Clementine's Garage
Clementine the Cat
 
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Yellow R4
 
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Lancashire GTL

IMG_20171129_144034610.jpg IMG_20171129_142607590.jpg IMG_20171129_142903494.jpg IMG_20171129_142924979.jpg IMG_20171129_142931090.jpg Here are the promised photographs of how things have progressed to date. The car is still on the hydraulic skates, wheels need painting.
Mechanically, the handbrake has now been sorted and I am shortly going to bleed the brakes, for which I have acquired a vacuum bleeder.
I have run the engine twice now, after the first time I had to redo the manifold/downpipe joint to get rid of a blow, but otherwise with new oil and coolant, everything seems reasonably okay.
Interior looks fine, a slight mismatch in the door cards due to ageing, but what the heck, this isn't destined to be a show car, just a decent looking and usable example.
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Very nice interior!!! Did you purchase new seat covers e.g. from the Franzose?
 
It looks great! I do not see color mismatch! :D

Roof lining is from twingo?

It fits nicely in R4.

I know that twingos roof window is fitting nice to the R4s but did not know roof lining is fitting so good.
 
The standard GTL roof lining, on UK models at least, is a plastic moulding, which I left in place whilst I cut the roof aperture with a jigsaw, chopping through both at the same time. With the Twingo roof, you should also get the interior trims which clip into the edge section of the Twingo roof opening. I then screwed the outer part of these back with capped self tapping screws, into the Renault roof lining, having previously painted it to match. It looks good. The only real giveaway, is that the R4 sun visors are slightly the wrong shape. I wonder what Twingo sunvisors are like and whether they could be fitted?
Door cards are slightly faded and not as crisp in terms of the checker pattern, although it is not as obvious when everything is fitted into the car, as I feared.
 
Last edited:
JdeW said:
Very nice interior!!! Did you purchase new seat covers e.g. from the Franzose?
Click to expand...
Yes, they were quite expensive, but the old ones were in such a dirty and worn out state that I thought that it was worth it.
 
my roof lining (and on all Yugoslavian R4s) is made of vinyl and such combination would not be possible.

But this looks like it is planned to be like that.
Great!
 
Brakes now bled, but still some excess pedal travel, most of which disappears when the handbrake is pulled on, so I deduce that the rear self adjusters need some attention. It was part of the game plan to replace front pads and rear shoes if necessary, the logic being that bleeding would reveal any shortcomings (leaks) in the hydraulics side of things, followed by brake drums off, and all the necessary bits to complete the process can then be ordered at once.
The Haynes manual says that the pedal should be wedged down if using a vacuum or pressure bleeder, although I didn't spot that until after the event. I haven't done that (yet) but will probably re-bleed everything when the linings etc. have been sorted out.
I will also paint the wheels whilst they are off.
 
Progress has been intermittent for the last month or so. The weather has oscillated between below freezing and warmer but damp, rendering the garage either far too cold for comfort, or streaming with condensation. It hasn't been a complete write off however, I have made some headway, and I am getting that sense of approaching the end.
A series of electrical gremlins have been ironed out, a reversing light fitted together with a gearbox switch. Some minor detail work has been done, plus new rubbers on the front anti sway bar.
Still to do is a final fettle of the brakes to sort out the long pedal travel, a check of the front ball joints/ gaiters, secure the infuriating revolving gear knob, finally seal the external panel joints (bedded on mastic strip but just need a tidy up), some sound mat under the boot floor and a couple of new tyres.
Plus an oil leak needs fixing.
It appears to be the sump plug, which is dripping steadily, although not catastrophically at the moment, and there is oil visible beneath the fuel pump, albeit not dripping just yet, but there may be something to be attended to there(possibly a new fuel pump from comments elsewhere on this forum?).
I could also do with a new exhaust manifold. One of the lugs is snapped off the one currently fitted and although I have managed a sort of repair to get the exhaust to connect, I would be happier with a new one, so if anyone has something in their spares collection that they would like to sell on, then please get in touch.

I will back her out on the next sunny day and get some pictures posted.
 
A load of investigation as to the source of the oil leak since the last posting. Most of the oil on the garage floor is coming from the sump plug, and I have purchased a new 'high tec' washer with a rubber seal to try and combat this. If that fails it will be out with the PTFE. The oil drips onto the anti sway bar and then runs along and drips off, so confuses the eye when trying to locate the source. I will have to drop my recent refill of oil into a clean container and then refill.
There is also a load more oil on the bottom of the fuel pump which has spread onto various surrounding areas. Following advice from some older forum threads, I suspected the fuel pump itself and removed it after dismantling the alternator and its brackets to get some access.
The pump is a Sofabex 3046 which has two small holes in the upper casing just above the mounting flange, which I assume are breathers to allow the diaphragm to work properly, and there is a prodigious oil leak from one of them which has coated the entire underside of the pump and the adjacent engine. Checking the internet for Renault 4 fuel pumps reveals loads of alternative types, generally with the projecting operating lever (mine has a pushrod, etc.) and many with three pipes, one for a return flow to the tank, so something of a dead end there.
Only when I put in the actual Sofabex reference did I come across Ebay sellers with the exact same pump, one of which I have bought and now await. There is a Valeo alternative also, it appears, which is of the same format, but with a plastic top and which doesn't look as if it can be dismantled for overhaul.
What really threw me in my search was that this pump is listed as a Renault 5 part! and it was only (again) a couple of comments on the forum that led me to investigate further.
I am also awaiting the arrival of a new (old) manifold, so when these various bits come to hand, then we are hopefully getting towards the last piece of the jigsaw. Well done forum.
Mind you it is freezing cold here at the moment, so I am not sorry not to be in the garage!
 
Nearly there now, a last few details were all that was needed prior to MOT. The hot weather slowed me down with finishing off, but yesterday I finally took her out for a quiet sortie down the road, prior to making the call. Everything went fine, but when I got back I found brake fluid on the driver's mat. Doh!!!
Looks like a new master cylinder. So, no point in doing anything now until that arrives.
 
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