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After i got the second body into its new home in the backyard i started completely striping it out, thinking that i was going to use it and that i would redo everything so that it was perfect. However once i reached the final stages and was removing the head lining i found that the A-pillar has rust in it. Reliant scimitars go have fiberglass bodies but they also have steel in places and water causes it to rust and the only way you know its bad it when it splits the glass so that its visible. I would not be happy just covering it up (you wouldn't be able to see it as its not visible from the outside and the trim covers it inside) so would mean i would have a huge task to undertake cutting the fiberglass, removing the steel, fitting new steel and then fiber glassing it back up, something I don't want to do. So the first body will be used and the second one will be kept as a future race car project. Anyway today i organized one half of the front suspension so that it can be blasted and then painted. I have decided to do one half at a time so that i have the other side to copy and make re assembly easy. I became a member of the scimitar club a while ago and have met a number of people with lots of usefull information, one person in the club has lowered the car to the specified 'factory specs' (they left the factory a few inches higher than what is stated) and it looks very good, especially because it uses the same shocks and springs, just somethings are flipped upside down and left to right but more on that after i get the assemblies cleaned up. I also have a second pair of doors from the second body i brought that are in far better condition than the first and are also manual winding so no dodgy electrics to hassle me with. I considered shaving the chrome handles and running solex locks but i have decided on a far better way and will keep the chrome handles for looks while running key-less entry for security, not that i plan on leaving it anywhere that it might be nicked but just for peace of mind i would like it to be a bit more difficult than a screwdriver in the keyhole. Also i have found out that i can run Peugeot 505 front ventilated disks on the front using the same mounting and caliper, as all it needs is a spacer made for it as it is a 2 piece casing.

So i decided that the supercharger was a very good idea and brought it, and also picked up a little intercooler it will be fine for my situation just have to decide where i want to mount it.

Yea iv removed it but for the moment im keeping all the stuff as it owes me basically nothing and at some time in the future im getting another chassis for the second body so might chuck it in there.

went and picked up another body from Opitiki on Saturday might use this one as its pretty straight, no major cracks in the fiberglass or anything. Also been offered a supercharger from a guy in the club at a good price its for a 3.8 Holden v6 and im definitely going down the 3.8 Holden V6 route now so have to decide whether or not to buy it. discussion viewtopic.php?f=18&t=19002&start=20

Not much progress lately been and joined the scimitar club. Met someone who created a 3.8L fuel injected Essex v6, decided i am definitely going down the 3.0 holden ecotec v6 route, also figured out how to lower the car very nicely keeping all the steering geometry in check. Brought a gearbox today its some sort of 5spd supra box, has been striped down and is in good condition. A few crappy cellphone pics.

Okay have had a measure up of a few different engines got dimensions of both an rb20det and a sr20det the rb is way too long, i will never be able to work the steering as the rack is in front of the strut towers and i can take it forward but only a few inches easily, i had an idea about switching the hubs/suspension assembly over side for side and having the calipers in front of the strut towers and the steering arms pointing backwards but this means i would have to put the engine up quite high to be able to not have the steering fouling on the block . the Sr20 however would fit very easily but not sure if i want to put this engine in it as it might just be too different IDK. Still need to talk to a certifier about possibility of a cert etc but will get onto that soon. And i also have another idea i would really like to add a flip front to the car for ease of access to the engine like this as far as physically doing this goes i can do it with relative ease, its just the certification part that's putting me off but il talk to the certifier about this as well. Has anyone had any experience doing this sort of thing to a road car in NZ? I'm maybe thinking frontal impact issues with the added steel for the 'hinge' but i hope this will not be an issue with the age of the car and as far as strength goes its just a glass body anyway all the strength comes from the chassis. Also and i know people have had experience with this whats the deal with doing rust repairs, do i need to have it looked over by an engineer and get it all checked out etc? or can i just weld in a new piece ( if i had a rusty part of the chassis) if it was made of the same guage of steel as the standard chassis and done well would it still need an engineers report or anything?

Yay now have a bare chassis took out the diff... that was easy but iv spent the last few days trying to separate the steering ball joints from the arm things, used lots of different hammers, hit form both directions etc etc for hours and they wouldn't separate so i had a look in the garage to see that sort of pullers etc i had and i found this Its so amazingly good for this job took about 30 seconds a side, just wound it up and they popped out so once i had the rack out i then took both suspension/hub/brake units off each side 3 pot brakes going to go buy two plastic boxes tomorrow so i can separate each side and fully strip them down ready for blasting and repainting.

Intakes on the gen 3 are rounder than the gen two. plug leads go over the top of the intake rather than under like the gen 2 (were bloody expensive to try and replace i ended up getting gen 2 ones and cutting the top loop and passing them back through each other , was a very tight fit but better than the $200 to replace them with gen 3 ones) I think its mostly the intake side of things thats different, were the gen 2's tuned by yamaha? probably useless info but just chucking it out there.

Yea iv had a little bit of a look around at first i was looking into a rover v8 as this has been done before and would be quite in fitting with the car and its era but after doing some research and thinking iv come to the conclusion that i don't want to go down this route it will still have quite a large displacement and i think i would prefer a jap engine and gearbox for reliability. I was thinking at first about a 1Uz but i think i will have issues as they look to be very wide and my steering rack is in front of the engine currently as the engine sits quite far back in the car behind the front wheels. so thinking over the space i have ( i have heaps of length in the engine bay as ill be mounting the radiator of what ever i decide to put in right in the front instead of far back inside the engine bay from standard) so im thinking a straight 6 is my best bet for trying to avoid huge clearance issues. On the weight side of things im fairly sure that whatever i will put in will be significantly lighter than the essex but i am going to be spending alot of time on the suspension anyway so i should be able to sort this out. Yea the plan is slowly coming together i know that this will take quite some time but am prepared to stick at it to get it exactly how i want it and finished to the highest standard i can achieve. i am fairly set on the look of the car body wise and this is what im trying to achive having the scimitar lettering shaven off the front makes them look a lot cleaner. thanks for the link i haven't seen that info sheet before i im sure it will be very useful, i knew they used alot of things from other cars and i new i few of the important bits but the info is awesome.

So if anyone could identify this gearbox that would be great all i know is that its a 4 speed ford box. Also if anyone knows if ill be able to re power it with a different engine and then be able to get it re vin'd that would be great also. Would someone have to see it before it was modified or anything?? i know i would need a cert but im wondering if it will be possible to get one and get it back on the road.

took engine out yeterday, removed driveshaft, gearbox and body from chassis today will upload pics soon. Also i took some pictures of the gearbox, hopefully someone on here will know what it is. and what it is out of. engine out lots of room for a new engine im liking the idea of a 1jz gte will be the go i think if i can get it certed and re vined engine gearbox and driveshaft out anyone have any idea what sort of box this is and what its out of? lifting the body off next time i will use two decent engine hoists not the good one and the one i made for $13 (was dodgy as had such i high center of gravity almost fell over ) started to come off and then it got stuck.... manual said it would come off with the fuel tank in but someones made some modifications so out with the tank tank was in pretty good nick has been opend up at some stage and had a plate welded back in the top a common issue as they traped water between them and the foam against the body and rusted out on top. FREE! and with a little bit of struggling we managed to get the body out the side and roll it backwards. and now resting on stands, im very pleased it survived it ended up very high in the air at one point. now i have the body off its time to do the rust repairs on the chassis (the joys of having a fiberglass bodied car) it looks like just the outermost rail of one of the out riggers needs to be replaced atm wich is very easy just sheet steel bent in to a C shape

Quite a bit done today was going to attempt to take the body off the chassis but then decided i really need ed to take out most of the glass and doors off. did all this then realized that i needed to remove the bear lever to be able to slide the body backwards and "unhook" it from the chassis, with the standard gearbox this would have been easy but at some stage someone has put a completely different gearbox in it (no idea of type yet) as the standard one has linkages to shift and this ones gear lever just goes straight into the box. so i saw the 3 bolts on the top of the box around the gear lever and un did them semi separating it wriggled it around decided that it wasnt goign to come out this way and that id probably fucked it up. out the bolts back in and yep cant select any gears any more, no idea really how serious this is but im sure i will find out soon enough . anyway as i cant remove the gear lever to be able to slide the body backwards im going to drop the gearbox out, but to do that and not get it jammed in the chassis i first have to take the engine out and then pull the gearbox out through the engine bay . Ill try do this tomorow. after all of this im really wanting to put annother engine in although im not sure about how hard it will be to get the car re vin'd with a different engine, will i be able to get a cert? if anyone could help enlighten me on this subject it would be great. well more pics,

From that last picture if it is of the rear screen would mean that it would have to be a se4 sadly i don't think it is though

I know that scimitar GTE's have the exhaust run under the diff like that from factory and i haven't heard anything about them being prone to cracking or anything so they must be okay if they are well supported? although they are quite high so don't have too much of a ground clearance problem.

In hindsight i probably should have but its no biggie, really need to replace the rear seal anyway.

Tried removing the bolt holding the pulley on in my 4g15 (89 mirage) yesterday to change the cam belt, put a screwdriver in the flywheel teeth while i tried to undo it, sheared the screwdriver in half now have half a screwdriver in my bell housing, pulling the gearbox and engine out.

This stuff? http://jaycar.co.nz/productView.asp?ID= ... rm=KEYWORD never used it on windows, have used it on circuit boards and worked well for that.

Just a little update, Haven t done anything to the car recently cause of lack of time etc but i managed to get hold of a new replacement windscreen for it, got it for half of its value so im really happy with that. The guy who i got the windscreen of is involved in the scimitar club and new a few things about my car. Apparently it has already been fixed up twice already but the last owner didn't take very good care of it. Also he was able to comfirm that it has a rebuilt motor gearbox and diff in it.

i took some measurements the other day and the lip can easily end up around 80mm from the ground (and will once im finished with it ) -should also be able to fit some slightly wider rims.

okay so a pic of the empty (ish) interior. Wanted to take the center console out as well but will have to loosen off the hand brake to do that. don't want to remove the dash yet as it is in good condition as far as scimitar dash's go. also my roof lining is mint as so dont want to touch that either (and hopefully shouldn't have to)

this is how they did look for a comparison

Okay so the front was modified at some point, so to keep the lip or cut it off?

was going to take decent pictures today but thought i might as well drain out the fuel tank first of the few liters of petrol it had in it (or so i thought). turns out there was a hell of a lot of petrol in it 30+ liters so yea got pissed of at that and gave up and i/ the car/ the driveway now reek of petrol

Got the tow bar and rear bumper off today was fairly easy once i found a 19mm spanner, pics to come of stripped out interior.

Awesome will just cut them off then, most of the chrome is stuffed anyway.