21 Turbo 1988 Red R21 Turbo

[DaveL485]

HT leads cleaned and attached



New fuel lines fitted from the hard pipes to the reg/rail



And there's that little woggle for the TDC sensor wire



Cleaned, painted and fitted the power steering pump rear support, this is also an earth point and the bottom bolt holds the oil level sensor bracket too, which was also all fitted.



Inlet manifold support cleaned, painted and fitted



After so long sat doing nothing it seemed surprised to be back in use!

 

[DaveL485]

I gave the alternator a clean up and dusted a waft of silver paint on the front



Then I got the remote oil cooler pipes and freed up the collars, making sure they were well oiled. These are a sod for seizing to the pipes and then you have to wreck the pipe to get it off. Three were fairly loose anyway, one was solid so I heated it up and got it free, then i span all the ends with WD and an air gun until they were nice and free. Note - if you heat these remove the tiny green union seal from the end first or you'll cook it, it wont seal and it'll piss oil out.



Oil cooler located, cleaned and blown out with an air line, then plumbed in with the oil pipes. This should complete the oil pressure circuit.



Post shenanigans there is a pleasing number of empty boxes



I guess next tasks are alternator, power steering pump, then check the fuel system, get some oils in the engine and box and see if she will crank over. I wont fit any more ancilliaries like water pipes and boost circuit until I can show it runs.

 

[Andyquadra]

Note - if you heat these remove the tiny green union seal from the end first or you'll cook it, it wont seal and it'll piss oil out.

That's clearly talking from experience

 

[DaveL485]

That's clearly talking from experience

Absolutely, you know it!

 

[DaveL485]

Continued assembly of the engine bay, alternator and power steering pump on



Hoofed some oil in it as well, primed the fuel system with some fresh fuel and... (this was genuinely the first turn of the key too)



Gave the shafts a clean up to finish

 

[DaveL485]

One has been busy of late, including a blast across France and Germany for laughs. Saw a raft of 21 Turbo at a French show, been so long since I saw them in these numbers. It felt GOOD This white Ph2 made me pine for mine a bit, I have to admit.



Aaaaaanyway. I have also continued the tinkering with the subject of this thread.

Front hubs powdercoated and assembled with new bearings







Shaft in and pinned, new wishbone and stub axle fitted.



Cleaned and painted the wishbone air deflectors, these direct air from the bumper vents through the channel to the front brakes.



And fitted



Started assembling the cooling system



Cleaned and refitted the VIN tags

 

[DaveL485]

More cleaning and painting








Got the cooling system together (HOLY SHIT jubilee clips have got expensive!)



Shiny new






Mikalor's for the boost pipes



And then I ran it up for 20mins, up to fan temp. Let it run with a fan on for a bit, heater seems to work OK, no issues to report really save the header tank cap was leaking so I stuck a Megane one on it Ready for the head bolt retorque now!



Can't find a bloody fan switch, or the top crossmember which is annoying... need to source some parts!

 

[DaveL485]

OK then time to retorque the head bolts and set the valve clearances.



I found a temporary crossmember in roof storage so stuck that on and fitted the new rubber woggle things for the intercooler








Once that was done I ran it for a few mins, topped up the coolant and then pondered the next task. I decided to clean up the fluid leak underneath on the rear beam. This escalated...quickly.



I then removed the mongified fuel tank straps, common issue on these. I'll make some new ones, I did this for my Quadra already in stainless.







Mmmmm CRISPY



I have a new exhaust heatshield in decent nick to go on it so this one is headed for the bin.

Then I attacked the back axle, now the brake disc torx screws have always been a pain but with decent impact guns they usually razz out ok. Not this one though. The ugga dugga ripped the torx splines out - feck. Then I reverted to my backup, the old hammer and chisel method. That gets the bad ones out 99% of the time. But not this time.



In the end I had to drill the top off, stupid thing. Then carried on disassembling.



I wanted to just take the beam to be blasted, so I needed the ABS sensors out, as per usual this didnt go well for the sensors. What a waste, as these were testing OK.

 

[DaveL485]

I dug the powdercoated caliper hangers out of the spares box, chucked the used ones in the spares bin just in case.



Then I decided to have a look at the calipers themselves, having bought a rebuild kit with new piston recently to see if it would fit. Some interesting workings around the handbrake mechanism.





Inside the back of the piston



Of course, both calipers have broken bleed nipples so they need to be drilled and tapped out, I did one to M7x1.0 but i'm not happy with it, I have some M10x1.0 repair nipples to go back in so this is the first thing to do before I fit a rebuild kit in there. Didnt have the right tap though so ordered that.

 

[DaveL485]

Got the axle blasted so all the shananigans revolve around that this update.



Treated





While this dried off I cleaned some other bits up, and attacked the calipers



I also stuck the calipers in my little sand blast cabinet, before prepping for tapping by drilling the hole out to 9mm



First tap



2nd and 3rd taps



And its in



On to the second one



Same again

 

[DaveL485]

Threw some paint around





All the innards cleaned up



Paused this, went over the axle with bonda primer. Each coat takes AGES, its fiddly to paint.





Back to the calipers



Threadlocked the bleed insert into place



Pleased with these, new pistons and seals fitted, good to go back on now.



Then the axle got come hard wearing black, this is after the second coat



In the midst of all this I removed the handbrake cables, took the mechanism out for clean-up, removed a shock bolt with a spinning captive, and started making the new fuel tank straps.

 

[Duncan Grier]

Looks good

 

[DaveL485]

Saturday morning I spend working on another 21 Turbo, but after it got dark I headed in the garage and got cracking. I kinda feel like i'm further into this than I wanted to be, but isn't that always the way?

Note to self/everyone, these are 14mm hex, M10 heatproof nuts, makes refitting the turbo on the manifold loads easier. Normal M10's are 17mm hex.



First off I got that blasted seized torx screw tail out of the wheel bearing assembly.




Then cleaned up some of the paraphenalea for the rear axle



I noticed one of the caliper sliders was broken... far right, top corner, the ear is missing. This means it could fall out, which wouldnt be good.



Long story short, I employed a welder, bench grinder and a die grinder to get here



That done, before the axle goes on the fuel tank needs to be held on properly so I broke out the plasma cutter and cut some strips out 30mm wide. The car came with some ally strips in the right width but they're way too short. I used those as a straight edge for the plasma torch.





I cut 2 x 30mm strips then a thinner strip which I cut up and welded to the straps where the bottom of the tank sits. This will stop the middle of the tank sagging when its full of fuel.



I got to here and it was 80 and freezing so I knocked it on the head.

 

[DaveL485]

Sunday, again, I spent an hour on the other car bleeding brakes and so on, then carried on with the tank straps. This time, the drivers side ends. Doubled it over, plug welded it then angled the top.



Did the same for both. You can see here how much stiffer the T-bit makes it along the bottom of the tank.



Fitted them up to make sure we were good before painting and fitting of the rubber shroud




Then some primer, 2 coats yesterday, then some black to go on this week.

 

[DaveL485]

While the straps were drying I started assembling the axle on the bench. Wheel bearings on...



Tapped out the torx scew holes for the brake disc retainers, look at all the grot! Taps are great for cleaning out threads.



Caliper hangers and calipers.



The infeed brake line goes to a funny T-Peice on the 21 beam, this was rotten so I replaced it with a standard issue one. I tapped a hole in the axle and bolted it on (in the end I sat it a little lower than this)



Braided brake flexis and then the solid brake lines





Looking much better!



Finally I fitted the brand new ABS sensors, making sure the holes were clean and greased, hopefully these ones wont seize in!



That makes the axle ready to go back on the car, and then just the handbrake cables and mechanism left to hook up.

 

[DaveL485]

I found some left over heat wrap so I wrapped the downpipe



Fitted in loosely ready for the midsection.



Tank straps done, rubber sheath fitted and on the car






Axle positioned ready to roll under



On she goes



Brake pipe connected and handbrake cabled also fitted up with the refurbed pivot. Then I cleaned up the front anti-roll bar and treated it.



Thats your lot this weekend, as I also changed out the back end of a MK4 clio I bought for her indoors, & started messing with my lastest basket case/auction buy... don't ask me why. I dont know. I dont even have a CBT.

 

[DaveL485]

Ive been away from the garage for a while, Skiing in France and Christmas getting in the way (hard life eh!) but got back on it this weekend just gone.

Got the front brakes back together, struggling to find new front discs at the moment so put on a set of used I had on the shelf for now. Rebuilt calipers with new pistons and a new fitting kit, new pads and new braided lines.





The times ive run it up to temp I noticed a bit of steam coming out the heater inlet, when I turned the blower motor on it blew steam out the heater vents. I was hoping it was just some residual damp in the matrix but seeing as its been dry stored for almost 8 years, I knew deep down what was coming.



Heater box out, and yet another parts problem in that I can't get a new matrix for RHD any more! Supply seems to have dried up, so I had to improvise and bought a LHD one. The core is the same, so I set about swapping the top end tanks over. Might seem a faff but the new matrix was £30 and recoring the old one was >£100.



Yeah, definitely a leaky matrix. Yuk!

 

[DaveL485]

End tank swap.







I sank the end tank in on some sealant after a clean, put it in a furniture clamp and tapped the tabs back in gently.



I sat that to dry off and went and did the thing in the next post, then once that was done came back to this and dropped it in the heater box



One of the plastic tabs that holds the control cables in to the control arms of the heater panel was broken, seriously, FUCK these things they suck. Can't get em new any more it seems (surprise surprise). I employed an M5 bolt to secure the cable end in.

 

[DaveL485]

When I got the brakes back together I filled the res up with fluid and bled some through the system, then bled up the clutch. I go no pedal at all, great! Bled the port on the master, got some yukky fluid through, still no pedal. Bled from the slave again, STILL no pedal.
Another dreaded problem from cars that have sat I prodded the clutch pedal with disdain, trying to feel the piston in the master returning, which it wasnt. So the piston in the master was stuck at the bottom of its sweep. BRILLIANT. While the dash was out, it makes accessing the pedal box easier so I dropped the brake master down a bit, and removed the clutch master.



Popped the front end off and...urgh.



Long story short, big fight and lots of swears later the piston is out of the cylinder, the bore is cleaned up and a refurb seal kit is fitted to the piston. Cylinder reassembled, refitted, bled it up and now I have a fully working clutch pedal...HURRAH. It only took a new clutch kit, a new fork, and a rebuild on both the master and slave cylinders (rolling my eyes as I type). I didnt take any more pics of it for some reason,



So, now, I am getting closer to having it on its wheels. The brakes work but are a bit spongy, so I need to get a proper bleed cycle done next to firm the pedal up. Got all the interior back together as well, and ran the car up to temperature again - nice warm heater and no leaks

 

[DaveL485]

Still plugging away, was flaming cold this weekend and heater ran out of gas so I didnt stop for many pics. However, I did get the exhaust completed, welding in a gasketed flange join for the back cos a really hate sleeve joints.



new downpipe gasket / old downpipe gasket



Got a bit frustrated with the front end of the car so decided to see how the (brand new!) bumper and splitters would fit up. Well, it would seem!











I tarted up the fog surrounds as well, and bolted them in. Had to make some new screws for the fogs also, pain in the arse but the old ones were yukky and rusty.