1985 Lap Rialto 2 (hopefully a more concise version of it) - this may take me time to update it.

20th May 2011

Hi everyone,

Here's the "LAP" Rialto 2 I won on eBay:-

As it was when I first got it home...:-

20th May 2011

Seat covers (these have been removed):-

That looks tidy almost as tidy as mine

20th May 2011

Seat covers removed:-











Poppy removed from the radiator grille:-

20th May 2011

A few engine bay pics. Some minor tidying up needs to be done here:-

















I plan to keep everything as standard as possible and also plan to get the following done:-

- replace the rear wheels for standard wheels
- sort out the very slight misfire when trying to accelerate fairly hard (it only happened about once, possibly twice I think)
- replace some of the spade connectors within the engine bay and to use glue-lined heatshrink to insulate some of the slightly burnt out wires next to the fuse box.
- replace the driver's side door mirror (or remove the jubilee clip from it)
- flush out the cooling system (it seems ok for now )

Any comments welcome

Also, I would like to say a massive thankyou to Azzy and his dad Dave for sorting out the faults on the car for me before I picked it up too.

27th May 2011

A slight update

Hi everyone,

I thought I would give an update on what I have been doing to my Rialto 2. Anyway, it's easier to explain what I did and have found by pics:-


New dashpot damper (yesterday):-







New dashpot damper fitted to the carburetter:-





Removing the engine covers.......

Nice to see that all of the screws are in place on the driver's engine cover




And a clean looking engine





Now let's see what's on the passenger's side........

Engine cover complete with screws




Nasty looking gasket goo I hate that stuff !!!







Yuck

Distributor

Distributor cap looks good




and so does the rotor arm



The points are also in good condition

Changing spark plugs (shows that the engine is in overall good condition)

Cylinder 1:-



NGK BPR5ES spark plugs were installed and have been replaced by NGK BPR5E spark plugs.






Cylinder 2:-




Cylinder 3:-






Cylinder 4:-

27th May 2011


Replacing the choke cable (involves removing the air filter)

Air filter with yet more gasket goo Why are some people so tight and won't buy a new gasket ?!? The mind boggles !





That nasty stuff is also on the carburetter:-




Old choke cable with the clip missing:-




Paper air filter looks good




Knackered air filter to carburetter gasket removed




...but the air filter box it's self is scrap It's badly cracked and split






Carburetter face cleaned up




Choke and heater knobs appear straighter after fitting the new choke cable, air filter to carburetter gasket using the scrap air filter box:-

28th May 2011


Today's minor update

Hi everyone,

I did a little bit more work on my Rialto 2 Estate today, which was to repair the wiper park switch (a new one has already been ordered, thank you wheaters for the eBay link ) and the courtesy light door switches now work again:-


Wiper park switch (prior to removal):-






The wiper park switch had been bodged some time in the past with a thin piece of steel sheet used as one of the switch contacts. I bent it back into shape and have superglued that switch for now.


Courtesy light door switch. These are impossible to remove, so I used a pair of pliers and phCrackIt to remove the dirt,rust, etc. to make those switches work again.




Working interior light via the courtesy light door switches

4th June 2011


Change of wheels

Stock (second hand) wheels I got from James (chgperformance) after cleaning them with wax:-




New tyres:




Wheel fitted to the car:




Correct Rialto 2 wheel trims in place (and Ben wanting me to throw his toy for him):

pop-rivet's post 4th June 2011


Looking good....hope you did not use the same 3" size knuckle slicing screws you used on your other cars cover plates ......Les




Argh I can feel the blood flowing...

[QUOTE=pop-rivet]
Looking good....hope you did not use the same 3" size knuckle slicing screws you used on your other cars cover plates......Les
[/QUOTE]

I haven't changed the engine cover screws (and I don't need to), so no sliced knuckles

However, I do plan to replace the gearknob (the plastic thread has almost given up) and air filter box (it's badly cracked and split).

Hopefully, I will be able to do some more work on it tomorrow after I have sorted out my blue one's front wheel bearings squeal (I hope it's just repack them with grease and nip up the nut).

5th June 2011


Some more work I did on the car today...

I though that it's about time to get rid of the gasket goo.....

What was bodged onto the car:




Old gaskets stuck with gasket goo








3 spring washers missing




Remains of the carburetter base gasket:




Carburetter base cleaned up with a stanley blade and label remover:




Drip tray removed. Thankfully there was no bits of gasket stuck to the inlet manifold:




Upper drip tray gasket stuck with gasket goo:




Lower drip tray gasket stuck with gasket goo:




Part of the drip tray has fallen to bits:








Remains of the old drip tray gaskets:





(Almost) no more gasket goo

5th June 2011


New gaskets fitted (that I got from Mac Motorcycles yesterday)

Drip tray gaskets:






Carburetter base gasket:




Missing spring washers substituted with M8 spring washers and an M10 plain washer (I don't like not using spring washers, but it will have to do for now):




Carburetter and heater block bolted into place:








Cracked air filter refitted for now:

8th June 2011


A bit more work I have done on the car.....(whilst being busy doing other vehicles)

Replaced gearlever gaiter (the day before):




Original condenser (yesterday):




Replacement condenser (yesterday):

8th June 2011


Replaced a few other odd bits (today)

Driver's door mirror (yesterday):




Air filter box. I made up a good one out of two. One of them was on the car and the other one is a second hand one that reliant-reviver had sent me

What was fitted on the car:





Good and bad air filter boxes together:






Dent removed from the original air filter box's air filter retainer:




One usable air filter box. The one reliant-reviver had sent me (to be fair, he could not have seen it before I cleaned it up) had a very slight crack. I decided to use Araldite to seal up the crack:




Nasty looking (very old) braided fuel hose that was connected to the carburetter's overflow:






Last part of the breather hose replaced with 7mm (12mm outer diameter) "fuel" hose:




Overflow fuel hose replaced with 5.6mm SAE J30 R9 fuel hose. I plan to replace all of the fuel hoses with that Codan fuel hose when I have time to do so:




Incorrect sized 8mm metal fuel pipe connector was fitted to two of the fuel overflow hose lengths:




This was replaced with a plastic 6mm fuel hose connector (the correct sized fuel hose clip is on the left of this pic):




New drip tray (from chgperformance):




New drip tray fitted to the inlet manifold:






Usable air filter in position:

11th June 2011


Making the engine bay's wiring safer than it was

How the wiring was when it was taped up next to the fuse box:-




New brass crimp connector, weatherproof insulator and heat shrink of the wire's colour. This is what I did to all of the burnt out wires (using the correct colours of heat shrink:-




Using my SMD solder station as a heat gun to shrink down the heat shrink:-




This is one of the worst of the burnt out wires. I wonder what colour it was......




.....it was purple !




Another badly burnt out wire with a cheap and nasty steel crimp connector on it:




Burnt out wires insulated with heat shrink using the correct wire colours:




Engine bay wiring harness grommet not fitted to the body




Engine bay wiring harness grommet now fitted correctly with all of the wires passing through it rather than around it:




I plan to find a safer alternative to this glass mercury filled tilt switch. It's not even attached properly




Heater cable bracket not fitted to the body and bodged with a tiewrap




Scruffy tiewrap removed and heater cable bracket pop-riveted back onto the body. I originally wanted to use an M4 repair washers, M4 nylock nut and M4 bolt to sure it, but there was no room:

Reply from pop-rivet 11th June 2011

Looks like you have prevented a Bonfire then

I always use the metal fixings http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/plasterboard-D...item4157b30c5a For fibre glass bodies, they never come out, easy to fit and you can fix a self tapper into them...

Keep up the good work...

11th June 2011

pop-rivet wrote:

Looks like you have prevented a Bonfire then

I always use the metal fixings http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/plasterboard-D...item4157b30c5a For fibre glass bodies, they never come out, easy to fit and you can fix a self tapper into them...

Keep up the good work...

That was after the car became a CAT C writeoff about 10 years ago after a minor engine fire and the wiring was repaired with black electrical tape (it wasn't even wound on properly). Thankfully, I have now heat shrinked that lot properly thus preventing any electrical bonfire.

The only other way I could have secured the heater cable's bracket was to use a plastic insert (also used to secure the door mirrors, etc.) and put a self tapper into that. Having said that, the gap between the mounting hole and the fibreglass body immediately behind it was barely over 5mm.

18th June 2011


Replaced carburetter float, needle valve

This is the amount of sediment I have removed from the carburetters float bowl (using cotton wool buds and carburetter cleaner):




Carbruretter float bowl cleaned out:




Old carburetter float and needle valve:






Amal's/Burnlen Fuel System's "Stay Up" float and Viton tipped needle valve kit:




New float and needle valve fitted to the carburetter:

18th June 2011


Removed the tip alarm.

I also removed the tip alarm as well and decided not to rewire it. I'll install Maplin's ball bearing based tilt-switch when I get a car alarm for it (I may not even bother).


Scruffy looking tilt switch and the tip alarm's wiring removed. I'm leaving the extra earth wire in place in case I decide to fit a car alarm at some point:




Fuse box's wiring now looks a bit neater:




This is where the tip alarm siren was fitted:




Tip alarm siren:




Tip alarm siren removed. There was a lot of dirt/muck behind the radiator grille. The drainage holes were also blocked. An interesting (and novel) idea of preventing the radiator grille from rattling against the body:




Looking cleaner:




Radiator grille refitted (needs a bit of "Black Chrome" and a new decal at some point):




Tip alarm arm switch removed:




A rubber grommet to hide that nasty hole:

18th June 2011

Removing a few scruffy looking tie-wraps (some were swapped for black ones)

How the air hoses were tie-wrapped together (these have been removed):




Does anyone know where I can get these fresh air hose grommets from ? I have tried standard 50mm cable grommets, but the inner diameter of them are too small






Scruffy looking tie-wraps removed:




Scruffy looking white tie-wraps swapped out for neater looking black tie-wraps:

21st June 2011

I drove my Rialto on a fairly long run today

Hi everyone,

A quick update on my Rialto 2 estate. It now runs without any problems at all after driving it for about 100 miles today It's too early to say about oil consumption yet, but I will be keeping an eye on it during the week.

The only few things I will do at some point are the following:-

- Change the coolant and flush the cooling system.

- Replace the Car CD/Radio (the Alpine's buttons work whenever they like), replace the speakers and possibly install the new ones in the boot sideways.

- Fix the passenger's window winder mechanism (eg. I'll have a look to see why it has siezed up)

- Replace the front door cards.

- Change the rear perspex windows for glass ones (I have already got the glass windows ready to fit, but I will need to source replacement rear window rubbers).

In short, I'm very pleased with it.

Azzy's post on 21st June 2011

Good to hear its going good.