Finally fitting the turbo

All three Team Trackbitch team members were back together and we were aiming to finally get the car back on the road. This time were were also joined by an honorary team member Dave Oates who is a professional photographer, he kindly took a load of pictures of us all hard at work which have been used through this posting, he also helped us out with his mechanical knowledge.

The turbo was assembled off the car to check all the bodged connectors we'd fitted all came together. With the new larger turbo, larger actuator and larger oil-in line it really was going to be a tight fit. We'd been able to use an adapted oil-out line off a Renault 21 Turbo which seemed to fit OK, the water in and out only required one new banjo bolt and the oil-in fitted with a bit of a squeeze. it was just the actuator again from a Renault 21 Turbo that took a bit of tweaking to fit in place.

Hole where the turbo was going - Picture from www.davidoates.net

With the turbo assembled off the car we first had to re-fit the downpipe. Whilst this was off the car we welded in an AFR boss, we could then use an AFR gauge to set the car up and also use on trackdays to check our air/fuel mix was correct. The downpipe proved to be an awkward part to get back on the car and took numerous attempts to finally get attached. With the car only on axle stands it was also difficult working on the car with limited space. After a lot of swearing and forcing the part was attached.

Numerous nuts & bolts, turbos and tools - picture from www.davidoates.net

As the car was having a new turbo we also chose to change the coolant as we didn't want to overheat our new turbo. In theory, this wasn't too hard a job, simply disconnect a couple of hoses near the radiator, flush through with a hose pipe, connect the hoses, add new coolant and then bleed the system. For some reason it was pretty difficult to get to the radiator hoses and we spent quite a lot of time taking more of the car apart to get better access to the hose clips. After a lot of swearing and cursing the clips were undone and the system was drained making a real mess over the driveway!

Time for a break - Normandy Cider - picture from www.davidoates.net

New coolant was added and system was bled. Now it was time to finally fit the turbo.

The turbo went on OK, oil-out, water in & out were connected up fine. It was the oil-in and actuator that proved to be troublesome, because we'd fitted a new oil-in pipe it was a very tight fitting and the larger actuator was competing for space in the engine bay, however after more swearing we'd finally got the new turbo on and all nuts torqued up.

Picture of Team Trackbitch hard at work - taken by www.davidoates.net

Finally, the new turbo was on. Next step was to prime the turbo with oil before turning the engine over, this is done by disconnecting the electronic ignition and allowing the oil pump to pump oil around the engine. In theory, you turn the engine over (but not fire up) for a couple of minutes and this primes the turbo, the electronic ignition is reconnected and then you start the car properly. However, the car was turning over but the oil pressure light was not going out, we disconnected the oil-in line at the sump to see if any oil had been pumped through but the banjo bolt was completely dry. It looked like we had an oil pump problem or maybe a lazy oil pump that need the engine running to pump oil through?

The way to test this was reconnect the electronic ignition and hope we had a lazy oil pump, if we did we'd see oil come out of the banjo bolt. The ignition was plugged back in and the engine turned over, we must have loosened the banjo quite a lot as it dumped around half a litre of oil on the drive (with no catch pan). We had a lazy oil pump.

We attempted to reconnected the oil-in pipe, but it was at such high tension at the turbo side it was impossible to screw back in. This now meant we had to disconnect quite a few of the turbo parts to then reconnect the oil-in line. It appeared you needed a lot of time and patience when embarking on a car project!!

TURBO BOOST - Picture by www.davidoates.net

30 minutes later and everything was put back together, all that was left to do now was start the engine. The engine was turned over and The Baron was alive again, there was still a bit of blue smoke, but the old turbo had dumped quite a lot of oil in the exhaust. After running for a few minutes this began to clear.

Video of engine running for the first time with new turbo.

On the test drive the new turbo appeared to boost fine, kicks in a bit later (around 3,000 - 3,500 revs when compared to 2,500 with the smaller T2) but we did expect this with a larger turbo. It also only boosted to 12psi when compared to 20 psi with the T2. This should mean there is quite a bit of tweaking we can do :o)

Due to it once again starting to get dark and everyone short of time, we cut the test drive short. But, at last The Baron was up and running, all we have to do now is set the car up properly, could be a job for a professional at a rolling road.

Finishing the back axle & suspension

Two Team Trackbitch members met 10 days later, the target was to finish off the rear end and get the car off the axle stands. We'd managed to attach the axle successfully 10 days ago so all that we had to do today was remove the old knackered shocks, fit the new shocks, reattach the brake lines, handbrake cables and bleed the brakes.

Getting the old shocks off was a bit of a pig but after lots of WD40 they both came off, it was only after removing the shocks did we realise how buggered the rear suspension had actually been, when you compressed the shock it would take forever for them to rebound. We were fitting perhaps the best shocks that were available for the Renault 5 -  GAZ fully adjustables for a bargain price of £94. After a bit of fear of crossing threads the new shocks were on and torqued up.

Picture below shows old and new shocks side by side.

Next up was attaching hand brake cables and brake lines, again this went to plan without too much pain, a quick bleed of the brakes and our rear end was finally finished. Wheels were attached and the Renault 5 was finally looking normal again. It appeared that our new rear axle was set to standard ride height so the transformation was quite dramatic (shown in the before and after pictures below).

BEFORE - lowered to death

AFTER - standard ride height

So, the back end was complete, all that was left to do now was fit the turbo.

A trip to Telford

Today was suppose to be the day we were taking the car for its first track day, but instead we were using our day off work to drive to Telford to pick up a new rear axle and forage through random parts in the hope of getting all we needed for our turbo. 

We set off early as the plan was to obtain all the parts we needed and then try and fix up as much as the car as possible, so we arrived in Telford in good time. We had a choice of two rear axles, both were pretty crusty but one had end caps on the torsion bar and was in a lot better health than the one we'd taken off the car and at £40 a real bargain. We then proceeded to look through numerous boxes of turbo parts looking for the oil-in connector that had been alluding us, we were also after an actuator bracket as the standard T2 actuator did not fit. After a good 30 minutes of looking in numerous boxes of old oily Renault 5 parts we found an oil-in line that could be used, but still required an adaptor to fit to the turbo. We were told that a hydraulics company down the road should be able to help with the last remaining part. Next up was the actuator bracket, after another 20 minutes of looking through old oily boxes we found one that fitted, the only bad thing was it was on eBay and someone had already placed a bid. There was only an hour to go on the auction so we decided to head over to the hydraulics company whilst trying to win the auction on eBay for the actuator bracket.

After a short journey down the road we found the hydraulics company, to start with the guy behind the desk looked like he was going to find the adaptor instantly, he seemed to have a sixth sense for thread widths, looking through vast amounts of adaptors and finding parts that would sort of fit but not screw all the way in. (Until now I never realised how many different types of threads there are). After about five or six failed attempts things were not looking good and I was starting to get grumpy, were we ever going to find a part that fitted this Frankenstein turbo? The guy behind the desk now called the manager over and they starting scratching their heads and looking curiously at the hole they were trying to find an adaptor for, finally after lots of head scratching the part was found. This just left the actuator bracket on eBay.

Whilst we had been in the hydraulics shop and off for a chippy lunch the third trackbitch member was at home busy winning actuator brackets on eBay, we only had to out bid the other person by 50p. All that was left now was to drive back to the garage where we'd bought the axle, pay for the actuator bracket and then head back to Manchester.

All parts now in hand we headed back onto the M6, only to be told that the motorway was shut at junction 16, we attempted to come off before the road started to back up and get onto an alternative route before everyone else tried it, the first part of this worked well, but it soon dawned on us that all alternative routes were going to be stupidly busy. Instead of getting home in 1H 15M it took the best part of three hours, this really killed our mechanical time. :o(

By the time we got back it was 4.30 - 5.00, to fit a whole rear axle and new turbo before it goes dark was never going to be possible. So instead of doing two half jobs we focused on the axle, even this proved to be difficult due to moving over brake lines and hub assemblies, but with light fading we managed to get most of the work done, all that was left to do was fit the new shocks and the back end would be finished. However that would have to be left for another day. 

The day had been partly successful but it was appearing that my expectations of how long the mechanics would take to do were very wrong and instead of two days of work and a track day, we'd spent three days working on it with perhaps another one and a half days left of work. In addition, the next time we could all meet up would not be for another two weeks which meant the car was on axle stands til then.