1975 Renault 6TL

[vulgalour]

On my old Xantia estate, the water was getting under the rear seats from the boot. It would come in through the wiring caterpillars at the top of the tailgate and the moisture membrane behind the tailgate trim and wick along the floor under the carpet and pool under the back seat. Took ages to find it.

[CitroJim]

Xantia estates are famous for leaks in the rear Luckily I know the boot is dry on mine and I reckon I've found the cause of mine. More diagnosis needed. Basically I need to drive in the rain along a very wet road!!!!

[demag]

Many years ago the Mklll Escorts used to get big puddles in the boot. The rear lights weren't sealed correctly.

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[vulgalour]

I know it's not the rear lights because you access those through the rear wheel arches rather than the boot. Also, I can see for definite it's the boot seal today because when I opened the tailgate all along the top edge where the seal presses against the tailgate was wet. The boot seal is really flat too, it's definitely past it. Luckily, it's just about the most generic seal you can get so it's cheap and easy to replace.

[demag]

Have you looked at Woolies? They do all sorts of trim accessories.

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[CitroJim]

Good call Dave and also loads of firms do rubber window/door seals and things too.. Loads of them at the Classic Motor Show last week.

Availability in any length and profile by the looks of it...

[vulgalour]

I put the shout out for seals on various forums and between the suggestions - of which Woolies is probably the most frequent - I've got the seals found that match what's on the car pretty closely. The doors take an 'arrowhead' foam seal which is about £4 a metre plus postage so I'll measure the doors and buy enough for all four. Rather than buy a boot seal, I've got hold of a Laguna 2 boot seal which looks to be a suitable profile and costs the sum total of £0. If it doesn't work, I'll just buy a length of generic seal, it's an easy one to get.

[vulgalour]

It finally stopped raining today! Time to crack on with some sealing jobs on the Renault. I was going to squidge some more sealant into the windscreen seal but it sits in so snugly I can't, instead I ran the tidiest bead of sealant I could manage over the edges of the seal where it seems to be letting water into the car and we'll see if it does the trick. If not, I can clean it back and try and different approach. That was fairly quick to do, if a little messy, and left me lots of time to get on with the next bit.

I'd put a shout out on various fora for suggestions on where to get some door seals and after looking at the various wares on offer, it was http://www.woolies-trim.co.uk/ who came up trumps with their larger arrowhead profile foam door seals. This isn't self adhesive so sealant is required to fit. 12.5 metres were needed in total for all four doors, I bought 13 because you can only buy in 1 metre multiples and it's always best to have a little bit extra, just in case.





I worked on one door at a time, stripping off the old seal and fitting the new one. The drivers side was still sealing fairly well so I could have probably got away with not doing it, but I'd rather fit new all round. The old seals were quite tired.


Remember, these are the GOOD old seals. It's no wonder the rain was getting in really.


One thing I did learn is that a lot of the glue holding the old seals on had also failed so water was getting in not just around where the old seals were shrunken but also where they just hadn't bonded to the door frame. Not any use to anyone so in the bin they go.


To make sure I had enough seals to go around, I applied the polyurethane sealant to the door frame and then fed the new seal on from the roll I'd bought. Starting at the centre of the bottom edge so the join was in the least visible place and least likely to cause sealing problems, I worked my way around the door frame, holding the seal in place with tape. I swear I ended up with more sealant on me than on the door and this stuff only seems to clean off with thinners. Got there in the end.


Here we see a rare display of a Renault 6 "peacocking" in a vain attempt to attract a mate.


There wasn't much seal left over.


Ages ago when I jacked up the car, water came out and we couldn't figure out how it had got in to where it was coming out as there didn't seem to be an obvious point of ingress.


On rolling the back seat forward and lifting the floor mat to check for water to mop out - it rained LOADS yesterday - I noticed the blanking plate over the fuel sender was loose and quite a lot of water had got in underneath.


The boot seal is next on my jobs for replacement, look how flat this is.


It got a bit cold so I'm hoping the sealant cures okay, if not I can always reglue things. The doors are more difficult to shut now than they were and you can see the seals are squishing into the places they need to so I'm cautiously optimistic.

[CitroJim]

Good work If that car is no water-tight now I'll eat my hat!!!

Would you like to come and now sort the leaks on my Xantia? You are now the specialist on the subject

[vulgalour]

Oh, I'd love to come and sort the leaks on your Xantia. It's just I've got this thing that I'm doing on that day that you're free for me to come and do it. Also, hope you have a tasty hat.

Renault's new boot seal arrived today, again ordered from Woolies. The Laguna one that might have been available suddenly wasn't so I ordered a length of suitable edge seal from Woolies which arrived today. Really easy to fit you just peel the old one off and push the new one on, trimming to size where the lock latch is.


Flat old one can go in the bin.


Again, not a lot left over. I needed just shy of 4 metres to do this and I wish I'd done it ages ago.


It doesn't make that odd crunchy noise when closing the tailgate now and it feels like it seals, the test will be when it rains. Mike had been kind enough to clean up the access plate from under the back seat. I need to glue some sort of strip seal to it and clean up the car side so this makes a good seal when reattached. I'll likely drill an extra hole in it too so it can be clamped down better, there's no visible hole to screw it into the floor that matches that on the plate itself.


Next thing then was to check how the doors had actually sealed. We've had a small amount of rain and I had noticed the car wasn't fogging up as much so I was hopeful the new seals were working. Started with the best sealing door and yep, that seal is working lovely. The door made that satisfying new seal noise when the door was opened too and there wasn't signs of moisture in the door opening. Good job!


Front door on the driver's side not as good. I really should have removed the mirror before putting the seal on so I have a small section that needs resealing once I've done that. I didn't have my allen keys to hand when fitting the new seals and thought I could get away with it. The leading edge of the door where it joins the lower A pillar also hasn't stuck so I need to reglue that too. Not the end of the world, just niggles and easily remedied. The good thing is that there wasn't really any obvious water ingress on the floor this side now.


The worst door, that being rear passenger side, is still causing problems. Water is still getting past the seal here but it's not clear how. The seal is channeling the water as it should but a small amount is still getting down the back of it. I may have to just push the top of the door frame in a bit like I did on the front door this side so that it meets the bodyshell better. The doors on this car are quite flimsy things.


I did find a small hole. At first I thought it was just black paint. That will need some attention and I'm not sure how I missed it when I did the gutter removal.


I also noticed the headlining at the windscreen edge was dry now so I may have sealed that succesfully. With the exception of the rear passenger door, the cabin was dry inside so I've certainly significantly reduced the water ingress problem. I can't do anything on the Renault's engine today as I have none of my tools at home and my loan car was taken back a couple of days ago so I haven't the transport to go and get them in a timely fashion. I can pick them up on the weekend as I'll hopefully be helping Mike put the Rover back together.

[ekjdm14]

Truly an excellent read, I'm also not hugely into Renaults (not as much as my PSA metal anyway) but it's fantastic to see something so unusual and interesting being pulled back from the brink. I recall reading a bit of this thread quite some while ago but last night/this morning have just completed reading from start to finish and now can hardly wait for the next instalment not to mention hearing what was needed to sort the engine and hopefully, when the time comes, a nice video of it's first fire-up and drive in 23-ish years.

Keep up the great work, both in what you're doing on the cars and also in the writing up & documenting on here. Thank You for wasting half my day and getting me in trouble with the better half for being a lazy sod

Speaking of Renaults, we did see a 1984-ish 18 GTS last night and managed to get a photo of it in front of us in traffic. I'll post it up in a new thread shortly so as not to derail this one, hoping it's somebody from this forum. It looked tidy enough anyhow.

[vulgalour]

The brink? I'm pretty sure this one was past the brink when I started pulling. Please do feel free to post a pic of the 18 in the wild! I shan't begrudge you that. The problem with the engine was that the bearing caps for cylinder 2 and 3 had got swapped around at some point, likely before I even went in the engine. Luckily, no other harm was done and it can be put back together and pressed into service.

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Had a poke around at the door seals today to see if I can figure out why that little bit of water is getting in and found that the seals haven't glued fully in a few places. I was worried this might happen as it got very cold while I was doing the job. They're good enough for now to keep most of the weather out and certainly a vast improvement over where we were. If we get a warm-for-winter day I'll redo the bits that need it, if not I'll wait until after the MoT and do it at the unit where I have enough indoor partially heated space. That can wait.

I wanted to get further with the engine, I'm eager to get it back in the car and tried out. First job was to get the boxes of bits out and lay them out on my useful table in my bombsite of a garage. Unfortunately I have lots of bits of Renault and nowhere to really store any of it while things are on and off the car. This is slightly compounded by having my tools and the engine crane at home after Mike and I fetched them from the unit so space is something of a premium as it's quite a narrow garage and not really designed to be a working one, just a car storing one.


There's not a huge amount to go back on. My goal before the head gasket arrives is to get the sump and gearbox attached to the engine. I can't set the timing or put the other bits on until I've fitted the new headgasket.


Got the sump on and the engine stood up again. The crank turns easily now, you can do it by hand without tools. Didn't get the gearbox on, the engine isn't really stable enough to do it on my own so Mike and I will likely have a crack at that tomorrow. Valve cover plonked on just to keep anything from falling into the top.


Eagle eyed viewers may notice one of the studs for the rocker assembly and rocker cover are missing in the above picture. The other thing that's gone walkabout are the bolts and special washers for the timing chain cover. These will no doubt be in the same box together, all of the Renault engine is in the garage, it's just that my garage is a bit of a mess at the moment, and some of the boxes of bits are under other bits of Renault. Progress is progress though, even if it's only a tiny little bit.

[CitroJim]

Excellent Another thoroughly enjoyable set of instalments in this most wonderful thread

I reckon 2017 will be the year we see this very special 6TL back on the road...

I base that on the excellent progress you are making

[vulgalour]

If - and it's a big if - everything goes as well as it seems to be doing, we might be on the road by Christmas.

[ekjdm14]

Good stuff, what a present that would be for both car and custodian (I prefer to think of older & rarer machinery having caretaker/custodians rather than owners) especially if you were able to substitute the after-Christmas-Dinner-walk with a drive round the block.

I've posted the R18 photo in a fresh thread on here in the hope it may belong to a member of the forums.