Reliant Rialto estate POV first drive impressions 01 Dec 2022 FILE0048

Описание: This red Reliant Rialto estate, C513 FOP registered 01/08/1985, is the latest addition to the classic fleet. It was bought unseen from Woodleigh Motor Sales of Grassmoor, Chesterfield via Ebay at a classified price listing of £1K as spares or repair, strictly no warranty. Delivered up here in SW Scotland by Shiply courier. Fingers very much crossed when it arrived. How bad could it be? Well for one thing the inertia starter had given up the ghost. That was a quick and easy fix to swap out for a good one and it was up and driving after a fashion enough to get it on the Bradbury lift for full going through. Did have benefit of long MOT and significant recent expenditure, such as new alternator, fan belt, clutch, choke cable, speedo drive and excellent tyres/battery. However it was very badly out of sorts and unsafe to drive. OS wheel cyl leaking, one of the NS brake shoe linings had become unbonded causing wheel to lock up under braking. Severe leak at pinion shaft seal (very low on oil) someone had tried to bodge that with insulation tape, severe bearing play in gearbox main shaft, failing front coil over shock absorber which was also distorted causing spring to rub hard against side of the inner damper, split ball joint boots, lift and play in the king pin and a front brake with cracked and almost de-bonded linings contaminated with king pin grease (always take drum off when greasing both top and bottom nipples and wipe out any excess grease oozing out in there). Both plastic roof gutters were becoming detached and the drivers window winder terminally broken. All these items were fixed, needed another gearbox and thankfully already had spare inertia starter version box for my 848 Reliant powered Austin Seven special. Re-gapped the noisy tappets, a bit of a pain on the Rialto compared to the Austin set up! Could not locate a driver's door window winder so bought a passenger one (easy to find) and reversed its action/assister spring and it's now excellent. 3M double sided tape and a heat gun fixed the loose and distorted guttering back neatly. Still have to polish out deep scratches inside the windscreen where someone has made a right mess sandpapering or something when trying to re-bond the rear view mirror with what looks like epoxy metal! Very pleased with the evident care this survivor has otherwise enjoyed over the years. Very sweet engine. Galvanised chassis superb, ditto fuel tank , both also painted, doors shut great, no body damage, very clean inside, dash slightly bodged at hydraulic fluid level warning/check switch and was broken at fixing at top of A post causing steering column to move excessively. Have also fitted Toyota PU "leather" front seat covers I modified on my industrial Singer overlaid on memory foam wedge cushion insert. Adapted to Velcro fixings. Very comfy with slightly modified seat rake/extended rearward travel for 33" legs. Longer 1/4" UNF bolts at front and bespoke floor spacers. I was going to fit modified early MX5 seats but on basis of this trip feel not justified for now as there are other vehicles in the fleet with more pressing upgrades on the to do list. Mileage of 42K seems valid. Trike was last used in Matlock so presumably no stranger to stiff gradients. So far, on the basis only of a 14 mile drive, I find the B axle 2.75 diff fine but I am aware many did not for urban driving and the factory quickly reverted to 3.25 after just two years of this axle version. Yellow top engine has more torque than the red top in my 1938 Austin 7 special though the latter has about 3 bhp more. Here I am mainly on country roads with few hold ups so the long legged gearing was no problem on my first trip into the next town for an initial fill up.
Update 04/12/22. Found out why the heater was pretty useless and temp gauge barely moved on these initial trips. There was no thermostat! Some clueless person took the last one out and jus replaced the cover. I have now fitted a 82 centigrade one having first tested in it hot water with thermometer. Also tightened up worm drive clip to stop water seepage at the heater valve hose connection (having first filled the system from that point per Fifers Reliant hints and tips website advice to eliminate trapped air) and replaced the radiator cap with one in better shape (7lbs). Tested again to full working temp and heater works well and gauge is about one third up with ambient temp being only 5 centigrade on this run. No leaks anywhere and no pressurisation to speak of so all looks good. The same engine in my Austin Seven special has no pressure cap and utilises a much larger Austin Seven 1931 style radiator to very good effect with an electric puller fan that is almost never needed except in summer heatwaves. Rialto has done about 75 miles of road testing over past few days. New pinion oil seal seem to have cured the past bad oil leak. Replacement gearbox proving very good.