Schaefft's Bargain Barge Extravaganza - Renault VelSatis 3.5 V6

[Schaefft]

Good work man. At least once its done you wont have to go back in anytime soon.

Yeah, unless I screw up the alternator rebuild or whatever power steering pump I'll buy if faulty. In that case it'll go over the bridge.

[Schaefft]

Didn't have too much time this weekend (and still haven't found a place to refurb my ps pump yet) so I've reassembled my glove box today. Turns out the bodge of the previous owner even continued there, bolts and nuts were missing (Im still not sure if I somehow lost a few of them myself, never happened before). Thankfully Toyota uses the same size bolts to screw down their dashes that BMW uses to bolt on their thermostat housings onto the engine, so I still had plenty of them left from that job. Also found 3 fitting nuts to attach the ECU to the dash, so everything went better than expected in the end. How often can you say that?

 

I think my flat is the only place where you'll ever see these two next to each other. Its interesting that the Safrane doesn't look that much smaller. Also note the absolute automotive misery around it...

 

Back tire was a bit low on air.  If you ever wanted to know if your Celsior/LS400's electrics still work without an alternator installed, they do!

 

Before:

 

Cleaned the backside of that panel up a little and re-attached the ECU. The nuts came from my first Lincoln originally, so my Toyota has a little bit of Ford in it now:

 

After:

 

A nice look at these beautiful floor mats again. They are also the heaviest floor mats I have ever seen. Quality!

 

Thanks Screwfix!

 

I've also installed the rear washer pump in the Safrane, literally a 1 minute job:

 

 

 

And that's it!

[Jim Bell]

Those mats though. (again).

[Schaefft]

Those mats though. (again).

The best in the biz!

[Schaefft]

It's been a little while so I might as well give a quick update.

 

Not much has happened!

 

I'm currently in the process of buying a car storage property house which will give me more freedom in what I like to do the most (safe old crappy (dream) barges of mine and give them a new lease of life), something that has been a little tricky until now considering I really only had a flat with one parking space allocated to it lol.

 

I will have much more space in the future as that was one of the bigger factors (in true Autoshite fashion) when looking for a decent house in Newcastle. Since buying a house and turning it into something vaguely resembling your dream home turns out to be expensive, progress on the cars might be a little slow(er). What it means though is that I now have less limiting factors when it comes to multi-shite-ownership, something that will only accelerate my downward spiral into real car-horder-dom.

 

Thank you.

[Schaefft]

A tiny bit of an update.

 

Since I wanna make sure that my Lincoln is in tip top condition for an upcoming trip to the Nürburgring (yes because why not), it will undergo some minor repairs somewhat soonish. Mainly front control arms and probably front stabilizer bar bushes and whatever will come up at the inspection. That means that I will need to get another car back on the road soon that I can drive while the Lincoln is being fixed. That car, at last, will be the Safrane, as I have basically done everything I could to get it through an MOT again (I bet there will be more).

 

Any recommendations for classic car insurance, ideally with a multi-car-insurance, are welcome! Even after so many years here I'm still a noob regarding specialist car insurance in the UK.

 

I couldn't test drive the Renault today since I didnt have a battery that was charged up enough (the Safrane is very picky about battery voltage and will refuse to start at even the slightest dip) so I decided to pump up the leaky tire of the Celsior instead. I still need to find a set of cheap used BC coilovers for it, I'm getting a little sick of this inverted hotrod stance now. At least my rebuilt power steering pump will return soon.

 

 

Then I thought I should take the Senator for a spin again, just to make sure everything was still fine and ready for registration here in the UK at a later time.

 

Opening the hood I was greeted with a familiar, beautiful sight. Who wouldn't like the look of this intake manifold? Dual Ram System! Autohaus Schnell! Loving it!

 

 

Starting the car, it cranked over but wouldn't start. Knowing that the battery was fine, I tried again and voila, the engine ran. Since the tank was pretty much empty I walked back to one of the other cars to get my little jerry can only to notice a strange puddle underneath the car.

 

 

FUCK.

 

 

Turns out one of the hoses to the fuel rail suddenly has a pin hole that must have formed while the car was parked. I already have a set of hoses on order from Germany (35 Euros incl. shipping to the UK isn't too bad) but its just more hassle that wasn't really needed. I'm glad it happened at a time when I didn't really need the car, setting your car on fire unknowingly isn't necessarily the kind of surprise I'm looking for when stuck in the morning rush hour.

 

Just a few more weeks before I will be moving into the new house as well. My plan is to have the Safrane AND Celsior MOT'd by then to drive them over there. Guess we'll see how that goes very soon.

[25v6turbo]

I will be watching this space with the Safrane......

Get an MOT on it and I will buy it!

[Jim Bell]

Lucky you noticed it when the car was standing still really..........

[Schaefft]

I will be watching this space with the Safrane......

Get an MOT on it and I will buy it!

Hahaha I will probably keep it for a little bit longer now that I will have the space to keep it! It'll all depend how much I like driving it!

 

 

Lucky you noticed it when the car was standing still really..........

Indeed, I'm really glad it didn't happen last year shortly after I bought it. I bet it would have been a blast to drive around the Alps.

[Schaefft]

So I'm currently trying to figure out how I can insure the Safrane for reasonable money, as it seems to be a little bit of a special case. Footman James wouldn't want to give me a quote at all while HIC cherished car insurance (fully comp) gives me a quote of 675£, a number that is almost twice as high as for a Lexus LS400 of similar age I received back in December. At least they will lower that number once I've found another insurer who would cover the Renault for less.

 

Is there any other specialty car insurer that people have had great experiences with previously? I will have a garage at the new house, which should enable me to get Classic Car insurance for it as well (unless they are footman james).

[RobT]

Try Peter James.  They should insure anything 20+ years old on a classic policy.  The only time they refused me was on a 20 year old Omega.  The 1993 Safrane I had was OK, but classic insurance can be somewhat random.

[Schaefft]

Looks like I need to be born in 1988 to get a quote from them

[Schaefft]

Looks like I'll end up paying around 550/year to insure the Safrane. Thats still more expensive than I'd like it to be, but its the best quote (Aviva 3rd Party Fire and Theft) I got. I can try HIC to match the quote with their Cherished Car policy, but I doubt it would be much below it, if they wanna match it at all considering theirs is fully comp.

 

I've also tried to start the Safrane today. I don't know if it's just the battery (which seems to work fine on a damn 4.0 V8) but the starter wouldn't turn over the engine quick enough to start it. Do starters die a slow death (where they arent immediately stuck) or is the issue somewhere else? Any tips welcome!

[DVee8]

I have the Daimler insured with Gott and Wynne based in Wales.Try them you never know.
https://www.gottandwynne.co.uk/

[Schaefft]

If you always wanted to know what its like driving this barge on a daily basis, our very own Mr. Dollywobbler now is giving you a chance to have a glimpse into the life of a Mark VIII owner:

 

[Jim Bell]

Sounds amazing with the windows down. Shifts much quicker than I imagined too!

[w00dy]

Awesome collection of barges! Always wanted a Celsior and a Safrane and love the mkVIII (from a distance though!).

[Schaefft]

Sounds amazing with the windows down. Shifts much quicker than I imagined too!

Agreed. I had to get a custom Powerflow catback exhaust installed about 3 years ago since the original one was just completely ruined from standing so much. The 3rd cat got deleted and replaced with an H-pipe at the same time, I told them to pick silencers that would keep the noise levels near factory though. I think it sounds absolutely brilliant now but there might be a leak at the driver side downpipe that recently appeared.

 

 

Awesome collection of barges! Always wanted a Celsior and a Safrane and love the mkVIII (from a distance though!).

 

Thanks man, really trying my best to keep them all in decent nick!

[Jim Bell]

Was the exhaust done locally around here man? Heard a few people complain about Powerflow stuff not lasting long.

[loserone]

Just had a chance to watch the hubnut video, and it's safe to say this thread is now bookmarked for tomorrow's breakfast reading!

[Schaefft]

Was the exhaust done locally around here man? Heard a few people complain about Powerflow stuff not lasting long.

Yup, I had it done at Powerflow in Heaton, the guy left them since then and opened up his own shop. What makes me a little angry is that the H-pipe was done quite a bit earlier, and the rest of the exhaust was replaced about a year later. The problem is that they left a section of old exhaust between the two new sections, why the hell would you do that...

 

 

Just had a chance to watch the hubnut video, and it's safe to say this thread is now bookmarked for tomorrow's breakfast reading!

 

Oh, it'll take you a few hours to get through the madness that is this thread lol.

[dollywobbler]

Sounds amazing with the windows down. Shifts much quicker than I imagined too!

 

It certainly surprised me! I think you've attracted a few admirers as well Mr Schaefft...

[Jim Bell]

It certainly surprised me! I think you've attracted a few admirers as well Mr Schaefft...

Possibly the fastest 1st gear on AS. Even when its off the line in second!

[Schaefft]

It certainly surprised me! I think you've attracted a few admirers as well Mr Schaefft...

 

Possibly the fastest 1st gear on AS. Even when its off the line in second!

 

If you launch it well it definitely shifts. I'm not sure if it started in 1st or 2nd. Most automatics do the latter unless you manually force it to stay in 1st, Im actually not quite sure if this 4-speed would have the same programming in "D".

 

And you don't know how happy I am to see so many people appreciating a car they had no idea about before, that's exactly what I was hoping to see. We need more diversity in the car community, and putting a little spot light on cars that aren't the obvious choice is important to achieving that goal.

[vulgalour]

I think you've attracted a few admirers as well Mr Schaefft...

We need more diversity in the car community, and putting a little spot light on cars that aren't the obvious choice is important to achieving that goal.

I mean... it's not hard to see why. That and the photogenic thing I suppose.

[Schaefft]

I have a big* announcement to make!

 

A new car will be joining this thread soon, and it will most likely replace a car that I never really planned selling again. Unfortunately there won't be a collection thread as I am lazy and will let the seller deliver the car to me. Excluding the S8 I previously had for about 9 months, this will be the fastest car I have ever owned. Of course it was also cheap and really needs a ton of work done to it. But it has some MOT and drives! Here's the only hint I'll give:

 

 

In other news, the Lincoln's AC compressor pulley bearing is currently on a mission to destroy itself. I'm not able to bodge this so I will have to avoid driving the car until the replacement part arrives. Luckily the new mystery car arrives on Sunday, which probably was also the reason the bearing went out now since I had to do a 5 hour round trip in the Lincoln to view and take it for a test drive. On my way back to Newcastle I also achieved this:

 

This is in US MPG. Convert it to the UK variety and you get almost 32MPG. In a 23 year old, 4.6l V8 luxury coupe from America. And that was over a distance of at least 50 miles, so not just constant downhill cruising.

 

In more other news, I now have the parts to rebuild the alternator of the Celsior and install that and the power steering pump again. I replaced the fuel hoses in the Senator but found a few vacuum lines that need replacing, which explains the uneven idle (in fact the Lincoln needs new ones as well now) and the Safrane is ready for its MOT. That might need to be pushed back a little because of the new car (it still has MOT so i can drive that one straight away while the Lincoln is being fixed). We'll see when the car arrives!

 

Me and 2 mates also finally managed to remove the fuel filter of the Aurora and replace it with a new one. A dremel, flex and torch was used liberally to cut the filter into smaller chunks to reach the nut that held into on the fuel line. Surprisingly we didn't set the car on fire.

 

 

That only happened when we tried to start it spraying fuel directly into the throttle body, causing a back fire and setting half of the engine bay on fire. Fortunately I bought a fire extinguisher in anticipation of fiery death while cutting the fuel filter up, so we were very quick to put out the flames before anything could get damaged. That was close! The reason for all of this was a crank but no start issue. At this point I'm fairly sure the problem lies in the anti theft system preventing the injectors to open. Its a common issue where the resistor in the key is not recognized properly anymore, causing the car to think that its not the right key. Fortunately there is a bodge available to get around this issue, which I will test once I have time.

[Jim Bell]

That MPG is pretty impressive!

 

New car I'll guess Soarer v8?

[rantingYoof]

That certainly looks like a Toyota/Lexus bloo. My Mk1 MR2 was that colour where it wasn't brown and crusty.

 

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk

[Schaefft]

That MPG is pretty impressive!

 

New car I'll guess Soarer v8?

 

That certainly looks like a Toyota/Lexus bloo. My Mk1 MR2 was that colour where it wasn't brown and crusty.

 

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk

 

Nope, even though I'd love a V8 Soarer/SC400. Its got 2 more doors, and is quicker!

[Jim Bell]

Hmmmmmm. Whats faster than a v8coupe?

 

Supra twin turbo or something obscure and jdm?