Renault 11 Turbo Phase 2 Nut & Bolt Restoration

I phoned the guy up & asked why he was selling, It turned out he is a Plasterer and was out of work due to the downturn in the housing market so was having to sell the car to pay the rent. He'd only owned the car for a few weeks and bought it in the condition it was in. He said he bought it from a guy in Tamworth who had done all the work.
I agreed to go & meet him the next day & have a look at the car.

That night & scoured the Internet & found that it was the same car that had sold on Pistonheads a few months earlier for the same £1500 & noticed that when it was originally sold it wasn't scraping it's belly in the weeds:




I went and viewed the car the following day & was disappointed In comparison to my Raider the car was rough, there were small dents all over the bodywork, yes the bonnet had been painted black but it wasn't mentioned that the car roof had been sprayed with rattle cans & the bloke hadn't bothered to mask anywhere so there were spots of over spray all over the place. The interior was dirtier than a Mumbai Taxi, the front seats were all sagging & swapped around (left to right) because the squabs had collapsed The only redeeming feature was the fact that the car was a 1987 model WITHOUT the sunroof and the test drive proved that the engine ran well!.

I tried to look past all of the SH1TE to see the car underneath but no matter how hard I looked I could only see a sorry car looking back at me, I asked him what the lowest he would take for it & he said £1300 but seeing what needed doing I decided I wasn't going to pay that & left him my number with an offer of £1000.
During the journey home I had a few texts off him offering the car to me at £1250 but I stuck to my guns & said it wasn't for me.

A couple of days passed & I watched the e-Bay Auction finish & the car reached a maximum bid of £900. I then had a text off the seller asking me if I was interested in the car for £1100?? I thought about this & then decided to do what all considerate people would do to a poor guy down on his luck & out of work... Tell him no, I'm sticking to my £1000 offer!!  Again a couple of days passed & he then came back to me & eventually after a few texts we agreed to meet at £1050!

So the 6th January 2011 I went and collected the car in the cold & miserable (January) weather. I got in the car & wondered if it was going to start & on the first turn of the key it fired into life to which the seller was amazed!!
I reversed it off his drive & then it died..... No matter what tricks I tried I couldn't get it to start?? He then came out to me & said... I think it's out of petrol?! So off I went to the local garage with the lend of a couple of Jerry cans & got some fuel. With a taste of fresh juice she started on the first turn of the key & whilst she was idling (and kicking out a sh1t load of smoke) I took a couple of pictures:



Millie & I then dashed down to the local petrol station to fill it up with enough petrol to get home!

So because I had two cars at home and only one garage the Silver 11 had to live on the front garden so I needed to get cracking on breaking down the Red 11 and getting rid of the body shell. Thankfully my parents offered me the use of their drive for a couple of months to give me some breathing space so the breaking began!! I'll let the pictures do the talking...

June 2011 I took the car along to a track-day at Mallory Park in Leicestershire. When I was taking the car there I realised it was going to be the first time I drove the car any reasonable distance AND in anger?!  Thankfully the trusty old C1J didn't disappoint me and the car ran beautifully all day!! I really enjoyed driving it and can certainly see why the R11 was such a success with Jean Ragnotti in the Group A Rally as the handling felt much more stable than a 5 GT Turbo.

So I enjoyed the car in 2012 and got the bonnet sprayed a matching Silver. I also took it to another Track-day at Brands Hatch and had a major run out of talent at one point:



So that now brings us to January 2014 and the start of the rebuild. I got the car over to my new house and started stripping the car down to it's component parts:

Next I looked at the R19 16v Front Hubs/Brakes/Discs/Strut; and wanted to compare them to the OE 11 Turbo kit already on the car. I want this car to be a full OE 11 Turbo as much as possible, but want to address some of the things that need improvement. Top of that list is the braking system as I reckon a boat anchor and a length of chain would be a better option than the brakes are at the moment...  however I want to make sure that I can still get the Original 14" wheels on the car.

Whipped the wheel off and took a picture of the current set-up which looks pretty much the same as a 5GTT:


I took off the complete hub assembly and strut and then broke out one of my refurbished 11 Turbo alloys to see how the fit looked. This is the OE 11 Turbo set up:


and this is the 19 16v set up:


It fits ok, but is certainly close.... (need to make sure the wheel weights aren't in the wrong place otherwise they'll catch):


When I compared the two I found that the discs are 20mm bigger in diameter (which should help with the stopping power) but the brake callipers are identical. When I looked a little harder I saw that the pad carriers are larger on the 19 16v Set Up to allow for the larger disc:


I also compared the hub's themselves and found (as you would expect) that the 19 16v set up was a lot beefier around the bearing - 11 Turbo:


19 16v:


I found that pretty much everything else I had was IDENTICAL to the 19 16v set up (Drive shafts, Wishbones, Shocks) but the shock top mount was a little different. So I'm going to need a new set of 258mm Brake Discs

Thanks for reading

very nice loved the renault 11 good handling

Fairly epic mission youve got yourself dude, mate of mine trained upto glasgow to collect a P100 and drove it back to St Albans! Good luck with it.

Had a night in the garage on Friday and continued to look at the power steering set up. I ordered a couple of second hand Renault Megane Power Steering Bottles off eBay, one with the Pipes still attached, and one with the Bracket:


It looks like my luck continues with this build, as there seems to be enough room on the left hand side of the engine bay to mount the PAS bottle in-between the Expansion Tank and the Brake Fluid Reservoir. I think I'm going to be able to cut a section off the OE bracket and then rivet it to the inner wing, just below the manufacturing plates:



I held the bottle in the rough location it will be mounted, and again it looks as though the OE pipes will be able to be modified slightly to fit the existing pipework in the engine bay. I think that I may have a bit of a jiggle to ensure the coolant pipes will still be able to be routed cleanly, but I'll figure that out when the time comes You can see that the front pipe, already looks as though it's heading to the PAS Pump:


The rear pipe again is heading in the right direction for the rack fluid return, and even has a nattly little kink in it to ensure it misses the drive belts:

Thanks for reading

I continued to strip the 11 down ready for the paint removal process I planned to use and not found anything else that looks nasty that makes me worry yet and actually think getting rid of all the little bits of surface rust underneath will be great for the car.... fingers crossed!


Certainly the brake lines all look well overdue a replacement!


Then I finally removed the engine:


I had a bit of luck from my local Renault Dealer, when I was picking up a few bits the Parts Manager gave me a copy of his old Parts Book:

As you can imagine it's all in here, and I'll be having a good read of this checking part numbers!

Thanks for reading