Towards the end of 2018, with the Corrado still sitting idle, I started to think that maybe I should get a van. This was because basically the only time I ever drive anywhere is to go mountain biking and a van makes sense from a convenience, security and having a place to change point of view. I hopped on Facebook marketplace and found a Renault Kangoo literally 3 minutes walk from my flat, on sale for a grand.
I took it for a test drive and although it was a bit smokey it seemed to run OK. Alarm bells should have rung when the highly dodgy fellow I bought it from claimed it was the non-turbo version, despite there clearly being a turbo in the usual spot. That and the puddle of coolant that was gradually dripping onto the ground. Viewed from a certain perspective, he was actually right about it being a non-turbo version, as I had to replace the turbo a little while later, it having excessive axial play in the bearing. I also had to fix the sporadically functional speedometer by replacing the electromechanical speed sensor (a device that I thought went out of fashion the in the 80s), and a worn out whiny belt tensioner. There was also a dead wheel bearing and a decidedly non-planar wheel hub, which probably caused the dead wheel bearing. But those were the least of the problems.
Remember the puddle of coolant? Well, the coolant hoses seemed to be under pressure from cold, and the coolant itself was turning a lovely fetching shade of jet black. Yup, head gasket.
While the head was off I decided to give it a bit of a clean and it was very dirty thanks (most likely) to EGR valve based filth. Very dirty. I think I emptied about three cans of carb cleaner into the thing.
I cleaned up the piston crowns too, and the top of the block, discovering evidence of some past valve/piston âinterfacingâ; presumably it had snapped a belt at some point in the past.
This past failure was in the same cylinder around which the head gasket failed, making me think that perhaps they were related. I got the head back on, almost giving myself a hernia in the process, and got it timed up using a custom machined bolt (specs found on a Renault forum) that fixes the crank in position. Incidentally, on this particular engine (K9K) and I assume many other Renaults, the crank timing pulley is not keyed to the crank at all, meaning itâs relying purely on the friction of the bolt to hold it in position. This revelation only served to reinforce my (unfair?) prejudices about French engineering, versus my experience with VWs.
Anyway, I bolted it up to the correct torque (R.F.T.), lowered the engine down onto its mounts and⌠snagged the power steering line. Sigh. I had a little go at welding the nick closed but couldnât make it seal. My usual scrappy didnât have any Kangoos in the yard, but they did have a Nissan NV200, which is basically just a re-badge. The line out of this didnât fit exactly right, but it was close enough to not matter. It all went back together straightforwardly after that, and indeed drove much better, probably down to the cleaned up intake more than anything else. Confidence levels were not high though.
Ultimately I got rid of it a couple of years later, growing tired of not being sure if I was going to make it to my destination whenever I ventured out it in. It had a weird hot start problem that I never got to the bottom of. I suspect it was a worn high pressure fuel pump that when warm couldnât achieve sufficient pressure for the ECU to turn the injectors on. That was my theory anyway; it didnât make economic sense to try replacing the pump, though it still annoys me a little that I never managed to figure it out.
