So there is a lot of rust that is going to be difficult to remove. As long as you don’t come closer than 10 feet, this car will look pretty good 🙂
Project Reliant
Breathing new life into an old car
Breathing new life into an old car
So there is a lot of rust that is going to be difficult to remove. As long as you don’t come closer than 10 feet, this car will look pretty good 🙂
Dominick and Eric seem to like sitting in the Reliant. I think Dominick is dreaming of driving it soon…
I have a cool idea for the front of the Reliant. It involves the removal of the grocery-getter grille and replacement with something a bit more masculine.
The Reliant is up on blocks so it’s easier for me to take a look at the condition of the underside. I went around the car and made note of some issues.
So I have a k-car up on blocks in my driveway… I’m officially a redneck. 🙂
So I was looking in the glove box of the reliant and I found the original manual (which I knew was there). But I also found the original warranty card, all filled out by the original owner circa 1987.
Well, because there was so much heavy-duty vacuuming to be done, I went out and got a small Shop-Vac to deal deal with it all. I got every piece of glass from down inside the door and under the seats. Also, I cleaned up the engine bay and any other place where there were accumulations of crud. Looking a bit better now, sorry no pics of the vacuuming 🙂
Well, I got a moment to work on the car today in the beautiful sunshine, since I had a nice day off. My plan was to take the front bumper completely off, since there is a bit of a warp to the plastic I’d like to fix. There were only 2 bolts left on the driver’s side holding it there at the moment, so it was pretty easy to get off, (especially since I broke one bolt, the same one as the opposite side of the car.)
Well, thanks to my super-awesome helpers Dominick and Garrett, I was able to remove the dented front quarter panel today. The frame underneath is solid, although it has lots of ants and acorns in it. Sorry ants, no room for you in this project! We broke a bolt inside the fender, but that’s okay because I plan on replacing as many as possible with new ones. It also looks like there is a fair amount of room to go bigger with the rims or lower with the springs, but we’ll most likely need to adjust the fenders to accommodate.
Didn’t get much time today but I was able to take some photos of the car in its current state, mostly focusing on the interior. I also removed the mud flaps and cleaned up some broken glass from the passenger window. Next up, I hope to remove the dented front quarter panel (fender) and bumper.
Today I began assessing the car and documenting what needs to be done. The tow truck driver dropped the Reliant a bit close to the fence in my driveway, so I reconnected the battery and fired the car up (with fingers crossed, of course). SUCCESS! The car started right up and I moved it to a more accessible place in the driveway to wrench on it. The motor is running a bit rough, probably because the computer is trying to recalculate everything for the Electronic Fuel Injection, which was fairly new to this model at the time. Prior versions all had carburetors, I believe.
Well, I’ve got the Reliant at my house now. For the past year it has sat in a rural field, in “storage”, awaiting its fate. Today I had it towed up to my home and dropped at the back of my driveway, where I can look more closely at it and work on it at my convenience. I did some “before” photos, so that I can look back on my progress. I will share those as the journey progresses.
So, I had this crazy idea. I wanted to find a project car that I could restore and take to the local Friday Night cruise nights. Also, I wanted to make a blog to document the process, the challenges I encountered and ultimately the result.