My first breakdown which incidentally was on my way home from picking the car up, was due to the failure of the fuse contact for the electric fan. All the fun ended in a cloud of steam and choice mix of expletives.

Scimitars are renown for their poor electrics, and as it turned out the one I'd just purchased was not an exception to the rule.

I decided that the best way round a recurrence of this problem was to replace the fuse box with a modern type. But what do you go for ? glass fuses, blades or ceramics. Glass had already proved to be iffy (at best), and although I could get a similar sized fuse box with ceramic fuses in, I was lured into going for blades. Blades are available everywhere, have proven reliability and had to be an improvement on the woeful items that were in the car.

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After the first breakdown everything was going well until I suddenly lost all forward drive (8 miles from home).
The car is fitted with a Borg Warner 35  autobox. After much phoning around, I came to the conclusion that the filters (in the box) had blocked thus preventing the AT fluid engaging drive.

No amount of flushing would solve the problem, so I had two choices. 1. Have the box rebuilt 2. Convert the car to manual.

A manual conversion is a possibility if you can get all the bits :- Clutch assembly, fly wheel, pedal box, clutch hydraulics (master & slave cylinders), gearbox, gear linkage, propshaft. And then find someone to do the job for you. I was quoted £350 to do the job + I had to find all the bits. Finding the bits was a nightmare, as they all had to be sourced 2nd hand. Which then gave you the old reliability worry !! ??? Total cost of this job would have been around £700-£800 !

So it was option 1. I found a guy locally who was a Borg Warner factory trained engineer. He knew exactly what he was doing, and in 3 days and £500 + VAT later my car was ready. The box is now superb, it changes up and down beautifully and I now have the reassurance of a 12 month warranty and the knowledge that the box is probably better than when the car left the factory.

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For a short period of time I fitted a set of MGF Seats. Although these were supremely comfortable and an excellent fit, I decided to go back to the originals.

Why ?

Because I'd just discovered a miracle cure for tired old vinyl. Tried it on my old seats and was blown away by the results. Pictures and info.

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The seat belts in my car were very tired, the reel retaining brackets had some surface rust on them, the inertia mechanism didn't always work and the webbing was frayed and looked awful.

The rear lap belts were just as bad and the adjuster mechanisms had seized.

I replaced the front belts & stalks with a set made by Securon. They are an excellent fit and certainly make you feel safer. Easy to fit too, just an hour with a couple of 17mm spanners did the trick.

The rear belts were trickier to replace as some of the bolts had siezed. 1/2 a can of WD40 and some brute force got them free. I then fitted a new set of lap belts made by Klippan. These are a good match for the Securons, so don't look out of place.

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With a bit of ebaying combined with a trip to Graham Walkers, I managed to get a full stainless system together for under £100. Fitting it was a doddle ! If you are doing this yourself, make sure you buy new clamps and some exhaust paste. The old clamps should be scrapped.

As you can see from the photos, the back boxes are a wider bore and a tad boy racer-ish. They do not appeal to all, but sound great.

Update

I next fitted a set of s/s tubular manifolds. Depending on who you talk to, these can add 15-20 BHP. With the other exhaust mods and the K&N filters, the car should now produce 150+ BHP.

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From day one I was never happy with the condition of the chrome or seals on the rear side windows. Obviously the windows haven't been manufactured since Adam was in short trousers, but luckily the seals are still available new (But at a price !!!!).

So that's half the problem solved, but what about the chrome ?

After weighing the job up,  I wondered if it was possible to swap the windows over. Left to right and vice versa. This would mean that the chrome facing that had spent 30yrs behind a seal inside the car, would now be seen outside. I asked the question on the Yahoo group, but no one appeared to know if this would work. So being a bit of maverick (not really, I'm just a tight wad) I gave it a try. And yes you guessed it, it bloody worked !!!!!!

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This was so simple and so cheap ! Like the windows the chrome was a bit tired, so the door handles either needed rechroming or I had to find new ones !

I found out that the handles are almost identical to those from a classic Mini mk3. There are loads of places you can buy these as reproductions or 2nd hand. About £30-£35 should do it for the pair. OK I didn't pay that, no, mine were £28 on eBay and were brand spanking Rover originals.

You remove the old ones by removing the door card, undo the retaining bolt at the top of the leading edge of the door, remove the retaining screw from inside door, un-couple the bar linkage then slowly pull the handle away. You will need to twist it through 90' to get the internal mechanism out.

Refitting is pretty much the reverse, except that you have to modify the plunger. If you compare the two handles, you will notice that the Mini has a small smaller plunger than the Scimitar. If fitted un-modified the door catch won't be released when the button is pressed. To modify, all you need to do is drill a fine hole in the centre of the nylon plunger, then insert a self tapping screw and secure it with super-glue. Make sure that the total length of the assembly is the same as your original handle. Now just refit as the original.

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Vinyl Refurbishment

When I got the car the vinyl coverings on the doors, seats and arm rests were intact (so I was pretty lucky). The problem was, over the last 30 yrs the colour had faded to a dark grey, not to mention the various engrained stains !

Trying to find out how to return the colour to black was a difficult task. Shrouded in mystery ! A dark secret of the automotive trimmer !

I tried various polishes to no avail. I then found a product marketed by Frost as "Black Interior Coat" , this turned out to be a paint that can be sprayed directly onto vinyl seats etc. that actually penetrates the material and gives a permanent transformation (you can even change the colour !).
The results I got were amazing, and at just £12 a can is a bargain. I did my seats, door cards, arm rests, load cover and plastic cowls with four cans.

see:-

Liquid Plastic

Compare these photos with others on this site. The transformation is remarkable. The drivers door-card did not match the new piece of vinyl above it, I painted both and now they match.

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