My Renault 5 1.7 GTX Thread

[piggz]

So, I bought a Renault 5 GTX, 20 years after having my first!

According to RENAULT 5 GTX - How Many Left? there are only 6 on the road in the country, hopefully this will be no 7!

It was advertised as being in good order, with 1 previous owner, who was now in their late 80s!

This is how it looked:

It had sat for a while and had no MOT. I drove it from Manchester to cumbria where it was booked in for an MOT. I had my mum following incase of a breakdown, and she made my take the A6 and keep off the motorway. That was a mistake! The journey took 4 hours, and it turned out the rad fan was seized, so every traffic I hit, the water temp increased! Fortunately, it made it to the garage.

MOT failed with not too much, tyres, a boot on the steering, and the sills. The sills were covered by the skirts, and the drivers side inner and outer sills were shot, aswell as the floor.

So, i set of cutting out the bad

and making new panels

While waiting to get teh welding started, I took to fixing the carb. The threads for the air box bolts were all stripped, and the air box was silicon-ed on! I bought a helicoil kit and fixed the threads

A colleague and my brother are helping with the welding, and its starting to take shape

With the inside coming together, i moved to the outside this last weekend, and cut out the outer sill and remaining innersill rot

While waiting to carry on with the welding, i started removing the dash to get at the heater matrix which has a leak. Not a nice job!

And that is where I currently am.

Ive ordered new seam seal, and a floor pan plug to replace the rusty metal one with a rubber one. While the dash is out, ive also ordered 2.5m of sound deadening to make it a more pleasant drive. My intention is to keep it as stock as possible and have it ready for a local classic car show next year. Hopefully the welding will be done soon, there is just the drivers sill area and a small patch on the passenger sill. I think i will go with a protective covering for the sills, as the skirts cover them anyway.

[DaveL485]

Excellent - did you know you can still buy new outer sill panels? May be easier than fabricating.

[piggz]

@DaveL485

Excellent - did you know you can still buy new outer sill panels? May be easier than fabricating.

Yeah, I have one…you can only get 3dr ones though, no 5 doors. So, i have a 3 door one and will have to make it fit! Im cutting the original below the skirt clips as I couldnt find them either. I think it will be ok.

[Norwich_Nick]

Nice to see someone else doing bodywork with a FBH

FBH =

fucking big hammer

I’ve seen 5 door sills advertised somewhere, can’t remember where though so not really helpful. Your plan sounds fine and probably still the way to go even if you had a 5 door sill*

*I’m not a professional and even if I was there’s more than one way to skin a cat, it seems to boil down to personal preference

[Alastair]

Love it, I’ve been looking for another 1.7 R5 for ages, I had a tungy GTX for years and loved it.

[Brigsy]

Repairs look good should clean up nice.

[piggz]

update…

dash and heater is out. ordered new matrix, 20 new on ebay seemed.a decent price, some were 40! found that the clips were snapped on the heater controls, zip tied the outers to the plastic, hope it holds, as replacements seem expensive and hard to come by. Any suggestions for a better fix?

[Alastair]

I had mine zip tied for years and worked fine, but you should be able to order those clips from somewhere, they look the same as a Gtt choke clip IIRC

[DaveL485]

@Alastair

they look the same as a Gtt choke clip IIRC

Yep, same on the 21 heater controls too. Part number 7703076210.

[piggz]

@DaveL485

Yep, same on the 21 heater controls too. Part number 7703076210.

I found one clip inside the controls…the problem is the plastic as snapped away so the clips dont fit!

Ive ordered some small metal P-clips with rubber inserts, and i’ll see what I can fabricate out of that!

[piggz]

Hi All

My GTX is doing well. All the welding is done and its about ready for its MOT. I will post update pics soon. I have one problem though. Ive had the whole interior and dash out to replace the heater matrix. When the dash went back in, I have 1 bolt leftover!!!

Can anyone identify where the attached bolt would go? Its a fairly substantial torx bolt.

Likely somewhere behind the dash, steering column?

Cheers!

[Alastair]

not sure on the bolt, there’s a few of them in the dash, most likely the fuse box cover or area for a set screw.
After reading this thread decided to get myself a GTX, loving it, had forgotten just how good they are!

[piggz]

@Alastair

not sure on the bolt, there’s a few of them in the dash, most likely the fuse box cover or area for a set screw.
After reading this thread decided to get myself a GTX, loving it, had forgotten just how good they are!

Cheers, i think its too big for the fuse box area, ill keep looking, hopefully someone more familiar with the finer details will recognize it!

GTXs are pretty rare, have you found one? according to RENAULT 5 GTX - How Many Left? there are only 6 on the road, mine will be lucky number 7!

[piggz]

Panic over, its the cam belt cover which I also had off! That means i put the dash back together correctly!

[Adamthomas73]

i wouldn’t worry about your MOT for 6 months! LOL not needed! im using my ‘working at home’ time fixing up the monaco! id take it out for a spin but finding a bit of normal rust on the seals it might detach its self!

[Adamthomas73]

hopefully its one you can get to! is there 5 in total? i changed the one next to the suspension inner bulkhead thats a bitch to a hex bolt for ease! although with the belt changed it wont be off for a while!

[piggz]

Status update time!

Welding is complete (thanks Andy!), that was the drivers inner and outer in large parts, and a much smaller amount on the passenger inner and outer. The bad inner sill on the passenger looked like a previous repair, so that was cut out.

Heater matrix replaced and dash back in. Drivers seat in, and otehrs will follow. I wont put the carpets back in until its been checked through the MOT tho so the garage can see everything.

At the moment, the interior fan isnt working, so i need to find one of them on ebay. I need some new door seals too, but i think I can order them from here. Got a new harness to solder to the mess where the radio is, which will be an ISO plug. Pretty happy so far!

[andybond]

Looks tidy now!

[Adamthomas73]

Spot on!

[piggz]

So, im aware that the 1.7 GTX has a design fault with the inlet manifold over heating, leading to carburetor warping. Mine looks like it might have that issue as there is a load of brown silicon around the base of the carb. I heard that there is a heat resistant gasket that can be fitted, as well as a fan that can be installed. Does anyone have any details/knowledge about these options?