Unparallel Renault 16 Happenings

[Junkman]

Currently I'm not even close to where you are with yours, but I want to hold on to the car and improve it as much as my current life situation allows. I also think we should stick together R16 wise. Unity is strength. The more we are in this together, the more each of us will benefit.

It's been almost two years and I have accumulated a wealth of knowledge so far. It's not nearly up to where I am with yank tanks yet, but I'm constantly working on it. This and my infamous resourcefulness when it comes to obtaining bits and pieces is what I can bring to the table. It's not because I'm smart, it's because I'm not rich and never managed to buy a decent car in my life.

I see the progress you make on yours and am impressed. I don't have the skills to do that and likely never will. But when it comes to oily bits and authenticity, I'm a force to be reckoned with.

My immediate plans for the future are to convert my car back to the original front brakes. It's currently fitted with the 1968 and later version up front, but I managed to obtain NOS calipers and discs. After fitting these, I expect the entire brake system to harmonise better with the original spec master cylinder it is fitted with. This leads to some indifferent braking when you are braking hard. The pedal travel is sometimes a bit long, sometimes not, and it has a tendency for the rear brakes locking up before the front ones do. I like to believe this will change considerably once it's back to what an armada of very well paid Renault engineers came up with, instead of this tinkering done by some shade tree mechanics who think they can outsmart them.
Well, we'll see how it goes, since early R16 tests weren't exactly praising the brakes. But having original equipment in my car at least gives me the peace of mind I so cherish. As in, if the brakes were shit, so be it, but at least they are the original ones.

The fallout of this is that there will be a perfectly useable set of front brakes available for your car, if you need them after all these years of dormancy.

The difference between pre and post 1968 cars cannot be overestimated.
Fuck, man. I hate those 68ers.

[CLINT]

Yours looks to be a straight, unmolosted car. Mine to be honest is a bit of a dog bodywise and will never look quite right without new door skins, new wings etc. But I like fixing stuff, and anyway it doesn't have to be perfect. I don't need it so good that I am frightened to use it.

Thanks for the offer of the brakes but mine has completely new brakes all round which cost me £600 so hopefully they will be good for a few years. Next expense, other than painting consumables is to get the radiator 're cored.

[Junkman]

Mine had a shunt front right, so the wing is full of wob, the bonnet and front panel badly mended and the left wing is also nothing to write home about. The drivers door is fucked, it needs both outer sills and I bet you there will be more revealing itself once the cutting starts. It now has a tiny rust hole where the boot floor meets the back panel underneath the anchor bracket of the rear bumper. The floors were welded to MoT requirements and will need doing properly. All door skins and the right rear wheelarch have more waves than the Atlantic. Some stuff has been replaced with phase 2 bits when original equipment was deemed too hard to come by. And it is rusting everywhere. I wouldn't call this unmolested. I call it Paris spec.

[CLINT]

Ah well, still not too bad for its age. Nothing that can't be sorted.

You say us R16 owners should stick together, well we are both in the Renault 16 register section of the Classic Renault forum. It's a pretty dead forum and I rarely look on there but I see they are looking for someone to co-ordinate meetings and shows. They need some young blood (under 60) as they are all in their 70s.

[Junkman]

I can understand the "young blood" being rather reluctant to venture into classic Renault ownership. Available cars are rare enough to border on obscurity and the asking prices the old farts put up are so deranged that many would be owners opt for cars that are perceived to be more attractive for the money instead.

[Junkman]

Not again.



Shit.

[Hooli]

Does the exhaust form a structural member & hold the rear of the car on?

[Junkman]

Pattern parts. Nuff said?

Anyway, to counter the shagged exhaust, I decided to do something I've procrastinated way too long.
The sound deadening they used on the bulkhead was rather shagged. Also, about 75% were missing.








I got me some new stuff.




It's closed cell foam, so it won't soak with water. It's sticky and it weighs nothing. I used 20mm thick stuff on the bulkhead. I have a few rolls in 10mm thickness, which I will use on the floor, as a kind of underfelt. I will eventually replace the rubber floor mats with carpet. The rubber mats have a tendency to trap moisture underneath and they are also rather shagged after over half a century. The closed cell foam underlay in conjunction with some modern breathable carpet should take care of this, make the interior even quieter and also just a bit more homely, without actually adding too much weight to the car.

[Junkman]

Oh, and regarding the exhaust, the pattern pipes I managed to obtain just don't provide enough overlap where they are stuck inside each other and the silencer, they are barely long enough for merely covering the slotted ends of the adjacent pipe. This was designed to fail from the onset and did so with annoying regularity. I had a joiner custom made now, which should solve the problem once and for all.

What remains is the ever failing seal between the front pipe and the manifold. Sadly the original clamp was fucked.




I replaced it with one of those newfangled Chinese stamped steel ones, which obviously doesn't do the trick. Basically it fails to completely wedge the pipe to the manifold, so a lot of asbestos thoothpaste was used for sealing. After a relatively short while that burns off and then it's consequently leaking again. I have a genuine R16 clamp on the way now and thus this problem might be solved soon, too.

[fried onions]

Never mind these trifling matters. You fixed the passenger windscreen washer jet, yet?