Here is a little update on the little car.
Mike brought the air compressor home a little while ago since we needed it for some other things too and blew the carburettor through. This flushed out some horrible orangey gunge and now fuel gets through the carburettor properly. It had been soaked and cleaned in a way that's normally sufficient but the Solex is a bit more fiddly and contrary. Today, I had a little bit of time and mojo so had a look at the Renault with a refreshed brain.
The main problem identified is that I wasn't setting things up on the compression stroke. I'd got so confused with all the information thrown at me I'd got muddled. This is now resolved, it is now set up on the compression stroke.
The other problem is that the valve clearances had tightened up and were not letting the valves operate properly. I haven't got my feeler gauges at home so I set them to as near as I could without. I will reset these properly.
Sorting those two issues out in turn showed me that the distributor drive cog was in fact in 180 degrees out. When I put it in with the engine out of the car I'd actually done it right so it had to go back to how it was. I had definitely been overthinking this bit! With that back in properly the rotor arm now points at #1 when it should.
Here is a little video demonstrating what it's doing. The video is a bit crappy, apparently I used a potato instead of a camera.
You can see it's not quite right. My understanding is that this is down to incorrect valve clearances. Three of four bangs are going down the exhaust like they should, one is coming back through the carburettor, hence the little plume of flames. I'm hoping when I set the valve clearances properly, all the bangs will go down the exhaust and the car will run. That is what I'm going to try and I will see what happens.
One thing I did do was compare my brand new early R5 radiator with my old late R6 radiator properly. I knew the new rad probably would fit as I'd seen videos of cars running with them fitted. It's surprising how similar they are in size and should be able to be modified to fit without too much grief.
Both hoses line up exactly, the temperature sender looks to be the same (didn't have a big enough spanner/socket to find out exactly) and the only issue really is having the one long bolt sticking out the bottom that I need to chop off or drop in the bolt hole it lines up with. To fix to the 6 I'll make some little clamp type brackets for the top and bolt it securely in that way.
It's not much, but it's progress at least. When I've got tools and time next week I'll do a bit more, hopefully even get it running properly.
I feel comfortable it's gone to the right person, he gave the impression of understanding the shortcomings on the car and recognising the work already done and didn't feel particularly daunted by it. The right questions were asked about various parts of the car and I just got a generally good vibe. Hopefully, this little car will go on to bigger and better things still with the new owner and I'll be pointing him at the various threads and forums I've used to record the adventures and troubles with it over the past few years.
