Hi all,
Well, it has been a busy few weeks with work. No time to do much of anything. So, the Alpine Turbo is still running very, very well. But there are many little things that need to be addressed. The latest saga is the cooling fan. An aftermarket unit operated by a toggle switch. The 2 fans atop the condenser are history. Hence the single fan.
It is fitted with a standard 5 pin relay. So far so good. Well, not really. Strange things were happening. First, the fuel pump was howling and making all kinds of noise. Next the voltmeter was 14 then 18 then 14 then 18. A bad regulator? Perhaps that will need to be addressed. Next, the cooling fan would just come on and stay on. What? Well, enough was enough. There are so many bodged circuits on this car I didn't know where to begin. So I just removed the fan relay. Suddenly, the volts are steady at about 14v, the mysterious fuel pump noise was gone and all seems fine. Of course I don't have a cooling fan at the moment. But I can fix that. Time to do some wiring repair and get a new relay!
One other thing I was going to do was replace the water with coolant. I used water for now just in case there were any leaks or problems. The coolant is 8GPB/liter. Wow! So I thought I would park the car on an incline, open the drain on the radiator and proceed. No so fast. The rad was an aftermarket unit with no drain. I was running out of daylight anyway so I'll get to that this weekend. I did run across a very interesting way to change the coolant. Perhaps this is a method you guys already know about but take a look at this. It seems to do the trick and you don't have to touch the radiator. Worth a try??
The caption reads, as translated by Google:
Engine oil, transmission oil, brake fluid, the LLC and the liquid kind is the total replacement.
The use this time,
YACCO GALAXIE 15W-50
YACCO BVX1000 75W90
virion super brake fluid
LLC Renault specified ELF
uses the industrial purified water (Kato Chemical) to dilute the LLC. Oil change and use the nearby rental pit, exchange of LLC was replaced by using a sprayer of horticultural. Sprayer for gardening on obtained sufficient pressure on the exchange of LLC, you can work easily. In fact after this, been found pinhole to the cooling water pipe between the engine and the radiator, one must replace this pipe.
Two more things. First, the brake master cylinder is oozing. Where can I find a good replacement and how much should it cost? Next, still looking for 2 shift linkage bushings. One block at the front, and the 2-piece unit at the bottom of the linkage handle. Any ideas?
Take care guys!
Tommy
