Well being a broke student means parts only get bought on occasion and progress is slow. The tank was just too far gone. More and more leaks kept appearing and it just seemed way too dangerious to drive. I was starting to wonder where I'd find a tank when I remembered the one in England that I got the brake booster from. A 1988 Renault 11 GTL in Southampton. I called up fully expecting it to be crushed but amazingly it was still there. I asked them to hold it for me as I'd be in England for Christmas.
The photo on the eBay ad.
Yes it's the colour beige in car form. They ruined it with the phase 2! Bumpers are better though. Being a GTL model and a 1988, it had a much better spec'd interior and it was in great condition including a dashboard with an intact hood over the instrument cluster... So somehow in 3 1/2 hours on the 28th of December I stripped it out (and got a man there to pull the tank) and crammed it all in the back (and front seat) of a 1995 Volvo 480 and drove it back to Ireland. That included the seats, grey seat belts, dashboard, door cards, plastic trim all round, fuel tank and a side mirror. The Volvo was mine years ago and my dad didn't want it any more so I took it back. Two Renault engined cars in the driveway now.
SIDE NOTE: Maybe someday I'll make a thread for the Volvo but I'll probably just clean it up/mild restore and sell it on. As fun as it is to drive (and amazingly economical for a 2 litre), it's just so impractical. Probably one of the most pointless cars ever built.
Old tank on top, new on the bottom. Notice the provisions for an electric fuel pump on the new one. It's in far better condition. No rust at all inside. I can't say I enjoyed taking the tank out for a third time and spilling petrol on myself!
Don't remember if I mentioned it before but I found another Weber 32 TLDR from a R19 a few months ago on eBay for about £20. I bought it for the choke pull off, the vacuum box and the secondary throttle vacuum pump thingy. I kept the carb for parts.
Old interior. Worn and nasty looking seats, bare metal everywhere, R19 phase 1 yellow instrument cluster, black dashboard.
Bizarrely, the lower plastic trim is black and the upper around the roof is grey.
Old seat and new. The phase 2 seats are definitely more interesting and supportive. I steam cleaned everything and scrubbed them all with fabric cleaner. Makes the car lose that musty old banger smell .
Seats and door cards in. Old dash about to be removed. Note the lack of centre vents and clock.
This was sort of the point when I realised I may have gone too far and it may never go back together...
I took all the wiring too in case I needed anything. This is what happens when she really wants a walk! No better way to get attention than to lie on my work.
I got a better understanding of the car's electrics after stripping out the phase 2 wiring. Unfortunately it was not compatible. Most of the wire colours and body connectors were completely different.
New dash actually in! It took a lot of attempts, tying up of wires and breaking clips to get it in. Yes Renault hold the dashboard in entirely with plastic clips. Two of which break on releasing them. Cable ties have done the job now...
I took the oppourtunity to completely rewire the stereo, the sub amp, the central locking etc and integrated it all with the factory wiring. I also swapped out the wiper relay and stalk from the GTL so now I have intermittent wipers! The joys of modern cars! Notice in the middle of the dash that I just cut into the heater box for the centre vent. The markings were already there so no guess work. Just added some foam to seal it to the vent.
And then I smeared epoxy of where I over cut...
My car had the cryptic and French diagram on the left and the GTL had the more standard one. I kept mine because the other had a dent in it. The seems to be no rhyme or reason for which cars or years got which. I also took the rear-ish vents for the rear seats but it would interfere with my amp/sub so I left it out.
I actually have no more interior pictures yet because I decided to wait until I sorted out my instrument cluster once and for all. Now that the car is looking far more stock than before I decided the dash needs to match.
The two gauge clusters I've used. Neither are green backlit. Strange that they revised the redline.
I really want it all to be green now so I started thinking how to make it work.
I had to buy another R19 phase 2 dash because somehow out of the two spare ones I had, I dumped one and found another missing the speedo! What a waste of money!
The phase 2 R19 dials on the left have orange plastics and white faced dials. The face 1 have clear plastics and yellow faces. First step was to swap the faces on all the dials. Unfortunately, the white faced dials still glow orange! At this point I started buying various green LEDs and testing the results. The orange just blocked out too much light so at best I'd be left with dim lime green and the red kilometers on the speedo completely invisible in the dark.
Then I went past the point of no return and lightly sanded the backs of the dials with 400 grit sand paper. It worked!
I've got clear light!
Some green filter gel for photography/stage lighting is the final step for green light.
It was finally green but still a little bit dim and I had sanded off all the layers of diffusion to spread the light. It had random light and dark spots everywhere. I went and bought a strip of "warm" white LEDs. Certainly the closest thing to incandesent bulbs that you can get bright light from. I placed them all over the inside of the dash and soldered them all together and linked them to the illumination wire.
The closest thing to stock! Well at least colour wise.
I sanded and painted the backs of the needles with orange airfix paint to match what they'd look like in an 11. Between the filter gel and the warm white LEDs, it doesn't look out of place at all. I have since applied some diffusion paper (like grease proof paper) to the tach to even out the light. I also individually cut around the red on the speedometer to make it shine through brightly. That was tedious!
Sure it's the wrong typeface compared to an 80s Renault but it's far better that not matching the rest of the car.
Now onto the last couple of days. I tried to get it running again but I couldn't for the life of me get the fuel system primed. I bought one of those little squeezy hand pumps for diesel but it didn't work. Borrowed a big suction tool from the local garage and a couple of pumps later, you've got petrol at the carb! It ran... but it ran like curse word. Constant stalling. etc. and excessing craking to get it started again. I'm starting to really lose patience with this carb setup. To add insult to injury or should I say injury to insult, I dumped half a can of carb cleaner into the carb and fired it up. It started for about one second, coughed and then died with a splutter. Of course not before spitting up most of the carb cleaner into my face and eyes. That has to be what it feels like to get maced. I honestly thought my eyes were melting. I wouldn't recommend trying it.
I look under the car and the fuel hose was leaking everywhere and therefore sucking air. By the way, Renault use the grand total of zero hose clamps on all of the fuel line connectors, even at the sender. I'm starting to think the vent lines are clogged and that's what was filling the fuel sender up with gunk. Looking back, nothing like that was even floating in the old tank, only chunks of rust.
So I've to go back down the country for college tomorrow but I'll continue on the weekend. I caved in and bought another carb rebuild kit for the mystery carb I bought off eBay. I'm ready to chuck out the current one.
All in all my scrap yard purchases have resulted in me upgrading the car from a TL to a GTL. Only thing missing is the rear wash/wipe. The car looks better without it and on almost any car over 15, it either leaks and/or is broken anyway. Some GTLs in photos don't even have one. Some day I'll get the proper badge.
The car now has: better front seats, 60/40 split rear bench, full door cards, full plastic trim (basically no more bare metal), the correct rear seat belts (now grey front and back), new dashboard with a hood that doesn't collapse, centre vents, clock and intermittent wipers. Oh and now matching side mirrors including the interior adusters. Before I had to poke the mirrors to move them. The passenger's side was that stupid type when the entire unit moved so people walking by in a car park would shift if and the wind from time to time.
