1975 Renault 6TL

[moizeau]

First memory of a car was my dad's Ford Zephyr, then he had a Hillman Suoer Minx, although it made me sick 'cause of the smell of petrol inside, I'd like to find one, one day. This was followed a Marina 1.8 special, pretty quick in it's day for a family saloon. My grandad had a Maxi for a while (in between Saabs) My Grandma forced him to sell it! My favourite was (and still is in the barn) a Saab 900 classic. Before GM on their mits on them they were superb. Very comfortable, though thirsty. Same engine pretty much as a Triumph. I rebuilt the Dolly sprint engine using the Saab BOLs. I did Toulouse to Caen in one hit, in the Saab, then slept in it at the port overnight, followed by a tourist drive along the coast the next morning whilst waiting for the boat!
Is it me or do all new cars look the same? I realise it's due to wind tunnels, CAD and us demanding more power, better economy, better safety, but how many newer cars will be remembered by the grandchildren?

[Zelandeth]

Hard to beat a classic Saab 900...Lovely cars, even though as you say, kinda thirsty!

Mine struggles to beat 20mpg around Mk thanks to all the roundabouts...

[vulgalour]

Secret BL fanciers! Delightfully unexpected. The transverse straight six is actually the E series and was used throughout the 18-22/Princess production. The 18-22 moniker the Princess originally had referred to the 1800 B series and 2200 E series engine. With the introduction of Princess 2 (Don't ask, BL were bizarre with the naming of this car), the B series was replaced with the 1700 and 2000 O series - also seen in the SD1, Sherpa, and Marina to name a few - while the E carried on. I can't remember if the E was dropped with the introduction of the Ambassador, I have a feeling it was.

At the moment, I'm chasing an electrical gremlin in the Princess to get her ready for her MoT this month. I now have a new radiator from an early R5 and new matching rotor arm, distributor cap, condenser and points for the Renault so I'll be back on that once the Princess is sorted. The Princess is my first love so she's definitely going to take priority since she's so close to being road legal again now, I really want to get her to at least one show this year as she's been off the road for the better part of 3 years for various reasons.

I will get back on with the Renault probably sometime this month, hopefully no later than April. It'll then have to wait for my finances to recover a bit before it goes on the road since I'll have to fork out for MoT, tax and insurance on the Princess on top of everything I've been spending on the two cars just lately. The Rover's MoT is due in a few months too so I need to know I'm good for that financially. I have to be much more careful planning these costs since I'm self-employed and my income is somewhat variable.

Short term, the Renault will get sorted and be on the road. Long term, the Renault may be looking for a new home. I'm not in a rush, I'm just realistic about it. I'll have some fun with it and then let someone else enjoy it. Who knows, they may even restore it 'properly'. We'll have to wait and see.

[mickeymoon]

Jim you hate the Moggie?!! Philistine!

Yes, sorry. Odd isn't it but I think all variants look hideous... They're all wrong from every angle...

The wooden traveller is just about acceptable

.... because the wood makes it easier to set fire too.

Horrid, ugly things are Moggies. I also think they are hideous and horrible to drive.

If I *had* to have a classic British car i.e. had my legs amputated and needed a car, and only classic Brits were available, I'd have a Herald or a Rover P6.

I suppose it would have to be a P6 as I'm not aware of a Herd auto...

Sent from my SM-G925F using Tapatalk

[CitroJim]

Now, the Herald (and Vitesse) is another I have real soft spot for

[Gibbo2286]

My brother drove Midland Red buses and worked split shifts so he did a twenty eight mile round trip in the morning and the same in the afternoon.

I sold him a Morris 1000, a school maam's car with just 13000 miles on the clock.

I didn't see him for quite a while, next time we discussed the car he said "Great car, can't fault it although it's started using a drop of oil lately."

"Can't be." says I, how many miles on it now? "106,000" says he, "But it's OK Midland Red have plenty of oil."

He kept that car until he emigrated to OZ and had a buyer waiting for him to go so that he could get it, it had well over 200k miles by then.

[vulgalour]

[Monty Python French Accent]You silly English people with your silly English cars! Regardez le voiture vert![/Monty Python French Accent]

So this is a little update for the little car.
 
The main problem identified is that I wasn't setting things up on the compression stroke.  I'd got so confused with all the information thrown at me I'd got muddled.  This is now resolved, it is now set up on the compression stroke.
 
The other problem is that the valve clearances had tightened up and were not letting the valves operate properly.  I haven't got my feeler gauges at home so I set them to as near as I could without.  I will reset these properly.
 
Sorting those two issues out in turn showed me that the distributor drive cog was in fact in 180 degrees out.  When I put it in with the engine out of the car I'd actually done it right so it had to go back to how it was.  I had definitely been overthinking this bit!  With that back in properly the rotor arm now points at #1 when it should.
 
Here is a little video demonstrating what it's doing.  The video is a bit crappy, apparently I used a potato instead of a camera.

 
You can see it's not quite right.  My understanding is that this is down to incorrect valve clearances.  Three of four bangs are going down the exhaust like they should, one is coming back through the carburettor, hence the little plume of flames.  I'm hoping when I set the valve clearances properly, all the bangs will go down the exhaust and the car will run.  That is what I'm going to try and I will see what happens.
 
One thing I did do was compare my brand new early R5 radiator with my old late R6 radiator properly.  I knew the new rad probably would fit as I'd seen videos of cars running with them fitted.  It's surprising how similar they are in size and should be able to be modified to fit without too much grief.

 
Both hoses line up exactly, the temperature sender looks to be the same (didn't have a big enough spanner/socket to find out exactly) and the only issue really is having the one long bolt sticking out the bottom that I need to chop off or drop in the bolt hole it lines up with.  To fix to the 6 I'll make some little clamp type brackets for the top and bolt it securely in that way.

 

 
It's not much, but it's progress at least.  When I've got tools and time next week I'll do a bit more, hopefully even get it running properly.

[CitroJim]

Main thing, it's progress and that's all that matters

[ekjdm14]

Indeed, progress however small is still progress. At least your "3 bangs down the exhaust" have more chance of turning into 4 & lasting that way than mine ever did!

[CitroJim]

At least your "3 bangs down the exhaust" have more chance of turning into 4 & lasting that way than mine ever did!

Ahh yes, but very different circumstances

Yours was decidedly experimental! And what a good experiment it was

[vulgalour]

I noticed the post was edited because of "youtube tags". What's that mean?

[Gibbo2286]

That's an almighty backfire, are you sure you have the plug leads on correctly?

[CitroJim]

I noticed the post was edited because of "youtube tags". What's that mean?

To enable the video to play as an embedded video I expect... Did you originally post it as a Youtube link?

[myglaren]

I noticed the post was edited because of "youtube tags". What's that mean?

Doesn't work on this forum like autoshite unfortunately. You need to enclose just this bit: IvUU8joBb1Q in YouTube tags.

[vulgalour]

I'll try and remember that for next time. I very rarely post videos.