Phase 1 Renault 9 Turbo

[DaveL485]

To refit the mounts to the axle I went with an M10 threaded bar to pull the stud in, like so

In the end it wasn't man enough and stripped the nut thread at the point shown below, so i dug out some fine pitch M12 stud I had made to long-stud a 21 Turbo block many moons ago and used that, and an air gun to dugga-dugga it to death

This pulled the inner bush collar right in nicely.


Sunday morning I was against the clock a bit as I had another Ski lesson booked for 2pm, so I started fixing up the N/S axle point now the Bilt was dry

I'd also cleaned down and used Bilt on the floor above the fuel tank to see how well it treated.

Not too bad, I guess once properly undersealed it'll be fine (you'll note from the factory its not undersealed at all!)

I made a plate to insert in the hole

Painted the back for what it was worth. Probably pointless after I attacked it with a welder lol

Then I welded it in, which proved incredibly frustrating. I didnt take pics because I was short on time, but for about 50% of the seam I got a good weld, nice and clean. 40% of it was pretty bad, and I struggled with the weld sticking to the gas shield of the torch, the weld pool was behaving like mercury almost and just running away from the bit I wanted to weld (some of it down my arm too which has left some lovely burns) and 10% was just a massive hole blown through the metal and I ended up with a weld mountain trying to fill it in, which I then had to grind back. Even more annoying is that stood up on the bench the welder is doing great work, really neat and very pleasing but as soon as I get near a car it all seems to go tits up. Maybe I should build a rotisserie so i'm not trying to weld upwards....

 

[DaveL485]

Don't lie you just used the plasma cutter just because you wanted to make sparks

Well, you know, I didn't buy one to leave it unused in a cupboard

What did you use to treat the boxes above the axle mounts?

Bilt Hamber Hydrate 80

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Bilt-Ham...e=STRK:MEBIDX:IT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649

 

[Krarl]

Sweet, I've got some Dynax for my inner arches. Welding sills on your back ain't fun. Did a few Ka's a few years ago welding on my back with an arc welder, safe to say I've still got a few scar marks on my arms lol. Why do you always manage to get slag down the sleeves of your work gear, it never goes anywhere else

 

[m&l172ph1]

To refit the mounts to the axle I went with an M10 threaded bar to pull the stud in, like so

View attachment 1404742

In the end it wasn't man enough and stripped the nut thread at the point shown below, so i dug out some fine pitch M12 stud I had made to long-stud a 21 Turbo block many moons ago and used that, and an air gun to dugga-dugga it to death

View attachment 1404743

This pulled the inner bush collar right in nicely.


Sunday morning I was against the clock a bit as I had another Ski lesson booked for 2pm, so I started fixing up the N/S axle point now the Bilt was dry

View attachment 1404744

I'd also cleaned down and used Bilt on the floor above the fuel tank to see how well it treated.

View attachment 1404745

View attachment 1404746

Not too bad, I guess once properly undersealed it'll be fine (you'll note from the factory its not undersealed at all!)

I made a plate to insert in the hole

View attachment 1404747

Painted the back for what it was worth. Probably pointless after I attacked it with a welder lol

View attachment 1404748

Then I welded it in, which proved incredibly frustrating. I didnt take pics because I was short on time, but for about 50% of the seam I got a good weld, nice and clean. 40% of it was pretty bad, and I struggled with the weld sticking to the gas shield of the torch, the weld pool was behaving like mercury almost and just running away from the bit I wanted to weld (some of it down my arm too which has left some lovely burns) and 10% was just a massive hole blown through the metal and I ended up with a weld mountain trying to fill it in, which I then had to grind back. Even more annoying is that stood up on the bench the welder is doing great work, really neat and very pleasing but as soon as I get near a car it all seems to go tits up. Maybe I should build a rotisserie so i'm not trying to weld upwards....

Turn your wire speed up a little, especially if your welding from below, also keep the torch as straight as possible and give the wire a light spray with some wd40. Let's the wire feed easier and stops the wire from rusting too. I give it a light coat every couple of months. See how you go.

 

[m&l172ph1]

Sweet, I've got some Dynax for my inner arches. Welding sills on your back ain't fun. Did a few Ka's a few years ago welding on my back with an arc welder, safe to say I've still got a few scar marks on my arms lol. Why do you always manage to get slag down the sleeves of your work gear, it never goes anywhere else

I don't tend to wear gloves any more when welding, stupid I know!! The worst I had was when 1 small splatter landed on my wedding ring. My hands can take it no problem these days but when it landed on my ring it took all the skin off where the ring sat! Very painful, had to have my ring resized a year later! I still wear it though, never learn!

 

[Krarl]

I don't tend to wear gloves any more when welding, stupid I know!! The worst I had was when 1 small splatter landed on my wedding ring. My hands can take it no problem these days but when it landed on my ring it took all the skin off where the ring sat! Very painful, had to have my ring resized a year later! I still wear it though, never learn!

Ouch!!

The worst I had is I got some in my work boot and I couldn't undo the laces quick enough so I was just forced to leave it to cool down in there

 

[DaveL485]

Turn your wire speed up a little, especially if your welding from below, also keep the torch as straight as possible and give the wire a light spray with some wd40. Let's the wire feed easier and stops the wire from rusting too. I give it a light coat every couple of months. See how you go.

Will do, thanks!

 

[DaveL485]

Movement on two long term avenues of investigation this week. Hardly worth an update you might think but when it's taken me literally months - almost a year in the second case - to get to a point where I have confirmed orders in transit the excitement gets a bit much lol

I have sourced some brand new R9 sills for a mere £115/pair delivered, apparently the stock has been sat there for half an ice age and wasn't even on their digital systems, these are coming from Germany I think.

...and then brand new tail light clusters and a front grille from Turkey for £75 delivered, postage being more than half the cost! Bit of a gamble on the grille as i'm not 100% its for the quad headlight model but it does look like it is.... for the tenner it cost i'm willing to give it a go.

As much as I want to sort the 21 first when bits like this come up you absolutely cannot afford to pass it up. Brand new parts for a 30yo Renault 9. Take my mother-f**king money!

 

[alistairolsen]

I can definitely empathise on emtying the savings to grab rare parts when you find them, because you know you never will again!

Excellent work on those bits and the patience required to track them down!

 

[White16valver]

Can you get the sills laser scanned and copies made up?

 

[DaveL485]

Can you get the sills laser scanned and copies made up?

I'm sorry at what point above did I indicate that I have a budget big enough to run Kerry Katona's coke habit?

Just messing mate. It's do-able of course but the payback isn't there to make it worth while. I've done enough research for R21 parts to know that scanning and compiling digital files/images like that is prohibitively expensive - just for an indicator lens the best price I got was ~£250 then you have the actual making of the product and it's developmental iterations before you get to a sale-able product and by the time you're selling them the price is such that only the people who NEED the stuff will pay the money. Getting cash from Renault owners up front is too much hassle too, many experiences of many group buys!

Small update anyway, as i'm recovering from some evil flu-type-s**t that really knocked me on my arse last week.

I patched the second rear axle mount point, incredibly frustrating welding again. Half of the seam was absolutely fine, was going well, then it went massively wrong for no apparent reason and it started blowing holes in the new metal so bad on the second half I had to patch the patch. It was like a big ugly volcanic explosion of weld. It's starting to really annoy me quite a lot now. No pictures as I was in a massive mood, and quite frankly its an embarassment. After that I coated it with Bilt and patched a bit on the back of the car where the rear exhaust hanger goes which had rotted through, I had to make a whole new section and weld the hanger to it. This went fine and then I welded it to the car - thinner metal to weld to with the EXACT same settings as the volcano disaster and it stitched in absolutely fine. Go figure. Maybe its just welding upwards thats the issue or something, and I need to get the thing on a rotisserie for the underside work.

 

[DaveL485]

Oh...yeah, the rear axle is on hold because both the wheel cylinders are wrong (bolt spacing wrong) and the handbrake shoes are wrong (right diameter, wrong fittings in the metal shoe body)

F**ks sake! Stupid old cars and idiot ebay listings. I mean, I'm grateful new stuff is still available I guess, it's just a shame it sometimes takes a couple of goes to get the right bits. This also made me realise I need a fitting kit for the shoes too to transfer the handbrake linkage over so I bought that, more shoes and more wheel cylinders. And some gravitex for the underside. And i'd promised myself NO MORE CAR SPENDING this month...pahaha yeah right.

 

[DaveL485]

Slightly irrelevant but I was forced to go to Cadbury World (not so much a novelty when you work for Cadbury in Bournville) and amused myself with some chocolate art.

Then some parts arrived, not usually worth posting but i'm loving the retro/old skool boxes lol Asbestos free!

So good!

The right bits this time

Then another package with the bits from Turkey

THANKS YOU ABSOLUTELY USELESS COURIER w*****s

Its on the black edge so I should be able to fix it with epoxy and black paint, but still, rather frustrating.

I took a bit of a gamble on the grille, it looked like it might have been a turbo one - always hard to tell from stock pictures.

Unfortunately for me, it's not a turbo grille and is an inch or two too long either side, so this gets added to the new-parts-I wasted-money-on-while-looking-for-the-right-parts pile. It's a scarily big pile.

 

[Krarl]

Best thing is with old car parts is that you can box them up and sell them on again, usually for a profit

 

[DaveL485]

Best thing is with old car parts is that you can box them up and sell them on again, usually for a profit

"For sale: Brake shoes and wheel cylinders for a Renault something but not a 9 Turbo. £100 the lot"

 

[DaveL485]

Started prepping the new tank I got from Big Steve, as it had some surface rust. Quick squizz with a wire wheel and treated with bilt.

Thats better.

I'll paint it too but first I need to make sure the inside is clean and treat the little bits of surface rust inside....problem....

As my spade hands wont go through the hole I will need to recruit my Mrs or one of my kids for assistance!

 

[DaveL485]

Sunday I had the 'chore' of a round trip to south wales to pick up a Megane 225 package to dump in my 197.

Hmmm.... it would be fun, wouldn't it?

Anyway, once that was done I did a bit of the back axle, wizzed a knotted grinder wheel over the hubs

Dusty!

Coated with bilt and left to dry

Bolted in the new wheel cylinders

Then set about pratting about with the handbrake shoes and cleaning up the handbrake mechanisms before transferring the kit over to the new shoes

This spring setup here I had an issue with, the old shoes this was pressed in and the new ones had a bigger hole in the shoe itself

 

[DaveL485]

I had to punch the pin out, then tap a thread on it and fix it in with a nut - I was fecked if I was hunting down the EXACT right shoe or EXACT right fitting pin

Once i'm sure it's all right i'll dab a bit of weld in the middle of that nut to make sure it doesn't drop off.

I sized it up on the hub then realised I was missing a spring

Bottom left - spring fitted, all looks right now. By this time it was 7pm so I binned it off and went and watched the F1

Nice to be back to making a little progress after a few weeks away due to kids, a holiday and a few social functions she MADE me go to.

 

[Krarl]

Is there any disc conversions for these? I'm sure a 172 stub would probably bolt on there?

 

[DaveL485]

Is there any disc conversions for these? I'm sure a 172 stub would probably bolt on there?

Yes mate the 9 or 11 Phase 2 disc axle or the Renault 19 disc axle is a straight swap with associated ancilliaries, but I decided I wanted to keep the original hubs and a decent handbrake. This will never be a balls out performance car, just an old skool cool motor that you dont see around any more. In fact the whole car will be fairly OE save for the EFI conversion because, you know, I like to start my car on cold mornings without a 20 minute frenzy of cranking and swearing

 

[Krarl]

Yes mate the 9 or 11 Phase 2 disc axle or the Renault 19 disc axle is a straight swap with associated ancilliaries, but I decided I wanted to keep the original hubs and a decent handbrake. This will never be a balls out performance car, just an old skool cool motor that you dont see around any more. In fact the whole car will be fairly OE save for the EFI conversion because, you know, I like to start my car on cold mornings without a 20 minute frenzy of cranking and swearing

Don't you prefer having a carb and choke so you can pull out the choke on a morning and hang your lunchbag from it? ?

 

[DaveL485]

Don't you prefer having a carb and choke so you can pull out the choke on a morning and hang your lunchbag from it? ?

Mate, i'm 41 years old, I only have (assuming I make it to average life expectancy) about 360,000 hours left to live. I do not want to waste any of those trying to cold start/hot start/set idle/set mixtures/generally f**king about with 40 year old carb technology when for a fairly low amount of pennies I can garauntee a zero effort four-crank start one-time-setup perfect run *every* single time

 

[DaveL485]

....besides the choke pull will still be there for my handbag anyway ???

 

[Krarl]

You've jinxed it! Now its gonna take forever to start every single time??

There was a story of a woman that complained her car used lots of fuel. Took it to a garage, they saw nothing wrong with it at all, spent hours trying to find a single issue and couldn't. They gave the keys back to the woman asnthey couldn't see any issues at all. The woman then started the car, pulled out the choke and put her handbag on it then drove off??? My grandad told me about it years ago

 

[DaveL485]

You've jinxed it! Now its gonna take forever to start every single time??

There was a story of a woman that complained her car used lots of fuel. Took it to a garage, they saw nothing wrong with it at all, spent hours trying to find a single issue and couldn't. They gave the keys back to the woman asnthey couldn't see any issues at all. The woman then started the car, pulled out the choke and put her handbag on it then drove off??? My grandad told me about it years ago

There's a myriad of tales like that on the web, including the woman that had a low oil warning, so refilled the engine with oil.

All the way.

To the oil filler cap

 

[P-Co]

There's a myriad of tales like that on the web, including the woman that had a low oil warning, so refilled the engine with oil.

All the way.

To the oil filler cap View attachment 1414557View attachment 1414557

Guess the only dipstick involved in that story was the woman herself [emoji23]

 

[DaveL485]

I managed to squeeze in about 2 hours in the garage over the entire 4-day BH weekend, so I did a bit of tidying and a little bit on the axle.

Decided to redo the thread/nut on the handbrake mechanism, as I didnt want to weld the nut on, so I drilled through the spring holder thing and bolted it with a nylock

There is stacks of room inside the drum so this will work fine anmd not foul anything

Final fit up of the shoe assemply

Then I put in the nice new brake pipe clips, to replace the brittle old broken ones.

I started putting in the flexi's to then do the solid lines but ran out of time, also want to order some new spring things to sit between the solid and flexi lines so searching for some of those. Mine are OK, but rusty, plus i'll need a bunch for the 21.

 

[DaveL485]

A little research into the handbrake cables revealed they are routed through the axle so I had to drop the hubs off to route them in and through the back casing

Easy enough, back together again and made up a brake line too

Dropped the other back plate off, routed the handbrake cable and didnt change the power setting on my airgun from wheel nut ugga dugga to gentle ugga-dugga which resulted in a broken M8 backplate nut *facepalm*

This is the only one with an enclosed back too, double facepalm. Luckily for me on the third attempt the old weld-a-nut-on-it trick got it out.

Another brake line

Stuffed the drums back on, which need another coat of black, but other than that I think it's not far off ready to go back on the car

 

[DaveL485]

Speaking of the car, I did some more work in prep for the axle refit, in doing so I found a lovely hole around the filler neck buried under 30 years of mud and grot

I cut away the mangy bits and then treated the inside with Bilt Hamber.

Considering the amount of hassle i've had with welding the thin bits of late i'm really pleased with the patch especially with the super-awkward angles and lying on my back

And a little patch on the rear chassis cross-support

I got busy with the knotted wheel on the grinder which is super-effective (WEAR GOGGLES IF YOU USE ONE - the wire bits fly off like evil little stabby missiles!) and treated with Bilt, mainly the back floor between the chassis rails.

Then I got busy with some Gravitex, I havent used this before but I like what I saw on Haz's threads so I gave it a go. I really like it! Application is very easy and it stays where you put it. I also looks pretty good, almost like I know what i'm doing!

Obviously I plan to work my way along the underside repairing, treating and sealing as I go as far as I can.

Finally while i had the gravitex shizzle set up I coated the top of the new fuel tank

I'll do the bottom of it next time out

 

[DaveL485]

The rear bias compensator isn't looking too hot!

Out it comes

So this is going to need a replacement or a rebuild lol

Might just fit a manual load valve, or, just hoof a t-piece in there. The rear brakes are shoes so its not exactly going to be locking up every time I touch the pedal!

 

[Krarl]

Could just get a manual T bias valve with a lockoff. That way you can just stick that in its place and forget about it

 

[DaveL485]

Could just get a manual T bias valve with a lockoff. That way you can just stick that in its place and forget about it

After consideration, because this runs 2 lines from the master to the rear, so not that simple and you wouldnt want two manual valves at the back on the separate lines.

Looks like i'll have to retrofit something as I havent found a new bias valve or rebuild kit yet.

 

[DaveL485]

Got a bit over-excited / ambitious and decided to deal with the rear slam panel thats been rotten as s**t since the day I bought it in 2002. I picked up a new panel to replace it probably 8 or 9 years ago and never did anything with it, so I thought feck it, why not.

Need to figure out the best way to position it, then how to weld the bottom section in... should I drill holes in the car bit (where the spot welds were) and plug it from underneath or try and seam weld it?

 

[Gaz_]

Love this ?

 

[Krarl]

I'd drill out the old spots and plug weld

 

[DaveL485]

I'd drill out the old spots and plug weld

I think this probably makes sense, just don't want to drill any more holes in it, it's holy enough already hahaha!

 

[Krarl]

I think this probably makes sense, just don't want to drill any more holes in it, it's holy enough already hahaha!

Yeah but the other holes weren't there in the design plans they just happened because 80's metal lol!

 

[DaveL485]

So I did a bit of cleaning up in the boot space

Laid some rust inhibiting primer and drilled some holes in the new panel to plug weld it to the bottom panel.

Then took a deep breath and started tacking it in

I mean, a bodyshop might look at that and be horrified but i'm over the moon because its reasonably competent and it's not full of holes lol. Once its seam sealed it'll be pretty much hidden.

 

[DaveL485]

I know the panel fit is rubbish, but it's a 1986 Renault, it was already rubbish hahaha

I have also sourced brand new boot seal rubber, and door seal rubber for it. The door seal is shared with the 5, 9, 11, 19, 21 and Alpine by the looks of it so that will be in the club shop soon, the boot seal doesnt seem so widely used though....I need to find where it is used cos I have to buy fifty metres of it minimum order - need some fwiends to share costs lol!!

 

[DaveL485]

I havent forgotten about the old 9, however I have procrastinated on the brakes since stripping the compensator, in the hope I would stumble across a solution.

The diamond gods are being kind to me. Brand new old stock OE compensator popped up on one of the R9/11 facebook pages yesterday, I was on it like a tramp on a bag of free chips.

€100 delivered might sound a lot but when you factor in a new non-9 item is going to be what, £50-odd quid and a whole lot of fecking about to fit, it's a no brainer.