Bleedin' radiator! HELP/discuss pls......

[ROD]

What will that prove?
 No mayo in cap,no water in recently changed oil. Head gasket could be misaligned on water holes,and could have furred up a bit causing a smaller hole?

[terry t]

What will that prove?
 No mayo in cap,no water in recently changed oil. Head gasket could be misaligned on water holes,and could have furred up a bit causing a smaller hole?

to see if the engine water way are blocked and not just going around rad

[ROD]

Just checked brand new stat marked as 88/102,but not starting to open until around 98,fully open 106 ish. But thats not the cooling prob,cos the old one was opening at right temps,and I still had the same probs.What about leaving out the thermostat,or leaving the base of it in there as a restrictor?

[andyrennison]

The stats function is to allow the engine to reach a stable temperature. If you leave it out it will take longer to heat up, but it should not make any difference to the overall problem. If it does not overheat when you leave it out you will have a big clue

[digger06]

Think I will have to pull the engine to do the head,cant remember! No not doing it!Someone will get a bargain if I sell it!
 
Thought of that! Timing is original dizzy(thats not to say its the right one though) with elec ignition,modified base plate as per fiferism! Have reset timing a couple of times,but it doesnt like anything but where its at now. I'll go and suck the diaphragm to check its moving.
 It runs sweet at a steady 50/55 mph,not missing,although I am getting paranoid about the engine sound and maybe it does very,very, occasionaly once in a blue moon, miss a beat
 
 UPDATE...Just sucked the black pipe..oooohhhh! Base plate is moving freely and returns easily.

 setting the timing on the WRONG dizzy will still show as ok on low/mid revs, its when the advance comes in,that fecks it,
its as much as 20 deg out, with the advance weights pushed out, yet the same at tickover ,
it will run often ok with the wrong un, but no mid to top end power and lots of overheating,
all the dizzys look the same but deffo arnt

im sure my stat is around 6 deg lower than yours? not sure though, worth a try without,
btw, iv worked on a lot of these, iv seen the head gasket blow between cyls, leaves no oil in water, etc, the cyls are v close together, quite common

[terry t]

Looking back through all the post it seems as if all have been covered reliant engine aren’t to technical and there has been quite a few mods done  to them and they still run we have members that have built them Trike Pete, Old Newbie, Digger06, and even Andy has built a few all run with no problems
So your engine Rod has been rebuilt with new liners pistons reground crank
The only thing now is your engine is to tight from the rebuild may be piston and liners or the crank not machined right they **** up on if before. So does the engine turn over freely by hand with a spanner on the front pulley with out and resistance .
May be time to look for a cheap engine and try that

[ROD]

Thats  very true!TBH Im not going to bother to re do the whole engine,too much hassle! Its gonna have to go!

[terry t]

Thats  very true!TBH Im not going to bother to re do the whole engine,too much hassle! Its gonna have to go!

See ya on ebay then

[ROD]

Yes you could be right!
 So Ive just undone the bolt at the side of the block by no4 cyl. Poked around in there with a lump of stiff wire. It wasnt solid with crud (as I suspected) but more like there was lots of gunge and grit in there I dragged out. There was also some sealer which  came away from around the liner to block contact point on the rear liner.(about 3" long) I seem to remember that they said when they  fitted the liners they would use a certain type of glue/sealer.I also got some from round part of the front liner. Overall I got about half a matchbox full of grit out of the hole.I then flushed out the block as best I could with a high power hose through the waterpump block hole and down the head rear hole. Dont sound very good does it?

[terry t]

 sounds like your getting some were try and get the jet hose connected to the hole by no 4 cylinder and blast it back out

[ROD]

Just checked dizzy specs,pm'd fifer. Numbers I have seem to be...41981A  45D4  2184 on the body.
  On the nose of the advance is....3107  54404289

[digger06]

Just checked dizzy specs,pm'd fifer. Numbers I have seem to be...41981A  45D4  2184 on the body.
  On the nose of the advance is....3107  54404289

the numbers mean nothing to me, all i know is if its wrong it runs bad,
 its worth checking that its ok though, its out of the equation then , one less thing, one thing nearer a fix

[terry t]

from what i can find out is the 41981a is from a 84/85 land rover
send Kev a pm he will know

Distributors fitted to a reliant 850 1974 on is a
Lucas 41625b 45d4

[fifer]

Originally posted by terry t  ;
from what i can find out is the 41981a is from a 84/85 land rover

Yep that is what I have found out from the following link
http://starchak.ca/tech/pdfs/lucas.pdf

Originally posted by terry t  ;
Distributors fitted to a reliant 850 1974 on is a
Lucas 41625b 45d4

I noted the following from one of my standard 1997 Robins 
Distributor { 1 } fitted to 1997 Robin .

45D4  41908A then in smaller numbers 4596 ;
The vacuum capsule fitted to this distributor has the numbers
5 - 10 - 5  around the nose and
54424753 in smaller numbers underneath .
This capsule has the vacuum pipe fitted to the rear of the unit

The Reliant distributor 41961a was fitted to the High compression yellow tops and has different internals to the standard distributor along with a different flying saucer which I have noted as 8-10-7 .
 
More info on the flying saucer at
http://www.reliantworld.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?19477-Yello-top-timing/page2&highlight=yello+top+timing

Most 850,s run the 5-10-5 except genuine Yellow top " E " suffix engines from the early Rialtos  .

Distributor identity numbers

https://sites.google.com/site/fifersrelianthintsandtips/distributor/distributor-identity-numbers


Following was quoted from Wilfrieds post on Reliant World ;

If you clean the rust and corrosion off the bell-shaped end of the vacuum advance unit, you will see two sets of numbers.
One is an eight digit number like "54413568", this is the Lucas part number for the advance unit.

The other set of numbers has 3 numbers separated by slashes or dashes, like "5-7-4".
These are the critical numbers that tell you the characteristics of the unit.

The first number represents the vacuum point (in inches of mercury) at which the advance unit begins to operate.

The second number gives the vacuum point at which the unit is at its full advance.

The final number gives the total advance (in crankshaft degrees) for the unit.

More info , including the above at ,

https://sites.google.com/site/fifersrelianthintsandtips/distributor

.
.

[terry t]

this could cause over heating at high rpm
1984 land rover distributor 41981a 45d4  points set at 15tho dwell set at 57to63 degrees
1976 reliant distributor 41625b 45d4  points set at 14/16 tho dwell set at 51 +/-5 degrees

point set more or less the same but a big difference in dwell. this will effect the timing at high rpm