The Renaultvation continues

It's been a few months since the excitement of finding the Renault 6 hidden in Bob's garage and bringing it to its new home. A lot has happened since then and the car now looks very different from the dusty and forgotten relic we first clapped eyes on, although there is still a long way to go before it sees the road again. There has been a lot of frustration and the term 'because French' has been coined to describe its wilful idiosyncrasies that cause so much swearing and head-scratching, but an overwhelming outpouring of love and support from everyone who has come into contact with the car has kept us going.

It's come a long way from here. Still doesn't run though.

It quickly became the subject of the most popular thread ever on the Autoshite forum with over a hundred likes, and everyone is keen to see it recommissioned. The generosity of forum members is incredible, gladly offering advice and donating rare parts and literature to the cause for no more than the cost of postage, and massive thanks go to everyone who has contributed to the rescue of this rare car. Here's how things have progressed so far...

We're hoping it'll end up like this once more

Brakes not broken, and the hole truth

The first job has been to rebuild the brakes as the intention is try freeing the engine by pulling it behind another car and letting the clutch out, so it's a good idea to have working brakes before attempting that. It's been a frustrating task thanks to the bizarre way this car is put together (the drums at each end have little in common and are both stupidly designed but in different ways), but the front brakes are now done and it has a working handbrake - remember that the handbrake is on the front wheels of the early R6s? Work on the back brakes is progressing steadily and one side is now done with the other stripped ready for a rebuild, but has now stopped for the winter as it just gets too cold in the garage - it's snowing as I write this.

A back to front engine for hours of fun

A lot of cosmetic work has also been done and the old unloved Renault looks much smarter now. A thorough wash swept away more than two decades of grime to reveal a remarkably sound paint job that was a bit faded but has responded really well to polishing. We don't know when Bob painted it but suspect after British Rail introduced the blue livery he obtained some surplus green paint from his local depot and used it on the Renault. Amusingly the dents you can see today were there before the repaint and he literally painted right over them without making any attempt to straighten them out!

As it was before Bob painted it. Those dents are still there now.

The current paint job divides opinion, with some people wanting to see it returned to the metallic green it left the factory in, while the majority argue it's part of the car's history and a unique talking point so it should be left as it is. A full stripdown and respray simply isn't cost-effective and the car won't ever be a show winner without a complete restoration so we've agreed to leave the paint alone. The yellow tape stripes were peeling off and spoiling the looks a bit, but amazingly we found a roll of identical tape in a drawer so these have been replaced with fresh stripes in exactly the same style. A coat of paint on the wheels also made a huge difference and it now looks almost the same as it does in the photos Bob took just after he had completed the repaint. It still doesn't run but at least it now looks good sitting in the garage...

It now looks a lot like this again

Sadly our hopes that it would escape bodywork restoration were dashed with the discovery of some rot in the nearside rear floorpan that when poked turned into an eight-inch square hole, so it's now awaiting the attention of a mobile welder. The rest of the metal looks okay though: previous rusty patches had all been plated and undersealed and still appear sound, and the panels are not structural and thus not a concern for the MOT in the unlikely event it'll need one. As well as the dents, a bit of filler and some rust bubbling through, there are also some mysterious holes drilled in the nearside rear wing that look like they could have been for a CB radio aerial.

Oops. Prodding that small hole soon turned it into a big one. Exhaust is in the way too.

Because French...

Some of the design decisions made on this car really do defy common sense. The bumpers are a prime example: they are identical in size and shape so there is an obvious economy to be made by using the same part at both ends, but no, they're not interchangeable as the mounting holes are in slightly different places for no apparent reason whatsoever! Then there's the adjuster pulley for the water pump belt. This has to come off to access the spark plugs (it's French, don't ask) but the nut wouldn't move so the brute force bar was applied and the thread promptly snapped clean off the bolt. What the hell?

Spare bumper was a lucky find. Looks like it could go either end but it'll only fit on the back.

Fast forward a few weeks and an original owner's handbook is kindly donated to the cause (thanks Anthony). Idly reading through this solves the mystery: the tensioner pulley bracket is a left-hand thread. Sadly we didn't know this at the time and haven't the faintest idea why as there's no apparent need for it to be this way, but yes, tightening a tight bolt even tighter is going to break it. That's a bit of a problem as a new water pump tensioner pulley bracket for a Renault 6 isn't something you can buy from the local motor factors (or anywhere else for that matter).

Rear hub with stupid stuck bearing. Because French!

In fact, obtaining parts for this car has proved a bit of a challenge even when they are available. Online sellers insist on quoting the registration number but then say it doesn't exist because it's been off the road so long it isn't on their database, so we tell them it's a Renault 6 only for them to refuse to supply as this part supposedly doesn't fit the Renault 6 even though it's identical to the Renault 4 they say it does fit. It's much easier to claim we have a Renault 4 but even then there can be different types. The brake hoses for instance come in two lengths so the supplier sensibly asked which we wanted, but unfortunately not until a couple of hours after they had despatched the wrong ones!  

Before and after. Shiny wheels are much better.

 

Filling in the history

We still haven't found any paperwork in Bob's name, not even the V5, and we think the other executor may have sorted out all the important-looking documents and taken them home to deal with. Hopefully she has the history file as Bob wasn't the type to have thrown anything like this away, and it will eventually be reunited with the car to reveal more about it. All we have so far are a handful of invoices addressed to previous owners that Bob for some reason had kept separately from his own paperwork, plus what we've been told by his friends and the owners who had it immediately before him, but this is enough to piece a few things together.

The big bill from Bournemouth. If you're out there, Mrs Gusterson, we'd love to hear from you.

The first owner we know of is a Mrs Gusterson, who may have bought it new. We don't know much about her except that she definitely owned it in 1978 as that was the year she took it to Bournemouth and received a huge bill for an engine rebuild from the Renault garage there. She sold it a couple of years later to Steve and Venice Edgar, the couple we unexpectedly met on the way home, who told us they bought it to replace a Triumph Spitfire when their daughter was born in 1980, and there are holes in the boot floor that were put there to fit the restraints for her travel cot. There are a few invoices addressed to the Edgars for routine things like a new exhaust, all from local garages in the Rugby and Southam area.

JNX at an Edgar family wedding in May 1980 (Photo: Steve Edgar)

The Edgar family enjoyed camping holidays and Steve remembered buying the roof rack that is still with the car from Halfords to pack their tent on. They didn't keep the Renault very long though as they bought a caravan and an Austin 2200 to pull it (a car they described as 'horrible') and sold it to Bob sometime in 1981. He ran it until 1993/94 and then put it away in the garage where we found it, the last tax having expired in March 1994 - even back then it must have been a rare survivor. Model buses seem to be a common theme with this car as by a strange coincidence Steve Edgar is a retired Stagecoach bus driver who collects models and is very likely to have bought some from Bob, who used to sell them on a local market stall.

Sadly we don't know why it ended up gathering dust here for half its life

A mutual friend has suggested Bob put the Renault away because there was something wrong with it that he was going to get fixed but never got round to. The underside is covered in a layer of underseal that looks very clean and appears to have been done not long before the car came off the road, and the fact the boot hadn't been emptied also suggests the lay-up wasn't planned and happened quite suddenly. Unfortunately no one knows what the problem was that caused this and it's impossible to tell if he stopped using it because the engine seized or vice versa, although we suspect the latter. Whatever happened, he just left it to gather dust for the rest of his life and it's amazing he never got fed up of it cluttering up his garage and had it taken away for scrap.

Looking much better for a wash

So that's where we are with the little Renault at the moment. It's certainly an interesting project and so very different from the British Leyland classics we're used to, and has caused more than its fair share of frustration and bad language, but progress is gradually being made and it's received plenty of love to make up for the last 23 years of neglect. There's no rush to get it finished and it's unlikely to be on the road before the 40-year MOT exemption is introduced in May so that's one less thing to worry about. We hope to have it done in time for next year's Festival of the Unexceptional in mid-July as that seems a fitting place for its show debut but this isn't guaranteed. It's unlikely there will be any more updates this year, but keep watching this space for more about the resurrection of our garage find.  

Some inspiration to keep us going. This later R6 lives locally.