Scimitry

[DingleBerry]

Well I got my new toy!

​

Its a reliant scimitar....only its had a 3.5litre tuned v8 added to it!!! This might be a little interesting! And yes...yes those are wolfraces! mmm chunky!

Unfortunatly it doesn't work...yet....

 

[DingleBerry]

AAAAAARGH! SLOT MAGS!!!!!

*makes the sign of the cross*

As always in such circumstances: www.retro-rides.com

*n

One step ahead of you boyo!

mmm slotty you wait till we make them shiney!

It might not have a blower but it has got high lift cams and vitesse heads and a mostly stainless steel twin exhaust. Alledgedly its an engine out of the old police bedford(?) riot vans. The ones they had tuned nicly. Its a nicely done conversion with extra stiffening and stainless tanks and uprated spax shocks. Its an almost runner but it didn't set us back much more than £500 which i can deal with as I'm sharing it with a mate.


We got a bonus spare v8 dizzy and a su hif4 carb.

 

[DingleBerry]

Isn't it a music video?

Rabbit in your headlights by uncle, I just though it looked cool.

Cool looking car but I know nothing about them, engine sounds interesting

Lose the tow bar to gain 5 cool points

Aye I think its days are numbered, depends if its going to leave a scar. Its not like we'd be able to tow anything anyway!

No, 3.0 V6 Ford Essex, or the 2.8 V6 Cologne from SE6b (I think)

Yup it was an essex and there is a 2.8...could be that one. The 3.0 only produced 130ish so we should be about 100 up on that.

I now have a new favourite OcUK-member-owned car. Admittedly, I didn't really have an old one, but this is definitely my new favourite. Those Wolfraces were the wheels of my childhood dreams

The chocks under the tyres are an encouraging sign

Why thank you! We love chocks it stops you waking up in the morning with your car in the dock.

nice car dingle, you were right i do like it.

and yes it still shocks my friends that there isn't any rust on our corvette!

Not only is there no rust but its got a really good paint job. The whites tcut through in a couple of places but its not that obvious. It needs a damn good clean and polish all over and it should be gleaming. I've sneakily taken all the photos from the polished side

I saw one of those in a front end smash once , put it this way you would never got me on one.
Saying that i don't suppose many cars of the day were amazingly safe be today's standards ...apart from Volvo's

Yeah there's not a great deal of front end protection. You basically have two chassis rails going forward with a plate between them where the arb goes...and that's it. The rest is fibre glass.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Reliant-Scimi...oryZ9903QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
That's all the solidity you get! oooer!


We also seem to have acquired a complementary water feature. The dehumidifiers got its work cut out on this one! Hmm I wonder where you can buy some back seats for a scimitar....there may be an element of rot setting in!

 

[DingleBerry]

I've signed up there. But the are taking an age to send the conformation. They may not have taken kindly to my username

I whipped the fuel pump off my mg which should do for now. Didn't have time to try and fit it seeing as it took me about 2 hours to get the damnable thing off. Some retard had fitted the bracket the wrong way up so I had to try and take the whole thing off, which is a pain! Sheared a captive mounting stud in the process which vexed me too.

On the plus side i found my fuel leak. The braided hose connecting the pump to the main copper fuel lines wasn't exactly....braided....or hose for that matter! That will probably save me £60 for a new tank plus however much for the copper fuel lines! Which actually look pretty good if dirty. Which is a start I suppose!

That car really does look better every time I look at it! I'm dying to get it going!

Amusingly we were both sitting in the car and with the mot in mind thought we'd check the belts to see if they would lock .Which they both did...admirably...unfortunately unlocking proved a little more problematic...for both of them. Stupid car!

 

[DingleBerry]

They've let me in now. Although their site is buttock clenchingly slow.

I'm getting married this year...I can't afford cars either! The money or the time! Fortunately she likes old cars and getting dirty. And she's quite happy with the cleaning and painting jobs which I hate! Thusly I win!

 

[DingleBerry]

You don't need ice in a trevor!!! Surely the sound of all your money going down the drain is music enough for your ears? Oh and the engine probably sounds ok as well

I don't bother with ice in my old cars, its not like 2mm of steel and 3 mm of 30 year old sweat and skin are particularly effective at deadening the sound of the world ending under your bonnet. In a good way in the scimitar, i hope, and in a bad way in the mg as you rev the **** off it to make it move. Peak power at 5400rpm, are you QUITE mad? Having said that my rover is making a phenominal racket at the moment seeing as the exhaust gasses are mostly making their escape half way down the exhaust.

 

[DingleBerry]

Your bonnet is longer than the rest of the car, looks like a hotrod on stilts or something!

That's because there is room for a v8 BEHIND the front wheels. You heard me! BEHIND!

The engine doesn't even start until a bout a foot and a half AFTER the front of the bonnet. And the bonnet doesn't start for ages! It has quite a sexual action though.

 

[DingleBerry]

The guy we bought it off told us it had been dynoed at 250 at the fly. So depending on where and who by this figure could be miles off. It might also suffer from inflation, the longer ago it was done the larger the figure it becomes We shall see, so far we have zero horses so even a couple would be fine! However many its got it will probably be plenty!

 

[DingleBerry]

I'm hoping its got a bit more than that as they had that as standard. We will probably never find out anyway seeing as I've no intention of having it dynoed. A bit of digging about suggests 190 with the vitesse heads but it needs to be able to breath properly, whether it can do that through SUs I don't know. How many of these horses have escaped in the last 10 years (when the conversion was alledgedly done) I don't know either.

 

[DingleBerry]

Oh my! That's probably not as tidy as it should be.

 

[DingleBerry]

WOHOOO!!! It works!!! Well it starts...then it dies! But it will start again. Then it dies again.

We are blaming the fuel supply at the moment. That old fuel pump we resurrected might be a bit too broken or there might be a restriction in the pipe or a broken needle valve or something else. I'll be checking it out if its not raining tomorrow. I need to try and work out why the keys not running the starter too.

Does anyone know if you can get the covers off seatbelts without them exploding everywhere? Ours need a wee bit of attention. If they aren't serviceable we need to get looking out for a pair.

We shall see about the power I guess. The guy we bought it off said 250bhp, from reading about with the mods we know about 170-80bhp seams plausible. But if that's the case being in a dodgy state of tune (which it is) could take that to anything really...150 for instance . Unfortunately we've not got a full list of mods on the engine. It could be bored out for all I know or have nothing at all done to it and he's a big hairy liar.

We aren't all that bothered a standard v8 would be fine for us really, but 250 would be nice All will become clear when we manage to get it running for more than about 30 seconds! If we can find a rr we will get it tested I think. Just to satisfy our curiosity. Unless of course its clearly rubish, then I'll just pretend its really fast

 

[DingleBerry]

Turned out to be a blocked needle valve. SHE RUNS!!!!! Slightly dodgily as the timings still set oddly but ITS ALIVE!!!!

Had a good afternoons work on it on sunday freed up the back drums, fixed the handbrake, cleaned out the needle valves (full of grunge) and few other bits and pieces and drove it round the car park

From not managing to get above 10mph she seems good. She goes forwards and backwards, no worrying clunks as it goes into gear, she stops and she goes round corners. Dunno about 2nd or 3rd but its looking good for this gearbox! We were a bit worried about that as we'd no idea what condition the transmission was in, good it seams!

We do still have quite a list of things before she is mot ready though.

• dodgy seatbelts
• throttle sticking to the point of being useless
• couple of leaks in the right hand side exhaust (possibly the manifold but I hope not) and a couple of mountings
• leaking cooling system around the heater bits
• one new headlight
• new fuel pump (my mg one is clearly another source of my fuel leak, its oozing fuel out of the side)
• fix the stereo
• a few bits of tuning on the engine (plugs, timing, praps valve clearances, idle adjustment is all to pot too, and there's no choke cable)
• various split hoses

BUT all the lights work (bar the busted bulb) the electric windows work, all the gauges (bar the tacho which we've messed with the wiring for) work, the heater fan works, the kenlow fan works, the wipers and washers work, even the clock works! In short most of the car WORKS!

 

[DingleBerry]

Its OK I wasn't doing the throttle. My mate was lying on the front wing reaching in and doing that for me....so the bonnet was up. Good job the brakes work!

 

[DingleBerry]

Bit of progress. I rewired the mess of an ignition circuit and now not only can we start it with a key but we can switch it off again! We've got a tacho AND all the lights work! We even have a horn! The luxury! Managed to stop a fiddle water leak out of the heater pipes which are nicely inaccessible.

Took the carbs apart again to clean out the needle valves and fitted a filter because they kept gumming up. The throttle linkage isn't particularly effective but it just about works. We had a go with it on the road to the mot. Good lord it was grumpy! It had no go and by my reckoning I got it down to 2 cylinders. On the upside it both stops and changes gear quite nicely, I think we've got all three. Managed 50mph although it wasn't pleased about it.

Took it to the mot centre to find out how big the fail sheet was and were pleasantly surprised. The chassis is good and the suspension (which is a bit flakey) passed bar one bush. Unfortunately it needs a new steering rack but we picked one of those up off ebay for £40 delivered. The discs are a bit corroded but the swines at reliant made sure you had to dismantle the hubs and take out the bearings to replace them. So I'm tempted just to keep buying pads seeing as they are £20 a set and disks are £40 EACH plus bearings probably and a lot of swearing and machine those disks into submision!

Unfortunately I'm going to a conference next week so I've got no time to do anything.

Interestingly when we did the compression test we found its got around 110 dry all round, so either its a very uniformly broken high compression engine or a low compression (as the engine number would suggest). Which is odd if its got the vitesse heads as I'd expect that to put the compression up. So all bets are off as to what's inside this engine and how much power there is. Its still not running well enough to get a feel, we've probably got about 40 at the moment

 

[DingleBerry]

No I didn't do the reading and he didn't know about doing wet tests. I might do one on one of the cylinders to see what happens. Its quite consistent throughout all 8 so I'd be surprised if it was stuck rings. I'd be expecting a lot of smoke then too which we simply aren't getting. Its just running rough, but the timing is set by ear and the carbs aren't balanced so roughness is to be expected. We aren't 100% sure we've got the right dizzy either (it came with 2).

That's interesting about the heads, I just assumed that it would change the compression with the head design too so we'd end up with something half way. Its a 25g00000, which puts its origins in a sherpa, which tallies with the police van heritage the guy we bought it off told us it had. I'm presuming the low compression engines had lower power outputs which makes that 250bhp look even more distant still even if its got 150 it will look and sound the part and go well enough.


For those that care:
25G00000 Sherpa 310MB 8.13:1cr 1988

 

[DingleBerry]

Never heard of cross bolting. I take it that's to stop the engine forcing itself in two. I can try and get some photos of the engine because I've not really had a look one close up before so I wouldn't notice any difference. Its a very square block, I guess because its aluminium. Other than that I couldn't say.

I'll bear that in mid about the gaskets, we certainly don't want any less compression!

I do like the idea of forcing lovely air though...there's probably just enough room for twin turbos, a supercharger would need some messing with bonnet cutting and some horrific belt monster.

 

[DingleBerry]

Oh dear it appears to have come orf!

She's legless....after a fasion!

As per usual I'm making breathtakingly slow progress but progress all the same. We've rebushed that bit now, just got to get the disc sorted out and it can go back on. We've being thwarted by the damnable steering rack. We've got one bolt to got and its out and the new one can go in. Unfortunately its damn near impossible to get out. Grumble grumble! We are missing a water seal in the lower trunion that we need to find/replace/cry over.

Found a pile of rust where the seatbelt mounting is supposed to be as well so we are going to have that fixed. Fun fun fun.

If you look very closely at that second photo you might be able to make out the small flaw in the exhaust system. Its quite subtle...hardly noticable...............grr

 

[DingleBerry]

Heh yeah they are looking a little.....distressed

Aye, the small discontuniuty in exhaust containment might have something to do with that gaping chasm of a gap yeah Its not so much clamped together as introduced.

Has anybody else noticed how puny those lower wishbone mounts are? I'm going to die the first corner I come to aren't I!

 

[DingleBerry]

You should see the perversion that mr downpipe gets up to behind that chassis rail! I wouldn't want to speak to him either!

Reliant in their infinite wisdom decided to base it on the tr6 up until the se6, then change it ever so slightly for the se6a so that tr6 disks don't fit. I'm not impressed at £80 a pair so we are going to try and get these skimmed.

Aye tis glasson dock in all its glory.

 

[DingleBerry]

finally got the stupid steering rack bolt out then put it back in the other way round with the new rack, the correct way round. The way round that means you might be able to get them out again at a later date.

Unfortunately some numb nuts has put the near side upper wishbone on upside down as well so we are going to have to dismantle that side of the suspension at sound point as well. Hopefully the upper trunion will have survived, it is at an odd angle at the moment.

Disks are scrap though, they've both got massive groves on the back face. So we are looking at £40 each +p&p and pads, so £120 for a full set. Not even grooved! I'm going to try and find out if they are tr6 stub axles, hopefully they only changed the hubs so we could fit tr6 hubs and tr6 disks which are cheaper, might even get some vented ones then.

Having said that the entire stub axle...bit is probably different because they changed the design of calliper from 3 pot to 2 pot. At least I think its 2 pot, they appear to oppose each other, either way its different so the mounts probably changed so we are screwed...