I am mainly interested in cars from the 1970's. My favourite two being the Austin Maxi and the Renault 14, both cars I remember from my childhood.
I realised that owning a Maxi would be easy (as there are plenty around for sale), I never thought I would own a Renault 14.
I bought a Green Maxi 1750HL in late 2009, unfortunately I sold it the next spring (something I regret).
I had been looking into the idea of importing a Renault 14 from France for a few months and after some encouragement from the good people on the "Autoshite" forum I finally did last May. Although it was August before I actually had it delivered to my house.
http://autoshite.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8631
It is quite a tatty example although reasonably solid, although it did need some welding for the MOT (about £300 worth). Mechanically it is good, the engine is very smooth. It does need a few jobs doing though.
It is a 1980 TL model with the 1218cc "suitcase" engine as shared with Peugeot.
So far since August I have done around 4,000 miles in it, the only time it let me down was when one of the spark plugs "jumped" out (I don't think it had been fitted properly as I fitted a new one and it has been fine since. I had a problem when I could not get it to start for a couple of weeks, a new airfilter cured that.
Done So Far:
MOT, needed welding and a washer bottle and motor (the original had been totally removed!!!!)
Front nearside shock absorber replaced
Last year I attempted to tidy the paintwork a bit, it has been touched up with white household Dulux paint!!
Caliper was seized up on the front nearside, brakes stripped and cleaned (seems to have done the trick).
Minor Jobs:
I have a rear namebadge (found on E-bay Spain) to fit.
I have a rear nearside light cluster lens (from E-bay Spain) on the way
The Carbourettor is leaking into the manifold, I have found a repair kit (including a Gasket) on E-bay France, which hopefully should fix the problem. If not I have sourced a new Solex Carburettor.
More Major Jobs:
Some rust is coming up so I am going to have a go at that and also trying to make the bodywork tidier.
The gearchange bush is missing so the change is quite sloppy, not sure how to fix it at present. I have a cable tie doing the job at the moment (well since October) and I can change gear fine but probably should look into getting a new one made.
Must try to tidy the interior up, the original red seat trim is very worn. The previous owner had put masking tape over the demister vents (he did not like the "wind" coming through them). On removing the tape it has left quite a mess, so need to do that.
I must say the car has suprised me, I have done a couple of fairly long journeys in it, including taking four burly blokes to Snowdon. It is a comfortable car, with a nice ride, a decent amount of room and surprisingly nippy and refined. My friends are really surprised by it and it does turn heads (probably because it looks a bit of a state at the moment!!).
There are some more pictures of this and some of my previous cars on my Flickr photostream
http://www.flickr.com/photos/48758436@N05
I am going to look at another Maxi tomorrow, so hopefully I may soon have an example of both my favourite cars.
Thanks for reading,
Peter.
