Well finally the weather has been nice today, a chill in the wind but wall to wall sunshine and warm in it, so I was able to do a bit on the car.
Now, for reasons I won't go into, other than that's what she sounded like bombing down the M6/M5 at 100k's, we have called her Bee. (The speedo is graduated in mph and kph, it just seems more natural to work off the kph scale somehow).
It was really strange how we came to buy Bee. She appeared on E-Bay on the Friday, we looked at the listing on and off over the weekend and on the Monday morning and at lunch time Monday decided to phone up the seller, only to find it was no-longer listed. I phoned anyway and found the seller in a quandry; a buyer had viewed and test drove it in the morning, left a deposit and then a while later phone back to say he had changed his mind. So I stepped in and bit the bullet and bought it over the phone, unseen. At that time I had not connected the car with the BarnFind Project. We drove up on the Thursday to nearly at Blackburn, a long way from Somerset, and completed the deal and proceeded to drive her back.
Thinking that the drive down the M6 was very likely the stiffest test Bee had had in over 20 years I was happy to trundle along in the inside lane at 50-55mph with the truckers with my wife riding shotgun on me behind in the daily drive, our Scenic II. From Manchester to Stoke the M6 was horrific, the middle lane nose to tail with very big trucks, you needed feelers to judge the gap between some of them, you couldn't get into the centre lane if you'd wanted to, very intimidating! But I was happy in the nearside lane; if anything happened to Bee it was reassuring to know I could bale out onto the hard shoulder without dicing with big trucks! Gradually the road cleared a bit, we upped speed a bit, and then the M6 Toll road was bliss - empty! And so to the M42 and M5. Eventually we made Gloucester where we were stopping with my daughter for the night, and babysitting the next day.
The next day I went and checked the tyres more closely. Three did not appear to have a date on them and the fourth seemed to be dated 1986! So new rubber was called for as although the tyres seemed in good nick, no cracks, good tread, but hard rubber and I did not fancy any more M5 stuff on perhaps nearly 30 year old tyres, and new ones were obtained, see the thread 'Inner tubes', but I am now left with inner tubes on tubeless tyres and will have to get the inner tubes off shortly.
We left Gloucester about 5pm next day, still light but getting dark, and it soon started raining. The rain became torrential it seemed, very dark, couldn't see a thing behind except pairs of headlights, at what distance behind was hard to tell, some lights were exceedingly bright - do they really need to be that bright, they are more like full beam than dipped some of them - moving out to overtake slow traffic was a bit of a lottery, no one would let you out, sometimes my wife managed to get out behind me and so give me an easy out, but it was really a nightmare! I was so pleased to pull off the M5 at Taunton, I can tell you.
Then I experienced the world of 1970's headlights. Like, even if I had full beams on, NO-ONE flashed me! And I could just see the road if there was no-one else on it! There must be a halogen bulb I can fit! But we got home in one piece and she did very well, bombing down the motorways at 100k's. The new tyres were a tremendous difference, the vibration and hard ride went along with the hard rubber and she felt so much better.
Next day my wife had a go. She struggled with the very hard stiff clutch, the gear lever was not spring loaded which made gear changing harder than it should have been, and the throttle was not well set up. I had coped, but she didn’t and it was not a fault on her part - the set up was not correct. Then we struggled up a steep hill and the oil pressure light came on or so we thought, at that time we didn’t realise that it was also a high coolant temp light too, which gave us an anxious moment or two.
So we parked her up and left her until today. Now, before someone says I’m being unfair to Barn Find, or worse, let me state the facts. If you look back over the last 11 pages of this thread you will see that Barn Find concentrated on getting the chassis and bodywork sorted which he did. The main reason we bought this was the state of the chassis and bodywork, along with the good interior. You will also see that Barn Find only worked on the mechanicals enough to get the car running satisfactorily, which it did - 250+ miles down the motorway proves that. And in the handing over notes which came with the car he clearly states he is passing on the project to someone else for completion. And I have also talked to Barn Find on the phone and found him most helpful, and my wife also talked to Paul who did most of the welding too. So in no way what follows in this and other posts reflects any criticism of Barn Find whatsoever, in fact I am so grateful for what he has done. I am OK, sort of, on the mechanicals, out of my depth really on the rot/bodywork side of things!
So, today was a beaut, and a session on Bee called. I felt that although she ran well, it was not well enough, she was lacking power even if it was only an 845cc engine. I had gone from head off and pistons out for new rings in my mind, to just a head job, to now check the tappets and see how she goes. Would check out the carb and ignition as well.
The rocker cover had been leaking oil so a new joint was called for anyway. When I checked the tappets - and it was the first time I had done this job using the Renault method (one exhaust open, check/adjust one inlet and one exhaust, see their manual) it was really good and so easy. I also found that the tappets were rattling good fits, the clearances were huge, and were reset to 6thou inlet and 8thou exhaust. The carb float level was checked - ok, as was the initial throttle opening. The plug gaps were checked - one was a bit high, and the points set to 16thou. I know this may not be correct, but it is as per the book and my dwell meter is in France. I also had a look at the drive shaft inner rubber bellows, next to the gearbox. These had been leaking oil and I don’t want to have to change them, so I checked that they were in the correct position, that they had the bands on, and put cable ties on them as well. Not sure about this, not happy, any advice out there? It is possible that the gearbox oil level is too high, will check that out.
Boxed the whole lot up, reset the throttle cable (and the choke) but couldn’t get it like the manual says with the 2mm compression on the throttle spring, but it is a whole lot better. Then I turned the key and she fired up immediately, settled down and sounded very much like a R4 should. Still have to do a test run so see how she goes then, but it was very encouraging. There is an exhaust leak at the join between the manifold and the first section of pipe, in the engine bay, not surprising really given the amount of repair paste there, and the high temp alarm light came on when just on idle which was worrying seeing as how it was now getting cold in the evening air - will check the thermostat as it may be not opening enough. Where can one get a new thermostat and new water hoses for a ’78 TL?
Anyway, that was enough for today and I’m very pleased with the progress made. Will change the coolant next and flush through, and flush the engine oil out and change that and the gearbox oil too. Will also set the carb as per the Renault manual too when I can. My gas analyser is in France - where else! - but can't trust the MOT reading of 0.19%, surely the decimal point is wrong? - so will set it to run as well as I can without instruments. At least I have a tacho here get the idle speed correct!
Chris