Renault 5 Extra wheelchair van

[Vulgalour]

You may remember me from ages ago when I bought a green Renault 6TL. I wasn't specifically looking for another Renault, let alone a van, and definitely not a wheelchair adapted one. However, it was the right price at the right time and the sort of vehicle I needed and given that it was fully road legal I thought it'd be rude not to. Then of course it decided to overheat and cook the head gasket because the plug for the radiator fan fell off the wiring and Renault never saw fit to install a temperature gauge just an Oops Light.




That minor failure aside, it's actually a really solid if tired looking van. I don't plan on this being a long termer, more a practical vehicle bought for a purpose that I'll move on once I've used it for that. In the meantime I'll sort what foibles it does have, which seem minimal, and we'll see how we go with it.

 

[Vulgalour]

Oof, well it took slightly more than the promised 'within five working days' to get the van recovered but it is finally here now. I've a (surprisingly short) list of jobs to attend to and I'm not planning to MoT until January so I can spend December sorting it out. Getting some stuff fixed and ordered is going to be hampered by seasonal events so I've decided not to rush things.

I will post updates here, of course, but I am making a switch to posting on Patreon https://www.patreon.com/c/NoExpenseSpent first for a lot of my content these days. I've got to earn a living and since making videos and art and stuff is what I do, that's how it is. Most of the stuff I post on Patreon does make it out so you can read and watch for free anyway, just a smidge later (or a lot later in the case of the Lanchester and Princess) than real time.

The most important thing to state is that I'm actually pretty happy with this van at the moment. Been a bit of a saga to get it home because of my health issues recently, that's no fault of the van or the previous owner who I honestly can't thank enough for being so accomodating with the purchase. I'm looking forward to having a bit more daylight to go through the van with properly, I've not had a lot of time to really dig in because it gets dark so quickly at this time of year. The only problem I have is I rather like it and I'm not really supposed to be keeping this one long term.


Oh and before I go, does anyone know who was responsible for doing the conversion on these vans? I'd be interested to learn a bit about their history and what sort of parts bin action was happening.

 

[Vulgalour]

Here's a little introductory video to give you a better idea of what I've let myself in for.

 

[Vulgalour]

Big thanks to Chris for sourcing some bits from France for the van, very much appreciated, when it's a bit more above freezing and I'm not in fear of French plastics exploding in the cold I'll crack on and fit those. All the exhaust bits are here now too so I can get that sorted soon. When I'm able to sort the exhaust and the few other minor bits I'll get this in for an MoT. My health and the cold are combining to stop me working on this at the moment so I have to be more patient than I'd like with everything.

 

[Vulgalour]

I started with a few small jobs today to see if I was physically up to getting under the car and doing the exhaust since the weather is okay. Unfortunately I'm not, realistically I should be resting today but I've got stuff that just needs doing so I'm doing energy management instead. Decided to tackle some little jobs and see how far I got instead. Good thermostat is now reinstalled properly which was a nice easy job, and then I tried to fit the air filter box properly and encountered An Issue. Renault use these weird little winged bolts that locate in a couple of brackets on top of the rocker cover, in a spot where water naturally condenses and sits, rusting the nut to the bolt. Typically, one of them sheared as soon as I looked at it so I've replaced that with a cable tie until I can get a replacement. At least the air box doesn't jiggle about now.


I also spotted some damage to the rear door vertical seal, looks like something has been chewing on it, that would explain the little bit of water getting into the back of the van when the rain is in the right direction. Looks to be a generic profile, shouldn't be too hard to get hold of or too expensive. A new seal might make the rear doors rattle less too, that'd be nice.


Finally, I popped the front number plate off and taped the corner that the previous owner had saved in the Box Of Bits, and put it back on with some nice new screws and caps I had in stock. A new plate is cheap and I expect it will get a pair, this solution is cheaper still and should be adequate for the MoT.


It's all fogged up because a bit of water is still getting into the cabin past the black gaffer tape repair* which may or may not be enough to get an MoT pass. I've got to order a new windscreen, that's £200-300 (which honestly isn't that bad really) I'd just rather not spend that until I have to. The van would definitely benefit from a new set of tyres, the ones on it are okay, they're just quite old and I'm used to having quite nice tyres on the stuff I drive so I don't want to run out of skill somewhere by overestimating the ability of the tyres fitted.

Last thing of note was getting a message from an artist who actually rode in the back of one of these vans when they were new and he was able to tell me the company that did the conversion on this one is Atlas, who are still going. I've contacted Atlas but they don't have any workshop info on the conversions that far back but did say I could drop in and they'd have a look. Problem is they're quite a long way away from me, so I'll probably find a different solution for figuring out the missing wiring.

 

[mr-reno-139]

The windscreen would have to be really badly damaged to fail MOT
My Clio diesel runaround is cracked top to bottom but as it's on passenger side it's passed last 3 years ok

 

[Vulgalour]

Time for a van update. Let's find out why it's overheating, and then it isn't, and then it is, and then it isn't...

Hopefully my windscreen will be okay for MoT which is happening soon. January ganged up on me a bit which is why I haven't done it yet.

 

[Vulgalour]

Guess who got an MoT with no advisories today?

Frankly amazed, and so was the tester at how solid the van is underneath since he knows the reputation these have for just dissolving. Taxed, insured, all that good stuff which is just as well since the Princess is out of action AGAIN thanks to needing some welding that's rather important.

It's off to get the tracking sorted out tomorrow afternoon and that should make it a lot more pleasant to drive.

 

[Vulgalour]

I've now done two tip runs in the van with no drama, certainly a lot easier having this sort of vehicle to do it in! I had a mystery of disappearing coolant that I solved today which turned out to be a hose clamp needing to be tightened, only showing itself as a leak when the engine was neither stone cold, nor at operating temperature, rather somewhere in between, which is why I'd not been able to find it until today by chance. Overheating issue hasn't reappeared which is great. I've also figured out what's actually missing/broken on the heater control panel so I shall have to get a little creative to fix that, especially since I can't actually turn the heater all the way off with the dial because there's too much movement in the cable itself to allow it. Just as well I fixed the windows so I can open them then!

New video and new info. I now know who was responsible for the conversion on this particular van so stick around until the end of this one to learn a bit more.

 

[Vulgalour]

Lately my brakes have been feeling a bit weird, behaving like a slightly spongey pedal without having a spongey pedal. Very odd, made me a bit cautious with my braking, leaving driving lessons amount of space at all times just in case.

Turns out it wasn't my brakes being weird, it was in fact the tyres the van came to me on. They did go through the MoT and didn't look too bad, plenty of tread etc, with the exception of one tyre that was showing its age in the sidewall. Today I came out to a nearly-flat front tyre (10psi) and gave everything a check over. Bear in mind I've been bombing about locally in the van, tip runs, all that good stuff and have only put a couple of hundred miles on since the MoT. All of the sidewalls on all of the tyres, and the tread on some of them, were cracking and splitting badly.

Brand new tyres aren't in the budget so I wobbled over to the part-worn place and got four reasonable tyres for £100 fitted. My brakes no longer feel weird and the van rides a lot nicer than it was, hopefully it inspires a little more confidence in the wet too.

With the house move happening in a few weeks, I really didn't want to chance it on the old tyres, especially fully loaded. The replacements aren't a matched set, I wouldn't expect it at the price paid, though the rears are a decent pair of Kumhos and the fronts are only a couple of years old so they'll do perfectly fine for the next couple of months and lend me some peace of mind. I've also gone from a 60 profile to a 70 profile since that's what they had in stock and I have to say it's a visual improvement, and an improvement to the ride and noise without having any clearance issues.