Toga

So, I’m back to you with some updates on my project. It has been quite the last weeks because I didn’t have too much days off to work on the car and my daughter came with some problems on her 18 years old Renault. I immediately understood that the Renault was prio 1…
So, to keep “the church in the middle of the village” as we say in French, I spent sometimes on a Rusty Renault!!

Last time I posted an update, it was about the dual distributor belt.

Well the job’s done. With the help of a friend and without any problem, we followed the procedure and advises given by p-car and JasonAndreas . The old belt was not showing any damage, but the teeth profile was rounded. (belt supposed to have 120.000km; 75000mi).
Then I replaced the spark plug cables, the distributor caps and rotors. Here again ,no major difficulties. All the cable are marked and their plastic bag too!(I-1 for cyl 1 above and II-1 for cyl 1 below etc…) The distributor caps are marked as well.


I worked bank per bank not to get confused.
There are a few cable holders that have to be replaced with the new cables. To do it easily, I placed the old cable beside the new one to mark the position where the new one had to sit in the holder. Take care that for bank 4-5-6, the cables are turning around the engine fan air duct. This means that when the cables in their holders are on the floor, they don’t lay down perfectly flat! Think about it when placing the new ones in the cable holders.

Another problem was the 2 rubber grommet which protect the cable going through the engine covers towards the lower banks.
2 solutions: or you unscrew the plug from the cable on the distributor plug side or if you are as lazy as I’m, you just cut them with a cutter.


When the grommet is squeezed in it’s engine cover location, there is anyway no risk that it could move.

This done, I replaced the old heat shield above the catalyser with a brand new one.


And then…no more excuse, I had to move the engine towards the car!
I proceeded by different steps, because a few things needed to be reconnected during the progress. And I didn’t want to delay until the engine was in place just to have an easy access to them.
The first thing I reconnected, was the accelerator cable. Quite straight forward as I only had to pass trough the engine cover, replace two rubber grommets, and place the cable end in place.
Concerning the grommets: the one trough the engine cover is easy to replace. The other one needed some silicone grease to slip in place.
The cable end is just clipped in place


Next was the clutch slave cylinder. I first put some grease on the clutch fork where the slave piston has to sit. I read somewhere here that this will prevent some noise when depressing the clutch pedal.
I had not too much difficulties replacing the slave and the two 13mm bolts. This sounded strange to me, because again on rennlist, I read that to make it easy I should open the reservoir…what I didn’t do! Well when the clutch slave was in place, no possibility to resist the temptation… I depressed the clutch pedal…which went straight to the bottom and stayed there! Gloups!! By hand, I pulled it back in place and made a search on the site to find the reason. Bleeding was the answer. So we went back to the car for bleeding the slave. Monique who nicely proposed it’s help for the day was in charge of the bleeder, when I was lying under the car for the flush. He told me the pressure was at 1.5 bar. I then opened the slave screw and…just one drop came out, no more!!!!! Wouaw the problem was more serious than expected. I came back to Monique to discuss the different solutions we had. Nothing came to our mind, so we decided to disconnect the bleeder and go back to rennlist.
Here is a picture of the bleeder:


You now understood that the protection cover can stand a pressure of 1.5 bar when staying perfectly in place. Needless to say that another try without the cover was successful, and the clutch is perfectly working!!! We drunk a beer on that one!!!

The engine was then ready to be lifted up in place. Remembering some problems I had with the starter and the right shaft when bringing it down, I decided to remove the starter from it’s location, letting it sit on top of the gear box while lifting the engine until the shaft was clear from the starter location.
That solution looked to be good. I then replaced the starter. The electrical connections gave me some doubts. Again I came back to rennlist, asked my question at 19:04, and at 20:21 I had the answer!!! As Chris Walrod says: is it a great place or what!!!


The cable that looks like its coming from the front of the car is a positive +lead coming directly from the battery and goes to the larger connector/nut on the starter (its the left most bolt on the front of the starter). The black cable that comes from directly above the transmission right next to where the rear shock enters the body is the ground strap and that goes between the lower starter mounting nut and the starter.(Thank you JasonAndreas)

I went inside the engine compartment, to reconnect all electrical connections, rubber tubes, and vacuum lines. Room left was comfortable, and again having place a sticker on each with a number to match with the “receiver”, saved us a lot of time.


Now we were ready to lift to the end, and reconnect the gearbox to the front tunnel. Monique was of great help here.

Look at that shining valve cover! I hope they will proof to be well in place and won’t let a drop of engine oil spoil the pleasure I had to do the job!!!


The last thing to do was to torque the bolts on the engine support. I bought 2 new because the thread of one of them was not good. I noticed that the new one are a bit different with a large base. But more important, those bolts are “pressed” at their end to make them turn tight on the engine mounts. This let me think that we should replace the old ones by new every time we have to remove them. Just to be sure they unscrew with vibrations after a while.


And this is how my 4s looks like now in my garage!
Closing in to a big moment of stress: turning the key!


But this could be delayed a bit more, because I don’t feel comfortable about my oil return tubes, and will probably change them.


Any recommendation on what kind of expandable aluminium tubes to buy would be appreciated (p-car, Apex, other…)

Any pop corn left Kkim?

Monique

Hey Toga,

You were not supposed to tell about my proficiency with dust plug removal!!

When you talked about shiny cover, I thought you referred to my bald spot.

JohnJL

Awesome. Congrats on the work and thanks for keeping us posted!

Oh, I missed why you took it out in the first place...what was the issue. Or are you just a masochist like the rest of us?

delanobe

Hi Toga,

I see the job is almost done. Getting a little nervous to turn the key?
Make sure that the car is running before the 20 May so we could meet at Francorchamps.

Regards

Toga

Maso, then the LWF, then the valve cover seals....
here is a complete list of what has been done so far:

-all valve covers seals + replaced screws by stainless steel ones.
-distribution chain covers seals
-alternator v-belts
- AC compressor belt
-power steering pump belt
-LWF
-clutch
-clutch pressure plate
-Rear main engine seal
-different clutch bearing
-fixed a broken support on heat tube
-replaced broken catalyser support + 2 straps
-renew all heat shields around heat tube
-rust protection and repainting of engine covers and support
-all spark plugs cables and plugs + 2 coil cables and plugs
-distributor belt
-distributor cap + rotors
-ISV cleaning
-clutch slave cylinder + rubber connection to the car.
without saying that I should go for the oil return tube which are badly rusted!
...
did I forget something?

TomF

Nice write-up. Thanks for posting all the info. The sticker idea is a really great one.

dianic

Bien fait!!! Congradulations. Good luck with the turn of the key.

Monique

This is not my doing but I think the "turn the key" will be fault free.

Except for DME which will reinitialize in safe mode then ... the teaching the DME how to think trick. We vocalized our check lists to ensure no problems.

I will be there when Toga turns the key... after my f$%^ up with the dust cover on the power bleeder, he will do that!!!

kkim

JP-

Again, awesome job and writeup. Thanks! Have lots of popcorn left for the key turning, but no beer... drank it all.

I hope all goes well w/ starting her back up and the ending to this saga will be anti climactic.

Jean-Pierre- Very good impression of "Kilroy was here"

JasonAndreas

When Monique talks you into helping him replace his wires try using rubbing alcohol as a lubricant, the wires will slide right through the grommets with very little effort and you won't have to cut anything. And unlike silicon grease the rubbing alcohol will evaporate in 30 seconds.


Put the wheels back on, lower it to the ground and start it up. You don't need the exhaust and its a real treat to hear the engine running unmuffled plus it will be a HUGE relief for you. The anxiety you feel just before you turn the key is worse than what you felt when you first decided to drop a $30K motor onto your garage floor. And if you happen to have done someting wrong, like installing the hydraulic chain tensioners upside down you won't have to pull the exhaust again to get to everything.

Good Luck!!!

Marc in AK

It's been a great write up!

Monique

Jason, You are a source of great tips. My engine will come out next month for new clutch, pressure plate and clutch slave. My car is low kms so will not need wiring yet but I should remember the tip.

Interestingly enough, if you substract the time it took to remove, prepare and install the new wiring, the actual engine replacement took only about 6 hours... including a short diversion to Rennlist for info about wiring the starter. Not bad for 2 airline pilots!!

Toga

Thank you very much to all of you for your support!
Thank you Jason for this last input about rubbing alcohol. I didn't know that product.
I definitely learned a lot on rennlist during the process. My project for next winter could be to rewrite something cleaner including those tips and propose it to p-car.

But to finish this year project, I think I'll replace the engine oil return tubes with the aluminum ones from pelican.

Any good tips or advise on this?
Looking to them, I think I'll have enough room to do it without removing the heat exchangers.

paradisenb

Awesome Toga. Really great job. Got to admire anyone with the cojones to tackle a project like this. Hats off. Thanks for the very interesting movie. Can't wait for the finale.

Your a good friend Monique. Always nice to have help. Two heads are better than one theory. If it were not 7am I would have a beer.