Reliant Kitten DL

17th March 07

Today me and Dan went to get the kitten... interior is an acquired taste but it seems like a pretty sturdy little car other than the clutch bite point is on the floor. However it lost power slowly but surely and about 30 minutes after leaving it was hopeless and very apparent something was wrong. looked under the bonnet and a head retaining nut was missing and there was oil pissing out from between the head and barrels, not good although strange it didn't smoke at all? Went the remaining 220miles home on a trailer... free petrol I suppose! thank god for breakdown cover.

22rd March 07

Weather was poo but thought sod it I need it back on the road otherwise it will become another project. 40 minutes later and the head is off and on the bench, Seriously easy stuff!!! Under the rocker cover was a nice burnt black ooh lovely. Ripped the head apart, got the valves laid out neatly in the same order they came off... found the inlet valves had not been seating as the tappets had been done up way too tight (another good reason for it having sod all power, and no jokes that its only an 850 lol) Gave the head a squirt with oven cleaner and its cleaned up pretty good. not the same alloy as my bike engine though as that goes shiny and this went quite dull... weird.

I then cleaned all of the valve gear up. The valves were cleaned in the lathe. I spun them up and then used a screwdriver to gently scrape the carbon deposits off and then the dremel with a wire wheel to buff the faces a little. The rockers cleaned up a treat wit some Jizer sloshed on them. I then Cleaned up the head itself, removed the burrs from the ports and smoothed them a bit. Polished the exhaust ports and matched the inlet ports to the manifold although they were almost spot on which I've heard is pretty rare.

23th March 07

Checked the head on the surface table today. only the outer 1/2" blued up so it was defiantly warped. I gave it a good scrubbing on the lapping place and its cleaned up very well with only a small section in the middle of the head which didn't clean. although is is only out by a very minute amount and is plenty flat enough for the purpose. I gave the head a good scrub out and clean in the solvent tank at work, to remove all off the grinding dust which is not good to have in the engine. Finally before refitting the valves and lapping them I cleaned the valve guides out some cotton buds soaked in thinners. Then out came the old swizzle stick to lap in the valves with some rather antique looking paste! the valve seats weren't to bad and they cleaned up quite nicely without too much hassle

26th March 07

Not got a lot done today, Temporarily fixed the thermostat housing with some metal repair putty. Fitting a new rear hatch seal as the old one was the wrong type, this isn't perfect but with a bit of adjustment will work a treat. Also checked the steering and found the root cause of the steering wandering, this ball joint on the column is well and truly past its sell by date!

30th March 07

Today I got the scimitar on its new wheels and it looks great, on they way back from Ian's I stopped off to see a nice chap who offered me a spare engine he had kicking around. After a ride in his kitten, enthusiasm has come back and I need to get it on the road again!!

31st March 07

Today I started to clean the engine down and find out how bad it was. After a quick scrub down it was looking quite clean and I was getting my hopes up. a look inside wasn't so promising as there were staples in the rocker box and one of the rocker shaft retaining nuts was missing. Dan then called round to steal my kittens exhaust as his was fecked. Whilst here I got him to aid me getting the engine out of the kitten. dropped it out of the bottom of the car then lifted the car up and I dragged the engine out on a bit of carpet. easy!!! Once Dan had gone I took the sump off the replacement engine to find a nasty black burnt mess. Not a good start! The big end shells were worn to the copper as were the crankshaft journals. Also noted is the fact the distributor drive shafts ends were smashed off and brazed back on at some point.

Bits of engine are everywhere now!!! what am I going to do. Also note the two different types of clutch I've found on the two engines?

Here you can see the buggered shells. It took me over half an hour of scrubbing to get the inside of the block that clean.

6th of April 07

I stripped the original engine down to see if the shells in that were any better but if you look at the first pik you can see they are even worse!!! The liners in the original engine looked good and were 0.020" oversize so I thought I would use them, but after I bashed the liners out (using a soft aluminium drift, and they did pop out easily) and getting them ready to go in I moved the crankshaft with the oversize pistons on and half the rings fell off in bits. Back to using the original liners then! I gave them a good clean on the lathe and scrubbed out the block to remove slag that had built up behind cylinder four. Before refitting them I applied a small amount of sealant and gently pushed them back in. With the liners refitted I gave them a good hone to clean all the crap off and remove the mild scoring. I used a cheap electric drill which is bloody slow so I could get a good cross hatch pattern in the bores.

With the barrels all clean, the crank was the next thing to fit. I cleaned the shells and fitted the worn ones back as its all I have for now, hopefully they will be ok. With the caps fitted The end float has to be checked and can be adjusted with the front end shims. Following the crank goes the pistons, making sure to line up the rings and pistons so they face the right way, a spring compressor makes this easier but a jubilee clip or tie-wrap can be used on the cheap! Finally I got the cam shaft in with the cam chain and sprockets etc, easy to time in getting the two marks lined up!

7th of April 07

I ordered new front and rear crankshaft oil seals in a hope of stopping the black patches from appearing under the car. These are a doddle to fit with the engine out of the car, even with the engine in the car they are not hard and only the rear seal takes a bit of time as you have to remove the gearbox, clutch and flywheel. Changing the seals just requires no holes bared bashing them out to get the old ones shot of. although make sure you don't damage the covers so a round drift is good for the rear seal and a socket can be placed on the seal on the front cover then hit sharply and it will pop straight out. The new rear seal is best fitted using a vice and two bits of flat plate to press it in, then it can be refitted to the engine with a new gasket. The front seal just needs fitting into the bore and tapping it down with a large drift to make it flush with the front cover as can be seen in the photos below. I also gave the oil pump a clean and it looks good without too much wear

10th of April 07

With the new seals in I built up the rest of the engine. Photos of the head are also shown below which I cleaned yesterday after giving it a bit of porting, also note how bad the stem seals were which shattered when I tapped them with a hammer. After fitting the cam followers and pushrods I fitted the distributor to see if the timing was right and it was well off although it was right as the Haynes directed so I had to work out which leads were now which (see the white marker on the plug leads) so hopefully it will still work when I set it up. After all this I wipped a new head gasket on, refitted the head along with the rocker shaft and valve gear. then a quick preliminary tappet adjustment to get it all ready for a first run!

11th of April 07

Today I tried to change the seals on the gearbox, this gave me a few more problems than anticipated that ended up in me stripping and rebuilding the whole box. The front seal is very easy to change and is a 30 minute job if that although the rear seal requires the removal of the whole primary shaft unless you can prise the rear seal out without removing the rear cover. I couldn't and ended up pulling the shaft out a bit which popped the synchromesh hubs apart. see the photos below for a bit of info on what I ended up doing lol.

13th of April 07

Although its Friday the 13th I had no bad luck and managed to refit the engine. The engine dropped straight in with no lifting gear needed just a plank of wood a bit of rope and two pairs of hands. After fitting the engine I jacket the car up and lifted the gearbox in from underneath, bolted it all up, attached the prop shaft, gear-stick and starter motor.

14th of April 07

Today I made the exhaust manifold, with the price of tubular ones being so expensive for these engines (mild steel second hand ones regularly go for over £120 on eBay) I decided to make my own. I wont go over the details too much as the photos pretty much explain it. A few old bits of plate or angle steel in my case donated the required manifold plates to bolt to the head. A bit of chain drilling, a junior hacksaw and a file soon gave me some matched ports. A few tube bends I had kicking around and some off cuts gave the manifold its meat, they required a bit of notching and playing around to get the shape right but I'm quite pleased with the results. After each section was fitted, the bores were checked to make sure there was no weld burn through that could restrict the gas flow. The 4-1 reducer was made from an old disposable mig welding gas bottle and the large bottom bend comes straight from an old Citroen AX exhaust system I had kicking around. Dan came up today and lent a hand, he also kindly cleaned and built up one good carb from two we had. Hopefully it will be running tomorrow.

15th of April 07

Today I started by pulling the rocker cover off again and setting the tappets with my click adjust, they seem much better now! I then set the static ignition timing using a multi-meter to get an accurate result. Before fitting the exhaust I remembered I had a length of heat wrap left over from my bike, I wrapped the collector on the manifold with this to try and protect the alternator a bit. I then filled her up with oil and connected all the leads and wires etc and it wouldn't start, had fuel coming from the pump so that was working, took a plug out and no spark, took the coil lead off the distributor cap and held it against the side of the engine whilst turning the key and got mild sparks, so fitted all my new leads and the sparks were much better. Connected up the new HT leads to the plugs and gave it another go and it roared straight into life although sounded like a tractor with just the manifold fitted. I did some more work on the exhaust, whilst that was cooling I refitted the radiator and all its corresponding hoses and filled it up with coolant and new antifreeze which looked like some kind of weird glow stick refill fluid. Finally to get the end can to fit the exhaust system I had to make a 1 1/3" to 2" adapter ring on the lathe to allow the motorbike end can to be fitted easily. looks like it worked a treat!

Took it for a spin and it doesn't run too badly will update soon!

19th of April 07

Today I found out the brakes are shagged. The rears have been binding on and worn away, someone has welded crap all over the handbrake actuator arms to the shoes and messed around with them, there was even a cotter pin wedged in between one of the cylinders and the shoe. All cleaned up now with some new shoes but they are still binding on so I need to find out if the hoses or master cylinder is working.

Playing around with wheels for that mad max look

22nd of April 07

Today I did nothing on the car but here are a few finished photos of the exhaust system, its not as low as it looks in the centre photo!