Renault 11 Turbo Phase 2 Restoration

[Big Steve - Raider]

For those of you who don't know me, I restored my £600 Renault 5 Raider back in 2006 to OE condition.



Since I completed that rebuild I've had an itch for an 11 Turbo for a while because I loved their rare/quirky factor so over a few mince pies during Christmas in
2011 I had a look around to see what was available. I initially found a LHD Silver Phase 2 in Italy which was in beautiful condition but:

• The whole logistics of buying the car
• Moving it back to the UK
• Insuring a LHD
• it's VERY high price (€4000)
• The fact that it would leave me nothing to actually create & rebuild

... knocked it on the head:

So I kept looking and found another couple of options, but they just didn't float my boat:

 

[Big Steve - Raider]

By chance a few days later an advert appeared on eBay for another 11 Turbo that caught my eye:
Here we have the sale of my R11 Turbo. 3owners, 39,000miles, 11 months MOT Very original,very solid,no rust,no rot,never ever welded. Has had unleaded cylinder head conversion, Carb re-jet uprated camshaft and valve springs, replacement radiator new sports shock absorbers, new front road springs, 4 yokohama tyres, speedline alloys balljoints,track-rod ends,gaiters, New headlights and indicators.
The car is in really good,original condition. over the years the bonnet has gone flat and been re-sprayed in matt black. a tiny selection of carpark dinks, easily counted on one hand.
The interior again is all original and working, central locking, electric windows, boost gauge etc!!
Fast, forgotten Hothatch with endless Tuning options!! exactly same 1.4t as R5GT-T. Car owned by Retired couple since 1994 SWAP or PX.
OFFERS AROUND £1500 TRY ME.

The advert read well & said that it had a few original bits & was an original car but the pictures told a different story... :yuck:

 

[Big Steve - Raider]

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 on the 6th January 2011 Millie-bee & I went to pick the car up! I paid the money & checked over the paperwork etc & the deal was done. As it was all cold & miserable (January) 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!

 

[Big Steve - Raider]

The drive home was fantastic & the car never missed a beat!! It was a bit of fun & games going over the country roads near where the bloke lived as it kept grounding out every now & again. :bag:


Over the following days I started to take stock of what I had purchased and I started to look at what I would need to obtain to return the car to the standard I wanted to? I continuted to scour all the usual internet resources and managed to unearth an original Renault 11 Microfiche for the Engine & Mechanicals! Unsurprisingly enough I soon realised that Renault weren't going to be of great help in obtaining the parts for me as nearly every number I gave them ended up being returned as "No Good"
So I had to start to think out of my usual box and wonder how I could obtain the parts I wanted?? It was then that I remembered that there was a 25,000 mile 1 Owner 11 Turbo for sale on e-Bay which hadn't seen the road for a number of years but was 90% complete and those parts were in fairly good order??



A deal was done, then I had to just figure out how I was going to get this car from Scotland back to home. I ended up Hiring a trailer for a few days & drove up to Edinburgh to pick the car up:

 

[Big Steve - Raider]

So because I had two cars at home and only one garage (then) the Silver 11 had to live on the front garden (which didn't please Millie up too much) so I needed to get cracking on breaking down the Red 11 and getting rid of the bodyshell. 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...

 

[Big Steve - Raider]

Now that the Red body-shell was history I could make a start on the Silver 11. The first thing was to have a good look over & see what state everything was in & what needed doing to make me feel safe driving it. I had a good look all over & found that the bodyshell & underneath were all in surprisingly good condition:

The next step was then to look at the suspension and I managed to source a new set of Old Stock Front Koni Adjustable Dampers & lowering sport springs & fitted them to raise the front up from the weeds.

I also fitted some different wheels I had.

With the car sitting level now I wanted to bin off the Renault 25 wheels I had that had the STUPID small tyres on that made the car look like it was a roller-skate so I sourced a set of Clio Williams Steel Wheels and had them powder-coated Shiny Silver. You can see the massive difference between the old and new wheel rolling diameters?!

I also took a picture of my two cars together

The final step was to fit the new Private plate I treat myself too because I'm a tart!

 

[andybond]

Was the red shell rotten Steve?

 

[Big Steve - Raider]

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?! :joyful: 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.

 

[Big Steve - Raider]

Was the red shell rotten Steve?

Yeah Andy, as the proverbial Pear!!

 

[Big Steve - Raider]

As usual with old Renault's both front doors are suffering from the dreaded drop so I got hold of some new bushes & drilled out the hinges on the drivers door and car with an 8mm Right Angled Drill and fitted bushes and 6mm bolts. Was a little concerned that it was all going to end in tears, but thankfully it all worked out well!!

I also noticed that the engine mount on the gearbox had broken so I got a new mount from E-bay and fixed that. Turns out that the mount was NOT the same as a 5GTT.

I also sorted out the sagging fabric on the door card

 

[Big Steve - Raider]

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 2013 and the start of the rebuild. I got the car over to my new house (I'd stored it in a friends garage) and am currently stripping the car down to it's component parts ready for the bodywork:

 

[TNT Andy]

LOL - nice to see this up here - looks like mine every weekend atm. Good to be able to watch this again.

Stotty

 

[DaveL485]

Epic, love 11's nearly as much as 9's. My Phase 1 9Turbo is silver too, when I get it painted these 2 will look ace together.

 

[Big Steve - Raider]

So had a good day out in the Garage today and got a bit more done. First thing was to run a few more parts to my "Spares Garage" courtesy of Peterborough City Council.

That place is starting to look awfully full now, but then again it is dam near holding 2 x 11 Turbos's worth of parts, and a few 5GTT Turbo bits as well :nailbiting: Whilst I was there I took a picture of the Renault 19 16v Rear Beam and Front Subframe I picked up for this project... more on that later

I decided to make a start with the horrible job of groping around on the floor and stripping everything from underneath the car including Exhaust, Fuel Tank, Fuel Lines etc.

I then moved the car round and started to drain the fluids from the engine and gearbox to prepare for the Engine & Gearbox removal soon.

Thanks for reading

 

[DaveL485]

Much better to work on that a GTT aint they

 

[Adey]

loved my 11, especially the seats, sex seats as they were known

 

[TNT Mr Raider]

Good work mate, getting stuck in!

 

[Kris M]

Looking good Steve, fancy another car weekend soon ?

 

[Big Steve - Raider]

Looking good Steve, fancy another car weekend soon ?

Anytime Marms

 

[Dre5gtt]

Good read, looks like a good solid shell