A Tale of Three Renaults

Site Subscriber Joined: 13 Oct 2004 Posts: 4722

if i get the chance ill have to pop over and see your mighty collection of rens.

FCS Event Manager Joined: 04 Jan 2005 Posts: 3680

well today Neal and I went on a trip to bournemouth.
Neal turned up at mine at around noon, took delivery of his heater control panel, thumbscrews for rear lights and window for his pass door.

2 hours and 160 miles later and we are in bournemouth chatting to a guy called Dave (digital biscuit on RR)
Why?
To pick up a 449 blue ph2 19 16v hatch that he advertised for sale on these forums (pics of the car are on the page before this)
first impressions of the car made it look quite clean, no rust on the inner front arches or on the rear arches, no rust in the usual places on the bonnet.
Bonnet up and everything looks standard under there with the exception of how the throttle cable has been run, tie wrapped to the strut brace instead of the usual route round the front of the engine bay. good idea!

further inspection revealed that the drivers side front wing and the rear bumper are not original items, nor is the drivers side headlight, so i guess its had a little accident at some point.
also noticed a cable thats not normal running to the fan, its been wired up to a switch under the dash as the sender that controls the fan is not working, not a problem.
Interior of the car is in above average condition too but the drivers seat has the usual wear and tear to it, the remote plip also not working, again minor details as my hatch GYP will be donating its parts to this one.
Engine started first time on the key Smile

and for a 130,000 mile engine, it sounds very good, headgasket is defo on way out thou, tell tale signs of oil in the water and a lot of steam being produced by the exhaust.
Biting point on the clutch is very low but it has had a new clutch cable and clutch pedal.
Also the gearbox mount is knackered which caused some interesting vibrations and gear changes on the way home.
last real bad point on this car is the damn heater does not work!
lol
the fan is fine but the heater matrix is up the creek so i froze my nuts off on the trip home.
Actual driving of the car is very smooth, suspension and brakes are spot on, the brakes are much better than GYP's and this is also a non ABS r19.
no play on the column and the car ran true even if u took both hands off the wheel, no deviation to either side Smile

Pull away was very good, it accelerated quite happily and rapidly to 70 mph, althou it did have a vibration with it which is more than likely caused by the buggered gearbox mount.
only last thing about is that the rear reflector panel is non 16v, its the red one instead of the 16v smoked one, again not a problem because GYP will be donating its one.
The car is MOTed to april 2006 so for Â£75 i am more than happy with it.

more news and pics to come on this r19 Smile

Thanks to Neal for the ride down to bournemouth, top fella!!

FCS Event Manager Joined: 04 Jan 2005 Posts: 3680

well started on some of the niggly things on this car whilst i had some light after work, couple of the instrument blubs are blown like the one that lights up the digital display, so replaced those and now i can see the digital display i find its suffered from the usual bleeding effect that befalls a lot of these displays, so that will be changed out with the one from GYP.
also did the hazzard light switch bulb and pass side leccy mirror switch bulb, found the front fogs dont work, lol, will check bulbs later.
also changed the rear reflector panal for the 16v version Smile

FCS Event Manager Joined: 04 Jan 2005 Posts: 3680

Changed my wheels over today, put the 17's that were on GYP onto UCC.

whilst i had GYP and UCC up on the jacks the difference in the undersides of them was very apparant, under UCC all the box sections on the chassis are all nice and square, the inner front arches on UCC show not a sign of rust as neither do the rear arches.
I checked UCC in all the spots GYP failed on and again amazing how much difference there is between the two cars, UCC almost looks new underneath compared to GYP!

also swapped over my clear side repeaters to UCC and the front indicators.
UCC's indicators had gone this real funny yellow colour with age.

I'll get some photos taken soon, keep forgetting to take my camera down the yard Rolling Eyes

Jobs to do on UCC:

Head Gasket (its not gone yet but on its way)
Heater Matrix (+ coolant system flush)
Gearbox Mount
Change the instrument pods over
Change the seats over, leather from GYP to replace cloth seats in UCC
Cambelt, tensioner and idle pully (Dave had no idea when these were last changed on UCC)
Change the rear spoilers over (UCC's spoiler is damaged)
Sort the electrics for the radiator fan
sort the electrics for heated rear screen
sort the front fog lights out
change the rear bumper (One on UCC has had a bad spray job on it and u can see the original colour (red) coming thru under the blue paint)
change exhaust systems over (Standard coming off UCC and the stainless steel one from GYP onto UCC)
Oil and filter change

FCS Event Manager Joined: 04 Jan 2005 Posts: 3680

well here are some pics of work done to UCC so far

GYP and UCC together but with the wheels swopped over

Broken spoiler on UCC

Loose door trim on UCC

The indicators, the horrible colour one is off UCC, swapped them over the ones off of GYP

hmmmm seems to be a 'bit' of a gap there! maybe i will try some ph1 indicators as they seem to be larger, i bought a new pair of ph1 indicators a while back and they did not fit my ph2 as they were larger.

Clear side repeaters also fitted, hmmmm front bumper also seems to have dropped a bit

UCC has the wrong rear reflector panel fitted

so off it comes

Bit hard to tell in this pic, but the standard one and the 16v panels are different colours, the valver one is smoked (top panel in this pic)

so valver panel on and damaged rear spoiler off

and now with GYP's spoiler on

that looks much better Smile

oooo look i have 'that' sticker too

next out with the rear cloth seats

and in with GYP's leather ones

then i got hungry so came home for lunch hehe

Forum Moderator Joined: 02 Mar 2004 Posts: 19978

all ph2's we have are black btw, i checked them all today at the scrappies and on the roads. All black, not that faded red you had!

Site Subscriber Joined: 05 Apr 2004 Posts: 1141

My valver has a "red" rear PH2 strip.

I think maybe they were just diffrent batches or something, not necessarly 16v ones.

I want your cloth drivers seat, nearly sorted delivery so save me it!

FCS Event Manager Joined: 04 Jan 2005 Posts: 3680

Its yours Addie, if i can ever get the buggers out!

Anyway, talking of seats, part of what i wanted to do today was to swap over the leather front seats from GYP to UCC.

Things did not go according to plan.

now easy way to do it (so u would have thought) is to unbolt all the front seats from under the car, well on both cars 3 of 4 bolts to each seat came off without a hitch but the 4th one on each seat and funnily enough the same bolt from each seat, the front outer bolts (bolts closest to the side of the car) are all rusted beyond belief and they appear not to be 13mm like the rest of the bolts are, they aint a 12mm either cos the socket would not fit.
I spent an hour on one bolt on GYP and gave up, i managed to get it half off but now stuck fast.
blowtorch is out of gas so could not even blowtorch the fuckers.

I took these pics of GYP to show why it failed the mot on welding.

this is just the passenger side sill with the skirt off

not pretty is it!!

UCC's sills and arches are almost perfect in comparision

Site Subscriber Joined: 05 Apr 2004 Posts: 1141

Would it not be easier to remove the seats using the 5 Torx bolts from inside the car? I always used this method when swaping my Leather interior between 3 cars, in and out in minutes (although the side plastic covers can be a little fiddly). I don't need the floor runners on that drivers seat Wink

Never fancied rolling around under a car to change seats!

The Seat seats had one 3mm screw holding them in the runners Shocked

Forum Moderator Joined: 02 Mar 2004 Posts: 19978

exactly Addie.

10 mins removing them from the runners.

The nuts are all 13mm underneath and I only ever use a deep 13mm 6 sided socket as nothing else will do.

FCS Event Manager Joined: 04 Jan 2005 Posts: 3680

well it looked easier to undo the 4 bolts from under the car which is what i attempted and failed to do lol

i shall tackle the torx head bolts tomorrow

Forum Moderator Joined: 02 Mar 2004 Posts: 19978

need a t20 to remove the trims and a t40 for the 5 bolts to the runners.

Site Subscriber Joined: 10 Jun 2004 Posts: 2317

The faded red ones came off the cabby's didnt they?

Retroholic Joined: 23 Dec 2005 Posts: 3315

i had a 1 faded redlight and middle panel on my valver it does not look good Sad

time 4 some swapping.. is the middle panel a easy item 2 take off??? hav a L reg black 3 dr hatch breaking aswell PPL Smile

FCS Event Manager Joined: 04 Jan 2005 Posts: 3680

take u 5 mins or less to change the rear panel

U got 5 small torx head screws hold on the black plastic cover as well as some push stud fixings inside the hatch lid, then once thats off there is 5 10mm nuts holding the panel itself on.
Unplug the fog light and its off.

Retroholic Joined: 23 Dec 2005 Posts: 3315

thank you

Retroholic Joined: 23 Dec 2005 Posts: 3315

there must be a diff in back lights on 19s my passenger back light was pinky 2 lol

Forum Moderator Joined: 02 Mar 2004 Posts: 19978

they go pink due to the sunlight

FCS Event Manager Joined: 04 Jan 2005 Posts: 3680

right todays work has been much more productive Smile

finally got the front seats out of GYP

was a bit fiddly getting the plastic covers off to access the bolts that hold them onto the runners but now UCC has GYPs leather seats

UCC is also suffering from a common problem with the computer on the dash

The LCD has bleed but GYPs is fine so swapped those over today as well
Clocks out

The two sets of clocks (UCC has 130,000 odd on the clock and GYP has 115,000 odd on the clock)

GYPs clocks now in UCC

Much better Smile

and in this shot u can just make out 3 of my 19's

ph1 chammy in the garden and the two ph2 hatchs in the street

FCS Event Manager Joined: 04 Jan 2005 Posts: 3680

Motivation to do anything with the cars has been lacking last couple of weeks mostly due to the cold weather and saving my money for a CDJ 1000 Mk II (for my DJing, the deck costs Â£700!)

So at the mo mainly gathering parts for UCC thru the cheapness of ebay Smile

so far i have obtained the Headgasket Kit and a Clutch Kit (Â£40 ebay brand new), just need to get the cambelt kit and gearbox mount (prolly have to obtain these new from renault) and i'll do the whole task in a weekend (engine out, change clutch, fit mount, fit new HG and cambelt kit, engine back in)

The idea now is to have UCC fighting fit for the French Car Show in May of this year.

i did feel a spurt of enthusiasim today and went out and washed the cars lol

UCC looking very clean now

and i also gave my Laguna a quick wash, as its white and with the weather for the time of year it was almost black!

Newbie Joined: 17 Jan 2006 Posts: 9

good thread this.. Cool