A818 Photo Album
History of A818 KOY
Bought from a guy in London (Fulham) on 4th April 2008.
This car was originally a 1984 Le Car 2, 1108cc. Was converted professionally to a convertible and fitted with some Gordini parts from the previous owner's Gordini convertible (which had almost folded in two!). It now has a 1397cc TS/TX engine.
The conversion looks pretty good and comes with plans showing exactly what was done (and could be done to any other R5).
The previous owner had the car for about 10 years and was very fond of it. He even used it as a wedding car.
The car needs quite a bit of work to bring up to scratch, but everything appears eminently fixable.
The car has a leather interior and a custom mohair hood, both of which are good quality.
Andrew (Owner of the site) bought the car as a birthday present for his wife!
Update 20th April 2008
Our first priority after buying the car was to make it safe. We found a large number of safety-critical issues with the car, which we (Becky and Andrew) have attempted to fix. It was extremely surprising that the car had an MOT! Here is the list of jobs carried out:
- Steering rack - the old one was completely shot - grating and graunching when turned from lock-to-lock. We fitted a new (reconditioned) one. The flexible donut coupling between the steering rack and steering shaft was cracked up and ready to disintegrate
- Track rod ends - again, shot... The rubber boots were split away, and on removal, one had several millimetres of up-down play in it
- Top front balljoints - the off-side (driver's side) was still original to the car! It was still in place with the original factory-fitted rivets, rather than the bolts that come with replacement balljoints. Unbelievable. The car has done approx 120,000 miles... In Andrew's experience balljoints only last about 30,000 miles. The rubber boot round the balljoint was completely shot. When removed, the balljoint was very stiff
- All rigid brake pipes replaced with copper. We got someone on eBay to make these up for us. Some were a bit too long, so we had to borrow a brake pipe flaring tool from a friend in order to be able to shorten and re-flare the pipes. We had to bend all the pipes ourselves - Becky really enjoyed this job - it's a great feeling seeing the new parts go on the car
- All flexible brake pipes replaced with braided ones. These were custom-made by Rally Design for us. However, one of these is also too long! The offside front hose rubs on the driveshaft. We think we could rotate it slightly to make it bend differently in order to encourage it not to drag. We think that Rally Design would probably remake the hose for us, but we'll wait and see. For the moment, it's loosely clipped up to be away from the driveshaft (using a cable tie!)
- Nearside driveshaft replaced. It had been vibrating terribly under acceleration. When jacked up, we found that the hub wouldn't easily rotate through a whole turn. It would "bind" part-way through. We couldn't undo the driveshaft hub nut. After trying several times, we broke Andrew's 24mm socket! In the end, the nut had to be ground off, completely wrecking the end of the driveshaft. Not sure if it will then be suitable as a core unit for exchange. However, we have plenty of spare driveshafts in stock
- Front wiring loom replaced. The nearside headlamp wiring had been shorted out and had burned out the wiring loom. The left-hand wiring loom that runs along the inner wing was burnt, with much of the bare copper wire visible inside the loom. Replacing a loom with the car intact was pretty hard work. Pushing the grommets through the bulkhead, and feeding some of the bulky wire through combined spaces was difficult. However, we managed it and after a few false starts with faulty fuses, everything appeared to work. The wiring loom used was from Andrew's TX - this loom contains the necessary connections for electric windows, which we hope to fit to the car at some point
- Steering wheel replaced with one from a R5 TX. The original (Gordini) steering wheel supplied with the car was in poor condition, with the leather peeling off
- Instrument panel replaced with one from a TX (for its rev-counter)
- Offside brake caliper. Before attempting to bleed the brakes, we checked each of the bleed nipples. The one on the offside front brake caliper sheared off. Frustrating! A local garage attempted (without success) to remove the broken nipple. We replaced the caliper with one that used to be fitted to Andrew's TX
- Front bumper - the original bumper had been painted at some point. This paint was peeling off and looked terrible. We replaced the bumper with an unpainted one we had in stock
