A610 Resto and Tuning at JL Engineering.

I'm currently working on a very nice A610 that is being treated to an in depth restoration with lots of bespoke touches and tuning options thrown in for good measure. The car has just come out of the paint shop and is looking mint so the owner wants the rest of the car to be on par with the paint.

We ran the car a while back on the rolling road and it was putting out 238hp and 251lb/ft. The aim is to change certain components without getting into a full engine build and improve the power output without stressing anything too much. 300hp on my usual chassis dyno is a nice target.

Whilst having a massive clear out of some of my old magazines, I came across this old copy of an Exchange & Mart, and wondered if this 610 ever got sold and who has it now ?






NOW WE KNOW

Cool find! Thanks for sharing it. It lives in Portsmouth now along with Lee Metters old car.

So the car has just had both sills replaced before the paint job was done so the car is pretty much rust free it terms of terminal hidden rot that most of the A610's suffer with. Now as they say beauty is only skin deep and Jon wanted this 610 to be better underneath than its new shiny exterior. Once out of the paint shop plans were afoot to strip the running gear and rebuild everything from the ground up to a far superior standard than how it came out of Dieppe. A handful of subtle quality upgrades will be thrown in for good measure.

So the plan was to strip the running gear completely from the car front and rear. We have removed absolutely everything from the front, underneath and rear to ensure no corners are cut. All brackets, fastenings and fixings have been removed from the body so the underside is essentially a bare shell.

The full air conditioning system has been removed including the evaporator, copper pipes and the fuel to air heat exchanger. The entire system in being replaced with new. We managed to source one of the very last evaporator units with new heater matrix and all the other components are either made to order or bought new.

As well as carrying out countless small fibre glass repairs to get everything up to scratch both turret bottoms were rusty so these needed fixing. The fibre glass was cut away and kept to be rebonded after the repair was done. The rot was cut out and new steel was welded in. Using the correct gauge steel and butt welding rather that overlapping the finished repair is indistinguishable even in bare metal without being properly prepped and painted.







The bumper mounting brackets M6 studs were in a bad which they all seem to suffer from so I drilled out all the studs and replaced with new stainless M6 studs before they were taken for blasting and powder coating.


As all the brackets and fixing for the entire car were to be blaster and powder coated or painted in 2k everything needed to be checked and fettled before it was sent away and the subframe was no different. It was in reasonable shape but the Renault factory welding is rubbish and has lots of impurities in the welds due to not enough shield gas so I try and grind these out and weld over the top. This subframe had the usual corrosion near where the manifolds run past so I cut out any dubious metal and replaced it with the correct gauge- butt welded and hand finished to keep it looking as new.





After all the repairs were carried out to the subframe it was media blasted which shows up any imperfections- luckily we were fine so the next stage was having it zinc dipped to resist any future corrosion then finally prepped and epoxy powder coated. The finish is really good, (we use the same powder coaters as Joe Macari if anyone saw the program the other night?) and decided to go with a light grey for all suspension components which I really like.

After Blasting.


After Zinc.



Finished Subframe.

I've continued cracking on with the car and getting the engine together was a welcome relief from days of grinding the chassis with flapwheels, knotted wire wheels and everything inbetween. The engine is standard in terms of the longblock with no porting etc just tidied up and detailed with some discreet tuning options.

Some of the parts ready and waiting to be reunited..


I was worried the front chassis spars could be rotten like others I have seen so we dug these new old stock A610 items out just in case but surprisingly the front end is solid as a rock.


May I introduce this 610's hybrid turbo, sexy eh? Bigger turbine, 360 degree bearing, T04b comp housing, new tech Garrett GTX billet wheel and 3'' v-band housing. Should have enough puff to pull your wig off.



Few pics of the lump back together, new seals, gaskets etc. Also the breather mods I have done to a few cars now by venting both rocker covers and the block. Its also going to fun a funky water to oil cooler but more about that later.



So the rear metal work of the car was stripped back, any corrosion dealt with and then etch primed and painted in a 2k chassis paint. The front chassis is getting the same treatment and then it will be sprayed with 3M stonechip then wax injected.


The front end is very good, just a few bits of surface corrosion which are easy to deal with. The battery tray looked good but after cleaning a few holes appeared so that had to be removed. Im going to make a stainless steel replica which will bolt in place and not be a rust trap.

Got some bits and pieces back ready to go back on the car. Still got to get the satin black bits finished. I've painted the new wishbones in 2 pack with the corresponding RAL colour, this is due to them being supplied with bushes and the powder coating process destroys the rubber. I'm pretty happy with the finish.



Some other stuff going back on the car. If its not new, its better than new- or that's what I aim to achieve.




The first finished set of bespoke alloy water pipes- all three.



Found a direct replacement air con pump with nice aluminium pulley. So to not make it feel left out im going to make some new billet alloy idler pulleys..


Had the thermostat housing vapour blasted but it was in a real bad shape, ordered a new one and to my surprise it turned up!

[BIG_MVS]

Looks great John top work. Are these new bits or have you had them plated in nickle or something?

These are all old restored parts. I got all the engine hardware done as well. Just clean them up on a bench grinder or vapour blast them and then plate them. A decent platers will achieve a much better finish than Renault originally did.

A few more pictures of progress on the A610. The front end has now been painted with the 2 pack epoxy ready to be sprayed with stonechip and then wax injected.



Hub carriers are complete now, I skimmed the hubs, gave them a little polish and lacquered the backs so they wont corrode in the future.

Hi John,

What product is the actual chassis paint that you are using?

It looks very smart and I suspect I maybe doing some chassis painting in a few weeks.

Hi Jon,

How's things, is your tig welder still going strong? The paint is the Rustbuster branded epoxy 121. I've not used its for long but it is a bit easier to use than the POR15. It thins down well if you are planning to spray with is and gives a great finish. Are you planning to paint the Alpine or the Land rover?

Cheers, John.

Thanks John, I will look that up.

It will be for the Alpine. I am investigating what I believed was main water pipe leaks, so there could be quite a bit of chassis exposed soon. But currently it looks like it might be from somewhere else. Fingers crossed!!!

The Landy is all finished now for the road at least, just need to find someone to play with now.

Cheers!!

John was that rolling road figure on the same rollers that Dave Miles' car made 302 bhp?

Hey Tony, Yes it was. I've been using that same rolling road for over 10 years now to keep things as consistent as possible.

[BIG_MVS]

Yo Tony! What's the fascination with Rollers all of the time?

Have this one on me.