87 plymouth reliant le (where is the dogbone strut?)

What are you talking about? There is no "dogbone" strut on a Reliant. There is a "front" engine mount.

Ian

"shiden_kai" wrote

One of the more common forms of troll activity is to ask nonsensical questions to see who bites. It's best to ignore them. They'll (hopefully) grow up some day.

Wow, haynes showing something that doesn't exist? Now lets see who made the car, haynes, or chrysler? That's right must be haynes is always correct. Troll!

I am not going to dig out my Haynes or (much more useful--ditch the Haynes) Chrysler shop manuals--my '87 Reliant passed on last November.

I vaguely recall that there may have been some kind of stabilizer strut such as you mention for high-performance manual-transmission cars. If your Reliant is a 2.5 then it is one of the 95% of Reliants with an automatic transmission, and there is no such strut on your car. Which mostly explains why you can't find it.

For all I know, 1981 Reliants may have had such a strut, but then your car is not a 1981 Reliant. This is one of the big problems with the Haynes K-car manual: it is based on the early cars, with a slapdash amendment chapter for the later cars. (Don't trust the electrical diagrams!)

There is a strut on your car, running from the crossmember to the back of the control arm. I think it's called the "stub strut". While you are down there, take a close look at the crossmember--they are notorious for rusting and cracking. I had to replace my crossmember, which cracked around one of the control-arm pivot points, with a much-better designed crossmember from a '90 Spirit.

....Ed

I am not going to dig out my Haynes or (much more useful--ditch the Haynes) Chrysler shop manuals--my '87 Reliant passed on last November.

I vaguely recall that there may have been some kind of stabilizer strut such as you mention for high-performance manual-transmission cars. If your Reliant is a 2.5 then it is one of the 95% of Reliants with an automatic transmission, and there is no such strut on your car. Which mostly explains why you can't find it.

For all I know, 1981 Reliants may have had such a strut, but then your car is not a 1981 Reliant. This is one of the big problems with the Haynes K-car manual: it is based on the early cars, with a slapdash amendment chapter for the later cars. (Don't trust the electrical diagrams!)

There is a strut on your car, running from the crossmember to the back of the control arm. I think it's called the "stub strut". While you are down there, take a close look at the crossmember--they are notorious for rusting and cracking. I had to replace my crossmember, which cracked around one of the control-arm pivot points, with a much-better designed crossmember from a '90 Spirit.

....Ed