A spring in Scim’s step
1971 Reliant Scimitar SE5 Owned by Nigel Boothman (nigelboothman@tiscali.co.uk) Time owned: Four years Miles since last report: 250 Costs this month: £550 Previously: Car back on road, but plenty left to do
Ithought I’d got the Scimitar running OK, but the list of remaining tasks unfurled before me like an ancient scroll. Time to prioritise then.
Near the top of the list was the terrible mixed salad of geriatric dampers and mystery springs. I’d thrown the car back together using the contents of several large plastic crates that accompanied me on our house move back in 2015. One damper burst while in use and was replaced with something similar but no younger, while the springs appeared to be several different lengths and poundages when unloaded.
There are a few different dampers available for the Scimitar, but I was keen on a set with moveable spring platforms as well as an adjustable damping rate. I like the idea of competing in both hillclimbs and road rallies in the future, so I’ll need dampers that can be adjusted for different uses.
When I knocked a lump of mud off one of the old dampers I found a label saying Spax. Sure enough, it was an antique adjustable unit and still appeared to be doing some damping. Even the knurled screw still turned, though whether it was adjusting anything was less certain. But the longevity of this item, which might have been on the car for 30 years, sent me back to Spax for a new set.
They’re krypton gas-pressurised and epoxy powder-coated, and look capable of sailing past the two-year guarantee period just as the previous set had done. They arrived with a C-spanner to adjust the spring platform, which is held in place with a second locking ring.
My dampers were made to order, so I used the fortnight’s lead time to assess the springs. Thanks to the Reliant Sabre & Scimitar Owners’ Club’s excellent Scimweb forum (scimitarweb.co.uk), I found a listing of the wire thicknesses used as standard for front and rear springs on an SE5.
This, together with the knowledge of what the internal diameter should be, plus the unloaded length, gave me plenty to measure. But while I identified a decent set of rear springs, even the best-matched pair of apparently correct front springs left the Scimitar nosing over speedbumps like a truffle pig. So I bought a new standard pair and spent a day swearing at my cheap little spring compressors. Hint – trap the whole assembly horizontally in the vice so the compressors cannot suddenly slip round to the same side of the spring just as you’re getting close to fitting the damper’s retaining cup.
Once on the car with the lovely new dampers, the Scimitar sat level and rode like a sports car and not a skateboard. With the damping adjustment on each new Spax item halfway between the firmest and softest setting, the ride is still taut but not agonising, and more importantly, a sense of security has returned in bends – though the improved damping also revealed a wriggle in the steering that demands an hour with the tracking gauge. Something else to add to that list, then.