by Bazzer501 » Sun Dec 27, 2020 9:26 am
Hi Darren,
The rebuild was initially because of cylinder head gasket failure on one of the cylinder banks but subsequently it was found that two of the cylinder liner seals had also failed so it was an engine out and complete rebuild job.
I had been having problems for months with the coolant hose at the bottom of the expansion bottle leaking which seemed odd at the time. Cooling wise within the last two years I had replaced the radiator, heater matrix, complete set of silicone hoses, expansion bottle and cap. Last thing was a new thermostat from Simon Auto in Germany, in case this was faulty and new Renault Type D coolant.
What happened was I took my A610 to D&D motors, my local independent Renault garage in Andover, they changed the thermostat, drained filled then bled the system and all seemed fine. A few days later went for a long 30 miles plus drive, all was fine. That afternoon I drove into Andover to do some supermarket shopping, came out about an hour later, started up the car and there was plumes of steamy smoke coming from the exhaust pipes. Switched off then restarted, exactly the same. Checked the coolant bottle, it was empty. D&D Motors was literally 5 mins from the supermarket so I drove there and Kevan, the owner said it's F@@@ed, definitely cylinder head/cylinder liner seal failure. Funnily enough Kevan had suggested it could be the beginnings of cylinder head gasket failure or similar some weeks earlier when we had been discussing the problem.
I'm insured with Carole Nash and have UK & Continental breakdown as part of my policy. I phoned them and, much to my relief they arranged for a low loader to collect my car and take it to JL Engineering when it was finally sorted. Bit of a saga but now its been rebuilt it fells like a totally different car, so much quicker, responsive so very happy with the end result...cheers, Barry.
Yellow 1993 Alpine Renault A610
