My 1981 Plymouth Reliant

[jed1977K81]

Here she is all! Needs some dent reapair but no rust and only 23K miles. The link to the pics is below.


http://www.cardomain.com/ride/3869162/1 ... th-reliant

[nszotovich]

You have some clean-up work to do, But you are going to have one hell of a ride. Congratulations!

[Jacks1986Lebaron]

Wow the interior looks great!!

I wonder if that paint is too far gone to throw some rubbing compound on it, and then buff it????

Great find!!

[jed1977K81]

I have already started the clean up. Thing is looking fantastic! I also started on it with rubbing compound. I think it is gonna come back. The sections I did have a real nice shine now. Will not be 100% But I will only repaint the VERY bad areas. Wanna keep it as original as possible.

[jed1977K81]

Yes, thanks! I cant wait to drive it! And still cant believe my good luck in finding one in such nice shape. I have looked at others, but they had so much rust, Not even I would touch them. I also have a line on a Dodge aries, late 80s. Not sure of exact year. Will check it out once the snow clears some.

[RichG]

Yeah, a little spit and polish.....you'll be o.k.

[Jacks1986Lebaron]

I have already started the clean up. Thing is looking fantastic! I also started on it with rubbing compound. I think it is gonna come back. The sections I did have a real nice shine now. Will not be 100% But I will only repaint the VERY bad areas. Wanna keep it as original as possible.

Its been years since I had a car with that much oxidation on it.

But, "years" ago (Over 20) my Dad bought a 1972 chrysler Newport. Big dark blue 4 door, that had sat under a tree for like 2 years. He got it for $200 with only 60,000 miles on it.

Can you say "tree sap"? Plus the paint had oxidized really bad. Dad bought it and drove it home, and parked it. Then he and my Mom left for florida that weekend for vacation.

I was bound and determined to have that thing as shiney as a new penny when he got home from Florida.

I am almost imbarassed to say what I did, but I wanted my Dads eyes to pop out when he got home from vacation,

So.......I washed it like 3 times by hand with a large spong, with the car really wet and soapy, I would take (this is the bad part) some comet and sprinkly on the sponge and do a section at a time, making sure I kept the car wet, never actually allowing the comet cleaner to come in contact with dry metal.

After doing this, for about 3 hours, I scrubbed the vinyl top down really good and got it good and clean, then let it dry really good.

Thankfully when it dried, most if not all of the tree sap and oxidation were gone, and what was left was a car that need a little touch-up here and there, allowed that to dry for a couple of hours, then I used rubbing compound mostly on the tops of the car (hood and trunk), got that all buffed off, then I got some Westley's poliching compund and did a section at a time, by the time I finally got done (2 whole days) nothing but working on the exterior, the car glowed, I applied a conditioner to the vinyl top, had the white walls as white as new and had the tires looking shiney.

Thru-out the rest of the week after school, I cleaned the interior, dyed the carpets, armor-all'ed everything, got the glass sparkling, and by the time my folks pulled into the drive the following saturday, my Dad got out of their car, and I had the Newport parked under a shade tree, and he waked over to it, and was just rubbing the hood and sides, and smiling.

he said...you didn't have it painted did you???? hahaa...I was 16 years old.

He was so proud of that $200 car, that looked "almost" like new again, he drove it for 10 or 12 years, well over a 100,000 miles and when he sold it for $600, it still looked good, and drove well. In fact the guy that bought it took it and had it painted, and drove it for least another 4 years before he totalled it.

Anyways, throw some rubbing compound on it a section at a time, buff it off, then in the same area, apply some polishing compund, let dry, then buff it off. You will be amazed.

Good Luck and we expect some NEW pictures of all your hard work when your done!!!

[88 aries]

still alot of work to be done but hopefully in the end, it will look like my 81 viewtopic.php?f=24&t=3596

[K-CAR_WAGON]

88 aries- How much disassembly did you have to do to detail the engine compartment to that level. I assume you repainted everything under the hood including the firewall area and inner fenders- as the paint is usually very thin to start with. Did you need to remove the AC connections and then recharge? Was each component sprayed or was some applied by brush?

[88 aries]

all of the components are painted on this one, due to the fact that ziebart claimed most of the engine bay, for the firewall I brushed on some air craft remover, primed then repainted. the cruise control and throttle holder was taken off and repainted, the carb, fuel pump were painted with a small brush in gold, the valve cover was sprayed in the original mopar blue, topped with clear coat, the chassis was sprayed with duplicolors VHT (very high tempeture) gloss black, followed by several coats of clear coat, the brake lines were hand painted as well, the engine block was painted by hand. The transmission was also painted as well. the other two K-cars i own are different, they have the original paint on the shock towers and firewall. and im sure this 81 Reliant two door coupe is going to need this treatment as well. It takes work but in the long run it is well worth the time and effort, especially since the car only has 23,000 miles.


as for the a/c compressor it was removed since it had no freeon left, the car had a bad condensor, once the a/c was back on and the new condensor installed the 30 year old system still blows cold.