RossD's Renault 8

After RE-reading the wiki page, it seems my power of observation is pretty hit or miss. Lol. Yup, thats aluminum.

Did you get the crank handle for this? I am guessing that is what you were hinting at?

In reply to NOHOME:

Thats it! And no, he showed me that it turned over with the dauphine's crank which is also its tire/jack tool. I havent found it yet if I have it.

Really cool project!... Glad its someone else that got the bug for this one tho

When I was a kid back in the middle 1960s I saw an ad for the R8 in Popular Mechanics magazine. The ad mentioned they would provide more information to anyone who wrote in, so I actually sent them a letter. A few weeks later I got a package in the mail that included a brochure and a bunch of other factory info. Sadly, all that stuff is long gone now.

In reply to jere:

Thanks! I'm thinking between having my wife translating french websites and searching for obscure part numbers, this one will be a rebuild of attrition.

One funny thing that was lost in translations: I was reading an old pdf scan of a tuning guide for Solex carbs, the choke butterfly was called "The Strangler"!

In reply to stuart in mn:

That would have been neat to see!

Very cool.

How much support is there for parts and panels? The good news is that looking at the pictures, I dont see any panels that you could not make from scratch if you had to.

This is amazing, absolutely amazing

NOHOME wrote: How much support is there for parts and panels? The good news is that looking at the pictures, I dont see any panels that you could not make from scratch if you had to.

It's starting to seem like parts are going to come from other American Renault hoarders, rather than parts stores or websites. I've been posting to Renault Club on FB and someone has offered to find a rebuild kit for me. Bunch of helpful folks there!

In reply to Rufledt: You're in Southern Wisconsin right? If you're near Appleton/Green Bay and you want to check it out, PM me. I live in Freedom.

Fantastic! What a great project. Best of luck.

$200 worth of RockAuto will soon be en route. Focusing on the engine for now. I was looking for a Pertronix Ignitor for the car but RockAuto had a AIRTEX/WELLS 1A4116 ignition conversion kit for about $100! No points for "Bert"! Oh yeah, we named the car Bert or Stinky Bert as I offered to let me son (2.5 yo) sit in the car and he declined because of the smell! Dryer sheets to the rescue.

Thanks Dave!

The biggest hurdle will be the brakes. I've yet to pull the wheels off but I know the calipers are already in the frunk, disassembled, and corroded. Damn. Finding reman units doesn't seem likely. I'm guessing I going to try to fit some other calipers from some other cars. Some ciphering remains.

Pretty much any hydraulic bit can be re-sleeved by one of the vendors who does this stuff. Off the top of my head Worldwide Auto has a good reputation and might be in your neck of the woods. Peter Caldwell would be the owner and man to speak to. Very nice person.

http://www.nosimport.com/british-cars-nos-parts/British-bmc-austin-mg-morris/mgb-parts

If not a re-sleeve (or bored out sightly for a different readily available piston and seal) you also might luck out as you sometimes do with stuff of the era and find out the calipers ended up copied as some racing part.

Be careful about re-working rusted brake calipers.

Look close, there is a groove that retains the piston seal. There is basically a ring of caliper material holding that seal in, if that is weak from rust and pits, the brake fluid pressure and break that ring of material and the seal and fluid won't be retained anymore. I broke 2 calipers that way, bought rebuilt calipers and after mounting, pushed on the brake pedal and they broke.

There are a ton of different aftermarket calipers, size and shape, and then a available pad would fit.

   Get some catalogs that have picture and sketches, Pegasus is good for this, might find the info you need on the web site.

That is some good info thats new to me about reman calipers/resleeving. I am considering my options for brakes/suspension/wheels/tires. It looks like some Michelins tires from coker tire are reasonably priced.

I found a carb rebuild kit, too.

That happened when I took off 40 year old calipers from my 914 and "upgraded" to BMW 320 calipers. The new calipers were maybe 20 years old.

If you don't care about keeping it original, then some small wildwood or something then you would get new calipers and easy source of pad selection.

So I was looking for a Pertronix Ingitor unit to fit in the distributor, and found one that would fit. It was $130 from Jegsummit and $180 on Amazon. With such a wide range in price, I decided to wait. Then when I was on RockAuto, I noticed a "Ignition Conversion Kit" and the picture looked similar to the Pertronic so I purchased it for $100! Then this happened:

For the less than visually astute, the sticker on the Ignition Conversion says "Ignitor by Pertronix". Score! I love it when the "lesser" brand is actually "The" brand!

I popped out the plugs and they all pretty much looked the same.

Then I decided to try the Pine Sol and Dawn soak trick on the carb. First some pictures for posterity' sake.

The Dollar Store carb cleaning starter kit include: Mop bucket, two of the biggest Pine Sol containers I could find, and the old school Dawn (read not "Ultra"; my FIL made a remark once that the original stuff was still the best stuff).

I poured the Pine Sol into the carb's openings, then some of the soap.

Then add some water to cover.

In my haste, I decided to leave the carb in one piece. I wonder if that will make a difference. I bet it will.

After that I put a piece of plastic wrap over the bucket and taped it down so the cat wouldn't try to drink any of it. Then I mowed for 20 minutes until the rain started. A big storm was coming and I wasn't about to keep mowing in it. I'm glad I wussed out.

It really seems to be very minor damage, if any, other than the loss of part of the tree. Funny thing was I was watching the storm come in from the garage with the doors open. When the rain came, it wasn't getting in the garage much so I left them open. Then after later watching the news, a possible tornado could have been forming over our area, and that's probably around the time when the shovels and rakes leaning against the wall fell over, the empty rain barrel flew 300 feet away, and lightening struck the tree. The pressure drop also pulled a batt of insulation down from the ceiling of the garage!

Nobody was hurt and now we get even more fire wood for campfires!

modern electronics, home brew, and tornadoes, just another day with a 45 year old French immigrant.

I'd spray some Kroil in those cylinders for a day or two, add oil , a battery, and ether down the intake and just see what happens.

"The French do not copy anyone in design or engineering and.......nobody copies the French."

Good luck saving Bert!

Don't leave that carb in there for too long, and pop the top off when rinsing it off. Pine sol is pretty acidic stuff.

In reply to coexist:

LOL.

In reply to crankwalk:

I dribbled some Marvel Mystery Oil in when the plugs where out. Then for seemingly no reason at all, I dumped the remainder into the valve cover. Not sure why. I'm planning on changing the oil before I started it.

BrokenYugo wrote: Don't leave that carb in there for too long, and pop the top off when rinsing it off. Pine sol is pretty acidic stuff.

I should be able to clean it up tonight. Roughly 24 hours in the drink.