A Tale of Three Renaults

FCS Event Manager Joined: 04 Jan 2005 Posts: 3680

Well here we go again, after the original thread got deleted in the server mess up . . .

As most of you know, i own two Renault 19 Hatchbacks, both being of the 16 valve flavour.
One is a H plate Ph1/Ph2 Hybrid, the other is a L Plate Ph2.

The white one (ph1/ph2) is my 2nd R19 16Valve and the blue one (ph2) is my 4th R19 16valve, I owned a clio RT before (well was bought for the GF at the time but i drove it more than she did) the 1st R19 16 Valve was a red hatchback on a J plate.

I sold my first one after getting a company car, Volvo V40, was a mistake to let the first one go, i knew it at the time but i simply had no room to keep two cars where i was living at the time, so it went.

Ever since then i've missed it, the fun factor mainly, my first one was chipped up with an induction kit and was rapid! broke a couple of engine mounts during the time i owned it but nothing major.
So now having moved and with a little more space, the hunt for another 19 was on.
this was roughly april 2004.

After looking around a White 19 16V came up on ebay, had a stupidly high reserve on it but it caught my eye because of its front end.
Little did i know that the vary same car was being talked about on these forums and that was before i joined here.
The front end was being joked about on here but none the less i liked it.
the auction ended with no one getting to the reserve price, so i emailed the owner, offered Â£150 for it and he accepted.
I drove down to swindon to pick it up and once there managed to get some more money knocked off.
It had about a months worth of ticket and tax left on it, sunroof did not work, leccy mirrors non working, fuel comp flashing, and wanted a lot of tidying up, spesh in the elctrics department.
Anyway deal was done and i brought her home.
Was a 150 mile odd journey to get her home, my mate following in my volvo in case it went bang, but it pulled like a train, engine and box really really sweet, steering and suspension spot on, i was having fun!!!

Got it home and could not do anything to it for a week because of working.
during that week thou another Ph1 R19 16V in red came onto ebay, and i won that one for Â£100, it was local too, so only a 2 mile drive to get it home.
bodywork was shagged on it, dents in every panel, seats ripped but it had all the bits on it that i wanted for the white one, that worked and was in good condition.

So now i have two Ph1's for under Â£250.

The red one donated its fully working sunroof, exhaust system, instrument panel, parcel shelf, ECU and Aux fuse box covers, strut brace and covers, front indicators, rear number plate lights, many items of trim, hoses, rad, expansion tank etc etc.

All of those were fitted to the white one and the rest of the red one got sold for Â£40!

the white one got a good clean out, seats removed, runners off and carpet removed and steam cleaned, the metal work under the carpet was also cleaned and i ran fresh sealent around the joins, the sunroof was removed and the drain pipes all cleaned and flushed thru and the red one's sunroof fitted aided by my mate chris who held it up as i bolted it in.
Lined up first time too Smile

, switch on, ignition on and the sunroof worked perfectly.
loads of dodgy wires were also removed at this point where some boy racer stereo gear had been in it once in its life and then all put back together.
interior apart from the usual rip in the drivers seat now looked spick and span.
now to the engine bay, old rad and fan removed, hoses removed and the ones from the red 19 all flushed thru and fitted, new thermostat too for the white car.
expansion tank and flushed thru hoses from the red one also fitted.
removed the plastic surrounds that cover the battery and cleaned out all the dead leaves and other misc crap including a rheostat for the heater which was just lieing there (the heater looked to have had a new one fitted).
Still finding loads of loose and unknown of origin cables in the engine bay which when traced back led to nothing so those were removed.
All the usual stuff done to the engine, cambelt change, oil and filter change, air filter change and TB cleaned.
dizzy cap, HT leads and plugs changed.

now because of the ph2 front end being put on the car, it had indicators next to the headlights as well as the ones in the ph1 front bumper, the wires for the bumper indicators had been used for the ones next to the headlights so again the red r19 dontated its cables so i could scotchlock them in and have those working too.
If they are fitted they have to work for the MOT.
washer bottle had been wired up back to front, wash front screen and rear washer jet operated, wash rear screen and front washer jets operated, so those were redone.
rear number lights did not work but that was down to corroded terminals, cleaned them up and used the cleaner lenses from the red 19 and voila, they now worked, front fogs had same problem with the corroded terminals, cleaned and now work.

Car was now ready for it's MOT, it failed!
but when i was handed the fail sheet i musta got some weird looks from the mechanic because i was laughing.
it failed on rear pads being worn and one non working front indicator.
I was expecting much more so was well happy with that.
in the afternoon put new rear pads on, replaced a blown bulb in the indicator and she had a fresh 12 months MOT!
that was september 27th 2004. and the car ran without a hitch until Jan 4th this year but i will cover that in the next post.

My cars

to be continued . . .

PS. i seem to have rambled on a lot more the 2nd time around lol
PPS. Waiting for Neal to post 'i want to hear more about the blue one'

Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2005 3:44 pm

I like the blue one, look very nice Exclamation

Forum Moderator Joined: 18 Feb 2004 Posts: 7432

"I want to know about the blue phase 2"

FCS Event Manager Joined: 04 Jan 2005 Posts: 3680

Jan 4th 2005:

Well the Ph1 has been running sweetly since its MOT in sep 2004, was well pleased with it, not having to do any work on it . . well major work anyway, was just tidying up things on it, like the front grill, aligning the bonnet etc, was looking on ebay to treat it to some nice leather seats etc until . . i dropped a work mate off at his home and still being a bit of a boy racer at heart decided to show off the power of the car by wheelspinning it down his street, impressive display too right until BANG . .

feck . . no drive . . car came to a complete halt, engine was fine and still running, clutch pedal was working, no change there, gearbox was going into gear but when i lifted the clutch engine revs would increase but no motion, nothing, zip, no forward gears or reverse.
shut engine off and popped bonnet, nothing, no obvious clues as to why i suddenly had no drive, looked underneath and again no clues.
Called up a mate and we towed it home.
called up a local garage and first they said ahh your clutch has gone, we'll sort that for Â£230!
i told them again the problem, i said cant be the clutch cos i can engage it, i just dont have any drive, they said oh, must be the differential shagged then, your gonna need a new gearbox.

Started looking online for a new gearbox and google came up with this site, cool it has a tech forum and tech articles so i did a search and came up with 2 threads, Mal's post about his cab doing the exact same thing and Chris H's tech article on the diff circlip, both posts described the problem my car had, so i posted basicly asking for confirmation that it was my diff circlip that had gone and Chris H replied back that yes, it was the circlip.

fired up dialogsys, got part numbers
77 00 720 854 WASHER DIFF 3.19 ---3 x 1 thrust washer
77 00 113 257 CIRCLIP DIFF 2.23 ---3 x 1 and the circlip
and off to renault . . about Â£7 lighter i came home with a thrust washer and a diff circlip.
time to change them out.

Road wheel off, caliper unbolted and tied to the suspension strut and brake disc off. unbolted the bottom of the suspension strut from the stub axle carrier to allow movement on the drive shaft.
Next i unbolted the 3 10mm bolts that hold the gaitor onto the diff and pulled it away . . opps first mistake . . forgot to drain the gearbox oil DOH, got a nice shower of box oil . . .
cleaned up the road underneath and myself and back to it.

Pulled out the driveshaft from the differential and yep, thrust washer was no where to be seen, prolly in a thousand bits inside the gearbox and the diff circlip was exactly where Chris H said it would be, inside the gaitor.

Made sure the sunwheel was pushed back and inserted the thrust washer, then spent about 20 minutes attempting to get the diffcirclip in.
was prooving to be an impossible task trying to hold the circlip on my circlip pliers and insert whilst being under the car in an awkward posistion.
then had a brainwave . . what if i compress the circlip first?
So i did, i fully compressed it and wrapped a bit of wire around the clip ends, went into the diff first time, cut the wire and pop, the circlip sprung into place perfectly.
Reassmebled the car, whilst doing this i noticed the balljoint on that side had its rubber perished so made a note to replace that asap.
got the car back into one piece then went to top up the gearbox oil.
removed the airbox to get easier access to the filler plug and then it dawned on me that to access the 3 10 mm bolts that hold the gaitor in would be easier to get to from top of the car with the airbox removed
(this prooved useful to me later)
topped up box oil, put the airbox back on and started the car.

it was a very slow lift up on the clutch pedal as first was engaged, but the car was moving!! yes it works!
Drove it round the block and car was mobile again.

now it needed a new balljoint and all should be well with the car again.
again a search on ebay for renault related items brought up a brand new balljoint! so i bidded on it and won, paid about Â£15 too it and yes was overpriced but it led onto me getting the ph2 (which will be in the next post).

Anyway since then, the diff circlip has popped twice more Sad

I am really good at replacing it now thou, can do the whole job in less than an hour and last time was only 3 weeks ago!

so time to source a new gearbox for it.

An all too familar sight for me now . . .

last time i replaced it was in the snow . . brrr . .

and look . . neddy black chequers are off!

it has since popped the bloody diff circlip again!
so car has been stood outside the house last couple of weeks . . . needed to check the suspension struts on it this weekend and when i jacked the car up, found a huge puddle of gearbox oil underneath, so cleaned off bottom of the diff and found a 3 inch long crack in it!

defo need that new gearbox now . .

to be continued . . .

FCS Event Manager Joined: 04 Jan 2005 Posts: 3680

The Arrival of the Phase 2:

Having sourced a balljoint for the ph1 from ebay, deal done and talking to the guy in email, one of his emails he told me why he had bought the balljoint in the first place, to go to his phase 2 for the MOT, turned out that it did not need one and passed its MOT in Dec 2004.
Since then he had bought another car (an alfa if i remember right) and that he no longer wanted the phase 2, would i be interested?
So i emailed back asking for details and pics.
The email back was very long and descriptive listing stuff that had been done to the car and loads of pics!
1 years MoT on it, 6 months TAX, a shed load of spares to go with it and all for Â£350.

So of course i was interested and arranged a date to meet him, took the train up to Scarbourgh (6 hours and Â£79!) and met the guy, the car looked better in the flesh than it did in the pics, took her for a test drive and completed the deal.

So i began the long journey home, and it only took 3 hours and cost Â£35 in petrol, no wonder ppl hate using the train!

All seemed fine, was loving the drive home until about 50 miles from home, i started to hear a rattle, not very loud but there all the same, pulled over and popped the bonnet, rattle appeared to coming from under the cam belt cover . . hmmmm a bit worrying that and of course i drove the rest of the way home thinking all sorts of bad things.

By the time i'd got home it was too dark to do anything about locating the source of the rattle which by now was considerably louder!
Posted about it on here in tech questions and Chris H came back and said it was prolly the tensioner pully.

Well one thing i always do when obtaining a 2nd hand car is the cambelt cos you never know when it was last changed and you should never trust the last owners estimate either, replacing the belt is a damn sight less costly than getting a 16v head reworked!

so armed with the belt kit . .

went about the task.
Removed the strut brace and then the cam cover and this is what greeted me!

One tensioner pully well and truely fecked! Chris H was spot on!
the tensioner had seized solid but the rattle noise was not coming from that althou it was the cause.
the rattle was the cambelt it self slapping off the inside of the belt cover, it was so loose cos of the seized tensioner that i was lucky it had not jumped off the cams and fecked the head!

So the cambelt was replaced as was the idler pully and tensioner pully, timing checked and double checked and then put back on the cover and strut brace and fired it up, mmmmm no rattle, sounded mint again.

to be continued . . .

FCS Event Manager Joined: 04 Jan 2005 Posts: 3680

Feb17th 2005:

As well as loving my cars i am also a Dj, playing trance and hardhouse, thursday feb 17th and i am playing a night called Addiction at the South Side Bar in london, so grabbed my record bags, loaded up the ph2 and headed for london, all going well until i hit Trafelgar Square, pulled away from the traffic lights and ooooooo no clutch, clutch pedal is on the floor, damn! clutch cable snapped i think.
The club i am playing at is only a mile up the road so i turned the engine off, put car into first, start her up and bunnyhop for a few yards till engine catches and away we go, using engine speed to change gear.
Arrive at the club, made it 15 mins before i am due to play, play my set and have a beer.

Grab torch from boot and pop the bonnet, clutch cable still attached to the box, look by the pedals and there is the other end, try tugging on it and it does not move, hmmmm, too dark to do anything so drove it the 40 odd miles home without using the clutch pedal, that was fun, middle of london and caught every single red light.

Next day and daylight and i take a better look, damn, not the cable snapped but the plastic adjuster on the pedal has gone!
Time to replace the pedal then.
this is a very easy job in fact, just a matter of popping a spring clip off the left hand side of the bar, sliding it towards the right and the pedal drops off.

The new pedal comes a a kit, so best to assemble this in the warmth of your front room before trying to get it on the car.
Once assembled, you just slide it back onto the bar, push bar back to the left and pop back on the spring clip. (make sure you got the plastic spacers on the right ends of the pedal thou)
take clutch cable out of the retainer on the gearbox, pop cable into the adujuster on the pedal, reattach cable to gearbox and then press the pedal a few times to take up the adjustment.

Old pedal - you can see where its snapped and general state of it.

and the nice new pedal

also since then have fitted this nice pink beast

I need to do some serious cleaning up in the engine bay and when i fitted the induction kit i noticed this

Nice crack there . . so thats gonna be replaced this week along with new balljoints

Also with the Ph1, Gearbox has been sourced (thanks Neal), going to be picking that up this weekend after helping Neal get it out of his car lol)

to be continued . . .

FCS Event Manager Joined: 04 Jan 2005 Posts: 3680

Chipping the ECU:

Got my new chip from Mick Penny today so to install it!

now some ECU's have sockets so swapping the chip is dead easy, remove old chip and insert new, job done lol

but most ECU's do not have sockets, so for the purpose of this i am using my non socketed ECU.

first off you have to remove the ECU from the engine bay, located on the left hand side or drivers side of the engine bay in a black cover, held in place with a strap, remove strap and then ease the box out, very tight fit this, then take off top cover and remove the big connector (pics to follow of this)

you can now take the ECU complete with plastic bottom case indoors to do the rest.

You need to undo 2 8mm nuts to remove the metal case from the plastic outer case

then 4 T20 screws get the metal case apart

now u need to remove the single T20 from the heatsink which holds it onto the case, 3 x 2.5 hex screws on the leading edge of the board and a further 2 x 2.5 hex screws which secure the board at the connector plate.

you now have your board out of the case

The chip to replace is the 28 pin rectangle shaped chip at the top of this pic

close up

Back of the board where we do the work

now to remove the chip you are goning to need a solder sucker or solder wick, put the point of the soldering iron on each pin in turn, use some solder to get it flowing and using the solder sucker suck up the solder around the pin.
repeat for all 28 pins.
then turn over the board and check the legs of the chip, u may have to do some more desoldering on those, also there is hotglue used to secure the chips in place, use a hairdryer to melt the glue, not too close to the board or else you can melt the plastic on the chip / surrounding components.

with a little work the chip comes off

new chip ready to go on

Insert the chip onto the board, making sure its the right way around, there is a little half circle on one end of the chip and this relates to the diagram on the board itself which shows a little half circle.

before turning the board over, tack the corner legs onto the board with solder then turn over and solder all the legs in, check you have not made any dry joints and voila.

now at this point it is a good idea to go get some of the wife's or GF's nail varnish, not for your nails . . but to give the area you have soldered a coat of varnish to reseal it and prevent corrosion of the circuit board

Chip in place

and back into its case

refit the lid of the case, put it back into the plastic case, take down to the car and refit it.

PLIP the doors locked and unlocked (this unlocks the ECU for later model R19's) and start her up - job done.

Testing of the new chip to be begin in earnest Smile

Site Subscriber Joined: 13 Oct 2004 Posts: 4722

Was that the ECU you brought from the scrappys not so long ago to test the limiter?

or just another spare one you had?

Level 7 User Joined: 06 Sep 2004 Posts: 230

Right nice this stuff it should be in the techies i think.

Did you do the cambelt whilst engine was in the car??

Site Subscriber Joined: 10 Jun 2004 Posts: 2317

Xvisor wrote:

Right nice this stuff it should be in the techies i think.

Did you do the cambelt whilst engine was in the car??

I'd assume it was, cambelt in car ain't that hard.

FCS Event Manager Joined: 04 Jan 2005 Posts: 3680

yep Roger, that was the ECU i got from local renault breakers last week.

in standard trim that ECU was spot on, did everything it was meant to, rev limiter spot on 7200rpm, idle bang on @ 950rpm so using it to mount the new chip is ideal because it makes an excellent comparison from standard to modded.

and yes, cambelts on both R19's were done with the engine in the car.

FCS Event Manager Joined: 04 Jan 2005 Posts: 3680

quick update:

Trying to convince the landlord to let me use the front garden so that i can put the PH1 in there and change out the gearbox (tax is out end of this month too so needs to be moved somewhere off road by then)
I live in a flat, Upstairs one at that, so landlord said i need permission from downstairs tennents, they have said YES Smile

so just waiting on the landlord to say yes now. then i can sort that one out.

This morning i've been doing stuff to the ph2 that costs nothing (skint till end of the month)
so time to clean up that engine bay, trip to halfrauds for a can of gunk, drove car round the block to warm up the engine and then bonnet up, off came dizzy cap and HT leads, IK off and TB plugged up with plastic bag, plastic bags firmly shoved into spark plug holes and used the whole can of gunk in the engine bay, spent 10 minutes brushing gunk into all the tricky surfaces and then in with the pressure washer.

amazing how much crap gets into the bay over 12 years, looks so much cleaner now Smile

dried everything out and refitted HT leads, dizzy cap and IK.

started her up to aid the drying out process, loverly.
took it down the garage to fill it up and check tyres and on way home she developed a misfire.
pretty obvious some water from cleaning out the engine bay managed to get into the spark plug wells.

so home again, strut brace off, HT leads off, cover off and rocker cover off.
amazing how much crap ends up in the spark plug well, not much water but enough to cause the misfire, also quite a liberal amount of oil in there too, found out why when the rocker cover came off, split in the gasket.
so old t shirt into the plug well firmly pushed down with a screw driver to soak up the crap whilst i did a Chris H and made myself a new rocker cover gasket using a good old crunchy nuts cornflakes packet.

tshirt out of the well, got most of the crap soaked up, quick clean up of the excess using a yellow duster, cleaned up nicely, did not remove the plugs thou. cleaned mating faces of the rocker cover and top of head, checked my cornflakes gasket for fit and put the rocker cover back on, tightened it up.
cleaned up all the ht leads and refitted. covers back on, strut brace back on and started her up, took her for a spin, no misfire and the car is pulling better than ever.
got her home after doing 20 miles and checked for oil leaks around the rocker cover, not a drop, easier to see now the engine is all nice and clean.

all in all, quite a worthy days work Smile

Mr Quoter-vator Joined: 16 Feb 2004 Posts: 7405

so whats the chip like? u have refitted it and driven it?

Forum Moderator Joined: 02 Mar 2004 Posts: 19978

I beleive hes waiting for more input from others that have it. I should really send it to him for fitting!

need to dig out the other spare ECU I have as we all know what happened last time!

Site Subscriber Joined: 28 Jan 2005 Posts: 3547

no....what happened last time...

FCS Event Manager Joined: 04 Jan 2005 Posts: 3680

Jonnyboy wrote:

so whats the chip like? u have refitted it and driven it?

failed on the Ph2, its now fitted into the ph1's ECU but not been able to test it on the road with the ph1 until i swap over the gearbox.

Reason it failed on my ph2 is down to the type of ECU i have, its the version with all the security hardwired into it like immob and alarm, you have to plip the doors with the remote to unlock the ECU before you can even use it after swapping them out or removing it from the car.
mine is a different spec to Chris H's, Bladeys which is signified by the numbers on the ECU and why i asked for those numbers of RR members wanting to test the chip.
needed as many different types of ECU possible you see to ensure compatibility with the chip.

i can say this thou, it HAS worked with clio valvers, seen a couple of good reports from clio valver owners who are now running the chip, they happen to have the same ECU as Chris H does, we all know Chris H is the kind of guy to call a spade, a spade so he will be excellent for a honest review on the chip Smile

Spammer Joined: 27 Jul 2004 Posts: 5717

good job cleaning the engine there neo , wish you have taken some pics of that too .
i have tried it with gunk on my black rt s engine but i was a bit scared to mess up the plugs/electrics etc . what sort of brush did you use if you did ????

Forum Moderator Joined: 18 Feb 2004 Posts: 7432

You want me to give you the number off my spare phase 2 ECU? its a 92 one. If its the right sort you can use that to test on your phase 2...

Site Subscriber Joined: 13 Oct 2004 Posts: 4722

clean engine bay piccy i say!

:)

FCS Event Manager Joined: 04 Jan 2005 Posts: 3680

Right, todays task was to swap out the cracked top mount on the PH2

easy enuff job or should be . . .

first task, get the road wheel off, undid the locking wheel nut whilst car was still on the ground, then went to loosen the others . . 2nd nut sheared off . . bollocks . . ah well 3 will be ok until i drill it out, 3rd nut undid fine, 4th one - sheared off - shit!

Damage is done, so may as well carry on with the job in hand, jacked up car, put axle stand under and wheel off.
next undo the 2 bolts that hold the bottom of the strut to the hub carrier, first one undid with no problems, leave bolt in place, undo 2nd bolt, OMG, tighters than a gnats chuff, took 15 minutes to undo it!

anyway both undone and push bolts out, then undo the strut brace to remove its cover and undo the two 13 mm nuts that hold the strut in, in the engine bay.

strut off

take it indoors to remove the top mount, i have a spare strut with a cracked spring so the idea is of course to take the mount off the strut with the cracked spring and put it onto the strut just taken off the car.

spring compressor onto the first strut and top mount came off easily, careful not to lose any of the bearings . .

onto the strut just removed, spring compressor on

went to remove the nut and bang, my ring spanner snaps . . .

given up for the day . . lol . . trip to halfrauds tomorrow to buy a new ring spanner so i can complete the job and get the strut back on the car.
good job its only 10 mins walk up the road.

then of course i got to drill out the sheared off wheel bolts stuck in the hub and replace those, oh what a fun day its going to be tomorrow.

on the ph1 front, need to clear the front garden and get down the paving slabs asap so i can sort the gearbox on it.

see the wet shiny stuff next to the wheel ?

thats gearbox oil from the crack in the diff . . .

to be continued . . .

Forum Moderator Joined: 02 Mar 2004 Posts: 19978

no dust covers on the dampers? Up here they would be pissing out oil in a week.

Wish my wheel studs broke there! They will be piss easy to get out mate.

Also drilling them? Its not going to happen and its wasting your time as well. The only wheel bolts I have ever been able to drill or have any machine shop drill are locking wheel nuts, the renaults ones will blunt anything.

Disc off (fit it correctly its 90 degrees out the now), drift (socket extension) big hammer belt it quite hard a few times. Mole grips it will unscrew.

I sort em all the time.