Time for a little update here on my phase I V6. A few months ago I gave it a 'midlife' update.
I own the Vee already for 12 years this year. Time flies. In 2020 it was due for the third cam belt change which turned out to something bigger then foreseen.
I am an engineer on ships and maintaining big engines and other stuff is a daily affair for me. Engines up to 25.000 hp etc. I like to do all maintenance on my cars myself. It gives me a good feeling to know all equipment to the last bolts. It's just something special when going 140MPH knowing you put it together.
Disclaimer: I don't really care about rising values, preserving it in a garage. Only doing 100 miles a year etc etc. For me life is short and need to enjoy it daily. I could be dead tomorrow and will then not have enjoyed a garage queen. I drive it winter/summer/rain/sun as much as I like. It’s nice to look at a mint condition Pebble beach car but cannot live with that in real life.
Anyway put it in the garage and up to jack stands.
Remove wheels, sub frame, shafts etc.
Dismantle some hoses, wire looms etc etc. Connect the crane and lower it down. In 8 hours or so with some coffee and lunch breaks included it is removed from the car.
Slide it from underneath and there you have it.
Checking of the old timing belt. Looks like new as was found in 2014 as well. I think the belts can be used up to 10 years without any problem but who takes the chance... Tensioner/timing etc still good.
Anyways start checking the engine bay and found some rusty spots. More than expected actually. Here some shots. On the back of the rear firewall near the back box and behind the heat shield of the back box.
Brackets of the fuel tank and the frame next to it.
Actually the whole frame around the engine bay were the steel was not protected by this OEM black underside coating. Under this coating it was like new. Checked in a few places.
Check these areas on your cars as well guys.
-Tank foundation brackets
-Underside of box beams around the engine
-Aft heat shield of the engine bay and area behind heat shield of the exhaust back box
-Area around side pod fans
-Aft side of aft fenders.
-Aft part of box beams behind side skirts.
Checked a phase II's underside. Exactly corroded on the same spots.
Didn't want to leave it like that and started removing the rust in the affected areas. Luckily not much damage except from a small spot with some degradation of the steel underneath the heat shield of the back box. Nothing mayor.
Removed the fuel tank to gain more access.
My garage is right underneath the living room. All this grinding drove my family crazy

[bbvideo=300,450]https://youtu.be/Ady1LgDZbQQ[/bbvideo]
After cleaning all rusty spots, Sanded all the bare steel with some coarse sandpaper to get some surface roughness. Flared all the paint edges.
These rotating brushes really polish the steel surface which is not a good start for coating.
[bbvideo=300,450]https://youtu.be/fFvLDL4zsbo[/bbvideo]
Lots of manual cleaning and degreasing after removing the rust.
[bbvideo=300,450]https://youtu.be/VzfF_UmLXgk[/bbvideo]
Wrapped it all up in plastic.
Put some etch primer first, followed by 3 layers of heat resistant silver paint which was dried thoroughly by electric heaters in between layers. Wiped down for overspray dust in between as well. Put in some places Motip under body coating on it. 2 Layers. I must say all the coating is already one year on it and it is behaving really well. Even in the wheel wells it looks like it was there from new building. No detachment whatsoever.
Before sealing it with under body coating.
Used this shit. Tested it first by applying some heat after it dried on a test strip. Did not want it to get runny around a hot engine bay after applying it. It held up really well.
The rust prevention from Renault/TWR was not so good in my opinion. Lots of partly sealed void spaces and badly coated/protected seems. A lot of good spots for rust development.
I checked the frame tubes inside with a video scope but these were coated well inside and in as new condition. Also around the exhaust back box were a lot of heat build up is.
Some video scope screenshots. The brown is the rust prevention coating.
Restored both side pod fans. Just for the looks of it.
Imagine that for a hot hatch. Let's hope we will ever see something like this again in the future.
Alright on with the good mechanical stuff. Bodywork is not my favourite work.
Started gathering parts. Yeah I know... take the engine out first then start gathering. Should be the other way around...
SKF timing belt, water pump, rollers etc. Renault could not deliver me an original Dayco belt anymore. That brand is very hard to get in the Netherlands so I choose SKF. Had good reviews, was made in France so I selected that one.
Last years the power steering pump made sometimes screeching noises when the engines RPM's and the steering angle were high. It worked but it shouldn't make that noise. Drained the whole system and found some nasty metal debris in the reservoir.
Inspected the actuator in the front. Found no damages there. Flushed all the lines.
Collected a new pump from ZF. Not a rare part and lots of them in stock.
Polished the stainless steel exhaust to a mirror finish again. It is a Frankenstein exhaust made by a Renault Sport engineer. See the story in the beginning of my project topic. It comes from a Phase II V6 owned by Harry Bouma who worked in Dieppe at that time. He had all kind of modifications/concept items on his Vee which never made it to the production stage. This exhaust has Throphy headers and catalysers with a reworked Janspeed back box.
Repaired some damaged heat wrap on the headers.
Gave the sub frame a proper clean.
Found all the engine mounts a little worn out due to aging/heat stress. Saggy and dry cracks in the rubber. Sourced new ones in Germany.
Projects like this are not all fun & games as you can imagine. Off course a bolt snapped on the right engine mount. I see on the Insta channel of SG motorsport he has this happening alot as well.
Drill a hole in that basterd and hope you can get it out and use the same threads. Sadly it was completely fused with the block and had to go to a bigger size. Took a 10.9 class bolt.
[bbvideo=300,450]https://youtu.be/8BunA5wdl_o[/bbvideo]
New threads into the soggy aluminium. I must say guys I am a huge RenaultSport fan but tears come to my eyes when I see how they construct things. Everything is just cheap hastily made shit. A friend of mine was changing a gearbox of his S2000 in my garage at the same time. When we removed a valve cover on that thing it was finger licking good and got me drooling. When you look inside a Renault/Peugeot engine I'm about to cry. I'm sorry to say but I lost a bit of respect there for the brand.
[bbvideo=300,450]https://youtu.be/rQaTfC2LmM0[/bbvideo]
Anyways during cold start ups and sometimes when putting the hammer the down on it and going back to idle afterwards there was a valve lifter being a little noisy. Just like tapping on it. When you revved it up to 1500rpm it was gone. I was annoyed by it so decided to renew them all.
Removed the belt. Remove the pulleys. Off to a good start... Turns out it is a left hand thread bolt... Sometimes I am being stupid. In the Dutch workshop manual it says turn anti-clockwise to loosen. In the English manual it says turn clockwise. Hahaha but should have known. There was an arrow on it as well.... Anyways some fingerspitzen gefuhl and managed to get the broken part out in one piece without any damage to the camshaft.
One gets its really hot when this happens I can say...
Luckily a RS enthusiast at the local Renault dealer sourced some new Citroen bolts. Last ones in stock. (later on when put on correct torque acc. manual they started to creep and discarded them for used Renault parts which did not creep. I fear the Citroen bolts would break which they did when tested in the vice 20nm above spec)
Anyways carrying on.
Camshaft
Removed.
A valve lifter dismantled. Checked them all and could not find anything that looked like damage or something. The clearances are really small so I guess one cannot see that with the human eye.
Renault could off course not deliver new lifters anymore. Also something which really annoys me about a brand not supporting its heritage by supplying parts. Not even 20 years old and not a single thing is available anymore. How come Renault?
During dismantling I spotted that they were made by INA and how do you know a parts dealer in Germany still had them in stock. Brand new.
Put it all back together. Putting the bolts of the cam shaft bearings on 8NM! Had to get a new torque wrench for that. 8nm instead of 800nm what I'm used too! Hahaha.
When applying this silicon sealant I was definitely worried about clogging up the lubrication channels of the bearings which would lead to massive destruction of a camshaft. Dismantled two pieces again, for my own piece of mind to check where all the silicon went.
Luckily all was good. If you apply to little it leaks. If you apply to much the silicon leaks into the engine etc...
Put all new seals in the camshafts behind the pulley and the crankshaft.
Found some minor grooving in the pulleys in way of the seals. Where to get new ones? They are still good to go but need replacing or reworking later on. Tested the dephasers. Still good.
Got off course some help of my son during 'tough times'...

Him complaining about the horn not working.
Found oil in one plug of the valve which leads oil to the dephaser pulleys. It was leaking internally a bit. It still worked and there was no oil spill from the connector but there shouldn’t be oil there. The RS enthusiast at the Renault dealer found me a new valve in the aftermarket scene.
Replaced the clutch slave cylinder. The clutch itself was still in new condition. Only ran 15.000km/9000miles since last renewal. Sometimes you got to take some risk.
Wrapped the starter motor heat shield in reflective heat wrap. It was damaged a bit during header replacement awhile ago. A new heat shield could not be found. It has such an odd shape as well.
Renewed the timing belt, rollers, tensioner, water pump. Set the tension to the correct frequency of the belt. Renewed auxiliary belt, tensioner, rollers etc. etc.
Time to slide it back inside. Set the engine mount bolts on the correct torque. Fill all the liquids back up and connect all wires. Mount the subframe, shafts etc etc.
In the mean time I wanted to give myself a little gift. Lots of money spent and visually nothing changed. Decided to send the battered wheels away for refurbishment. They looked like shit.
Before
After
First test drive!
It runs great. Off course it took some nerve breaking time before the valve lifters were full but all was fine after that. Runs like clock.
[bbvideo=300,450]https://youtu.be/KLA_rudVJmQ[/bbvideo]
Refilled the AC system.
Got too the first meeting of the year. A sunset drive with all kind of cars. Had a blast again after working for several months on it and not being able to drive it.
It was time for APK/MOT. For many years I could not pass the emission test with this Trophy catalysers. Always mounting back the original exhaust etc. I thought to myself it needs to be perfect now and brought the car to the V6 specialist in the Netherlands: Veban Motorsport and asked to rework the exhaust so it can fit sport catalysers during the APK/MOT and straight pipes the rest of the year.
They did a lovely job with some nice tig welds making it pass the emission test full colours.
Don't mind the Frankenstein stick welds from the Renault Sport engineer.
They also fitted all new rubber bushes in the aft sub frame and control arms, new ball joints on the aft and carried out a realignment.
The handling improved like night and day! Should have done this years ago. The balance was always heavily disturbed by bumps and bridge edges etc on the road. Nothing of that anymore. 200+ km/h without shitting myself.
Finally the covid lock down was over and time for summer with a fresh Vee! All mayor maintenance done and some nice improvements and conservation for the future as well! Spent a little over 7K€ on it again. Labour not included
Went to the Nurburgring. Couldn't help myself and did a lap. One was enough to shit myself again and watch safely from the sideline.
Drove it in the rain
Had a photo shoot with the 1953 Renault 4CV of my dad. Two rear wheel drive mid engine Renaults. Imagine that.
Hope you enjoyed it.
