C>Lemon
Member
Hi everyone. C>Lemon's the name, and computers used to be my game. OK, they still are, but now I have a car and I just can't leave it there...that would be wasteful. So I've decided since I'll get my licence soon, it's worth at least spending some time on a car that cost me nothing, right? After all, I haven't much else to do until September, have I? (Answer: no.)
In any case, the car was acquired some time ago for free from a relative as a learn-to-drive field car. It was easily good enough for the road with a little expenditure, but this was deemed uneconomical. That was last year. (Date refers to when I personally had the car in the shed where I could work on it and was given the all-clear to do so.)
The car ran fine round the house for a while but the battery was poor. You soon learn not to stall a car when it requires a good push to restart. :roll:
At this point I was really nowhere with my driving, but hoping to improve. Then the solenoid (we believe) failed.
At first a tap with a wrench on starting would do the trick, but later this had no effect. Finally we put it down in the field some 50m behind the house out of the way. We planned to get a new solenoid and battery, but that never really materialised. You know how these things are. :roll:
So now I have it in the shed at last (yes, I know how lucky I am to have a shed), I plan to strip the rear seats out, do my best with the rest, and get the rear windows panelled in. Then I re-register it to a parent as a commercial vehicle for something or other, put myself down as a named driver, and voila, I have insurance. [Edit: yes, I also have much cheaper tax.
] Hopefully. Actually the rear seats are already out, but why not tell the story from the beginning? Incidentally if anyone needs advice on how to detach them, it's a bit annoying but I know how. And that's all I know. So here's to a productive few months with ye, me, and possibly a Haynes manual.
More photos are to come, for now I'm only giving the back story.
Laters.
[BREAK=Battery-related eejiting]
Today I resolved to sort out the battery (thanks to bncrew for his advice RE: doing this first to avoid timewasting). However I didn't get to it for a while. Luckily the rain slowed enough for me to nip out to the shed and get the battery and charger sorted out and linked up, with some help from a more knowledgeable person. But now I have absorbed that knowledge too. I'm like a sponge for this sort of crap. 
And now, the battery is comfortably overnight charging in my shed. So yay for that. If you lot are really desperate, I suppose I could snap a photo of it tomorrow, but...
Haynes manual confirmed in the post. Also, instead of a Magic Tree, I took some home-remedy advice and stuck a bowl of white distilled vinegar in the car overnight. We'll see if that damn smell* is gone tomorrow.
The plan is to reinstall the battery tomorrow and see if it starts. More on that soon.
*The cat was trapped in the car for 3 days when it was down the field. We were lucky to find her, but obviously the car was slightly the worse for wear. But I don't begrudge her it. We love the cat.
[BREAK=Crisis 1: Windscreen Crack]
Oh, today is a good day. I found the rear-view mirror in someone's bedroom.
Then I headed out to check the battery. The battery was charged. 
Then I opened the door and all I could smell was vinegar.
The cat smell was gone. (Told you, JR!) So that's three good things. Oh wait. The bad news is yet to come.
So I go out to install the battery, and one of the contacts is missing, rendering my work yesterday to get the battery out of storage and charged useless.
But I installed it anyway, because it did seem to be charged. 
Left it there. Then I went into the car to gloat over my amazing luck with the mirror. I tried to get it back onto the mount. Failed. Tried again. Failed. Used too much force. CRACKED the DAMN WINDSCREEN! ARGH! 
I am so annoyed about this, it's not even funny. The battery problem I can live with, contacts aren't too difficult to come by. But a cracked windscreen? That might be the end of this project, right here, right now. :evil:
And I am not pleased.
[BREAK=Windscreen update]
Mini-update here, no pictures but nothing's changed really.
Right, so after much discussion on the topic, I've decided that my only option is to replace the windscreen. However, a new one could top €300 plus labour, and a scrapped one including labour could be half that.
But that's being a bit cynical. Could be less than €100 altogether, depending on the scrapyard. My third option is to wait 'til I get insurance, but that's risky 'cos the thing could break completely meantime.
But anyway, I'm not taking the screen out until there's a serious-looking guy with all kinds of crazy-looking suction tools and putty and sealant waiting with a new screen, and that's for certain.
[BREAK=Update on commercialising]
So after consultation with my local mechanic, the news is good about the law for converted cars. The news is, for older cars there is no law! Just reregister it and rip out the seats, sorted. I'll need to find a form at the Motor Tax Office, fill it in (adjusting the car as specified if necessary, the mechanic may have been optimistic about the law) and Boris, he ees my father's brother.
On a sidenote, the kind and generally wonderful bncrew has agreed to part with his cabriolet windscreen if I don't find another one closer to home, so hurrah for him. Now I just need to find someone to do the job...
...ye'll be the first to know.
[BREAK=Haynes-tastic!]
I got my Haynes manual today. Super-yay. I'll spend some time with it absorbing everything I can, and we'll see how the car looks then. Incidentally, the bit about the solenoid looks to be one of the most confusing. I don't know whether the Haynes method is best in the case of removing and (re-tightening?) the solenoid.
Trouble's a-brewin' in the engine bay, methinks. First off, I can't find the engine plate anywhere.
I've checked the places advised in the manual, but can't see it anywhere. And, everywhere I look, I see more and more rust...
Should this be purple? I don't think so. EDIT: but apparently that's quite normal rust.
Behind the driverside headlamp.
Behind the passenger-side headlamp.
And I think this white stuff is leaking antifreeze. EDIT: wrong as usual, it's regular oxidation on the aluminium.
What a mess. :roll:
Incidentally, the battle to find the engine plate was resolved somewhat a while ago, when I discovered this sticker on the driver's side doorjamb.
So it seems the car is an injection-model, E7J, whereas I thought I saw a carburettor somewhere. Ah, never mind. In any case, I also know that my colour code is 640 ('Silber grau' according to the topic on colour codes). So that's all pretty good.
[BREAK=Lidl rocks]
Yesterday I went into Lidl early in the morning and was able to purchase some snazzy car mats for only about €7. The edging is red which isn't ideal, but the hell with it, they're nice and they're cheap. I know that's a pretty pointless thing to do but I had to go in anyway. We also got a car work lamp, some overalls which I'm over-all not sure about, and lots of miscellany. Pictures of car stuff to follow, for anyone who's really THAT bored.
[BREAK=An eventful day (featuring Crisis 2: trouble with battery/cooling)]
So today had good parts and bad parts, but most importantly it had lots of parts.
Anyway, first thing that happened was I bought battery contacts at last. Then I put them on the poles of the battery - fitted perfectly. The difficult part followed, where I had to figure out how to transfer the wires from the original Renault fittings to the new ones. The earth (negative) one was easy, simply snipping the original screw from the wire and stripping the rubber off a bit so I could slide the copper into the contact's...er...tunnel?
Anyway, yeah. That was grand. I tightened the screw, smeared Vaseline on the pole (no sniggering at the back there) and attached the contact. Then I tightened the bolt on the contact and patted myself on the back (not as easy as it sounds).
It turned out that the positive pole wouldn't work with a regular contact. :roll: There were three wires and they were too short and there was too much copper to go into that tiny space. So anyway, I made an executive decision: to hell with it. I Vaselined it up, reattached it all veery carefully and screwed it back on. At least I'd one replaced, eh?
Next I screwed the long bolt that holds the battery in place back in. And I was amazed. It was done. I'd been waiting to do this for weeks and now I had to find something else to do.
So I did. I got out a Torx bit and took out the bolts on the floor in the back (size 40 in case anyone needs to know). Now it's pretty much empty back there. I was pleased to see the car move closer to its final commercial state.
I tried starting the engine. Now some of you may remember I charged the thing about a week ago, and it seemed OK, but no. Not a peep from the engine and the electrics weren't saying anything either. :roll: So I got some help and we trotted out the jeep, which has no less than TWO batteries. We linked it up and switched on the jeep. The electrics decided to work then, cue blasts of awful sulphur-smelling air from the A/C. Coughing my lungs up, I turned off the fans. Then I got my helper to whack the solenoid and tried the engine again. Nothing. We decided someone else should rev the jeep, and I tried it again...it worked! Woo! The car hasn't started in six months, I'd say, but it sounded amazingly good. And believe it or not, I've listened to a Porsche in the last week, so exhaust notes are on the brain. Wouldn't you know it though; no fuel. While petrol was hurriedly purchased, I sat in the car, occasionally gunning it just for the novelty. Felt good, I can tell you.
When we refuelled and restarted the car (much the same as the first time), I was able to pull it out of the shed, because I was the only one who remembered how high-biting the clutch was, and it was essential to avoid stalling.
I moved it a few feet outside the shed and left it revving, with a brick on the accelerator, to try and charge the battery. I left the car for two minutes...
...and of course, a disaster. :roll:
There was steam pouring out of the car. I turned it off and raised the bonnet. Rust-coloured water was everywhere. Sigh. It's really not easy. Apparently there may have been a blockage somewhere in the cooling system. I haven't been able to do the advised flush yet because the hose isn't long enough to cross the garden. I turned off the car and left it.
So that was today. I hope you've enjoyed it. I did too, really. Bad as some of it was.
[BREAK=Flushing the cooling system]
I continued my roll today by de-kinking an enormous hose (150m) which I needed to flush the cooling system. Took me twenty minutes. :roll: But it was worth it because it would have burst otherwise.
Then I opened the bonnet and unscrewed the lid of the expansion tank, and stuck the hose in. That was the easy bit, but sealing it presented a problem. I ended up just using my hand clamped around the hose and over the opening. The radiator bleed screw came out easily enough. With the tap turned on, the water started to blast through the system and out the bleed nozzle, and damn, was it rusty.
After about ten minutes, the water was still a bit too rusty for my liking so I jammed the hose into the bleed nozzle and blasted it out the other way. This seemed to sort out the problem, it cleaned up fairly quickly. But the expansion tank was still full of rusty residue. I gave up on the regular hose and sorted out the powerhose. It didn't take too long but I did get pretty wet. I switched on the powerhose, stuck it in the expansion tank and gave it a good blast, cleaning it up considerably and sending a fresh burst of rusty water out the bleed nozzle. After that, I was able to remove most of the evidence of the rusty water from the engine bay, and even clean up the front of the car a little. All in all, mostly sorted out yesterday's problems. On the surface, at least. I think the cooling system will need inspecting, but that's for another day. Again, pictures will be a day late, but in fairness I got yesterday's ones up, so don't be too upset.
'til next time,
-C>L
In any case, the car was acquired some time ago for free from a relative as a learn-to-drive field car. It was easily good enough for the road with a little expenditure, but this was deemed uneconomical. That was last year. (Date refers to when I personally had the car in the shed where I could work on it and was given the all-clear to do so.)
The car ran fine round the house for a while but the battery was poor. You soon learn not to stall a car when it requires a good push to restart. :roll:
At this point I was really nowhere with my driving, but hoping to improve. Then the solenoid (we believe) failed. At first a tap with a wrench on starting would do the trick, but later this had no effect. Finally we put it down in the field some 50m behind the house out of the way. We planned to get a new solenoid and battery, but that never really materialised. You know how these things are. :roll:
So now I have it in the shed at last (yes, I know how lucky I am to have a shed), I plan to strip the rear seats out, do my best with the rest, and get the rear windows panelled in. Then I re-register it to a parent as a commercial vehicle for something or other, put myself down as a named driver, and voila, I have insurance. [Edit: yes, I also have much cheaper tax.
] Hopefully. Actually the rear seats are already out, but why not tell the story from the beginning? Incidentally if anyone needs advice on how to detach them, it's a bit annoying but I know how. And that's all I know. So here's to a productive few months with ye, me, and possibly a Haynes manual.More photos are to come, for now I'm only giving the back story.
Laters.
[BREAK=Battery-related eejiting]
Today I resolved to sort out the battery (thanks to bncrew for his advice RE: doing this first to avoid timewasting). However I didn't get to it for a while. Luckily the rain slowed enough for me to nip out to the shed and get the battery and charger sorted out and linked up, with some help from a more knowledgeable person. But now I have absorbed that knowledge too. I'm like a sponge for this sort of crap.
And now, the battery is comfortably overnight charging in my shed. So yay for that. If you lot are really desperate, I suppose I could snap a photo of it tomorrow, but...
Haynes manual confirmed in the post.
Also, instead of a Magic Tree, I took some home-remedy advice and stuck a bowl of white distilled vinegar in the car overnight. We'll see if that damn smell* is gone tomorrow. The plan is to reinstall the battery tomorrow and see if it starts. More on that soon.
*The cat was trapped in the car for 3 days when it was down the field. We were lucky to find her, but obviously the car was slightly the worse for wear. But I don't begrudge her it. We love the cat.
[BREAK=Crisis 1: Windscreen Crack]
Oh, today is a good day. I found the rear-view mirror in someone's bedroom.
Then I headed out to check the battery. The battery was charged. Then I opened the door and all I could smell was vinegar. The cat smell was gone. (Told you, JR!) So that's three good things. Oh wait. The bad news is yet to come. So I go out to install the battery, and one of the contacts is missing, rendering my work yesterday to get the battery out of storage and charged useless.
But I installed it anyway, because it did seem to be charged. Left it there. Then I went into the car to gloat over my amazing luck with the mirror. I tried to get it back onto the mount. Failed. Tried again. Failed. Used too much force. CRACKED the DAMN WINDSCREEN! ARGH! I am so annoyed about this, it's not even funny. The battery problem I can live with, contacts aren't too difficult to come by. But a cracked windscreen? That might be the end of this project, right here, right now. :evil:And I am not pleased.
[BREAK=Windscreen update]
Mini-update here, no pictures but nothing's changed really.
Right, so after much discussion on the topic, I've decided that my only option is to replace the windscreen. However, a new one could top €300 plus labour, and a scrapped one including labour could be half that.
But that's being a bit cynical. Could be less than €100 altogether, depending on the scrapyard. My third option is to wait 'til I get insurance, but that's risky 'cos the thing could break completely meantime. But anyway, I'm not taking the screen out until there's a serious-looking guy with all kinds of crazy-looking suction tools and putty and sealant waiting with a new screen, and that's for certain.
[BREAK=Update on commercialising]
So after consultation with my local mechanic, the news is good about the law for converted cars. The news is, for older cars there is no law!
Just reregister it and rip out the seats, sorted. I'll need to find a form at the Motor Tax Office, fill it in (adjusting the car as specified if necessary, the mechanic may have been optimistic about the law) and Boris, he ees my father's brother. On a sidenote, the kind and generally wonderful bncrew has agreed to part with his cabriolet windscreen if I don't find another one closer to home, so hurrah for him.
Now I just need to find someone to do the job......ye'll be the first to know.
[BREAK=Haynes-tastic!]
I got my Haynes manual today. Super-yay. I'll spend some time with it absorbing everything I can, and we'll see how the car looks then. Incidentally, the bit about the solenoid looks to be one of the most confusing. I don't know whether the Haynes method is best in the case of removing and (re-tightening?) the solenoid.
Trouble's a-brewin' in the engine bay, methinks. First off, I can't find the engine plate anywhere.
I've checked the places advised in the manual, but can't see it anywhere. And, everywhere I look, I see more and more rust...
Should this be purple? I don't think so. EDIT: but apparently that's quite normal rust.
Behind the driverside headlamp.
Behind the passenger-side headlamp.
And I think this white stuff is leaking antifreeze. EDIT: wrong as usual, it's regular oxidation on the aluminium.
What a mess. :roll:
Incidentally, the battle to find the engine plate was resolved somewhat a while ago, when I discovered this sticker on the driver's side doorjamb.
So it seems the car is an injection-model, E7J, whereas I thought I saw a carburettor somewhere. Ah, never mind. In any case, I also know that my colour code is 640 ('Silber grau' according to the topic on colour codes). So that's all pretty good.
[BREAK=Lidl rocks]
Yesterday I went into Lidl early in the morning and was able to purchase some snazzy car mats for only about €7. The edging is red which isn't ideal, but the hell with it, they're nice and they're cheap. I know that's a pretty pointless thing to do but I had to go in anyway. We also got a car work lamp, some overalls which I'm over-all not sure about, and lots of miscellany. Pictures of car stuff to follow, for anyone who's really THAT bored.
[BREAK=An eventful day (featuring Crisis 2: trouble with battery/cooling)]
So today had good parts and bad parts, but most importantly it had lots of parts.
Anyway, first thing that happened was I bought battery contacts at last. Then I put them on the poles of the battery - fitted perfectly.
The difficult part followed, where I had to figure out how to transfer the wires from the original Renault fittings to the new ones. The earth (negative) one was easy, simply snipping the original screw from the wire and stripping the rubber off a bit so I could slide the copper into the contact's...er...tunnel?Anyway, yeah. That was grand. I tightened the screw, smeared Vaseline on the pole (no sniggering at the back there) and attached the contact. Then I tightened the bolt on the contact and patted myself on the back (not as easy as it sounds).
It turned out that the positive pole wouldn't work with a regular contact. :roll: There were three wires and they were too short and there was too much copper to go into that tiny space.
So anyway, I made an executive decision: to hell with it. I Vaselined it up, reattached it all veery carefully and screwed it back on. At least I'd one replaced, eh? Next I screwed the long bolt that holds the battery in place back in. And I was amazed. It was done. I'd been waiting to do this for weeks and now I had to find something else to do.
So I did. I got out a Torx bit and took out the bolts on the floor in the back (size 40 in case anyone needs to know). Now it's pretty much empty back there. I was pleased to see the car move closer to its final commercial state.
I tried starting the engine. Now some of you may remember I charged the thing about a week ago, and it seemed OK, but no. Not a peep from the engine and the electrics weren't saying anything either. :roll: So I got some help and we trotted out the jeep, which has no less than TWO batteries. We linked it up and switched on the jeep. The electrics decided to work then, cue blasts of awful sulphur-smelling air from the A/C. Coughing my lungs up, I turned off the fans. Then I got my helper to whack the solenoid and tried the engine again. Nothing. We decided someone else should rev the jeep, and I tried it again...it worked! Woo! The car hasn't started in six months, I'd say, but it sounded amazingly good. And believe it or not, I've listened to a Porsche in the last week, so exhaust notes are on the brain.
Wouldn't you know it though; no fuel. While petrol was hurriedly purchased, I sat in the car, occasionally gunning it just for the novelty. Felt good, I can tell you. When we refuelled and restarted the car (much the same as the first time), I was able to pull it out of the shed, because I was the only one who remembered how high-biting the clutch was, and it was essential to avoid stalling.
I moved it a few feet outside the shed and left it revving, with a brick on the accelerator, to try and charge the battery. I left the car for two minutes...
...and of course, a disaster. :roll:
There was steam pouring out of the car. I turned it off and raised the bonnet. Rust-coloured water was everywhere. Sigh. It's really not easy.
Apparently there may have been a blockage somewhere in the cooling system. I haven't been able to do the advised flush yet because the hose isn't long enough to cross the garden. I turned off the car and left it.So that was today. I hope you've enjoyed it. I did too, really. Bad as some of it was.
[BREAK=Flushing the cooling system]
I continued my roll today by de-kinking an enormous hose (150m) which I needed to flush the cooling system. Took me twenty minutes. :roll: But it was worth it because it would have burst otherwise.
Then I opened the bonnet and unscrewed the lid of the expansion tank, and stuck the hose in. That was the easy bit, but sealing it presented a problem. I ended up just using my hand clamped around the hose and over the opening. The radiator bleed screw came out easily enough. With the tap turned on, the water started to blast through the system and out the bleed nozzle, and damn, was it rusty.
After about ten minutes, the water was still a bit too rusty for my liking so I jammed the hose into the bleed nozzle and blasted it out the other way. This seemed to sort out the problem, it cleaned up fairly quickly. But the expansion tank was still full of rusty residue. I gave up on the regular hose and sorted out the powerhose. It didn't take too long but I did get pretty wet.
I switched on the powerhose, stuck it in the expansion tank and gave it a good blast, cleaning it up considerably and sending a fresh burst of rusty water out the bleed nozzle. After that, I was able to remove most of the evidence of the rusty water from the engine bay, and even clean up the front of the car a little. All in all, mostly sorted out yesterday's problems. On the surface, at least. I think the cooling system will need inspecting, but that's for another day. Again, pictures will be a day late, but in fairness I got yesterday's ones up, so don't be too upset. 'til next time,
-C>L
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