1975 Renault 6TL

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Re: 1975 Renault 6TL - 12/09 Update

Post by CitroJim »

demag wrote:Memories of oil in the eyes Jim. Not nice.
Been there :evil:

Not as bad as when I got brake fluid in my eyes... That was a rush to A & E job... No lasting damage done though... My eyes stop quick now though...
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Re: 1975 Renault 6TL - 12/09 Update

Post by daviemck2006 »

^^^^ROFL^^^^

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Re: 1975 Renault 6TL - 12/09 Update

Post by demag »

Ah yes had to think about that Jim.[emoji1]

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Re: 1975 Renault 6TL - 12/09 Update

Post by vulgalour »

I've not been in to measure things to find out what I need yet. The pushrods will straighten, I've been instructed how to do it and several folk have confirmed they're okay. Got away lucky with that one! A look down the plug holes confirmed the valves haven't smashed into the pistons and caused horribleness there, so I'm lucky with that one too! When I've got measurements I'll know just what is amiss, hopefully later this week.

My brother reminded me that somewhere in the scant history that did come with the car that bearings were mentioned so I got the folder out and had a look tonight. Maybe it will help shed some light on potential problem, though I doubt it, there's not much to go on. Let's see if I can do some detective work with the tiny amount of info I have.

The V5C tells me that the number of previous owners is 2

The Renault warranty card tells me the following:
First owner's name
First owner's address in Llanelli
Delivery date: 8/4/75
Registration: HEP920N (this confirms the warranty card was at least originally for this car, so I assume the info on it is too)

18/4/75
Pinged Hill Garage (stamped, this lines up with the old sticker in the tailgate window)
First service at 571 miles

Note: owner I bought the car from acquired the car 20/02/1976 according to the V5. I have a copy of the V5 too from this change of ownership "duplicate issued as lost" is written on it and the car is listed as green. I wonder if that means it was painted at just a year old or, more likely, the blue bodyshell was a later replacement with the green panels being the originals to the car, meaning it was originally that nice metallic green. Who knows?

28/04/1976 - 8,200 miles
(no information written down)

10/1978 - 45,000 miles
New piston rings, bearings, clutch, etc.

08/1978 - 51,900 miles

(no information written down)
Note: I think they meant to write 1979 but wrote 1978 instead, it would make more sense.

I also have tax discs for 1984, 1985, 1988, 1992 and 1993.

There's a single piece of paper with notes on fuses, wiring and illegible hints of column/stalk problems. It might not even be for this car, though I suspect it is because it does look like it's been rewired front to back at some point, the loom doesn't look original.

From that I can see the first owner only kept the car for a year and did a reasonable 8,000 miles.
The second owner then whacked a massive 18,400 per year for two years leading to the car needing piston rings, bearings, clutch and whatever else etc is! I've never actually paid attention to the mileage figures but that's pretty amazing, I can't imagine driving the 6 that much over that short a period, it's no wonder it needed work.
I expect the next and last entry was supposed to be a 1979, it's the same handwriting, even looks like it was the same biro, and is a more reasonable 7,000ish miles.
After that there's nothing at all to hint at what was going on so it's anybody's guess.

The 5 digit odometer currently reads 32,000. I'm going to assume that it's actually 132,000, that seems quite likely. I'm also going to assume the car came off the road in 1993 which is when the last tax disc ran out. So that's 80,100 miles covered over 15 years, divide one by the other and it's an average annual mileage of 5,340 which is entirely believable.

That really tells me the car was probably run until it wouldn't run anymore. It had signs of head gasket failure and it clearly has some bottom end issues. The engine waterways were full of sediment and the oil was horrible old sludge that hadn't been changed in an age. So, more than anything, that's probably the cause of whatever the problem is.
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Re: 1975 Renault 6TL - 12/09 Update

Post by CitroJim »

That history is really interesting...

45K is a very low mileage to need such extensive engine work on what I always believed was a very long-lived and almost indestructible motor... Wonder what happened? Must have been quite catastrophic...

Are the bores and pistons showing any great wear?
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Re: 1975 Renault 6TL - 12/09 Update

Post by demag »

Its strange because it had loads of work including a clutch.

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Re: 1975 Renault 6TL - 12/09 Update

Post by vulgalour »

No excessive wear on bores or pistons, everything cleaned up quite well. It's a bit of an odd one all over really. The first owner treated it like a regular new car, moving it on when it wasn't new anymore, and the second owner just drove it until the wheels came off it seems. They definitely got their money's worth out of it, that's for sure!

---

Right so, we have the Renault back at home now rather than at the unit. This is really useful as I now have all the bits of the car in an easy to get to location next to internet access so I can tinker or do larger jobs at my leisure much easier. No more the 8 mile round trip just to do a quick five minute job! Today, Mike and I pushed the Renault out onto the drive so we could have a bit of a sort of the garage and I could get the hosepipe into the rear arches to clean them out properly, the water pressure at the unit is very low so I couldn't do a great job there. Front arches proved to be quite clean as I'd had excellent access when the wings were off to really scrub everything properly.

I wasn't really expecting quite as much mud as I found.
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What was nice was discovering just how solid everything really is. The trailing arms and some of the inner wings could do with a lick of paint and some protection to keep things this way but it's all remarkably good. Check out my green rear shocks that were previously just mud coloured.
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I pulled out the strips of aluminium that had been used as mud guards. I haven't binned these as they'd actually done a remarkably good job of keep the mud out of the upper reaches of the rear arches, there was barely anything above them.
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Repeat the hosing and scrubbing on the other side, remove yet more mud.
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Same story this side. You can see the metallic blue of the bodyshell (which I'm now fairly certain is a replacement) and just a hint of the car's original metallic green on the trailing arm mount.
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Again, the inner arch is in very good shape. What's confusing is that there appears to be no repairs or rust holes in the inner arch but there are substantially sized patches rivetted to the inside of the bodyshell. I had thought this was a single-skinned piece, perhaps it isn't?
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Filler neck looked quite new compared to everything else, I wonder if it was replaced or if they just last really well.
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After all the gunge and sludge had been flushed out as best I could we pushed the car down the drive to clean up and I put the other screw into the driver's door arm rest so it stays in place when you use it now.
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I also found out that the missing switch is for the rear screen demister. So I'll need one of those since mine appears to be wired up, there's just no switch present.
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I wondered if there's supposed to be a cap or a plug for the trailing arm mount. I flushed all the mud and rust flakes I could out of the hole. Everything appears quite solid just devoid of paint. I'll get this area cleaned up and given a coat of something to keep it solid, I've been told this is one of the main weak points on these cars and I'd like to keep mine as solid as I can. They look a bit flakey in the photograph but they're really not, I gave them a good poke and it's just the remnants of underseal, mud and detritus stained with some surface corrosion.
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No expense spent on the one not-Michelin tyre. How cheap must this have been in the mid-90s? Marshal 777
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The tracking on the front is off, I think this is because there's no engine or gearbox in there. Lots and lots of toe in and positive camber which can make the car difficult to push to begin with. All the hubs spin quite freely though the brand new brakes on the front definitely need to bed in a bit.
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Replaced the bolts fixing the ball joints to the wishbones that had got bent and installed them the correct way around. These are high tensile steel so should be fine. I was surprised the brake dust shields were still servicable as they're made from wafer thin steel.
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The floor is remarkably sound, well undersealed for the most part and relatively free of mud. This is a good thing.
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I have enough space in the garage to walk all the way around the car and work on the engine. I'd forgotten about my little blue trolley, it's ideal for moving the engine about. Didn't get as far as doing any measuring today, it was all about getting the Renault settled into its new house.
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Re: 1975 Renault 6TL - 24/09 Update

Post by Hell Razor5543 »

That is looking like a very nice project car that WILL be completed (thereby bucking the trend).
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Re: 1975 Renault 6TL - 24/09 Update

Post by myglaren »

I didn't twig when you said you had a frog in your garage until just now.
One of those days it seems.

Coming along nicely now and likely soon be on the road.
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Re: 1975 Renault 6TL - 24/09 Update

Post by CitroJim »

Really enjoying every instalment of this blog :D Keep up the good work and looking forward to seeing the car complete and at a rally in due course ;)
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Re: 1975 Renault 6TL - 24/09 Update

Post by vulgalour »

Today's instalment is delayed. I helped my brother swap the tailgate on his Picasso and since the one he's fitting is slightly different to the one that came off the job took much longer than either of us expected. Also, I managed to hurt my back again which I could have done without. So presently my daily Rover has a Renault engine wrapped in plastic on the back seat (I'm really hoping it doesn't leak all over the velour!) and a full set of Princess steels in the boot I can't shift until tomorrow when I'll have some help.

That also means I didn't get the measuring of the engine done, again. I have to take it easy for a few days now and try not to do too much lifting and stuff, which I'll probably fail at because I can't sit still when there's stuff to do.
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Re: 1975 Renault 6TL - 24/09 Update

Post by CitroJim »

Hope all is soon back to normal...
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Re: 1975 Renault 6TL - 24/09 Update

Post by vulgalour »

Right, first bit of news from the engine shop I dropped the Renault's engine off with at the end of last week. The tools I had were too large to measure everything so I finally bit the bullet and gave it to someone else, work has been kind so it's a luxury I could afford. That's much quicker than I was expecting, tbh. On their first inspection they suspect muddled caps - NOT MY FAULT! They're in the order they were when I dismantled everything - to be the reason for the crank locking when everything is torqued up. They want to be extra sure that it's not something else so were asking my permission to take the head off.

I'm not precious about my work on this one, it's my first attempt at an engine rebuild and they've done lots and lots so it'll be reassuring to know everything is as it ought to be. Bill so far is £70-80, it's uncomfortable not really knowing how much things like this are going to cost until they're done but needs must.

Fingers crossed it really does just need new bearings and possibly a crank regrind, then I've got very little to do to sort this little monster out.

In protest, my Rover blew its head gasket so I'm borrowing my brother's Applause again until I get it fixed. :roll:
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Re: 1975 Renault 6TL - 15/11 News

Post by vulgalour »

With the Renault outside waiting for the engine to come back, the weather decided to help me with some more leak hunting. Here we go then, a tour of the leaks and what I think I need to do to fix them.

To start with, the boot is still letting water in, as evidenced by this puddle on the parcel shelf.
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Taken me a while to figure this one out entirely but it looks like it's getting past the boot seal itself which has certainly seen better days. Looks like a generic profile on the seal so shouldn't be too bad to replace. It's coming in through the rear screen seal as well but nowhere near as badly as through the main boot seal.
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The other puddle is this one.
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That's caused by the side windows which also don't seal well, partly because the seals are too short. They just need a blob more sealant where the gap is to sort this. Looks like it's getting through just at the bottom edge of the sealant bridge. Really I should fit new seals to these rear windows to resolve this and again they look like a generic profile so I might do that in the future.
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Next, this big old lake under the passenger seat. Here's where we get into the territory of difficult to locate leaks because on the passenger side there's a lot of them.
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Most of it is coming through the top of the rear door.
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Mainly because the stick-on seal (factory standard as far as I can tell) is knackered on all the doors and more knackered than the rest on this one. Admittedly, having gutters on the car would help lessen this as the water would be channeled away from them and I have priced up replacement universal guttering to do just that. Door seals will help too anyway in keeping the water out on the move.
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The windscreen had appeared to have stopped leaking. Unfortunately that isn't the case and it is still letting water in along the top edge. I'm going to squidge more sealant into the top of the windscreen seal as was done when I got the car. At least with a cloth headlining I can see where it's coming in and have some idea of where to put the sealant. So, passenger side first which again is the worst side.
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The door seal on the front door is also shot, the door doesn't fit as well as the others either, and that's letting water get in at the sill.
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What was confusing me was that water did just appear in the footwell on the passenger side and I could never figure out how. Liberal poofing about of talcum powder highlighted just how it's doing it. Water is running down the outside of the bulkhead and then seeping through the body-to-chassis seam and into the car. That's more difficult to resolve, to do it properly it's going to be a body-off job so I can put some proper sealant/tape on before bolting the body back to the chassis. The bulkhead above this seam is completely dry.
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Driver's side of the windscreen is also letting a small amount of water in.
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As with the passenger door, the seal is shot and water is getting in and pooling on the sill. There is another drip from under the dash somewhere just to the right of the pedals and I've not figured that one out yet. I might have to fix the other leaks to find it. There is a small splash to the right of the pedal that highlights the leak, it's not massively clear in the photograph.
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None of these leaks are a huge worry for now, I've emptied the car of anything that might be damaged by the water and since it's at home I can mop it out regularly. Once the engine is fitted I can get the car back in the garage out of the weather. Your recommendations for where to obtain generic seals are welcome, just remember the ones on the doors are a self-adhesive foam strip type, there's not channel to fix a conventional seal to.
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Re: 1975 Renault 6TL - 18/11 Leaks

Post by CitroJim »

I feel for you.. Chasing leaks is a horrible job and one I've done many times on Xantias... In fact I'm just doing the same again now with Gabriel and her dampness under her rear seats...

Hope yours will soon be water-tight...

Keep these updates flowing, I really do enjoy them :D
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