1995 Master Mk1 T35D - RACETRANSPORTER - RRG Gathering video

[greencarfritz]

I was sailing off of India and had a dream. 

A dream of an enormous windscreen, thin A-pillars, triangular french 1980s styling and the smell of hot gear oil.

It had come to me.  I needed a Mk1 Renault Master.

But why, why was I having this dream?  Well, I have a Citroen 2cv that is transformed into a launch control equipped Rotrex supercharged BMW motorcycle flat twin engined sports libre hillclimb car... see the build on the forum here.



My times on the hills were stagnating.  As it is road legal I drive it to events but I always have that niggling thought in the back of my head "I need to drive this home tonight"... there was still scope for much more commitment, speed and mechanical savagery but I had been backing off... what I needed was a French, 1980s styled, Race Transporter to get us home every time, despite how Green Car may end his runs that day..

A quick search of google turned me on to a Classic Renault Sport forum and Paul who owned a company called Diamond Performance, he'd got hold of a relatively non rusty Mk1 Master and spent some time during Lockdown 1 with his sons rebuilding the flatbed/beavertail to take his Clio track car...



Apparently the old flatbed deck in the background was literally held on with just a few screws... eek.  











After an inordinate amount of child labour it was time for a blow over of the cab in Renault commercial diamond white.









Getting in touch with him with the thought that he may have looked at some others (in his search in early 2020) and then letting him know what I would be using it for, I was pleasantly surprised to hear him say, keep in touch... my sons in the last year have both got to driving age and now both have track cars too, so we now need a lorry and the flatbed will be up for sale soon...

Right place, right time.

Getting home from a hellishly long trip offshore of India and awaking the 2cv from it's 2 year slumber and mechanical rebuild saw it got it's MOT first go despite the cursing of the tester trying to get it onto the ramp (great lows), we raced at Werrington Park speed hillclimb and the same thought kept me from embarrassing a 911 even more than we had already.  Getting back in touch with Paul and the deal was on, and with it being put to use for Green Car he wanted to sell it for what it had cost him - relative peanuts.

Having a great day out bashing around Exmoor in my daily, the UMM Alter II, I left it at the misses' in North Devon and caught a train spending a few hours avoiding covid on my way up to Derby.  Paul met me in his Merc and we chatted about all things race car on the way back to Diamond Hq before switching to everything about Renault Master Mk1s, he had had a few and their larger B series cousins and was pretty knowledgeable and very honest about this one.

A few exceedingly noisy hours south and I stopped for snacks at Hopwood Services and to visually appraise what I had just done..





Great success.  Visually.

[englishexpat]

Looks to be the perfect haul truck for your other french fancy. Need a picture of the 2cv on the back at your earliest convenience please. Great purchase.

[greencarfritz]

Upsides:

- you look like a baller
- it has the rear on air already
- load bed structure well made, well supported and finished with 5mm aluminium
- relatively non rusty

Downsides:

- weeping gearbox oil out of both the driveshaft to gearbox seals
- the gearbox is superb for low down torque but is revving it's nuts off by 60mph
- the speedo is wildly optimistic reading 10-15mph faster at 50mph
- it is noisy, very noisy, a loud resonance rather than huge mechanical noise
- the non standard drivers seat is so far forwards to the wheel I am driving with legs wedged either side and arms over the top
- missing trim pieces in the cab & broken clock
- washers don't work
- torn floor mat
- no side lockers
- poverty water temp and voltage gauges fitted
- the winch operating cable is only half the length of the bed
- the winch is using fibre instead of wire which is excellent, but there is too much on the drum and it jams when the car is almost all the way onboard
- possible rear deck interference with the shock mounts and exhaust when loading the low 2cv
- doesn't look as fly as it could do if it had streamlined sides under the bed
- no banded steels
- no lows

To clarify, Paul was very honest and I knew about all of these things before I travelled up and handed over the cash.

[stealthstylz]

Wonder if a G9U out of a later Trafic would go in. Would haul well then, they're a stonking engine.

[forkliftfred]

Awesome project. I was expecting it to be 80's era with that styling. Quite surprised to see a 90's plate on it. Great starting base vehicle though.

[georgeb]

Nice truck.

Used to drive a lot of these, and their baby brother, the Trafic, when I worked at a Renault dealership many moons ago.

Bit of a tidy and in should suit you very nicely.

Oh, and another one for loaded pics too, please.

[greencarfritz]

Jun 29, 2021 6:15:32 GMT forkliftfred said:

Awesome project. I was expecting it to be 80's era with that styling. Quite surprised to see a 90's plate on it. Great starting base vehicle though.

Built from 1980 and finished production right up at 1997 amazingly!  I'd like to get the early front grille, amber indicators and then put a plate on it.

[greencarfritz]

Rolling back into North Devon that evening I loaded up with the UMM that I had left at Alices and set off back for South Devon and the Super Secret Shore Base.



She said it was the happiest she'd ever seen me.

I ran him flat out, pedal to the floor for a 2 mile run up on the dual carriageway coming up for Telegraph Hill just south of Exeter, 2 lanes to 4 lanes and I need to be in lane 3. Indicate and pull across.. a mile of steep incline and we changed down to 2nd by 1/2 way up, finally settling at 30mph on the crawl over the top, not as bad as I was expecting to be honest. At lower speeds it was just happy pulling, geared well in that respect.

The next day at the SSSB..







And the next day collecting 4m steel sections to get ready to build the side lockers for it..

[greencarfritz]

And then... mid week... another one came along...

[jamesd1972]

This is heading in the expected direction !
How are you on weights for this - don't suspect the mega UMM would be legal but unladen can't be too bad with the light bed on the back.
James

[greencarfritz]

Jun 29, 2021 7:08:29 GMT jamesd1972 said:

This is heading in the expected direction !
How are you on weights for this - don't suspect the mega UMM would be legal but unladen can't be too bad with the light bed on the back.
James

From all the googling on weights I believe it to be - quite madly - around 1300kgs..  I can almost believe that with the thin structure of the 1980s cab design BUT I do need to verify this for myself on a weigh bridge, a task at the top of the to do list.

[tom13]

This is a great thread already but I can see it just getting better and better. The UMM is fantastic as well. You have some phenomenal vehicles.

[75swb]

Love it, as with all your projects. Can't wait to see how it evolves, and hopefully you're back on shore for a while now?

[gtviva]

Nice find, looks pretty useful! If it were mine I think I would like a bit more protection between the load and cab though

Keep an eye out for spare headlights if its anything like the later model you cant get them anymore

[greencarfritz]

Here is the interior on it.. I think we can all agree that the gauges are out of place (and 50% don't work) and the drivers seat is grim.





Hence the picture of the rotten and ruined Master Mk1 on the ramp at a friends down in deepest darkest Cornwall. He is a big truck mechanic by trade but had picked this one up for the bed it had on the back and then dumped it in one of his salty sea wind swept fields where it had merrily rotted away almost back to it's bare elements. Very fortunately though the interior was all intact, in amazing condition and for salvaging...

An original dash panel and then swapping the aftermarket switches for some factory Renault ones..




You'll see what those switches are for later... but doesn't that look like a party light button... Meanwhile stripping out the cabin before applying a metric butt tonne of Dodomat sound insulation..






A little rust treatment and then I used their hex pattern butyl layer before their top layer which is butyl then a closed cell foam. I also stripped out a floor mat from the rotten Cornish truck that was mint but waterlogged.. then stripped the stinky rats wee foam backing foam off of it so it wouldn't be too tall once fitted over the dodomat, scrubbed down and later installed..









The drivers seat I liberated out of the Cornish truck even had the plastic blanking plate that clips in under the drivers seat, I doubt whether there are many of these left around!  You can see more of the dodomat top layer closed cell foam on the back of the cab wall here too, I still need to do the roof and bonnet.  I left the dehumidifier in the truck with the windows up for three days to remove Cornwall from the drivers seat..





But having removed those gash gauges I still needed something to at least let me know water temp and voltage. The wiring was a bit of a snakes wedding with lots of inline fuses and splices so I pulled it all apart..



And added an extra fuse box for non original Renault bits, these are from Blue Sea Systems and I'm a big fan of the power supply and main earth ins. This is part way through with a 300 Amp Mega Fuse added for the winch power cable as well.. maybe the party button in the cab is making more sense now too...







Yes, those are actual carbon pods.



A little tidier than before and all run through grommets and in convoluted tubing rather than each wire randomly across the engine bay. Still some more work to do here..



Lets get back to that party button though...



Great success.

This buoyed me onto some more electricity upgrades.. +36 frenchness points for yellow headlights.



And I also got the soldering iron out to fix the odd inbuilt fuse that had popped on the original clock.. also some dry joints on the board.



And finally added a Blaupunkt stereo that I had been storing for the best part of a decade in its original box, it had a CD in it still that I must've been in there since I was at uni!  I didn't want to drill into the bodywork to fit an aerial so got one of blaupunkts fun line series windscreen aerials that sticks onto the glass, works really well.  You might just be able to make it out on the yellow headlight photo on the passenger side in the top corner.

FYI the rear loadbed spots are wired into that other dash switch as well as coming on when the truck goes in to reverse.  Useful.

[greencarfritz]

Jun 29, 2021 9:19:47 GMT tom13 said:

This is a great thread already but I can see it just getting better and better. The UMM is fantastic as well. You have some phenomenal vehicles.

Thanks Tom, I really appreciate that.  I enjoy tinkering with them in my time off.

[greencarfritz]

Jun 29, 2021 10:14:51 GMT 75swb said:

Love it, as with all your projects. Can't wait to see how it evolves, and hopefully you're back on shore for a while now?

Thanks 75swb.  It will hopefully evolve a little.  Some bits back to standard and others to be more useful.  The main thing is to try and keep it looking like it could have come out of the Renault factory like this but be really useful to me with some upgrades too...  Hopefully back until RR at Shelsley now..

[greencarfritz]

Jun 29, 2021 12:13:44 GMT gtviva said:

Nice find, looks pretty useful! If it were mine I think I would like a bit more protection between the load and cab though

Keep an eye out for spare headlights if its anything like the later model you cant get them anymore

Yes already lined up another scrap truck to go and liberate parts from.. and a set of rear wings for a plan I have...

I'm pretty confident in my strapping down and the tie downs themselves but there will be roll hoops added over the rear out of 2mm thick 38mm diameter tubing so I can have a canvas covered load bed.  At the front of this will be a tyre carrying structure so that should strengthen up all of that area too!

[greencarfritz]

So how about loading the 2cv on flat ground...



Step 1, let all the air out of the rear bags..



Step 2, add sand ladders and crucial blocks of wood to stop shock mounts digging into the bed at the ramp angle change where it goes from ramp to flat.



Step 3, start winching in - this is how close the bumper gets at the front before the tyres start drawing up the ramps..



and the same at the rear...







Step 4, strap down then load car with racing gear and liquimoly swag to give out at Goodwood Retro Rides.



And arriving at Goodwood after it's first long run loaded with the 2cv.



It was a 6 hour drive for me to get there as I drove to Tiverton to pick up Alice then up the A303, we stopped at Winchester at 3pm to pick up a coat she had left at a friends there before getting stuck in school traffic trying to make our way out onto the M23.. at this point in the middle of traffic in the middle of Winchester I realise that A. the radiator fans aren't working and it is the hottest day of the year so far, B. the clutch is going. We whacked up the heater in the cab to maximum heat and maximum on, wound down the windows and melted into a sweaty puddle in our seats as I changed gear matching revs with limited clutch from there until 30 mins the other side of Goodwood where my folks and grandparents are based. The next day checking the clutch I found that the adjuster nuts on the cable had wound themselves right out so that was an easy fix before we headed off to Goodwood! The rad fans though I will have to delve further into the sensors and wiring, there should be two speed settings that they should automatically come on to at certain temps, once moving or with the cab heater on though there was no problem.

The 2.5 NA diesel is a torque monster but again the 'box isn't setup for speed, I do know that changing to a turbo model box would help in this respect and I think I have found one en-route to Shelsley so may look to pick that up on the way to Retro Rides in late August. At the moment I am just topping up the leaky gearbox and putting cardboard under it when I leave it in the warehouse or stopping over anywhere. The great thing about this truck though is that 2.5 NA diesel, it is 10,000 miles old after either a new engine or a complete and very good rebuild (I can't tell) and it is very sweet, uses zero oil and although it would be nice to have more power I don't think I want to pull it all apart.. not right now anyway..

Right now I am trying to find out a little more history on the truck, nothing came with it bar the current V5 and MOT but I am lead to believe it was originally used on Heathrow for 200,000 of it's 223,000 mile life. If it was kept in a hanger etc then this makes sense for its relatively great condition, and how it has been looked after so well mechanically. I think the blue and silver paint scheme may tie in to this theory too.. can I check out the history of where it has been somehow? Also I'd love some original dealer plates to be reproduced for it - so how would I find out who sold it?

[greencarfritz]

Back from Goodwood and it is a few days before I have to head offshore again, so out with the grinder and slitting discs..





Time to make something of the useless space underneath the load bed.





Separate Capri Sun locker upfront.







And get the basic structure knocked out on the other side too.





Also, not a fan of the profile of a ramp side on for this truck, so some bodywork to cover that up.  Also a redo of the rear ramp support/light area and structure behind it..









I know. Looks like it needs a diffuser doesn't it...

And while I leave you to contemplate that you'll be happy to hear that I left it on axle stands with the wheels on a pallet to Steve at Usher Engineering for a smash with the banding stick.  Out by 2.5 inches all around, that will bring the fronts out to the edge of the wheel well and stop it looking as gawky as it does currently.