gamefreaks
Active Member
History:
I’ve always had a soft spot for the Renault 19. When I was a kid my dad had a few Renaults, and I always preferred them to the Fords and Ze Volkvagons he had at the time.
So…fast-forward a few years, I had passed my test and got a tidy, 19 RT, with the 1.4 Energy engine. I loved the car and drove it for about 40k miles. Finally, the head gasket started leaking at 140k miles, after taking the head off, it was clear that the head would need skimming and some of the valves were quite pitted, which would have been more time, money and effort than the car was worth, so it was exiled to the scrapheap never to return.
In the meantime, I needed a car to get to and from work, and I had my heart set on a phase 1 19 16v. In typical fashion, they were all over the pages of eBay, until I was actually looking to buy one. For the whole month pretty much there were two on there. The first one looked like a peach. A J plate, in 449 blue, 70k and 2 owners. Unfortunately the ABS had packed up, and I needed something on the road now.The second car was another J plate in Red, poor pics, no real description and the promise of £300 to drive it away.a completely unknown quantity! So I rang the owner up and we had a chat, I decided that I would buy it, and run it for a while and see how it goes.
My mate and me travelled all the way to South Wales on a coach. When we got there, I had discovered two things:
Since then I have covered 11k miles in it, and have got to know it pretty well inside and out. The paint is a bit faded, but the bodywork is actually in very good condition, as with any car this age, rust is the killer and the car seems to have survived surprisingly well, as a good prodding with a screwdriver on the sills suggests.
I was thinking of selling or breaking it and getting another one this year, however, I have decided that I will be keeping it for a while and sorting out the number of problems it has. I could probably go out and buy another one, but pretty much all of the ph1 19’s around have some problems anyway, and I know where I am with this one.
I started ‘The Project’ the other day when I sat down and listed all of the things I want to do with the car, small niggles and all. The list was pleasingly short and there is nothing on it that I am not equipped to have a crack at myself.
I have budgeted £250 per month to spend on the car.
The following is the current ‘to-do’ list:
I will be updating this project as they get completed, with mini-tutorial type articles for the tasks.
Red = Urgent
Orange = Needs Doing
Green = Would like to do.
Mechanical Tasks:
Body + Appearance:
Interior:
So, nothing too frightening there, which brings me on to the shopping list. If anyone on here has any of these items, please do get in touch. I will be keeping this updated. Any parts must be for a R19 16v.
Don’t mind travelling, and have cash waiting.
Shopping List:
Last update 11/02/2008
A new day.
Sorry there is no pics for this update. I don't have a digi-cam at the minute, probably going to get one for next weekend.
This weekend, I ordered a pair of front springs, a dizzy, and top mount bearings, none were in stock in Leicester, so have to wait until Friday before I can pick them up.
I have also found a decent looking set of leather on the bay, which I will also be picking up next weekend. (hopefully)
This weekend, I replaced the car mats. Plain black set but they look nice, and are deep pile so nice under your feet.
Also I remounted the radiator so it sits straight and secure.
I also sorted out the trip counter. This had been puzzling me for ages. The problem is that it wouldn't reset, so when you press the stalk button you get the 'debug' data. (Ie: the raw data from the sensors) so I took the dash clocks to pieces and found that a contact was missing from the reset knob. Unfortunatly this was not found rattling around in the casing so I used a bit of lead solder to 'shim' the contact. Not pretty but it works fine now. Unfortunatly, the oil pressure gauge is kaput.
I also replaced the front lower balljoints on saturday, I could have done this next weekend when I do the front springs, but I had some time and felt like getting the spanners out! Both desperately needed doing because they had loads of play and 3 of the 4 bolts holding them onto the wishbones snapped when the breaker bar came out!
Car feels much better into the corners now but still not quite 100% yet, I think that I am also going to replace the innner and outer track rod ends too, as there seems to be a bit of play in the inner joints still. (either that or the rack is fubar'ed but I rather not think of that right now...)
All fun and games...
[BREAK]
Front springs and leather
Sorry about no pics again. Still no digi cam :cry: but will borrow my mates to take some new pics with the leather and all...
Done some more work on the car this weekend, despite EuroStupidCarParts best efforts to stop me. Last Saturday, I ordered 2 front springs, a pair of top mount bearings and a distributor and rotor arm. How simple is that?
Not very it seems...
On Friday, (a whole week later), I went to collect the parts, they only had one front spring, two bearings and the distributor had no rotor arm with it.
Another spring and another distributor was ordered with the promise that they would be there the next day by 9:00am. The spring had arrived, but the distributor still had no rotor arm!
The struts were rebuilt on Saturday and the car actually sits level now. There is still a small amount of play in the steering which I was able to track down to the inner track rod ball-joint on the passenger side.
I will be ordering the track rods and ends next weekend, so they should be here probably about this time next year. :cry:
A week ago, I won an e-bay auction for some leather. I had been busy during the week so hadn't contacted the seller for a few days, anyway, I logged into my ebay and I had a message from the seller saying that he was going to be in Nottingham on the Sunday and would happily meet me in Leicester Forrest East services with the leather which would save me a trip to Oxfordshire. I called him and arrangements were made.
He turned up as arranged with the leather in tow, as described. A bit pricey at £87, but was in very good condition, so money well spent!
Fitting was easy enough.
The bolts that hold the seat rails on were well and truly seized and were rounding. :? So I simply cheated and unbolted the seats from the runners and then swapped the sub-frames over. So in case anyone here is wondering, 3dr seats can be converted to 5dr regardless of phase assuming that your existing sub-frames are OK.
Next weekends job I think will be track rod ends and arms, however I am coming towards the end of this months budget...
[BREAK]
A bout of stubbornness!
Mondays are crap. Mondays mark the end of lounging around in bed all morning, fry-ups and late night binge-drinking. Mondays mean I have to crawl out of bed at a godless hour in the morning and go to work. I don’t like Mondays.
The last thing you need is the car to not play ball…I get in, turn key…engine cranks slowly but no spark. Nothing. Oh arsebiscuits!
Tried bump-starting to no go.
So rang in work and put the battery on charge, and tried again 6 hours later. Same thing. Double Arsebiscuits!
Having worn a hole in the carpet from pacing the living room and swearing, I decided to go out and fix it. It’s 2am, dark, cold and bloody windy.
So pulled off the leads, a £40 set of Boch jobbies, less than 3 months old. One plug decided to leave the contact on the spark plug, and two of the others left the rubber ring at the end of these leads in the plug well!
Turned out that the rocker cover gasket had decided to not bother doing its job of keeping oil in the oily bits and out of the non-oily bits, and chucked oil all over the plugs.
Cleaned it up by making a mop out of a dishcloth, a ratchet extension and some duck-tape.
Not impressed!
Other jobs done over the last two weeks include:
· Speedo cable snapped. Was at the dash end, so took the end off, chucked the snapped bit, shortened the outer cable by about an inch, and remade the end of the cable. Worked fine, but cable now too short to reach with the clocks tilted forward far enough to get my hand in so had to get my arm under from behind the clutch pedal. That was fun!
· Replaced worn bolt in the gear linkage at the box end. Bush is still worn so still some side-to-side play.
· Ordered a pair of Track-rod ends today. Will try to fit tomorrow.
[BREAK]
Final Update
Car was sold at the start of May.
Has since sunk without trace.
I’ve always had a soft spot for the Renault 19. When I was a kid my dad had a few Renaults, and I always preferred them to the Fords and Ze Volkvagons he had at the time.
So…fast-forward a few years, I had passed my test and got a tidy, 19 RT, with the 1.4 Energy engine. I loved the car and drove it for about 40k miles. Finally, the head gasket started leaking at 140k miles, after taking the head off, it was clear that the head would need skimming and some of the valves were quite pitted, which would have been more time, money and effort than the car was worth, so it was exiled to the scrapheap never to return.
In the meantime, I needed a car to get to and from work, and I had my heart set on a phase 1 19 16v. In typical fashion, they were all over the pages of eBay, until I was actually looking to buy one. For the whole month pretty much there were two on there. The first one looked like a peach. A J plate, in 449 blue, 70k and 2 owners. Unfortunately the ABS had packed up, and I needed something on the road now.The second car was another J plate in Red, poor pics, no real description and the promise of £300 to drive it away.a completely unknown quantity! So I rang the owner up and we had a chat, I decided that I would buy it, and run it for a while and see how it goes.
My mate and me travelled all the way to South Wales on a coach. When we got there, I had discovered two things:
- Public transport is clearly not an acceptable way of getting from A to B.
- The car was not quite as good as I was hoping.
Since then I have covered 11k miles in it, and have got to know it pretty well inside and out. The paint is a bit faded, but the bodywork is actually in very good condition, as with any car this age, rust is the killer and the car seems to have survived surprisingly well, as a good prodding with a screwdriver on the sills suggests.
I was thinking of selling or breaking it and getting another one this year, however, I have decided that I will be keeping it for a while and sorting out the number of problems it has. I could probably go out and buy another one, but pretty much all of the ph1 19’s around have some problems anyway, and I know where I am with this one.
I started ‘The Project’ the other day when I sat down and listed all of the things I want to do with the car, small niggles and all. The list was pleasingly short and there is nothing on it that I am not equipped to have a crack at myself.
I have budgeted £250 per month to spend on the car.
The following is the current ‘to-do’ list:
I will be updating this project as they get completed, with mini-tutorial type articles for the tasks.
Red = Urgent
Orange = Needs Doing
Green = Would like to do.
Mechanical Tasks:
- Replace catalytic converter.
Cat appears to have broken up, most likely caused by wet plug well misfiring. Will probably ram it out, and replace with a new one from GSF before MOT time. - Remove broken stud from gearbox.
Gearbox currently has a broken stud in the N/S driveshaft tripod. Seeps a little gearbox oil. I am going to try and remove this with a stud extractor this month. - Full oil +gb oil + coolant change.
Routine maintenance, but needs doing this month and on a schedule from then of this month. - Replace N/S front wheel bearing.
Wheel bearing has began to whine. Annoying, will take it to local garage as it’s cheap to get them done and I don’t have a press. - Replace N/S driveshaft.
Knocks a little when on full-lock. Probably starved of oil at some point due to gearbox oil leak.
Body + Appearance:
- Replace bonnet.
Bonnet is rusty around the vent. Not really fixable. - Replace wing mirrors.
Wing mirrors have both got cracks in the casings. Will be keeping an eye out for a new pair. - Touch-up bumpers & Spoiler.
Paint on the spoiler and the front bumper have scratches because some people get a hard-on when they dig a screwdriver into paintwork. - Window seals.
Usual story, window seals going around the corners.ho hum.don’t hold much hope of finding any decent ones but you never know. - Paint rocker cover and clean up engine bay.
I think colour coded rocker covers set the engine bay off nicely. Sorry. - Ph1 16 Wheels.
Car is currently sitting on a set of TSW 15’s. A set of nice ph1 alloys would finish the car off nicely.
Interior:
- Replace rear doorcards.
Scruffy doorcards in the rear. How you manage to damnage a doorcard in a 3dr I’ll never understand, but they did. - Replace gearknob & gaiter.
Something tasteful I think. - Buy new car seat.
New girlfriend means I am resigned to hauling a 3yr old around.
So, nothing too frightening there, which brings me on to the shopping list. If anyone on here has any of these items, please do get in touch. I will be keeping this updated. Any parts must be for a R19 16v.
Don’t mind travelling, and have cash waiting.
Shopping List:
Last update 11/02/2008
- 3dr Ph1 rear doorcards. Again, must be presentable.
- Ph1 bonnet in Red. Again, must be in good condition. Don’t mind if it has the vent or not.
- Wing mirrors. Must be electric. Preferably in black plastic or red. I *think* I have found a pair.
- 3dr hatch window seals. Oh we live in hope!
- Ph1 alloys. Must be presentable condition.
A new day.
Sorry there is no pics for this update. I don't have a digi-cam at the minute, probably going to get one for next weekend.
This weekend, I ordered a pair of front springs, a dizzy, and top mount bearings, none were in stock in Leicester, so have to wait until Friday before I can pick them up.
I have also found a decent looking set of leather on the bay, which I will also be picking up next weekend. (hopefully)
This weekend, I replaced the car mats. Plain black set but they look nice, and are deep pile so nice under your feet.
Also I remounted the radiator so it sits straight and secure.
I also sorted out the trip counter. This had been puzzling me for ages. The problem is that it wouldn't reset, so when you press the stalk button you get the 'debug' data. (Ie: the raw data from the sensors) so I took the dash clocks to pieces and found that a contact was missing from the reset knob. Unfortunatly this was not found rattling around in the casing so I used a bit of lead solder to 'shim' the contact. Not pretty but it works fine now. Unfortunatly, the oil pressure gauge is kaput.
I also replaced the front lower balljoints on saturday, I could have done this next weekend when I do the front springs, but I had some time and felt like getting the spanners out! Both desperately needed doing because they had loads of play and 3 of the 4 bolts holding them onto the wishbones snapped when the breaker bar came out!
Car feels much better into the corners now but still not quite 100% yet, I think that I am also going to replace the innner and outer track rod ends too, as there seems to be a bit of play in the inner joints still. (either that or the rack is fubar'ed but I rather not think of that right now...)
All fun and games...
[BREAK]
Front springs and leather
Sorry about no pics again. Still no digi cam :cry: but will borrow my mates to take some new pics with the leather and all...
Done some more work on the car this weekend, despite EuroStupidCarParts best efforts to stop me. Last Saturday, I ordered 2 front springs, a pair of top mount bearings and a distributor and rotor arm. How simple is that?
Not very it seems...
On Friday, (a whole week later), I went to collect the parts, they only had one front spring, two bearings and the distributor had no rotor arm with it.
Another spring and another distributor was ordered with the promise that they would be there the next day by 9:00am. The spring had arrived, but the distributor still had no rotor arm!
The struts were rebuilt on Saturday and the car actually sits level now. There is still a small amount of play in the steering which I was able to track down to the inner track rod ball-joint on the passenger side.
I will be ordering the track rods and ends next weekend, so they should be here probably about this time next year. :cry:
A week ago, I won an e-bay auction for some leather. I had been busy during the week so hadn't contacted the seller for a few days, anyway, I logged into my ebay and I had a message from the seller saying that he was going to be in Nottingham on the Sunday and would happily meet me in Leicester Forrest East services with the leather which would save me a trip to Oxfordshire. I called him and arrangements were made.
He turned up as arranged with the leather in tow, as described. A bit pricey at £87, but was in very good condition, so money well spent!
Fitting was easy enough.
The bolts that hold the seat rails on were well and truly seized and were rounding. :? So I simply cheated and unbolted the seats from the runners and then swapped the sub-frames over. So in case anyone here is wondering, 3dr seats can be converted to 5dr regardless of phase assuming that your existing sub-frames are OK.
Next weekends job I think will be track rod ends and arms, however I am coming towards the end of this months budget...
[BREAK]
A bout of stubbornness!
Mondays are crap. Mondays mark the end of lounging around in bed all morning, fry-ups and late night binge-drinking. Mondays mean I have to crawl out of bed at a godless hour in the morning and go to work. I don’t like Mondays.
The last thing you need is the car to not play ball…I get in, turn key…engine cranks slowly but no spark. Nothing. Oh arsebiscuits!
Tried bump-starting to no go.
So rang in work and put the battery on charge, and tried again 6 hours later. Same thing. Double Arsebiscuits!
Having worn a hole in the carpet from pacing the living room and swearing, I decided to go out and fix it. It’s 2am, dark, cold and bloody windy.
So pulled off the leads, a £40 set of Boch jobbies, less than 3 months old. One plug decided to leave the contact on the spark plug, and two of the others left the rubber ring at the end of these leads in the plug well!
Turned out that the rocker cover gasket had decided to not bother doing its job of keeping oil in the oily bits and out of the non-oily bits, and chucked oil all over the plugs.
Cleaned it up by making a mop out of a dishcloth, a ratchet extension and some duck-tape.
Not impressed!
Other jobs done over the last two weeks include:
· Speedo cable snapped. Was at the dash end, so took the end off, chucked the snapped bit, shortened the outer cable by about an inch, and remade the end of the cable. Worked fine, but cable now too short to reach with the clocks tilted forward far enough to get my hand in so had to get my arm under from behind the clutch pedal. That was fun!
· Replaced worn bolt in the gear linkage at the box end. Bush is still worn so still some side-to-side play.
· Ordered a pair of Track-rod ends today. Will try to fit tomorrow.
[BREAK]
Final Update
Car was sold at the start of May.
Has since sunk without trace.
Last edited by a moderator:
