Renault 18 GTD

[nisfan]

in those 2 years i bought it off you, sold it to FOAD, bought it back, offered it back to FOAD he had it for a week didnt really want it so i swapped it for a petrol 18 off derskine which i duly crashed and sold back to derskine!

[derskine]

Crash, bang, wallop, what a video!

[derskine]

Made some more progress tonight.

 

New brake flexi and track rod fitted, when I was removing the old brake flexi, the union was seized to the brake pipe, so I had to make a new pipe as it got mullered.

I had previously also snapped a bleed nipple on the original caliper so I fitted the one from the petrol 18 to it.

 

 

Also fitted the door from the black 18, this was a pig, the frame wasn't sealing against the door seal and after much head scratching between Nisfan and I, we discovered that I had used too many shims on the hinge, leaving just one on each hinge and adjusting the catch, the door now closes better than the old one did and seals great.

 

 

And here's a general shot of where I'm at.

 

 

Cheers guys, I don't do much else except sort my cars so I have plenty of time to get stuck in.

[Felly Magic]

Careful now it almost looks like a car

[derskine]

It's good when it gets to this stage though, gives a little more motivation as previously it seemed endless.

[nisfan]

whats that thing on top of the engine? Looks like half a dozen rolls.

[derskine]

That's just the baguette holder.

[Luckythirteen]

Oooohhh...cheese baguette?

 

 

[derskine]

Haha!

[r.welfare]

I miss Chewing The Fat.

[derskine]

Same.

Mon the fish

[Luckythirteen]

Any of your neighbours on the nightshift, when you're car fixing?

[derskine]

Closest neighbour is a bald man who only goes there to stay in his caravan when his wife chucks him out.

We only moved into this unit a couple of months ago and still don't know his name so he's just called Baldy.

Hopefully he never reads this as he is a big chap.

He isn't there very often and as such firing up 10 angle grinders at 12am would be acceptable.

[derskine]

More upd9zszz

 

Today I fitted the wings and bonnet, what is normally easy proved to be a little more challenging due to all the welding and things not quite lining up 100%. With a little tweaking I got there okay though. I fitted the bonnet from the petrol 18 as the one on the diesel was shit.

 

 

 

This is the wing I got shipped from france, it's a bit of a strange colour.

 

 

 

 

Also started it up for the first time in 2 months, fired up first turn of the key, confirming the starter motor I fitted is also good.

[Split_Pin]

This has turned into a full restoration, great progress here, much respect.

[Angrydicky]

Excellent work! I've already said it, but you should paint it maroon again! Go on, you know you want to

[derskine]

Won't be painting it maroon, I simply don't have the time/requirement, it's more of a usable daily for me than a looker.

I'm not known for having cars with good paint jobs, I'm far to clumsy and just end up scratching them.

It has turned into a bit of a restoration but it needs it, and it is certainly the most usable old car I've owned.

[sallan91]

Very nice indeed, can't remember the last time I saw one of those on the road.

[DodgyBastard]

Lookin' good!

 

DSC_3898 by srblythe, on Flickr

 

DSC_3900 by srblythe, on Flickr

[derskine]

Wired drivers door yesterday and put a battery on it today.

Electric window worked great, though perhaps a little slower than the old door (it was like this on the petrol 18 anyway).

Central locking however - didn't.

 

Previously the only way to lock this car was to lock it from the passengers side as the drivers lock was fucked.

The idea with fitting the petrol's door was that I would have a working drivers lock, albeit having to use a different key.

Great if you have the key - I seem to have lost it, so back to the old method.

 

Basically the rear doors would lock fine, the pin on the passengers door would go half way up (and not lock) and the drivers door pin just thought about going up (shaking a little).

I took the drivers door card off (which is a bit of a pain in the arse) and put the solenoid from the old door in - still didn't work.

 

In the end I sprayed a liberal amount of wd40 on the mechanism and the pin went up no problem.

Did the same on the other door but in order to avoid taking the door card off, I just took the catch off and sprayed wd40 in.

 

Hopefully I find the key for the drivers door as it was annoying having to walk round to the passengers side.

[Richard]

I swapped the driver and passenger lock barrels on my 9. What makes the trims hard to remove? Are they glued on like the ones on a 19?

[derskine]

Might need to do that, the door card is just a pain to get off with all the screws to undo.

[Wackeldackel]

What sort of a lock barrel is it? If the little pins inside are not pins as such but little square plates with a rectangular hole in the middle that the key passes through, you may be able to use the passenger barrel as an example and re arrange the order of the plates in the drivers' lock barrel. I had the same problem with a 205, think there were 10 plates to rearrange and helpfully enough each had a number stamped on it, was just a case of dismantling passenger side barrel, write down 10 digit number, reassemble and then build lock barrel to driver's side according to the same 10 digit number. Hope that sort of makes sense, the rest of it looks good, plus 1 on the not being too fussy about cosmetic stuff, starting going and stopping are what matters.

[derskine]

Unfortunately plastic bit had smashed off the end of lock and couldn't be found inside the door (presumably due to the massive hole in the bottom of the door).

I'm hoping to fit the boot lock from the petrol one so will probably be as well getting a key blank off ebay and getting it cut.

[DodgyBastard]

I kinda miss old Rennie, found some pics recently...

 

DSCF7081 by srblythe, on Flickr

 

DSCF7064 by srblythe, on Flickr

 

DSCF7060 by srblythe, on Flickr

 

DSCF7057 by srblythe, on Flickr

 

I think after all of your hard work "restoring" it you should get it professionally resprayed in the original colour, fit the original steel wheels with hubcabs and take it round all the shows etc...

[derskine]

fuk of m8

[DodgyBastard]

More upd9zszz

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Only just noticed that awesome italian car in the background, when are you going to restore that?

[derskine]

That's yours, betablythe!

[derskine]

Not much to do now to get it back on the road.

 

I've sorted the following this week -

 

Changed oil finally after buying the correct tool (the one I made for the petrol 18 just rounded when I tried it on this)

Added coolant

Painted various repairs

Made some progress on fillering the repaired rear arch

 

I set about trying to bleed the brakes today,  the front bleed nipples are free but the rear wheel cylinders are totally knackered, one is leaking and the bleed nipple on the other has rusted to nothing - one of the retaining bolts on this cylinder is also heftily rounded and is in an awkward location so can't get an irwin bolt grip in, this will require a nut welding on top or some die grinder action, I haven't decided which yet.

[DodgyBastard]

Have you changed the clutch yet?