D651WEY

I have owned my GTA Turbo for almost 2 years now so I thought it would be a good time to start a project thread.

You may remember last year’s visit to RATS for a rear suspension turrets replacement and rear subframe + running gear refurbishing job.

http://www.renaultalpineownersclub.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=5189&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=30

One big mistake, the white paint… it didn’t stay white for long and one year on it look rubbish . We learn from our mistakes, so it should be black fairly soon

The engine out job disturbed a lot of electric connections etc so I spent the next few months chasing electrical gremlins. There was a lot of this








So I rewired the injector loom and other bits which got rid of a lot of issues.





I had a relatively trouble free first half of 2012 with a quick visit at RATS for a clutch change.

I managed to compete at few hillclimbs events (Gurston Down, Prescott & Abingdon) which was great.







Then I discovered that the turbo was leaking oil in the air inlet and needed refurbishing
I saw this as an opportunity to upgrade and was speaking with a local company.

Just before doing the work I decided to put the GTA on the rolling road to have an idea of where I was, for reference.







So here we go 170bhp and 189lb.ft which I guess is reasonable for a 26 years old car with 179000 miles on the clock.

At that point I started enquiring about rebuilding the engine to catch back those lost horses… instead I bought a spare engine





This was a godsend as a month later the bottom end of my engine went while having fun on the lovely Dorset roads

The car is now off the road and the plan is to swap the engine over the winter, with a few upgrades details to follow…….

Let the modding commence!!!!

[BIG_MVS]

Keep up the good work Mogster!

I guess it's done pretty well to last 2 years track abuse with that mileage.

[Alpineandy]

One big mistake, the white paint… it didn’t stay white for long and one year on it look rubbish . We learn from our mistakes, so it should be black fairly soon

There is a benefit to having light colours as it's much easier to keep a check on any future rust or damage, whereas with black something can be beyond repair before you notice it.

You could consider a different colour (silver?) instead of black... even though Black does seem to look the best

everytime it rains hard i find water in the footwell and in the fuse and relay box under the steering wheel i have changed the door seals but it still happens. i really dont know where the water is coming in from. could it come from the windscreen seal?

with therecent heavy rain i found loads of water in the footwell, the carpet was soaking wet so i removed it and found this





this is only on the driver side... is this structural? it stops at the raised crossmember under the seat which does not look damaged. how do i get about repairing this?

i'm very worried about this, i am now planning to remove all the carpets to check everywhere inside the car. any tips on removing the carpet? there seems to be a strong yellow glue which makes it difficult to remove...



also found rust on the floor behind the pedal cover. look fine from underneath though.





and the handbrake bracket, but thats only surface rust so not not too worried about this.

http://s1218.photobucket.com/albums/dd4 ... t/IIB5005/

[BIG_MVS]

Crikey, bet your heart sunk when you peeled back that carpet

All repairable I guess, looks like another trip to Derbyshire then?

Will be windscreen more than likely. Sit in side and get her indoors aka your wife to spray a hose around windscreen then door window and door mirror. It could also be damage to the plastic layer inside the door which should stop water entering inside once it has entered between window and door.

Crikey, bet your heart sunk when you peeled back that carpet

All repairable I guess, looks like another trip to Derbyshire then?

indeed it sank!!! this kind of discovery is very disheartening + really scared to see the extend of the damage + how much that's going to cost to make good:cry:

Clee, the pictures you posted, did you cut the fiberglass to look inside or does it come off somehow?

Miles, thanks for the advice, i will try that and hopefully will see where it comes from...

You have to cut to get at it .
The pics show one we did a few months ago .It had had some repairs from the inside at some point but not very successfully ....
Main safety issue is seat belt anchors .

Mine was similar, long time water leak into footwell, carpet never drys out and it goes all manky. Car was outside and not being used so I never realised it was like it. 2 years later horrible mess. Water will be coming from one of 3 places. Screen top corner, door seal - most common - especially if hinges iffy or under bonnet area if not sealed correctly at top edge - this more likely if parked at a slightly uphill angle.

.
How are you getting on with it Cedric? Have you had a good poke around to see how solid or not it is? It's essentially a side impact bar that serves the belt pickups as CLee says and convenient electrical bonding, as the structural integrity is only maintained when the metal side panel is fully bonded to the fibre glass structure forming a box section.

Anyway, hopefully to make you feel a bit better, in turbo world progress is being made:

Turbonetics S series T04E compressor being re-trimmed to meet flow expectations and Cedric’s target use. Back plate will be machined to match next.



Quick comparison of old and new with up-rated turbine to match:

looking good yeah!

i have been fairly busy in the last few weeks finishing off my lean-to and my drive... so i have not touched the car which was parked in the street to allow for the drive work.

the lean-to is now finished and the replacement engine has moved in (just in time before the wife filed it up with random unnecessary stuff...). This is where i will be working during the winter not very spacious but at least dry and warm.



the drive is also finished which means that the gta can move back on it tomorrow (which is a good thing as i found some muddy footprints on the bonnet and roof this morning... how they manage not to dent anything i dont know but as you can imagine i was pretty fecked off) and make loads of oil patches on the brand new tarmac...



i will be able to get it ready for taking the engine out at some point when the rain stops...

in the meantime i have started taking bits off the new engine to give it a good clean etc

i need an engine glass cover latch spring as shown on the picture below... anybody got a spare one??



many thanks

Right, car back on the drive, started disconnecting few bits, draining coolant etc... in preparation for the engine out operation...

took the turbo out of old engine to send to Mr Faulks, most of it was fairly straight forward and came off ok as Clee and i removed it earlier this year when replacing the clutch. however, the rear screw for the oil return pipe on the bottom of the turbo is an absolute ball ache to remove.... took me an hour to get that one out!!!

while i was in the car i took five minutes to remove some more carpets...

passenger footwell



that brown foam is absolutely soaked... how do i take it out? how far back does it go? what is its purpose? i guess i need to remove the centre console? how do i go about it?



water coming out of heater matrix?



fuse box soaked again....



dried it all as much as possible and the car is back under the cover so hopefully will stay dry until i have some time to solve this...

back in the lean-to i have also started taking bits off to clean etc...









Every bit carefully bagged and labelled so i know how it goes back together...