Rich
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 6,339 
Club RR Member Number: 160
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so.. a switch to check the brake warning light is working? That sounds ridiculous enough to be right. They only give you a red light to tell you when you've cooked the engine rather than a sensible temperature gauge but go to the trouble of fitting a switch that lets you check if a warning light is working. Or it could be a missing rheostat. I really don't know. Rover mini was the same. You had to push it, I can't remember if it lit up, you had brake fluid or no brake fluid though, been a few years since I had one.. |
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Amazing to see the 6 starting to near the open road again...
This is getting exciting now and I cannot wait for the imminent engine start-up!
As ever, superb work.
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***GARAGE CURRENTLY EMPTY***
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Key in the ignition (which you turn towards yourself and is on the left of the column, counter intuitively) unless you own a land rover  astras have a brake light check. basically its on until the first press of the brake pedal, then it goes off, unless the tail lights have blown, which is what its for |
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Last Edit: May 5, 2016 11:30:40 GMT by darrenh
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vulgalour
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 7,287
Club RR Member Number: 146
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Headlining made today and first fit attempted to check everything was as it should be. This style of headlining is very easy to make, it's essentially a length of fabric with pleats in to hold the wires. The key is getting the pleats in the correct locations so you have good even tension front to back. On the whole I managed that. I salvaged the plastic strip from the old headlining that goes into the tensioning strip at the back of the roof and sewed it into the new headlining. It won't be seen when fully fitted.  At the moment this is just loosely in on the wires. For the most part the tension is really good, at the back especially so. The wrinkles will disappear when I put the side tension on, a job I'm saving for when I know I don't need to do any more work with the wires that run above the headlining and the welding that the roof and passenger side gutter still needs.  The front wire I've misplaced slightly, not by a great deal but by enough to cause a sag that you can't pull out. It's an easy task to relocate the wire and refit.  The scariest part will be removal and refitting of the windscreen, a vital job because it's the only way to get the tension on the front of the headlining properly. It's a job I'll have to do anyway to see if I can resolve the water leak on the driver's side of the screen and deal with any rust or damage that might be hiding. If it were a laminated screen I wouldn't be so nervous about it and if replacement screens were easy to get hold of I'd just buy a new one and have the pros fit it for me. Mike told me he got the indicator working too, it was just a duff connection. |
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Screen removal is not so bad, place feet at top of screen from inside car and as you push get someone to lever the rubber around the frame on the inside. Toughened glass is pretty tough, laminated far less so!
You will need a new rubber though, thats why it leaks. You can buy generic screen rubbers from rubber profile people if normal ones are like poor quality wobbly children's play pony poo.
EDIT,
how did that last line appear??? I typed rocking horse poo.
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If you are fitting a new screen rubber just cut around the old one with a sharp knife to get the screen out.
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brc76
RR Helper
Posts: 1,108
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Headliner material? approved!
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^ +1 for kevins If your water leak is down to dead rubber seal, just cut the old one out with a stanley knife then screen lifts out easy. Replace with new rubber - and look for advice on refitting screen (it's scary but not too difficult - I did the Hunter twice, on my own  )  |
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vulgalour
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 7,287
Club RR Member Number: 146
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May 10, 2016 17:51:52 GMT
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Few little jobs done today, not a huge amount, but a bit. First up, getting that old exhaust off. It was rusted up and even though the nuts came undone fairly easily the backbox did not want to let go so I just cut through the main pipe as it wasn't worth saving. The old exhaust could be sacrificed this way because I had a whole new system to go on. New on the left, old on the right. In the second picture you can see just how comprehensively ruined the old backbox was.   The tensioner was cleaned up and fitted complete with a new nut.  Another job that wanted to be done today was fitting the new clutch cable which meant an opportunity to remove the dashboard for better access and to inspect what's what behind it. There were many dead wasps hiding behind the dashboard that were cleared away and a hint of why the scuttle has rotted out where it has. There are two holes inside the scuttle section and it's packed with foam. When I cut out the rot on the passenger corner I will get as much of this foam out as I can in part because I don't want to set fire to it but also to get rid of the problem. It would also appear from rust staining that even though the water has been appearing on the driver's side it could well be getting in on the passenger side.  Little bit of history laminated to the parcel shelf and a hint of the travels the previous owner has been on, or intended to make. Take the National Express when your life's in a mess, it'll make you smile. All human life is here from the feeble old dear to the screaming child...  Anyway, enough Divine Comedy for now, here's what little there is behind the dashboard. With it all out there was a delightful lack of bodge or wiring danger. With gentle persuasion the hot/cold lever was made to move again, spending a long time just wiggling it side to side until now it moves with the proper lever attached. The fan control panel has a smear of some sort of gunk all over it that was hiding behind the decorative plate, which seemed a bit odd. All of the dead wasps were vacuumed out from behind the dashboard too.  I was very careful with the dashboard, it's 40+ year old plastic and rare in right hand drive format, I'm highly unlikely to find another. It will be a lot easier to clean up properly out of the car.  I could now inspect the bulbs too. At least one appears to have blown so I'm just going to replace all 5 of the bulbs with new ones. I notice there are what look like two empty sockets in the white section of the cluster, there doesn't appear to be anything that fits in them and I'm not sure if that's by design or not. I'm also uncertain if this car even has a dip/main telltale.  The bulbs are push-fit into little holders. I can't imagine these are any fun to change with the dashboard fitted.  Happily, I managed to resolve the issue with the sagging headlining section without doing any sewing. In the roof sides there are holes that the tensioning bars slot into and at the front there are two identical holes set close together. I'd just put the bar into the wrong hole, fitting it in the proper hole put a healthy amount of tension across the entire headlining.   The clutch cable was mostly fitted, Mike spent quite some time in the footwell dealing with the typical French issue of clutch pedal clips. The gearbox end hasn't been connected yet, it may be easier to remove the starter motor with it sitting loose. |
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melle
South West
It'll come out in the wash.
Posts: 2,011
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May 10, 2016 21:28:18 GMT
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The bulbs are push-fit into little holders. I can't imagine these are any fun to change with the dashboard fitted. I would suggest replacing them with LEDs to make sure you never have to. Keep up the good work! |
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Last Edit: May 10, 2016 21:29:20 GMT by melle
www.saabv4.com'70 Saab 96 V4 "The Devil's Own V4" '77 Saab 95 V4 van conversion project '88 Saab 900i 8V
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May 11, 2016 12:13:05 GMT
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Excellent progress on the Renault. Great stuff!
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vulgalour
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 7,287
Club RR Member Number: 146
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May 12, 2016 18:15:49 GMT
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Cheers for the continued support, folks  Last night, in readiness for a few hours of Renault repairs today, I got the dashboard and sunvisors into some soapy water so they can go back in sooner rather than later. It was a little bit grim.  Caretaker Kes had already done a cracking job on the brushed metal trim on the dash. All the plastics, however, were covered in dust and mud and that grime you get from someone smoking in a car for a very long time. Didn't realise how smelly things were until yesterday when we came back to the house and it stank of stale tobacco just from having the dashboard in the living room for a few hours. Nasty. All clean now, happily.   While I do still have the cowling that goes under the steering wheel, it is in poor condition. Historic repairs and damage to the screw-tubes are the main problem which can probably be resolved with suitable glue and scraps of plastic. It's an item on my Would Like list, but not vital. Today I intended to get the passenger side gutter sorted out and ready for filler and paint. I got as far as the first stage of trimming back and tacking so I can build the repair sections where needed when the welding gas ran out. That was quite annoying because until I've repaired the roof there's a few jobs it holds up. The headlining can't be fitted until the roof is repaired, which also means the windscreen can't come out to have the leak sorted and the dashboard has to wait a bit longer before its refitted. Still, it's a bit of progress and a bit of rust removed, just got to wait on the new gas bottle being ordered and delivered now. The roof this side isn't quite as bad as I'd expected, I should only need a couple of very small pieces of new metal let in where the old has dissolved.  There wasn't much point doing anything engine-wise either, we've been unable to contact the starter motor refurbisher and rather than having parts lying loose about the place it seemed more sensible to just leave things as they are. I didn't really have the time spare today to do the exhaust or brakes so I looked at the smaller jobs and settled for one of the important ones, namely replacing the 10 fixing bolts for the ball joints with nice new proper ones and nyloc nuts. I can't put the bolts in the other way up as they won't physically fit, the new ones do clear everything as far as I can tell. The old improper fixings that came with the new ball joints were so ill-suited that some had already started to work loose and one had bent, particularly alarming considering the car has only been pushed around the unit at walking speed since fitting them. The quality (or lack thereof) of the supplied fixings concerns me when it comes to the quality of the ball joints themselves, time will tell on that front I suppose.   There weren't really any quick jobs to do after that and I had other things that needed doing so I just had a tidy up and called it a day. I'll likely not be working on this again now until next week. There's an awful lot of mud coming from somewhere under the car, every time I do anything another massive amount of dried out mud appears on the floor.  |
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May 12, 2016 21:47:50 GMT
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The Minor leaks mud too. Which is odd cos most of it was in the chassis rails and they're not on the car anymore!
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vulgalour
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 7,287
Club RR Member Number: 146
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May 18, 2016 22:13:01 GMT
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I can't leave well enough alone, I'm always thinking of ways to change things, and things I'd really like on my car that it doesn't have. One thing I wish the Rover had are pop-up headlights. I know the 400 is effectively a Concerto but they don't have pop-up headlights. However, there are similar vintage Hondas with similar front end body lines. The Prelude nose is quite a lot different being much lower than the 400 but the Accord isn't. In fact, I did a rough digital overlay of a profile shot of a four door Accord and my 400 and from the A pillar forwards and the bottom of the windows down they're incredibly similar lines even though a lot doesn't match up outside of those areas.  I wouldn't mind having the Concerto rear lights instead of the Rover ones too.  It's just a pipe dream, I'm unlikely to manage it. Where on earth would I even find Concerto and Accord parts to do all this if they do fit? If I did, I'd absolutely keep everything badged Rover, it would end up looking familiar but wrong all at once, just like a VW Apollo. |
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vulgalour
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 7,287
Club RR Member Number: 146
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May 24, 2016 14:17:52 GMT
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Putting aside the cool headlights idea for now, I put into practice the other parts swapping idea I had, namely a Concerto rear light set. In theory it should be a case of swapping the rear lights and under light trims over and in practice, it turns out that's exactly the case for the lights, at least.  The bolts line up exactly with the Rover ones and the entire light cluster hole is covered in exactly the same way so even without the trims underneath you can swap the light units and not worry about water ingress. The wiring is different though, the Concerto corner lights only have indicator, brake and reflector in them.   The profile of the cluster is slightly different to that on the Rover too but since you need the centre panel for the full compliment of lights that's not really a problem (although none of the Concerto centre panels seem to have the manual lock in the same location, which is a bit irritating).  The side profile is identical. Note that I haven't fully tightened the nuts on this light cluster in the photograph but it does sit flush properly as it ought and the boot lid opens and closes as it should too.  I can get a matching light for the other side and the centre piece no problem. The issue is the trim at the bottom which is going to be difficult to find, I've already called the guy breaking the white Concerto on eBay and both the under light trims and the centre panel are gone already. It's a simple enough shape, I can likely make it up out of metal or fibreglass or whatever if push really comes to shove. For now I'll keep to the stock rear end until I have all the parts for converting to the Concerto rear which is now definitely going to happen. |
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May 24, 2016 19:14:16 GMT
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Integra might be an other candidate for pop ups.  |
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 Click picture for more |
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qwerty
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 2,420
Club RR Member Number: 52
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May 24, 2016 20:45:38 GMT
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I wholeheartedly approve of this update. Keep up the good work. Those Concerto lights are going to look great and keep people guessing.
Tom
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79cord
Posted a lot
Posts: 2,617
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May 25, 2016 12:43:13 GMT
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After your efforts tinting & pinstriping your Rover lights they do look good (better than the Concerto's black border & side vents), but admit the Concerto style red strip below would look good. Would a painted strip stuck over the lower portion of the Rover lights block too much light?
After buying an '88 Civic hatch I'm similarly desiring the idea of poplights (mini Aerodeck)...my '88 Integra parked beside it may have been an influence.. Even if it must be is faked with some lower profile modern headlights & an 'eyebrow' panel wrapping over the bonnet. Proper pop-ups do make turning on the lights such an occasion though!
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vulgalour
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 7,287
Club RR Member Number: 146
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May 25, 2016 15:14:15 GMT
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A centre panel has been bought, I'm waiting on some more pocket money to get myself the other rear light. I've also planned out a way to modify the rear light wiring so that I can swap between the Concerto and Rover rear end at will. I never use the boot manual lock so I'm not worried about that, I'll put a little button or a fake lock or something in the Concerto rear panel. In other news, the trim clips I ordered for the Renault arrived and the very useful running in sticker did too. Starter motor is off to get refurbished this week and when my new gas regulator (my old one is broken, boo) arrives I can finish the welding off. Pretty close to sorted now.  |
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May 25, 2016 21:55:27 GMT
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Looking at your sticker reminds me. In the UK you see vans with stickers saying "There are no tools/valuables/carrots/whatever left in this vehicle overnight". Here if a van's had a new engine, they have a sticker saying "Break In" |
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