1987 Renault GTA :: Gone to a new home

[Junkman]

Absolutely wonderful, I love it.

If you ever need anything for it that's only available over here meanwhile, feel free to let me know.

[PhilA]

I'm down to the typical Renault "only made for this one model for this one year in this one country, all old stock is gone and all second hand ones are broken, like yours is" items.

 

I'll keep that in mind though, thanks

 

--Phil

[Jim Bell]

That car just looks so good. Soooo good. You'd never mistake it for anything else.

[Skizzer]

^ This.  We never had these in 2-door flavour in the UK (or anywhere else in Europe, far as I know) and it really suits it.

 

Keep the updates coming.  Bonus points for more reptile content.

[mat_the_cat]

  On 31/01/2014 at 01:43, PhilA said:

Reassembled and put it onto a 12V power supply. It now.. moves. In a slightly disconcerting way.

 

If you need a spare, I'm sure my wife has something which could be adapted to serve a similar purpose...

[PhilA]

  On 31/01/2014 at 13:18, Skizzer said:

^ This.  We never had these in 2-door flavour in the UK (or anywhere else in Europe, far as I know) and it really suits it.

 

Keep the updates coming.  Bonus points for more reptile content.

 

 

Yup, this one was made from bits of 9 and bits of 11 as far as the body shell goes. The interior was designed for the American market. The engine was a one-off for this model- or at least, a variation on a theme from the parts bin. It has all sorts of oddities like Chrysler air-con, GM electrics for some of the engine management..

 

Makes finding relatively simple maintenance things (like the cam belt and idlers) a proper task. Most places, if asked, will ask "a Whatnow What?" when you tell them Renault GTA.. though there is a surprisingly large amount of stuff listed for the car when the motor factors checks, though most with UNAVAILABLE next to it on the screen.

 

--Phil

[PhilA]

Went down after work today because sunshine and pleasant weather.

 

Car assumed the position again:

20140131_170621_W 107th St by renault9gta, on Flickr

 

Started reassembling the various odds and ends. I had blocked one of the vacuum pipes off with a rubber bungy. Cheap chinese rubber, every one of these things I bought has split. Crap stuff. No wonder China's population is expanding so damn quickly.

20140131_173004_W 107th St by renault9gta, on Flickr

 

Connected everything up to the new, unbroken widget. Assembled and reconnected the idle stop mechanism.

20140131_173015_W 107th St by renault9gta, on Flickr

 

I think I've gotten the pipes right.

It makes sense to me.. the two pipes make sense. The top one is connected to the intake flap. the bottom one is connected to one of the vacuum ports on the throttle body.

Block the top one and the flap goes to hot. Unblock it and it moves to cold. Heat the strip and it bends away from the top port, opening the cold vent. However, the bottom one has a little thing on it that sucks the strip back in when there's vacuum present.. so, at idle, under high vacuum it pulls the valve shut and draws hot air to help vaporize the fuel at low flow rates. Open the throttle, lose vacuum, if the air is warm, it'll close the hot air flap and draw more dense, cold air in to help with power and torque.

Makes sense? I think so. Emissions fun

 

Started the compressor and put some air in the tyre that had gone flat.

20140131_173338_W 107th St by renault9gta, on Flickr

 

More lizards in the door.. it's 20C out, so the have gone light brown and move quickly now.

20140131_173632_W 107th St by renault9gta, on Flickr

 

Opened the airbox. ...Yeah, it's filthy in the bottom. I just don't want to pull it out and clean it because I'm lazy and it's held in with bolts that are hard to get to.

Checked the flap operates. To HOT:

20140131_174506_W 107th St by renault9gta, on Flickr

 

To COLD. Huzzah!

20140131_174528_W 107th St by renault9gta, on Flickr

 

Closed everything up and took it for a run up and down the drive to exercise the steering and brakes a little. Idled it, the fan cut in at the last white line before red and cooled it down rapidly to the previous line and switched off. Parked up, switched off, locked up. 

 

One down, fewer things to go.

 

--Phil

[Skizzer]

Victory!  AND more lizards!  Love it 

[Asimo]

 

Picture taken from a 1986 Renault Alliance 2 door somewhere near Boston Massachusetts. Honest.

 

Not pleased that the hire car on my first visit to the U.S.A. was a Renault. But the grey velour was nice.

[PhilA]

Today started slightly foggy. Tumble dryers were involved.

20140202_101558_W Main St by renault9gta, on Flickr

 

Went to the auto parts store. Purchased a manual-selection (none of this fancy electronic crap that can't tell a flat battery from a 6V one) battery charger.

20140202_153350_W 107th St by renault9gta, on Flickr

 

Put it to work. Surprisingly the battery decided to accept a charge.

20140202_155059_W 107th St by renault9gta, on Flickr

 

First port of call... BOSH! Found all the bolts that hold in the airbox.

20140202_160423_W 107th St by renault9gta, on Flickr

 

I've had this can of nasty-ass degreaser rolling* around for a while now. It actually had held pressure and the contents were good.

20140202_160501_W 111th St by renault9gta, on Flickr

* yeah, rolling- the bottom went pop and it's stayed on its' side since

 

Doused it down carefully.

20140202_160520_Louisiana 3235 by renault9gta, on Flickr

 

Mmmmmm*

20140202_161259_W 107th St by renault9gta, on Flickr

 

Mmmmmm.

20140202_164337_W 107th St by renault9gta, on Flickr

 

Better now?

20140202_171131_W 107th St by renault9gta, on Flickr

 

 

I'm definitely suffering the effects of the fumes from that cleaner.

 

--Phil

[PhilA]

After a lovely* 4am start, I went down to the car to see how the battery/charger was doing.

 

It had taken a little bit of a charge, but seemed to not have liked charging at 2 Amps. I switched it to 6 Amp instead.

 

I looked at the photo of the airbox from yesterday. It's all dirty on the lid in that picture, so I decided on something simple to do, so I cleaned it up with a toothbrush.

 

 

20140203_172253_W 107th St by renault9gta, on Flickr

 

Nice and clean. It's not gonna stay that way, but eh

 

Also decided to look underneath to see where the oil spot on the driveway was coming from

 

I shouldn't have. The entire back of the sump is an oily dirty mess. Ugh. I need to find where that's coming from

20140203_172819_W 116th St by renault9gta, on Flickr

 

Need to jack it up and get in there with a flashlight. Hopefully it's something simple like the sump seal has dried out and since running it up to hot has decided to piss oil everywhere.

 

Unfortunately it looks  bit older than that, and I hope it's not coming from the crank pulley end... that's a horrible mass of seals and hylomar-type sealant (factory specified, not a bodge) which I don't want to have to pull apart again.

 

 

--Phil

[alf892]

 

Unfortunately it looks  bit older than that, and I hope it's not coming from the crank pulley end... that's a horrible mass of seals and hylomar-type sealant (factory specified, not a bodge) which I don't want to have to pull apart again.

 

 

--Phil

 

 

Just because it is factory spec does not mean it isn't a bodge............it is a Renault. See also BL.

[PhilA]

  On 04/02/2014 at 08:09, alf892 said:

 

Just because it is factory spec does not mean it isn't a bodge............it is a Renault. See also BL.

 

 

 

Okay, perhaps bad wording- it's not one of my bodges, shall we say? The Bodgers of Billiancourt came up with it.

 

In fact maybe I need a rear window dealer sticker that reads BODGERS OF BILLIANCOURT

 

 

--Phil

[PhilA]

Charging the battery simply made it hot.

 

It's kippered. New battery on the books, charger can keep that one alive

 

--Phil

[PhilA]

I got some foam stuff from work that's all proper filtery and stuff (it's got some sort of sticky gunge in to trap dirt) so chopped a bit up:

 

 

20140302_144153_W 107th St by renault9gta, on Flickr

 

...and stuck it in the place where there should be some, to stop the wildlife and rocks getting into the PCV system.

 

20140302_144223_W 107th St by renault9gta, on Flickr

 

I have enough to make several more. Picked up the nEver-Start and am going to bring it to work to go on the 200A charger unit we have to "get it out of the hole", so to speak.. get a big punch of juice into it for a while that then my little 6A battery charger can handle charging it. Fluid inside is over all the plates, so haven't anything to lose really.

 

--Phil

[PhilA]

I have a problem.

 

I borrowed a good* battery the other day and fired the car up with it.

 

The generator warning light stays on, though the volt needle jumps up to over 14V. If I rev the engine up high the light goes out then comes back on again when the revs drop.

 

 

Bad earth? Mullered alternator? Ugh.

 

On the plus side I ordered the new CV boot, another master cylinder and caliper rebuild kits for the front calipers. Brakes soon, hopefully.

 

 

--Phil

[mat_the_cat]

If the voltage stays over 14 volts (probably best measured with an independent non-French meter...) then it'll be charging OK. Do you know if the warning light is wired in the traditional way (between alternator D+ terminal and battery positive)? I had an Alfa 75 where the warning light was triggered by an ECU which measured battery voltage, so any voltage drop in the shared circuit powering the warning light ECU would make the light come one!

[PhilA]

It's (as far as I can tell) set up in the traditional sense, that is- the computer has nothing to do with it other than measuring the voltage across it.

 

Phil

[hauserplenty]

Try checking the belt tension...it could be just a loose fan belt...?

or not.

[PhilA]

  On 19/03/2014 at 04:03, hauserplenty said:

Try checking the belt tension...it could be just a loose fan belt...?

or not.

 

I wish it were that simple. The belt tension is good, and it's not slipping on the pulley. Thankfully it's multi-V.

 

 

--Phil

[mat_the_cat]

  On 19/03/2014 at 03:43, PhilA said:

It's (as far as I can tell) set up in the traditional sense, that is- the computer has nothing to do with it other than measuring the voltage across it.

 

Phil

 

The traditional way doesn't involve a computer at all, and the bulb is just between the battery and the alternator. So when engine off you have 12 V one side of the bulb (with ignition on) and 0 V on the other so it lights up. When charging correctly there should be ~14 V on both sides of the bulb so it doesn't light. But if you have more complex electronics involved that gives more potential failure modes, however if you measure the battery voltage and it's OK that's at least proving nothing fundamental is wrong.

[PhilA]

  On 20/03/2014 at 21:45, mat_the_cat said:

The traditional way doesn't involve a computer at all, and the bulb is just between the battery and the alternator. So when engine off you have 12 V one side of the bulb (with ignition on) and 0 V on the other so it lights up. When charging correctly there should be ~14 V on both sides of the bulb so it doesn't light. But if you have more complex electronics involved that gives more potential failure modes, however if you measure the battery voltage and it's OK that's at least proving nothing fundamental is wrong.

 

The ECU controls a few things, it does the fuel injection, the ignition timing and the aircon.

 

Everything else is standalone, "dumb" electronic/electric circuits.

 

--Phil

[PhilA]

Bonus, the parts I ordered just turned up.

 

--Phil

[Parky]

I have to admit Phil I admire your dedication to this. You are slowly becoming a bit of a shite hero - I can't imagine that out of a global population of around 7 billion there are more than 10 people that would do what you are doing

[PhilA]

Somebody's gotta do it. Might as well be me.

 

I took a look at the matter cylinder that I got today. It wears all new rubber bits and a natty pressed metal serial number sticky plate that informs the reader that the device has been rebored and has oversize fittings inside.

Promising.

 

Also promising is the computer printout that gives the specifications of the testing done on it to some standard or another.

 

I have a nasty nagging suspicion about the other cylinder, that the secondary piston, as suggested, may indeed be stuck at the bottom of the bore of the other one.

 

I'm going to hopefully have a break in the weather (weekdays have been beautiful, cool breeze, sunny, dry) and the weekends have been thunderstorms and rain. Three weekends running.

 

This was today at lunch;

20140321_123850 by renault9gta, on Flickr

 

Tomorrow is due to be busy with taking the dog to the vet and will ultimately turn into not laying-on-floor-bleeding-brakes weather.

 

One can hope.

 

Phil

[PhilA]

Yup, the weather turned horrendous, with thunderstorms and lashing rain. The yard flooded.

 

Today after work was much more clement, so I decided to go visit the car. I took one picture, but that was of it in the driveway with the hood up. We've seen that before. After that I got covered in brake fluid.

 

The one that came off was showing signs of leakage past the end, so that's no good. Sometimes rebuilt ain't no good.

 

 

Fitted the new master cylinder. Next up will be to bleed it. Still got the Eezi-Bleed but I need some fresh brake fluid. Task possibly for this weekend, but I'm on-call so that may or may not happen.

 

--Phil

[PhilA]

Welp, that didn't happen. Far too cold and windy and threatening to rain.

 

Weekend maybe. Tonight is cooking dinner, sorting out electronics at the kitchen table instead. Tuned into the oldies (WTIX), having a wind-down evening.

 

--Phil

[PhilA]

*piano music, film strip of calendar pages flying off wall*

 

At the weekend I jetwashed the car. Quite a lot of the paint came off.

 

I then bought a new battery for the car- even with discount ($7) and core return ($15) the thing came out to $88.50 which is daylight robbery for a bog-standard battery.

 

Anyhow, lobbed the thing in, gave the key a twist and it fired up on the fifth stroke, the alternator light went out and it sat charging at 14.5 Volts. Drove it up and down the driveway a little and parked it up. Brought the battery home and charged the living daylights out of it.

 

Ladies and gentlemen, we have progress again.

 

--Phil

[Parky]

Well done Phil, was wondering how this was progressing - what's the "to do" list look like?

[PhilA]

It's moderate now.

 

The "driving it about" list is as follows:

New CV boot, driver's side. I replaced it and it split. Cheap rubber. Bah.

Steering track rods replaced

Get brakes working

New wiper blades

New tires

 

Then nice stuff like paint and fitting the rest of the bodykit and a radio etc.

 

--Phil