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.
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.
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.
Repeat the hosing and scrubbing on the other side, remove yet more mud.
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.
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?
Filler neck looked quite new compared to everything else, I wonder if it was replaced or if they just last really well.
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.
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.
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.
No expense spent on the one not-Michelin tyre. How cheap must this have been in the mid-90s? Marshal 777
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.
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.
The floor is remarkably sound, well undersealed for the most part and relatively free of mud. This is a good thing.
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.