New projects any gotchas

[Richnd1974]

So everything is on order,

Exhaust looks simple enough, that's the first job.

Gear box oil seal looks like a biggy and gearbox job out etc, read load of threads so roping in my mate.

Should I tackle this before the exhaust, as looks like I would need to remove the down pipe.

Everything else is cosmetic so should be OK for now.

Any tips let me know

Oh.. What engine oil does a 953cc engine like? And what gear box oil?

 

[Cornish4]

Gearbox first I would think as you've probably got to lift the engine a bit to remove it, so as you say you would need to disturb the exhaust system. 20-50 or 15-40 for the engine and EP 80 for the box of cogs.
Regards Brian.

 

[Paul Narramore]

And buy Halfords own make oil which is plenty good enough for our cars.

 

[Paul Narramore]

Richard, When I bought my R4GTL last summer, the first thing I did once I'd got her home was to get a service kit from Mr.Auto, an online spares firm Mr.Reno deals with. Very efficient and the stuff arrived a couple of days later. I think the website is www.Mr-Auto.co.uk or similar. You'll find it on Google.

I decided to replace the front discs and brake pads on our BMW118d and again the boxes arrived shortly afterwards in December. I put them aside for warmer weather but this week decided to allow a local garage to do the job. I opened the box containing the brake discs, mighty ventilated jobbies, only to find one solitary disc. I checked back on my emails and had been invoiced for the pair. An email to Mr.Auto and another disc is being dispatched. No questions. A genuine mistake and they seem decent people. I replaced the discs and pads on my R4GTL and you wouldn't believe not only how rusty they were but how little swept area they had. Next job, to free off the bleed nipples in the rear slave cylinders.

 

[Richnd1974]

Removed all the door seals ready for new ones, epic clean up of the old glue and rubber

 

[petak]

keep rear booth end rubbers until you get new ones, as sometimes new one does not fit nicely

 

[AdamWilkes]

Re: engine oil; my F6 has only in the last year or so been used/flexed properly (and serviced) after many years of idle abuse. I chose not to use an oil flusher. The oil has gradually been cleaning the engine, I think, with each change (every 5K miles max) and occasional 3-hours howls up the M3/M4/M5 to parents'.
I WAS using semi-synth 15/40W but after a year the oil pressure light started coming on at idle; the oil was a month old and pretty clean. After some research and thought, I added some oil additive/thickener, and happily found that pressure was up again. I do assume that the oil pressure switch was correct; I removed the oil filter (Mahle) and cut it open to see if there were faults - none found.
I feel that the engine has gradually become cleaner, and speculate that the oil galleries etc have become cleaned out to a point where the oil was too thin to maintain pressure at low speeds. I discovered that 20/50W is recommended for this engine, and will now use that but haven't changed it yet. I don't have any noises that seem unusual, so I don't think bearing bear is a big problem.
Anyone had issues with modern-grade oils? I was surprised at 15/40w becoming too thin - I guess the engine is an old design, even compared to our old motley pair of early '90s vehicles in use daily too (peugeot 205 1.8D; Isuzu Bighorn 3.1TD), all using 15/40W happily.

 

[jjad]

For the past 12 years or so, I've always used semi-synthetic 15W40 with no ill effects in our 1108cc GTL.

 

[Paul Narramore]

The Renault 4 Handbook specifically warns 'Don't use flushing oil'. My engine oil when I bought the car was jet black with the inside of the rocker box and the rockers coated in a jet black varnish-like coating. Mr.Reno advised me to add some diesel as this would flush the engine but I chose more frequent oil changes and some long 'fast' runs.

 

[AdamWilkes]

I have now been using the 20W50 (recommended in a service manual - Haynes maybe) for a while, and the oil pressure seems to be fine still, so no more 15W40 for me !