£1000 Challenge
Reliant Robin
‘The adhesive had run out of stickiness after 28 years’
1990 RELIANT ROBIN
THE STORY SO FAR Miles driven 2 Total mileage 64,094 What’s gone wrong The rearview mirror’s fallen off DAVID SIMISTER Only another year before the Robin’s eligible for Brooklands’ New Year bash (Out and About, page 18). I did consider entering it into the event’s dedicated displays for modern supercars on account of it being rear-wheel drive, basically midengined and crafted from GRP to keep the weight down – surely the chap who brought a Ferrari Enzo along wouldn’t have minded?
But with the Reliant spared an unpleasantly early start and a schlep around the M25, it’s spent the first few days of 2019 napping in the CCW office car park. Probably not a bad thing, because I haven’t had a chance to sort out the cabin condensation that dogged its Christmas shopping outing ( CCW, 26 December).
Quite a few of you wrote in after reading about its steamed-up windows, suggesting that the heater matrix is probably the chief culprit. And having perused various online parts specialists, it looks like a replacement unit, if one’s needed, can be sourced for under £30. In the meantime I’ve had to do a quick bit of bodging after yet another Robin part failed to play ball.
Having left it standing for over a week over Christmas, I was eager to squeeze into our three-wheeler to make sure that it was still behaving. Happily enough, its tiny four-pot engine burst into life on the first flick of the key. Well, it might have been the second, but who’s counting?
Just as I was about to nudge its gearlever into first and set off, I went to adjust the rear-view mirror – and it came off in my hand. The Robin’s mirror is attached to a blacked-out square on the windscreen using adhesive, with no other clips or screws to secure it, and after 28 years it had obviously run out of stickiness. No doubt the steamed-up windows on the last few outings have had something to do with it...
Luckily, a £3 tube of Loctite seemed to do the trick. After carefully applying the new adhesive, cleaning up any muck and lingering condensation from the mounting area and surrounding part of the windscreen, I was able to reattach the Robin’s rear-view mirror. And I’m delighted to say that it hasn’t fallen off again. Yet.
All of which means that I can now crack on with sorting out the iffy heater matrix, poorlyadjusted handbrake cable and a couple of other niggling winter jobs to make sure that the Reliant can cope keep with some of the longer journeys I’ve got lined up for it.
And that list will kick off, I’ve decided, with an outing to Tamworth, where the original Reliant factory buildings apparently no longer stand, but there are a few roads, including the wonderfully-named Regal Close, in its honour.
I fully appreciate that this is barely 90 minutes from CCW’s offices, but baby steps, and all that…