1975 Renault 6TL

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Re: 1975 Renault 6TL - 25/02 Update

Post by demag »

V, I hope there's no low life round there. It looks a bit vulnerable backed up to that fence.
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Re: 1975 Renault 6TL - 25/02 Update

Post by vulgalour »

Don't worry it's a secure location. :)
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Re: 1975 Renault 6TL - 25/02 Update

Post by Northern_Mike »

I've got a really good, healthy 1108cc engine (with big valve head and lightened crank) just come up for sale.. no ancillaries, just block, head and gearbox..
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Re: 1975 Renault 6TL - 25/02 Update

Post by vulgalour »

Price, location and mileage? I'm keeping my options open until I've got the one in the car out, if the block is all seized up it may be cheaper and easier to replace it.

---

Update time! Burning through the jobs on this one, it's a joyous thing to work on for the most part. I've never worked on a car where every nut and bolt I encounter comes undone with minimal effort and no need for WD40 or Plusgas or similar.

The weather today has been stunning, an ideal opportunity to sort out the floors if everything is dry. The cabin was dry inside for the first time since I've known the car and given that it rained last night that means something I've done has stopped the water getting into the front.

One small section of the front wing rail needs a small patch letting in.
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On examining the car today I found most of it was completely dry apart from the top of the passenger side wing rail to A-pillar juncture. This was still really wet. It was only when I hit it with the wire wheel revealing some perforations and saw water spurt out that I realised what was going on. Water must have been getting in through the gutters before they were taped, running down the A pillars and pooling in this pocket, some overflowing and going down the A pillar into the footwell on the passenger side and, given the amount of water that came out, the rest reaching a point where it overflowed and came through the dashboard. After 8 hours it was still weeping water, there must be a lot hiding in there.
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One thing I did want to do was paint the hidden bits and some of the more serious rusty bits. To stay true to the car's appearance I wanted to get a close match to the faded green off the shelf but not go to the trouble of getting it mixed specially to match. I want my repairs to be visible. I chose a satin paint so it wouldn't look too new against the rest of the car and took a chance that this exterior metal paint would be suitable. No spray paint, this has to be brush painted.
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After the corner had been extensively cleaned up and all perforations found I had to wait a while for it to stop leaking enough water for me to paint it. Even then, any movement of the car made more water emerge so this will need a small retouch. Still surprisingly solid here, I'm going to have to let some fresh metal in to stabilise things properly.
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The other side is much better, only one perforation. The rust here is mostly caused by the accumulation of acidic conifer sheddings which was absolutely packed into this area on both sides, without that and the gutter holes this would likely need no work beyond waterproof paint.
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Cleaned back the bottom of the sill too. Quite pitted but solid metal, I couldn't blow any holes through it so was happy enough to give it a top coat.
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Then the floors, I wanted to get it done the first dry day I had and this was that. Cleaning all the surface rust off was easy enough but not ideal a job to do inside the car, made a lot of dust. Really surprisingly solid, there were a total of three pin holes which need a small blob of weld. For now it's all painted to keep it solid.
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Next was time to get the engine out, I hoped. Really easy access for everything. I removed the front valance/undertray which is also in superb condition but does need a fresh coat of paint and underseal to keep it that way. Steering rack came out, just 5 bolts none of which put up much of a fight.
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Mike put some sealant on the leaking rear window seal, that should stop all the water ingress into the cabin.
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Got both front calipers off, and the dust shields which are still intact. The calipers look to be in need of a refurb but don't appear to have any glaring issues. Still a good amount of material on the discs and pads surprisingly and again all this came apart very easily.
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That is, until it came to doing the ball joints so I could free the hub and remove the driveshafts from the gearbox. I want to remove all the mechanical components anyway to get them cleaned and painted and any worn out parts replaced. In the process of trying to remove the balljoints the CV boot became dislodged and leaked grease everywhere, including all over my leg and straight through my work trousers, which was nice.
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Thing is, those ball joints would not budge. I've known stubborn ball joints before but these are something else. They broke the splitter!
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Sod it. I was quickly running out of daylight and patience by this point so I tidied up and called it a day. Not bad though, a week of work on a car that's been untouched for 20 years and it's only just thrown a difficult job at me.
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Shoved the bonnet on to protect the engine bay a bit before we shut up shop. The inner arches smell of cow poo, an unpleasant side effect of a farm car.
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Re: 1975 Renault 6TL - 27/02 Update

Post by Northern_Mike »

About 11k since a full rebuild in 2001.. not sure how much, will have to see what the insurance assessor says about the rest of the car it was in that caught fire..

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Re: 1975 Renault 6TL - 27/02 Update

Post by lexi »

OXY ACY or mapp gas for ball joint. Still cannot beat striking the cast part with hammer and another heavier one for a dolly to shock taper.
Needle gun is good for those cast suspension parts if no blaster.
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Re: 1975 Renault 6TL - 27/02 Update

Post by vulgalour »

Was at the unit today so it's time to have another go at getting this engine out along with some other jobs. Car was still nice and dry inside and as a bonus there was no longer water getting in under the rear seats, just one little puddle on the boot floor from the tailgate. I'm happy that I'm resolving the water leak issues as a result of that.

Even so, I did notice there was a drip of water clinging to the inside of the rear passenger door surround inside the car. Prised the trim off and got busy with the wire wheel on the gutter to explore more fully. At the front it was still as bad as it was, drier now and more stable by the look of things.
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Above the drip of water what started as a small hole became an explosion of rust dust and a large portion of the gutter disappeared. That was a bit disheartening.
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I spent some time on the driver's side gutter too, that had the same perforation to the flat surface but the majority of the vertical portion of the gutter and roof were still intact. I applied some paint to keep things stable and the hole that had appeared in the roof edge on the passenger side now has a duct tape patch for the short term.
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Not too bad though, it's repairable. Our neighbouring mechanic and general car fettler had a good look and a prod and seemed confident it was all repairable just fiddly and time consuming. He also had the inspired suggestion of using seam sealer to protect and stabilise the gutters until I can get them properly repaired, it's not a long term fix but it should prevent water getting in where it's not wanted in the short term.
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Foolishly, I then wanted to explore what I suspected was some filler on one of the rear door jambs. I know better than to prod but I prod anyway.
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Hmm... rivets. There was a smell too, I've encountered it a couple of times on ex-farm cars. There's this bizarre habit of mixing dung with filler to get a stronger repair but in very small quantities, the smell that comes off is quite unique. Quite a lot of filler was scooped on this side.
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When it was cleaned back it look like the car had been armour plated. I'm guessing there's not a lot of metal left under this patch and it will need repairing properly in the future. For now it's solid enough, I've chased some rust out and applied paint, but not before investigating a suspicious bleb on the rear arch adjacent, revealing a large shallow dent and more pin holes.
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Right then, let's check the other side because there's cracks and strange circles over there. Same story, but no dung-filler this time, just unadulterated white resiny powder. I did have one large problem in that I couldn't remove the latch on this side which has had the strange star head fittings replaced with regular cross head bolts, one of which just turns and turns.
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It wasn't unexpected to find repairs like this on this car but I still wasn't happy about it because it gives me that bit more work to do further down the line. It could have been a lot worse, normally when you chase out a lot of filler there's nothing underneath bar some brown lace. The other big job today was the engine removal, this could have gone better if the instructions in the Haynes book had been better than "just take out the engine" because we ended up unbolting the mounts in a really stupid way and added more time to this job than we should have.
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The engine bay looks nice and solid and tidy and the car is comically light without the engine and gearbox in there. Since all the ball joints are worn out the easiest way to remove them was to saw through the posts on them to get the driveshafts out. One had been replaced at some point but the other three were all still sporting rivets and all the boots had perished or split.

The engine and gearbox is tiny and weighs very little, a welcome thing for moving it from outside to in the unit. I'll find out if this engine is any good when I get it taken apart and find out what exactly is stuck. I've had a surprising number of offers for replacement engines if need be and depending on cost it may make more sense just to replace this unit rather than rebuild it, we shall see.
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That's all for today. Not sure when I'm working on the car again, contracted an absolutely killer cold just as we were getting the engine out so I'm taking things a bit easy for the rest of today and tomorrow.
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Re: 1975 Renault 6TL - 03/03 Update

Post by vulgalour »

I've had various offers of lights and engines and bits and bobs, it's proving surprisingly easy to find people with parts to help this little car out and that's a super thing, big grins. Unfortunately, the plight of self-employment means I'm stuck on doing anything about most of these offers until my next batch of work is paid for. Doesn't mean I can't get jobs done on the Renault without spending cash, still lots of stuff to be getting on with.

Yesterday I took the end plate off the engine in the hope that I'd be able to get to a big nut on the crankshaft and get some movement in it. No such luck, but a rather worrying appearance of what look like dried out emulsified oil. Camshaft is nice and free so no worries there.
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Then I tried, and utterly failed, to lift the engine to drain out the oil from the sump plug. A strap slipped and it all just canted over and poured various liquids all over the floor. Didn't even have enough cat litter to mop it all up properly, sacked it off as a bad job and went home.
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Today, I went back in to the unit with Mike, a second pair of hands was very welcome at times and meant I got to drain the oil out successfully. Except what came out had the appearance and consistency of weak gravy. Didn't smell as appealing. Evidence of emulsified oil and a vague smell of petrol which was a little odd.
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After reading the Haynes booklet of lies and deceit I decided to just apply logic to removing the gearbox from the engine. Seriously, the instructions in this manual are appalling, every time I try and get help it has such useful information as "just remove the gearbox." and when looking for how there are no pictures, there are no instructions just another vague statement... infuriating. Anyway, living in the bell housing was a really big spider.
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Clutch lever freed off nicely after a little effort and the internals look in reasonably good order. There is corrosion on the thrust bearing and I've not yet taken the clutch off to inspect it. The splines on the shaft here are really good so I'm pleased about that. There were quite a few cobwebs in here too, most of which just sorted of floated away when the engine and gearbox were parted from one another.
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"The gearbox can be easily lifted by one person, even if bending quite low." So I tried to pick it up, thinking it would weigh nothing and managed to nearly headbutt the gear lever. THANKS HAYNES. It requires some effort to pick up, it weighs a small amount, it is not floaty light.
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Got busy with the degreaser on the engine, was assaulted with the aroma of more animal dung as I was cleaning the outside of the sump. Lovely. Very little paint left on the block but no evidence of serious oil leaks just lots of storage detritus.
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Set that aside for the day and took a couple of pictures to illustrate a couple of worn out bushes on the front shock absorbers. I'm guessing these will be easy enough to source. They're pretty worn out, especially on the driver's side. Brake pads definitely need replacing too, not a lot of material left on them. Calipers look like they should clean up fine once removed from the car.
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Mike also showed me how to safely test the starter motor which, after an initial reluctance to do much, appears to work perfectly fine engaging and disengaging as it ought. Whether it's good enough to work on the engine not just on the bench remains to be seen. Not sure how to test the alternator.
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Re: 1975 Renault 6TL - 09/03 Update

Post by vulgalour »

Post-dentist malaise today, not sure if it's down to a bad reaction to the anaesthetic or just a bit of ick that I've contracted, leaving me feeling pretty run down and tired at any rate. So I'm sat here watching old episodes of Fast 'N Loud and it's given me some thoughts for the Renault. Namely, I'm going to get the body rubbed down and given a fresh coat of lacquer below the gutter line. Above the gutter line there's going to be a lot of visible repair, so I reckon a contrast paint would be super for the entire roof and around the windscreen, either a flat colour or something ridiculous.

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The car is solid enough to pull this sort of thing off and if I get the body lacquered I do keep the majority of the wear and tear I like without it getting worse. Lot of elbow grease to do it, but shouldn't be too expensive. Should be interesting to see it applied to a tiny French car rather than a massive 60s station wagon too, I think the 6 has the right sort of styling to pull it off sucessfully.
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Re: 1975 Renault 6TL - 17/04 Thoughts

Post by vulgalour »

Engine stand acquired, four new ball joints ordered. I've been trying out some green paint on the bonnet which is a great colour but needs more adjustment to the paint thickness to make it right. At the moment my free time is being eaten up by welding the other love of my life which isn't French. Got the worst of the work done on her now so the rest should be easier and while she looks slightly rougher than a badger's bottom, she's more solid now than when I bought her all shiny-shiny in 2012.

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Re: 1975 Renault 6TL - 18/06

Post by Zelandeth »

Ooh...have to admit to being as interested in that as the Renault! Have a bit of a soft spot for BMC metal (I blame NSA240W, my first decent road car, a MiniMetro HLE in Snapdragon yellow), and would love to have an Ambassador on the fleet.

Mate of mine had one which I borrowed for a weekend a few years ago and it was one of those rare occasions wher driver and car just meshed perfectly. Just like with both my Saab and my Xantia...can't see either of them ever being moved on.

My own vote is go for "sympathetic restoration" in general...laquer over rust is a step too far for me. Like my approach on my Xantia (a 200K mile car) I don't mind her having some battle scars, provided that it's plain that effort has been made to tend to the wounds. There's a balance to be struck, but "Rat Rods".seem to be becoming too common in my humble opinion.

If that's your thing I mean no disrespect! That's just my view.
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Re: 1975 Renault 6TL - 18/06

Post by vulgalour »

28th August 2015
Been a while but today got some time in on this little green disaster zone.  At present the car is all bundled up like a festive gift in a lovely blue tarpaulin to keep it safe and dry and efforts so far to un-seize the engine have been utterly in vain.  So it was determined that today we'd see if it was the pistons, camshaft or crankshaft that was seized or a combination of all three.
 
Ordinarily for a first-time job like this I'd take a photo-diary of what was done but with the components being rather slimy-oily, using a camera wasn't a particularly good idea.  Suffice to say the whole job was relatively easy, the only slightly more involved part being removing the woodruff key from the washer on the camshaft and then not losing the woodruff key.  Everything was carefully wiped free of oily gunge with the exception of camshaft and crankshaft which I don't want to flash-rust as I'm not sure how long it'll be before I put this all together again.  The other thing to be sure of is that everything was put away in order, with labels, so I don't lose anything, particularly vital for this sort of job.
 
With the block upside-down it was easy to unfasten the pistons first, this did drop the liners out of the block which I'm told isn't ideal but also that it's not the end of the world.  I was expecting the liners to have some resistance to coming out but they didn't, they were really easy to remove.  The pistons are really firmly stuck too so they'll be getting a bath in hot engine oil as a last ditch attempt to free them, there was no way these were coming out in situ.
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The rest of the internals were carefully removed and set aside, all the various bolts that go in the block were put back in their respective holes so I don't lose them and things like the pushrods and head bolts were stored in some labelled cardboard for the same reason.
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With the block now free of everything I could see quite a lot of orange gunge in the water jacket which can't have helped with historic issues this little engine has had.  It also means getting a new radiator or refurbishing my existing one is a must, if this is what's in the engine there's going to be more of it throughout the coolant system and that all needs cleaning out.
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The block and sump were pressure washed to get the worst of the gunk out, they'll get a deeper clean before the rebuild.
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The good thing is that most items inside the engine are in good order.  The piston bearing shells look re-usable and if the liners and pistons can be persuaded to part company there's a chance they will just need a clean/hone and new piston rings before going back in the car.  The paper gasket under the liners will need replacing.  Crankshaft and camshaft are both good too, neither showing obvious signs of scoring or excessive wear.
 
The one item that showed wear were the main bearings, some of which are badly scored, so I'll need a full set of those.
 
I'll get some snaps of the other bits and pieces that were done at a later date.  The oil pick up/strainer is now lovely and clean after being de-gunged and the sump looks to be in pretty good order and just needs an exterior repaint.  Overall I'm quite happy with this.  Parts for the engine appear to be quite cheap and with it being so small and easy to work on it shouldn't cost much in time or money to get it all back together and functional again.
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Re: 1975 Renault 6TL - 18/06

Post by vulgalour »

29th August 2015
Since I've been fiddling about with the engine tonight, here's some pictures I didn't provide last time.  First up the oil pick-up/pump/strainer thingy.  This was all gunged up and the spindle was not that free moving but after a soak in some cleaner and a bit of a scrub it's lovely and almost sparkly and the spindle moves much better now.
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A sample section of the camshaft.  It's all like this.  There's no sign of excessive wear or scoring from what I could see so I'm hoping it needs little more than a good clean.  More experienced eyes may see issues I'm not aware of on this component.
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The main bearing shells didn't look as bad as I remembered.  There are a few scores on a couple of the shells but not the mess I'm sure was there when I removed them.
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Finally tried a bit of home cooking.  Didn't achieve anything bar cleaning the surface of the piston head that's visible outside of the liner.  I won't be doing more of this at home even if it does help, I hadn't realised just how much of a stink it would make and the kitchen now has that satisfying odour of a well used garage, which isn't a smell I really want in the kitchen.
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I'll keep plugging away, we'll get there eventually.

31st August 2015
After yesterday being a bit of a no-go on the car front, today was much better.  I got out one of my favourite tools and used it in conjunction with a lump of wood and a big old bench vice.
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It was surprisingly easy to free all four pistons from their liners and I'm delighted about that.
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None of the piston rings were broken and the pistons themselves look in good order.  There's no obvious sign of steps, scores or other damage in the liner bores either which I'm delighted about.  The next step is definitely to get everything cleaned up and assessed properly to work out what I do and don't need to replace before rebuilding this little engine.  Feeling much more positive about it all.

NOW
That brings you up to date on this little one. Once I've got some free time again and we've found the micrometer I can check and measure a few things. There are some small differences between the various engines used in the Renault range and before I purchase a new gasket set and bearings I need to make sure I order the correct one for this engine. Providing the parts can be got, and there's a good chance they can, rebuilding this engine shouldn't be too tricky or expensive.
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Re: 1975 Renault 6TL - 04/09 Engine Dismantled

Post by Hell Razor5543 »

Nice job so far. You are getting there (and doing a lot better than I could).
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Re: 1975 Renault 6TL - 04/09 Engine Dismantled

Post by Stickyfinger »

First read of the post, long read but very enjoyable....gj
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