump running via a solenoid and ignition live.
It can be seen here on the right screwed to the chassis rail, along with the custom prop to link the BM gearbox to the Scim axle:



As the battery is in the boot of the donor car, I opted to use its battery cable running up to its junction box which I mounted to the bulkhead.
The donor loom, cut down, bolted to this which is enough to run the engine and charging system.
To connect the Scim's electrics into the new feed I used the now redundant starter wire, passed it through the bulkhead, and bolted it to the BM junction junction box. This powered up the Scim's electrics through its own junction box.

The BM downpipe came out just between the gearbox and the chassis so I made a system straight through from here and out the back.
No silencers here!

Slotting the engine into the Scim there was no room for the BMW power steering pump so it was removed.
I went down to a local breakers who pull the parts and catalogue them.
The handiest looking electric pump was a Saxo one which just had a red and a black wire.
I was blessed with this pump as the high pressure line from the Scim's rack screwed straight into it. The return line and the reservoir feed can be made up with jubilee clips.
The pump sits on a rubber mat on the sump guard held on by big jubilee clips.
This is wired into a 70 amp relay through a switch under the dash.

Next time: I welded my diff last weekend...and had some fun!

Cheers,

Al

[gsexr]

Feb 9, 2011 11:00:28 GMT JoeySully said:

I had to do away with the power steering pump, this was replaced with a Saxo electric one.

Ohh we will need a whole new thread on that topic

How is it working for you ?

Yeah come on we need to know more on this !!!!!

[althebass]

The power steering pump is an electric/hydraulic pump from Saxo. I used a remote reservoir one like this though you can get them with a built in reservoir.



Cost £50 at the scrappie.
This has 3 fittings, the high pressure feed; low pressure return and one for the reservoir.
If you're lucky like I was the rack's original high pressure line will screw into the pump, if not you'll have to get one made by your local hydraulic hose people.
The other lines can just be made/adapted by you with rubber hose and jubilee clips.

To power the pump you need heavy gauge wiring and a 70amp relay to cope with the draw.
I wired this in to the ignition live through a switch on the dash, so I can switch it off, though generally its just left on all the time.

The pump works well and the steering has a nice weight to it, though if really fast steering inputs are made it goes a bit heavy like the pump can't quite flow enough oil. I drive it smoothly and this doesn't cause a problem.

Its worth checking what presssure your rack is designed to work at as some work on quite a low pressure. I checked the pump spec online and the rack spec in a Scim workshop manual.

Al

[danozeman]

This is awesome, I bet it sounds nice. I had a 525 tds. Lovely engines. is it an auto or manual?

[althebass]

Hi danozeman, its a manual. And yes it does sound rather interesting with no silencer in the system. Suprisingly revvy too.

Al