New member

[JJKM]

Hi there,

I've just joined but am not an owner myself. A friend of mine has owned a 1989 Robin for quite some years but it has been in storage for around 4 years. He has recently brought it back home but knows nothing about cars so I have offered to help get it roadworthy. My experience is with Minis and Land Rovers so I'm hoping the Robin won't be too challenging.

Firstly, what are the likely pitfalls/common problems? It seems solid from what I can see and it apparently runs, although I've not heard. One problem I am aware of is that it won't select 4th when driving. It will when stationary.

I would appreciate any hints and tips you might have as I try to get this thing back on the road! Will try to get some pictures soon.

[johno]

welcome,
the forum isn't as active as it once was, but some great people with the knowledge pop in and will pick up the posts and answer your questions.
Reliant's are quite solid little cars, but if they have been abused in the past, suffer badly. regular maintenance is the key.
The 4th gear issue sounds to me like a synchro failure which is a known weakness, but i am no gearbox expert so will let someone else who knows better answer that one!.

[hidunc]

Welcome
Just before I start, this particular section of the forum is meant to be for those having problems with working the actual forum. Better to use either the section for the relevant car, or the section for the particular problem,if it isn't model related, eg 'Mechanical'.
The Reliant is very like the classic mini [- almost all fixings are imperial, so no metric spanners needed,] and shares many peripheral brake / electrical parts / principles. The special exceptions being the all alloy engine and gearbox, which are reliant designs, and need more care when working on due to being alloy, and due to the occasional design quirks - worth remembering: if you can't see why something is the way it is - there is always a good, if not obvious, reason for it!
The gearbox problem could be a number of things, or it could even be the clutch [good old carbon release!] Either way it is probably a good idea to drop the engine/gearbox out and have a good look-around, cleanup and service anyway. The Haynes manual for the Robin is actually pretty good for mechanicals. It does deal particularly with the early model though. Most changes are minor across the models, BUT the early gearbox was actualy the opposite arrangement, with reverse on the left, so the chapter on gearbox overhaul, while being very good and clear, needs reinterpreting re the order in which things are done, as most gearboxes were arranged with reverse on the right.
Plenty of help on here, and even more on the Reliant Facebook Forum - though there is more solid knowledge here, and tends to be a fair amount of over-eager guesstimating by some who only use the fb forum [imho!]

[Wheaters]

Another thing to be aware of with regard to the Haynes manual, bearing in mind that you might be wanting to set the ignition timing again.

The later engines have a distributor shaft which rotates anti-clockwise, opposite direction to the earlier ones. Mr. Haynes didn’t correct this. Before following the advice regarding advancing the timing, make sure of the direction of rotation.

[mechanicalhorse]

Another thing to be aware of with regard to the Haynes manual, bearing in mind that you might be wanting to set the ignition timing again.

The later engines have a distributor shaft which rotates anti-clockwise, opposite direction to the earlier ones. Mr. Haynes didn’t correct this. Before following the advice regarding advancing the timing, make sure of the direction of rotation.

Correct, I suspect Haynes copied the Reliant workshop manual which is also wrong! The 1975 version on the Kitten Register website is correct, but the 1976 version is wrong (maybe John corrected the online one?)

Also, don't believe the imperial dimensions for the main bearing journals in any of them - they're all wrong! Reliant indicate a tolerance of 0.005" and Haynes quote the first regrind size rather than the new size.

[johno]

Don't forget the timing which is needed for a normal service, Haynes state TDC when it should be 10 degrees BTDC. makes a big difference to performance of the engine.
But The Haynes along with Autobooks Reliant manual is worth having

[hidunc]

Don't forget the timing which is needed for a normal service, Haynes state TDC when it should be 10 degrees BTDC. makes a big difference to performance of the engine.
But The Haynes along with Autobooks Reliant manual is worth having

True in its way, but this is just the static timing to get the engine going. The true timing figure is achieved on road test and is normlly between 12 and 15 degrees depending on the distributor components. As so many people don't bother with [or understand] dynamic timing it is therefore preferable to give the static timing as 10 deg before tdc, because if it happens to get left at TDC the performance is very poor.
Again, Haynes does not make the point that static timing is just a starting point, but, to be fair, neither do Reliant!!