Phase 1 Renault 9 Turbo

[DaveL485]

Got a bit more in over the weekend. Put the subframe back in, wishbones, struts etc so its rolling again.

Drilled out the last door hinges on the drivers front door and hung that back on.

Fits the hole

Then as I was moving some stuff about I decided to throw on the new numberplate lights and tail lights

The tail lights are held in by these odd little spring clips you just push the light in until these little metal tags catch behind the panel, it always feels like youre going to break the lens pushing it in so I took the spring clips out, and modified them so I can put the light in, push it in place and then fit the clips after and they retain with little M5 "pins" (didnt get pics of the post-mod clip sorry, but it worked and theyre easier to fit now)

I chucked a battery on and the lights didnt work properly, spent about 20 mins being annoyed trying to figure it out before I realised i'd missed the main earth in the flaming boot, what a div. So the main lights and brake lights now work.

 

[DaveL485]

Hoofed the side trim and boot carpet back in to get them out of the way, as I has a new arrival coming Monday

 

[DaveL485]

Then I got the new brake bias valve out that I stumbled upon last year, I was going to try it without a bais valve (old one was shot and drums on the back) but when this cropped up on a French page I nabbed it, unused. However, on closer inspection I reckon it'd been sat somewhere damp... it was too rusty to risk using so I decided to try and strip/clean it.

Went better than expected

So then I tried to refit it under the car and I wasted another half an hour puzzling over that, as I couldnt for the life of me get it to bolt up anywhere. Turns out this is because I had forgotten that it bolts to a bracket, that then bolts to the floor lol - thats the white plate above it. I had to pull the fuel pump stuff off again as i'd also forgot it clashes with the flexi brake line routing and I need it out of the way to plumb the lines in. In the pic below you can see the noses of the flexi lines poking through the support bar.

Thats as far as I got this week

 

[timmy c]

starting to really come together now! whats your 'new arrival'

 

[DaveL485]

starting to really come together now! whats your 'new arrival'

1988 Tungsten Grey R21 Turbo

From the same idiot that brought you the Phase 1 R9 Turbo thread, the 21 Quadra thread the Clio V6 thread, and the (very short) 220 Trophy thread : A 1988 Phase 1 Renault 21 Turbo in Tungsten grey. So...here we go again :P

cliosport.net

 

[DaveL485]

Pair of brand new calipers, flexis and some brake pads delivered from Autodoc, £87, absolute bargain!

 

[DaveL485]

Pardon? Updates you say? You want updates?

Hmmm. OK. Seeing as you've been good.

Fitted the handbrake woggle that Steve dropped off - handbrake now working

Thinking of refitting the engine so first, obviously, you gotta sort the brake lines. No brainer. I have a posh brake pipe flare and it's SO good.

Realised I needed the front caliper flexis back in place to get the solid lines made so...

It's piss easy to make brake pipes, but an utter shitgibbon to make brake pipes that dont look like they were fitted by a 3 year old!

 

[DaveL485]

I think I got everything in and connected and it looks fairly good. SHould have done these when it was on the spit thinking about it!

Rear comp, soon after the R9 cost cutting changed cars to a single line to the back, split at the axle after the compensator but this has a 4-port MC, and the rear comp has 2 in and 2 out, one for each side.

Passable I suppose.

Once that was done I decided i'd spend the last hour before I quit to watch the F1 dumping the donkey back in the hole. It went better than expected, in it went with relatively little fuss.

I was pleased, save for the front end being on stilts even with the engine in. These are supposed to be lowering springs! As they are straight coils though, I can just hack a coil off to drop it down a bit

Definitely needs some massive slammage... this is on the floor, no jacks!!!

 

[DaveL485]

Oh, yes I know the hubs need a clean and paint, I havent put the new bearings in yet so will do the hub refurb at some point soon.

 

[DaveL485]

As they are straight coils though, I can just hack a coil off to drop it down a bit

Also decided as these are a bell-end to fit I would mod the bottom cups to stop spring dislocation

Ain't slipping off now is it!

Then I moved on to the hubs, new bearings and a bit of a clean up

Once the Hydrate 80 has cured ill dust them over with a rattle can.

 

[DaveL485]

Threw some paint at the hubs

Got the reconditioned shafts out, flaming £300 to restore the original shafts!

Lobbed it all at the car with the new discs & pads too, only to discover the pads were rear pads, wrongly listed when bought which was annoying.

Back on its wheels, not maximum slammage but better.

Refitted the fuel filler collar

Found the handbrake bracket thing i'd lost previously! Damn thing.

Started emptying out the boxes of parts and loosely placing stuff around, then couldnt help but try up my new headlights to start getting the wiring roughly placed, although a lot of it will need to be replaced as its shabby

Decided to remove the oil cooler system to simplify, its a sandwich plate and rubber hoses with metal unions that go to the side of the rad. Ive bought a non-oil cooler rad, and an M20 oil filter screw thing (cheers for the tip @Brigsy ), more on that next time.

 

[Kangoo1992]

New gearbox mount arrived so took the leg off and cleaned it up. It was missed from blasting for some reason.

View attachment 1553490

Took the others off too and lobbed some paint around

View attachment 1553491

Checked the new wishbones & bolts fit, wishbones complete with bushes and balljoints for under forty quid off Autodoc for both - ridiculous.

View attachment 1553492

Looked at starting the fuel system & tank install, cleaned up the filler neck and found this on the breather

View attachment 1553493

View attachment 1553494

Iv'e replaced it with straight copper pipe which is just the right size, trimmed the pipe ends, I think I can stretch the inch or so of pipe I have lost out of the routing.

View attachment 1553495

Started making a rubber mounted bracket for the new fuel pump, the old one was ziptied to the chassis so the bracketry has disintegrated in years past. The M6 captives still seem OK though. These rubber bushed things used to hold the ECU in the 21, so I repurposed them.

View attachment 1553496

This will be lined with rubber sheet too

View attachment 1553497

Cleaned up and painted the brake master while I had the paint stuff out, this can be refitted after a couple of coats of black. I did find a new one but he wanted too much money for it, so i'll stick with the original

View attachment 1553498

what paint are you using to paint your parts?

 

[DaveL485]

what paint are you using to paint your parts?

For rusty stuff, clean it, a coat of Bilt Hamber Hydrate 80, then Bonda rust primer, then black metal paint (like Hammerite). For stuff not heavily rusted you can skip the hydrate 80.

 

[DaveL485]

Been having issues getting the brakes anywhere near so gave up with messing with the new (but different) brake master. Even the p/n on the original microfiches lead to this cylinder but its not the same. I took it off and looked to see if I could use the guts in the original cylinder.

Nope

So while I spend months or years trying to source the right cylinder I decided to clean the old one up as best I could and use that for now. It actually came up really well with various abrasives and cleaners, all the rubber looked very good considering. The difficult bit was the inside of the cylinder being so deep, eventually I cobbled together a 10", 1/2" drive extension, with numberplate tape stuck to it and fine grade wet & dry paper stuck to that. I gave that a razz around the inside of the m/c and it came up great! .

Bunged it back on and realised this is 4 x M10 ports, the other was 2 x M10 and 2 x M12, so I had to cut the flares off and reflare 2 pipes on the car, pain in the arse!

Got it done, and in, did a bunch of pressure bleeding, and I now have a brake pedal (the zip ties are to stop the push fit feeder pipes popping out with ~30psi from the pressure bleeder in the system, usually this is just gravity feed)

Short update, yes, but it means I have a usable handbrake and footbrake now, thats a significant step forward in major systems.

 

[DaveL485]

Reminder to self - fit the f'king reverse switch sensor BEFORE you fill the gearbox oil - fuming!

I stuck the 9 in the work area to see if I could get the lump to fire now the red 21 is movable, so I threw the engine oil and gearbox oil in, connected up the fuel pipework and an EFI fuel reg and made sure that was fuel tight with a feed to the pump. Seemed to be OK. Next I dragged out the ECU, engine loom and coils etc and started plugging it all in loosely to see what would happen. I managed to pick up a ready made EFI loom for the C1J so I only had to change the TPS plug, then wire up power and ign and fuel pump, then set up the trigger wheel config, aux out for the fuel pump and a couple of other bits.

I cranked that bad boy over and it was popping out the inlet, so I switched up the HT lead pairing and cranked it and IT FIRED UP! But ran too high, maybe 4k rpm so I killed it. Once I figured out why it was revving too high (forgot to bung a fitting on the inlet) I cranked it again and it wouldnt bloody start like it did before and within a few short cranks the starter motor died. Knew I should have got a new one! I tried stripping and cleaning but an hour doing that got me maybe 5 secs of cranking before it went super slow again (like a dying battery, but the battery wasnt dying). Had a mardy, turned everything off and ordered a new starter off autodoc!

But....it definitely ran. I'm not making it up, honest!

 

[DaveL485]

New starter, properly charged battery and...

 

[DaveL485]

It might run but having some issues, and i'm in too much of a mardy with it to go into detail.

Ive got the cooling system plumbed up anyway, but thats about it on the positive side. Used a Clio 197 rad left over from my Meglio conversion, sits in there nice just needs some basic brackets making and it has the integrated fan.

So yeah. In a mood.

 

[DaveL485]

So I've had a right old game with oil pressure to the turbo, looks like the original oil feed was restricting flow. Oil was getting through when I cranked it to test, but not enough not to feck the turbo up. I ended up tearing the lot out and making a whole new feed pipe with AN6 fittings, and plumbed in an aftermaket gauge while I was at it to keep an eye on things. Good pressure now, turbo spinning nicely.

CANNOT find my Zeitronix AFR kit, which came off my 21 with the Adaptronic. Fuming! Need that to tune the idle in a bit better.

Also chucked the magnesium 16" wheels on it.

 

[DaveL485]

So - had a few days off work and got a few bits done.

Started off by mounting the Clio 197 rad - didnt want to hack the car around so I made some brackets to bolt to holes already available on the subframe.

Painted & fitted

 

[DaveL485]

 

[DaveL485]

I found my Zeitronix ZT3 (at last) in the cupboard, and decided to fit that up, meaning I needed a lambda in the downpipe, so I did that and found some leftover wrap in the cupboard too, which conveniently was just the right length.

Little bit of jiggery pokery in the ECU software and that was hooked up and working, so I could fiddle with the idle/fast idle AFR's.

Then decided to mount the coil pack with something other than zip ties, so made a bracket for that too. Typically the coil needs 80mm M6 bolts to mount it and the longest I have in stock was 70mm, so ordered those.

 

[DaveL485]

Final thing on the 9 this time around, I was wondering why the (one) headlight that was fitted wasnt working right, well, the block connector to the headlight had disintigrating terminals. What you dont realise with more modern cars being so prevalent now is that the block connectors here werent weather sealed, they're just open block terminals...not only that but on this age of car the connectors arent even plated so they rot like a sumbitch. I chopped out the old block, crimped in new terminals, made a nice clean fresh shared earth for the whole light block and...

You may, or may not notice, that not only are the headlight cells brand new but so is the backing panel and mounting clips - I cannot convey to you how much time & effort it took to find these parts! So, to have it working it rather satisfying

 

[DaveL485]

Oh, one more thing - I got my son in to help me adjust the gear linkage. I stuck the box in 5th, then he held the stick in 5th gear position while I tightened the linkage - this worked and I now have all six gears available, the clutch works, AND the (electronic) speedo still works - result!

 

[timmy c]

Wow you've done a lot there. Well done on the welding, looks like its coming together well!

 

[DaveL485]

Got a load done on the grey 21 at the weekend and this left me enough time to do a bit on the 9, so I made a bracket for the EFI fuel regulator. It'll bolt to the OSF turret above the brake master.

 

[DaveL485]

Trying to install the ECU properly now and god damn - making a loom up that doesnt look an absolute disaster is difficult! I redid the fan loom 3 times before I was anywhere near happy with it,

 

[DaveL485]

Blackwire scourge!

Pulled out a load of wiring I dont need (probably)

Temp gauge working, also wired in the alternator which I had initially got wrong and the cables were a shambles anyway so now the battery light works and the alternator charges. Temp gauge was a sod to do, I had to take the dash out, take the temp gauge out of the dash itself, figure out which pin did what, when I found the signal wire I had to trace that to the connector on the dash panel plug to find the wire then follow it through the car to the exit of the chassis rail. The pin in the engine bay plug was dust which is why I couldnt get a continuity test. Chopped that bit out, wired it up and voila!

Rev counter also wired and working!

 

[DaveL485]

Also popped in the other headlight ready to be wired up

 

[DaveL485]

This is exhausting work (groan)

This was a R5 GT Turbo Prima Group A system I stashed away around 2004, finally dragged it out to discover its nothing like around the back axle so I had to break out the grinder. The hope was it'd be very similar and just need extending for length. But nope. Of course not.

And on the car after a days worth of cutting, wleding, angling, re angling and faffing over and over and over.

I was under checking for leaks and I missed about 20mm of weld on one of the seams, otherwise it looks pretty good, sounds great, and yes I know MIG on stainless shocker but I dont have a TIG and i'm too impatient to wait! I think I will heatshield the brake lines and fuel tank.

 

[DaveL485]

I sorted the bit of exhaust I missed, luckily easy to reach on the side, rather than at the top or over an axle

Made a quick bracket to hold the fuel pump, yes i'm going to use zipties for now, no you may not comment on that.

Then I made up a car condom of sorts, as I still hadn't gravitex'd the front wheel arches... no idea why I didnt do this with the rest of the underside!

And away we went

Had a bit left in the gun so I did the insides of the wings too.

 

[DaveL485]

New boot seal arrived so I popped it on when I took it out to the garage last night. Also arrived is what I need to finish the boost pipes and the crankcase vent, so hopefully thats this weekend.

 

[DaveL485]

Working indicators, brake lights and fog lights - just the rear sidelights to sort.

Ended up opening the cluster boards - pain in the arse!

Before/After

Other side - eww. Cant get a feed in on the tail light, so needs further investigation.

 

[DaveL485]

Wow my last update was Jan 15th! I have been tinkering away a bit, but I did enjoy a rather splendid Ski holiday with my kids at the end of Jan - Andorra.

(This is my 16yo lad, not me, btw!)

Anyway, I was having a right old hassle with the copper tracks in the rear lights so I rewired them.

Lights actually work now!

I stripped the back seats down, treated the frame and put the covers in the wash. Amazingly they survived!

Cleared all the crap out of the front too

 

[DaveL485]

New alternator arrived but was damaged so returned it - some thug had dropped it and bent one of the fins, and it was catching the housing. I could have bent it back but you dont know if its damaged the bearing/shaft.

With a few more wiggles of the spanners it drove out of the garage!

I swapped its place with the Red R21 from my other thread, and in celebration of being able to move under its own power the Zeitronix ZT-3 gauge packed up it was still feeding data to the ECU so I had to buy a new gauge display from EFI Parts (thanks to Chris for sending me one to test with to verify mine was borked!).

 

[DaveL485]

Found a genuine Renault NOS alternator so bunged that on

Fixed a water leak as that pipe you can see close to the fan belt - yeah that rubbed through as I forgot to retain it. DOH. Did a test drive up the road and seems OK other than the engine mounts feel loose, very jumpy on the gearstick when you come on and off throttle. Theyre all new though so need to stiffen it up somehow.

Also fitted an idle control valve and wired it in, seems to be working OK, left it on open loop and it does its own thing. Think I need a heftier battery as the engine stalls when the (massive Clio 197) rad fan cuts in.

 

[DaveL485]

Oh, also fitted the strut brace I bought for it in 2003, maybe 2004.

AWFUL fit, not even welded the end plates at the right angles. Guessing after almost 20 years they wont take complaints though haha. Had to open all four bolt holes up to make it fit.

Its also now insured so I can drive it up the street without getting nabbed for six points.