PapaNicole Vegtable Insertion Merde

[wackywacerwill]

As some will know by previous threads I've for some time been on the hunt for a high mpg mile muncher that will run on alternative fuels.

Folk on here gave some grand suggestions which widened the net and lot's of things have caught my eye, many of course were highly unsuitable for the task at hand and many more were beyond my means.

I was on the brink of hitting up Cavcraft's PSA department with a fist full of queens heads and a basket case CG as a part exchange deal on the ZX though for a number of reasons on my part that didn't happen. The main reason was I spotted something with a body style and engine which tickled my fancy ending at midnight just before Xmas.

I ended up snagging it for just over the price of a years road fund licence which initially made be very happy until the sight unseen ebay apprehension set in.

 

Spiced Cider is a ready for drinking so I'll leave you with this and be back in a while with collection tails and what I have found out about it since.

 

 

It's Renault and diesel so WCPGW...

 

[Shep Shepherd]

Renault Extra?

[wackywacerwill]

Firstly, make this it's GR99.9, best thing I have drank all Christmas and I have done extensive research.

Tom Kerridge's mulled cider Ingredients

• 2 litres of good cider
• 150g soft dark brown sugar
• 150ml dark rum
• 10 cardamom rods
• 1 cinnamon stick, broken up
• 3 fresh bay leaves
• 1 vanilla pod
• 4 star anise
• 1 orange peel
• 1tsp whole black peppercorns

Method

1. In a muslin bag, tie up the peppercorns, cardamom, bay leaves, cinnamon and the star anise.
2. Place the cider, sugar, muslin bag and split and scraped vanilla pod into a pan and bring to the boil.
3. Reduce the heat and leave to steep for 20 minutes.
4. Add the orange zest and the dark rum.
5. Remove from the heat and serve.

 

 

Back to the car. Collection was not possibly till the day after Boxing day and we had to be back for tea so I woke the lad at 6:30 with flash photography and the cat.

He was riding shotgun for the day and we had a right good laugh generally acting the fool on the trip to Cannock and back home to South East London, so much so that no pictures were taken on our route through the Blackwall tunnel, around the North Circ then up the M1 and M6.

With barely any fannying about we found the car and the chap came walking up the road to meet us. There was a story of him now living in his van and this being his ex's address with it all a bit awkward, hmmmm. I believe that on ebay you buy when you bid so in my mind I was having it anyway, I would always go and have a look at a car first if poss though distance most often makes this a non starter and the with the money I pay I'm more often than not happy to go on a wing and a prayer.

The fella took me for a drive around the block and the car started drove and stopped so was already much better than some stuff I have bought.

We exchanged paper and I backed up the transit for the haul home.

I spent an age fitting the frame and had to adjust it in to fit as these Clios are much smaller than I remember and the frame was fouling the wheels on lock.

The boy made himself useful by making tea from the flask and then drawing the plate on the trailer board, top lad.

 

I popped the bonnet to run the cable under and just out of interest opened up some lids to gawp inside, no mayo which was nice but a fair bit of pressure in the expansion tank! The engine pic in the advert did look suspiciously clean and there was some flannel about the engine having been reconditioned by the previous owner, hmmm. The engine was by far the cleanest bit on the car and also looked to have been sprayed with WD, do I just have a suspicious mind?

I thought about a alternative route back home on A roads though we were by now running a bit late so I thought sod it and dragged it back down the motorway stopping early to check the frame was tight and if any wheels were hot then stopping again among the trucks for Kentucky fried pigeon feast and van refuel.

 

The old bus is great for this sort of thing so we got home safe and sound and it was dark again like it was when we left home. Originally we had planned to get the train up and drive it back but fuel for the van turned out cheaper and I didn't have the aggro of tax and insurance over Xmas. Through further investigations today this may well have turned out to be the best way to bring it home, everything for a reason I guess.

 

It's a 1.9 NA for mega mpg's, a fair size old donkey for such a small car so goes well enough. It also has a tow bar which will come in handy and most importantly a bosch pump which I believe is a rarity on these. It has bendy bar type rear sus and no sun roof to leak. It must be a few up from base spec as it has such luxury's as a rear wiper, a clock and even a heated rear screen.

 

I've made a few more discoveries today whilst having a little look over it and shall report upon them as and when. I know sod all about these little things and this is my first Renault so any tips and advise will be greatly appreciated.

[wackywacerwill]

Renault Extra?

 

I like those but we have a van and need more seats.

[Mr Lobster]

I saw that on ebay and did give it a bit of consideration. They will do mega mpg and are basic enough to be properly reliable, plus I'd quite like an early Clio.

[Jim Bell]

Clio bangers are for winners.

Well done indeed.

[vulgalour]

That's a freakishly clean engine bay.  It's been an absolute age since I saw a Clio that colour and a four door, I'd say it's a car designed for winning with.

[Junkman]

road fund licence

I assume you mean vehicle excise duty? Road fund tax was abolished in 1937.

[Pillock]

Whereas pedantry lives on

 

I like that colour. The dealer at the bottom of my mum's road (Wheatley's Renault) had a few of them as courtesy cars, at least a couple were that shade and one white. Very simple design, no faff but looks "right".

 

Hope it's not a dog!

[phil_lihp]

Looks like a lovely honest little motor, well bought.  If it's the same 1.9D lump that was in my '98 Kangoo I can recommend it, very strong and smooth, capable of some decent mileage and (if mine was anything to go by) tolerant of neglect.

[wackywacerwill]

I saw that on ebay and did give it a bit of consideration.

That makes at least 3 of us from here who were eyeing it up. I selfishly didn't wack it in the ebay thread for fear of starting a autoshite bidding civil war.

 

That's a freakishly clean engine bay.  It's been an absolute age since I saw a Clio that colour and a four door.

It looks like it's had the road traffic film remover treatment to clean it up, works well though could also be used to disguise recently ejected rusty coolant! I have a receipt for head gasket, bolts, glow plugs, oil and filter, skim and test, anti freeze and a reseal and retread of Injector which was apparently done when it was last mot's in July. This along with the mot fee and the cost of some anti roll bar links came in at £560.19 according to the bit of paper I have here.

The roll bar link bushes don't look that new to me mind and the anti freeze also looks like water which was a bit low. I'm still a bit concerned about the hiss from the 'spansion tank yesterday though today I've bleed the system (very high top hose of the rad) and left it running for about an hour before razzing it around my private test track and it seems ok. If it continues to prove worthy I'll treat it to some colored water.

 

Looks like a lovely honest little motor, well bought.  If it's the same 1.9D lump that was in my '98 Kangoo I can recommend it, very strong and smooth, capable of some decent mileage and (if mine was anything to go by) tolerant of neglect.

That's good to hear, I hope it's an honest one too though I do have my doubts. Fingers crossed I'll be proved wrong and my faith will be restored.

 

It does look fairly clean from 20 paces  but has a few marks and scabs up close. Also has some giffer spec touch up work on minor scratch or 2 in want looks like household gloss of a similar hue. Exterior plastic is faded to fuck and the wheels are pretty rusty.

 

Inside is not too bad though far from mint as you may expect but smells well enough for a smoker with a blocked nose. Interestingly someone has cut a large section of carpet out of the rear footwell, I dread to think why. I can confirm that the seats are as is fine french tradition, dead comfy and it feels very familiar largely down to my past Pug 205, 309 ownership I guess.

 

I have a good haul of stuff with it too, brakes and clutch pedal ratchet were mentioned in the ad and supplied with the car as the previous owner had heard a metal on metal noise when applying the brake pedal and the clutch pedal had dropped to the floor a few times. Neither was evident on the test drive but more on this later. Other free stuff included £1.03p, a flat head screwdriver, fancy pants JVC headunit, small bottle of aftershave, a babies dummy, kids sun shade, some oil, two sets of drill bits and 2 of those wurrly brush things you wack in a drill and then they spit bits of metal at you.

 

Once I'd finished bleeding the water system and generally worrying (still not really over this bit yet) about OMGHGF I cracked open that big Mintex box and jacked the front up to find all was well with the pads and discs both sides.

Did think it strange that they would be grinding now but not even an advisory on the last mot, must be the rears.

At this point I thought of more urgent matters like getting that spanky JVC working. PO said it turns on but no sound. Now I'm no auto electrician but I think the problem may lie here.

 

I could only find the 1 speaker and have vague recollection of standing on the other some years ago. Fitted it all pro like by twisting the wires and using 2 wood screws to adhere it to the dash.

Garage find Kenwood in effect

 Whilst on a electrical winning streak I pulled the headlight bulbs and made them yellow

 

Merci beaucoup, fromage frais. 

 

I threw a bucket over it and called it a day. Took it around the test track earlier this eve which threw up some interesting developments, more on that later. I'm off for a fag.

[Spiny Norman]

Nice to see a Mk1 Clio still on the road, I had a couple of them. a K and an L reg. Good wee cars in their day, probably the best of the supermini crop. There was a bloke in our street had a P reg one since I moved in here about 10 years ago right up til last year when it finally died a death.

[wackywacerwill]

I'd like to think I can help squeeze a few more years out of this one, we'll see. I'm very much in the hold onto my pennys mode till I am satisfied it ain't blowing bubbles from the head but it seems the brakes do indeed need a good coat of looking at.

On the test track it behaved mostly well, no boiling up, pulls well, sounds like a old van and has that heavy feel like a diesel should. It goes well when you plant your foot those don't stop with any urgency! Hand brake locks the off side but not the rear and pulling it up at a standstill on a hill has it doing a wobble to the right, lever goes way up to the sky too. I carried on regardless until after a exuberant burst needed to haul up swiftly when I heard some load banging type noise, thought it must be the spare carrier which I bungyed to the towbar. I'd used it to tie the light board too when framing it and upon removal of said board it feel on the floor. Turns out it wasn't that and after further testing I found the brakes were far worse and the pedal was jerking about like it was having a seizure. My guess is that all is not well in them there rear drums, I'll have to pop them off and looksee. Sadly I fear this will involve spending money.

Good news is that I found a old VW speaker that with some bodgery will find it's way into the passenger side for full stereo sounds.

[Mr Livered]

Hey that "glass pen" works pretty well for making the headlamps yellow. Where does one purchase such a thing? I fancy doing the same on my Air Cinq.

[Cavcraft]

this is my first Renault so any tips and advise will be greatly appreciated.

 

 

{Autoshite standard response to Renaults} OMG, it's shit, kill it with fire, sell it while it still drives etc {Autoshite standard response to Renault diesels

 

Looks ok that and early ones are getting thin on the ground. I reckon you've done well with that and I hope you get a few years out of it.

[cort16]

These drive pretty well. It's the only NA diesel I've driven that I didn't want to just open the door and jump out after driving it for a couple of hours.

There's not a ridge on the edge of the front discs is there? This can make a right racket and caused my old Astra to fail it's MOT as they thought it was a wheel bearing.

[Des]

It does appear that when hooking up the Clio, your van starts resembling a Renault 5, hope it recovered afterwards.

 

 

[tooSavvy]

My company van.... lonnng ago.... was a Renault Extra Diesel van.

 

1) I had 2 replacement injector pipes... cracked off at the gland nut, in the head. Obv 'vibration', but they were clipped in with a plastic comb.

 

2) Replacement starter motor... had different cog size/teeth from all others.

 

No P/S.... hard work to park.

 

TS

[R9UKE]

That looks brilliant - and it even has the most important Clio feature - NO SUNROOF!

 

I had one, a 1996 RT D and that engine is just brilliant. It used to take a good minute of preheating in the winter and then wake up the rest of the street with its old diesel gurgle. One of those you just forget when you last put fuel in and it only ever needed a thermostat.

 

Enjoy!

[wackywacerwill]

These drive pretty well. It's the only NA diesel I've driven that I didn't want to just open the door and jump out after driving it for a couple of hours.

There's not a ridge on the edge of the front discs is there? This can make a right racket and caused my old Astra to fail it's MOT as they thought it was a wheel bearing.

NA diesels feel like a proper diesel to me, this one in a light car has bags of torque with none of that wizz change wizz change shenanigans.

Slight ridge on front disc and they may be on their second set of pads but it didn't look like it was worth the change, I'll bear that in mind though have a feeling something MAJOR is amiss out back!

I'll pull them drums off later if the weather holds, family time/pub beckons now.

 

 

 

No P/S.... hard work to park.

 

TS

I like no power steering, it's how things should be. It does feel remarkably heavy for a small car though the tyres could do with some air TBH

 

That looks brilliant - and it even has the most important Clio feature - NO SUNROOF!

 

I had one, a 1996 RT D and that engine is just brilliant. It used to take a good minute of preheating in the winter and then wake up the rest of the street with its old diesel gurgle. One of those you just forget when you last put fuel in and it only ever needed a thermostat.

 

Enjoy!

Thinking about it now I have had a Renault before and a Clio to boot. It was a late model one with a leaky sunroof which I got in part ex on a Suzuki Alto, I think it had a dodgy auto box (no really) and was washed and sold as a going concern.

 

The racket this one makes is one of my favorite things about it. The only thing her indoors has said about it is that it is noisy, she was indoors at the time behind double glazing in our top floor flat and I was in the car park around the corner.

 

glass pen

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/6-BEROL-BY-PAPERMATE-GLASS-PENS-MARKERS-ARTS-CRAFTS-/170774070115?pt=UK_BOI_Office_Office_Supplies_Stationery_ET&hash=item27c2ed8363

First hit on the bay. You can get fatter ones too which I have used to do the glass on a few bikes in the past, works fairly well though to be honest I only choose them because I 'found' them for free.

[wackywacerwill]

So, I never found the time to look at the brakes the other day when it was nice and sunny and instead waited till it was blowing like satchmo and pissing with rain too.

 

Suspect rear drum was attacked first and as you can see it had given up all hope and done gone lost it's sole.

The cylinder had pissed in pants at some point during in the violent outbreak though this was only minor and I felt if I had some decent glue all this could be fixed. Sadly nothing bar pritstick could be found so of I went to the factors.

I left the brake pipe unions to soak in this shizzle in the vain hope that I would not need to resort to beasting them out - FAIL - the grips they got!

 

I IZ COMITED MONIZ SPENT

 

Grabbed a ground sheet from the caravan of love and after some grovelling around and minor cursing we have this on both sides.

 

For the first time EVAH I found the easybleed at a time when I needed it which made short work of what has been a 2 man operation or one man and length of wood faffarama.

 

Now has twin speaker sound system as I found a VW stamped jobbie that fits the hole. Gear nob kept falling off so has been swapped for a pool ball that I found in our kitchen. It already had a hole so I must have had it something else at some point.

 

Plastic stuff is well faded but the back bumper and half the front one came up well with the last of a tin of back 2 black. Might give the heat gun a go over the worst bits as it has worked a treat before and seems to last better than other methods. Car looks fairly tidy after a wash and making moves to improve it's appearance will only improve it's chances of becoming our sole modern daily.

 

#Edit# Heat gun found though made little impression on door trim and mirror, a slight impression was made on the door handle when it started to melt mind.

[Twiggy]

Fascinating thread Will, I`m enjoying it immensley. Looking forward to the next instalment !

[Jim Bell]

Nu Shooz of win.

 

[wackywacerwill]

Picture the scene. It's early doors on a cold bright Monday morn, the neighbourhood is largely lounging in bed being gently awoken by birdsong and starting to think of that first coffee to nurse their delicate heads when the peace is broken by the unmistakable sound of a non premium car door slamming. They know what's coming next and also know the double glazing and even hiding under the pillows won't save them.

Technofail. On the boys Xmas tablet thing so can't make it do right click, tried using a different finger now all out of ideas!

 

Here we go, this should* work.

 

http://s1001.photobucket.com/user/fambang/media/2014-01-04132200_zps94a97e0f.mp4.html

[dollywobbler]

GR12. These are rather jolly motors. Duly added to the list of possible Sirion replacements. It's quite a long list...

[Jim Bell]

That engine sounds amazing. All diesels should wake up the street.

[spike60]

For years I had a Mk2 Transit camper fitted with an early 2.5 Di, tin filter housing and no underbonnet soundproofing. I'm sure our neighbours looked forward to their early wake up call when I was on 6-2!

[phil_lihp]

That is the sound of a proper diesel.  I miss the sense of occasion you get from having to wait for the glow plugs to warm up first, sometimes followed by an indeterminate period of cranking before a cloud of black smoke and a lot of noise.  

[NorfolkNWeigh]

That is the sound of a proper diesel.  I miss the sense of occasion you get from having to wait for the glow plugs to warm up first, sometimes followed by an indeterminate period of cranking before a cloud of black smoke and a lot of noise.

 

 

Yes I remember that like it was....

 

Today! Fuckin useless 2010 V6 Mercedes OM642 in my Chrysler 300!

[wackywacerwill]

Got paid mid month so stopped exploiting the 2 weeks grace period on the tax and wacked 6 months rent in the window, January's a bad time for that to be up so it'll get 12 next time around if I have the cash and it's still deserving of the spend.

 

I've been easing it on to a life of veg and it's running fine and smelling gr9.5, can't comment on the mpg other than it does far better than anything else I've every owned bar the cg125.

 

In typical new car love affair it has been washed. I then got carried away and started to apply some wax which did the job but the bumpy surface of the paint then annoyed me so I went proper OCD and broke out the clay bar. It's been re waxed and today I even peanut buttered half the black trim before getting bored and going inside for a bottle of doom bar.

 

It's quickly getting covered in road salt and I failed to get any proper pics for all you clean pervs though I'm hoping the effort will make it come up good again in the spring.

 

In other news the fogs have been fixed as has the rear heated screen although the rear wipe has stopped working, I've bought some pattern part rain x stuff in the pound shop today to fix that. Decent kenwood speakers have also been found in the lock up so they will be fitted into the oe holes in the back when I can be arsed.

 

Other than a bat flattery (which was my fault) there has at the present time been no failure to proceed.

 

Random OTR snaps