Vulgalour's Vehicles - 10/03 Ignition Switch Woe

[JPB]

Looking good!

The front suspension will settle just as soon as the car has covered its first few Yards once recommissioning is complete. No struts here, so the wishbones mean that each wheel describes an arc when the suspension is extended or compressed and they take a short while to settle to their off load state.
So nowt to worry about there.

[vulgalour]

There are certain milestones in any project, particularly one as brave/stupid as this one. Today, the milestone of lights was achieved, mostly. Mike was at the unit well before me today and called me just as I was getting stuff together to go in to let me know he'd already hooked up all the electrics, was I going in to help? Of course I was going in to help, and I was very surprised he'd already put all the wires where they needed to go.

Key in the ignition (which you turn towards yourself and is on the left of the column, counter intuitively) and see what happens. Oooh, an ignition light! We didn't have one of those last time we put a battery on the car.


Soon we realised that more work was going to be needed, connections cleaned up, bulbs replaced, that sort of thing. On trying the various controls we found the wiper motor works at speeds Slow and Not As Slow, the new wiper blades were fitted when the screen was cleaned and that proved entirely satisfactory. The blower fan works, and blows both Slow and Not As Slow, so again that was deemed adequate. Sidelights and front indicators did nothing, indicator switch did nothing, headlights worked on dip and main (twist stalk for sidelights, pull down once for dip and again for main), we tried the hazard switch and one indicator worked on the rear. Here's a boring video.


Rear running lights work and, after the switch came unstuck, so did the brake lights. Reversing lights were found to be purely decorative, there's no wires at all running to them and by the looks of things never were on this car so the tailgate is probably off another car, perhaps the same donor as the other metallic green panels came off as this one was also metallic green (that's at least one front door, both inner front wings, one outer front wing for those keeping tabs). Here's an even more boring video.


Also learned that the passenger side lens is the wrong type but that it's because there were two manufacturers offering the same rear light with a slightly different design. Info from R6 guru Mr Reno on that one. I'm going to replace just the lens as the one fitted is not only the wrong type but also appears to be from the wrong side of the car. After some jiggery pokery and a full compliment of new bulbs we had both indicators on the back working.


My brother fiddled bout with switches and switch cleaner and got the indicator stalk working and the telltale for it on the dash working. Also of note is that the dash lights illuminate, the hazard warning light works, the ignition telltale works. As yet there is no visible telltale for dip or main beam aside from a very dim red light on the far left so there's some investigation still to do on the instrument cluster, it may be bad connections, dead bulbs, or something of that sort. Odometer/Speedometer cable was also reconnected as that had come unseated at some point.


The interior light works, both door switches operate with the passenger one needing a bit of a clean as it's a little sticky.


Up front, everything but the driver's side indicator works. We've not found the reason for this yet, we suspect it's a bad connector or earth somewhere, we just ran out of time to investigate further. Used the old headlight bowl just to test the new bulbs and see that things worked. Rather than use the original golf ball type halogens I used a variant that has the same mounting bracket but is more like an H4 in shape. It ups the light output considerably without looking overly modern, a sensible modernisation. I've already forgotten what the bulb type is called.


The most frustrating thing to discover is that the starter motor appears to have died. We did bench test it a little over a year ago but didn't then bench test it again before refitting it to the car which we should have done. It can be resurrected by a local guy who won't charge a great deal and who did a great job on the starter motor for my Princess. So we didn't get to see if the car would run today which was a shame. We did learn the handbrake definitely works and appears to work quite well.

Only a short day on the car today but a very productive and rewarding one. Seeing so much spring to life after being dormant for such a long time was really exciting, probably disproportionately so.

[vulgalour]

Headlining made today and first fit attempted to check everything was as it should be. This style of headlining is very easy to make, it's essentially a length of fabric with pleats in to hold the wires. The key is getting the pleats in the correct locations so you have good even tension front to back. On the whole I managed that. I salvaged the plastic strip from the old headlining that goes into the tensioning strip at the back of the roof and sewed it into the new headlining. It won't be seen when fully fitted.


At the moment this is just loosely in on the wires. For the most part the tension is really good, at the back especially so. The wrinkles will disappear when I put the side tension on, a job I'm saving for when I know I don't need to do any more work with the wires that run above the headlining and the welding that the roof and passenger side gutter still needs.


The front wire I've misplaced slightly, not by a great deal but by enough to cause a sag that you can't pull out. It's an easy task to relocate the wire and refit.


The scariest part will be removal and refitting of the windscreen, a vital job because it's the only way to get the tension on the front of the headlining properly. It's a job I'll have to do anyway to see if I can resolve the water leak on the driver's side of the screen and deal with any rust or damage that might be hiding. If it were a laminated screen I wouldn't be so nervous about it and if replacement screens were easy to get hold of I'd just buy a new one and have the pros fit it for me.

Mike told me he got the indicator working too, it was just a duff connection.

[JPB]

Loving that roof cloth replacement material. Regarding the screen, toughened ones are very forgiving, unlike laminated which will tend to snap if anyone is even slightly assertive when fitting the things.

[vulgalour]

I understood toughened screens were more likely to break than laminated, if it's the other way around that's reassuring. Looks like a nice universal type seal with a chrome insert that I might replace. Don't want to make things look too nice. I'm only retrimming the headlining and partial carpet as they're the only bits that needed replacing, the rest is all in reasonable enough condition to leave standard. The new headlining is lighter than the old and to help with tension it has a slight stretch in one direction which should make for a smart end result once I've repositioned that front bow/wire.

[kstrutt1]

In my experience it's pretty difficult to break a toughened screen unless you use a sharp point or lever on the edge, as John says laminated are another matter.

[vulgalour]

Few little jobs done today, not a huge amount, but a bit. First up, getting that old exhaust off. It was rusted up and even though the nuts came undone fairly easily the backbox did not want to let go so I just cut through the main pipe as it wasn't worth saving. The old exhaust could be sacrificed this way because I had a whole new system to go on. New on the left, old on the right. In the second picture you can see just how comprehensively ruined the old backbox was.




The tensioner was cleaned up and fitted complete with a new nut.


Another job that wanted to be done today was fitting the new clutch cable which meant an opportunity to remove the dashboard for better access and to inspect what's what behind it. There were many dead wasps hiding behind the dashboard that were cleared away and a hint of why the scuttle has rotted out where it has. There are two holes inside the scuttle section and it's packed with foam. When I cut out the rot on the passenger corner I will get as much of this foam out as I can in part because I don't want to set fire to it but also to get rid of the problem. It would also appear from rust staining that even though the water has been appearing on the driver's side it could well be getting in on the passenger side.


Little bit of history laminated to the parcel shelf and a hint of the travels the previous owner has been on, or intended to make. Take the National Express when your life's in a mess, it'll make you smile. All human life is here from the feeble old dear to the screaming child...


Anyway, enough Divine Comedy for now, here's what little there is behind the dashboard. With it all out there was a delightful lack of bodge or wiring danger. With gentle persuasion the hot/cold lever was made to move again, spending a long time just wiggling it side to side until now it moves with the proper lever attached. The fan control panel has a smear of some sort of gunk all over it that was hiding behind the decorative plate, which seemed a bit odd. All of the dead wasps were vacuumed out from behind the dashboard too.


I was very careful with the dashboard, it's 40+ year old plastic and rare in right hand drive format, I'm highly unlikely to find another. It will be a lot easier to clean up properly out of the car.


I could now inspect the bulbs too. At least one appears to have blown so I'm just going to replace all 5 of the bulbs with new ones. I notice there are what look like two empty sockets in the white section of the cluster, there doesn't appear to be anything that fits in them and I'm not sure if that's by design or not. I'm also uncertain if this car even has a dip/main telltale.


The bulbs are push-fit into little holders. I can't imagine these are any fun to change with the dashboard fitted.


Happily, I managed to resolve the issue with the sagging headlining section without doing any sewing. In the roof sides there are holes that the tensioning bars slot into and at the front there are two identical holes set close together. I'd just put the bar into the wrong hole, fitting it in the proper hole put a healthy amount of tension across the entire headlining.




The clutch cable was mostly fitted, Mike spent quite some time in the footwell dealing with the typical French issue of clutch pedal clips. The gearbox end hasn't been connected yet, it may be easier to remove the starter motor with it sitting loose.

[JPB]

More solid progress, well done. The high beam telltale is only an MOT requirement on vehicles first used on or after the first of April, 1986 (MOT tester's manual, section 1.7) so technically, your car doesn't have to have the lamp, but I'd be surprised to find that a Renault of that age lacked such a thing as I've seen the expected blue lamp on an older R12 and an R4 of similar age to your R6.
With the bows all in their best positions, that roof cloth looks most impressive now, I haven't seen a similar modification before so maybe you'll start a trend with that idea.

[vulgalour]

In other trend setting news, I'm after a brown/grey stripe rug to chop up to replace the old rotten partial carpets the car had, found a few choices that are sub £20 to do the whole car so I'm going to see if I can find one in the real world. Useful being handy with a needle and thread, really.

The main beam telltale it would appear is a very dark red telltale, one that did illuminate when going through the various controls, rather than a blue one. This is a confirmed by another UK owner of an older R6 who has the same set up. Odd, but at least it's there, just not how I expected it.

[vulgalour]

Last night, in readiness for a few hours of Renault repairs today, I got the dashboard and sunvisors into some soapy water so they can go back in sooner rather than later. It was a little bit grim.


Caretaker Kes had already done a cracking job on the brushed metal trim on the dash. All the plastics, however, were covered in dust and mud and that grime you get from someone smoking in a car for a very long time. Didn't realise how smelly things were until yesterday when we came back to the house and it stank of stale tobacco just from having the dashboard in the living room for a few hours. Nasty. All clean now, happily.




While I do still have the cowling that goes under the steering wheel, it is in poor condition. Historic repairs and damage to the screw-tubes are the main problem which can probably be resolved with suitable glue and scraps of plastic. It's an item on my Would Like list, but not vital.

Today I intended to get the passenger side gutter sorted out and ready for filler and paint. I got as far as the first stage of trimming back and tacking so I can build the repair sections where needed when the welding gas ran out. That was quite annoying because until I've repaired the roof there's a few jobs it holds up. The headlining can't be fitted until the roof is repaired, which also means the windscreen can't come out to have the leak sorted and the dashboard has to wait a bit longer before its refitted. Still, it's a bit of progress and a bit of rust removed, just got to wait on the new gas bottle being ordered and delivered now. The roof this side isn't quite as bad as I'd expected, I should only need a couple of very small pieces of new metal let in where the old has dissolved.


There wasn't much point doing anything engine-wise either, we've been unable to contact the starter motor refurbisher and rather than having parts lying loose about the place it seemed more sensible to just leave things as they are. I didn't really have the time spare today to do the exhaust or brakes so I looked at the smaller jobs and settled for one of the important ones, namely replacing the 10 fixing bolts for the ball joints with nice new proper ones and nyloc nuts. I can't put the bolts in the other way up as they won't physically fit, the new ones do clear everything as far as I can tell. The old improper fixings that came with the new ball joints were so ill-suited that some had already started to work loose and one had bent, particularly alarming considering the car has only been pushed around the unit at walking speed since fitting them. The quality (or lack thereof) of the supplied fixings concerns me when it comes to the quality of the ball joints themselves, time will tell on that front I suppose.




There weren't really any quick jobs to do after that and I had other things that needed doing so I just had a tidy up and called it a day. I'll likely not be working on this again now until next week. There's an awful lot of mud coming from somewhere under the car, every time I do anything another massive amount of dried out mud appears on the floor.