SACHS DAMPERS REBUILDS

[photo_ed]

Or do you say sod it and enjoy the car as intended and hope they don’t start leaking?

I'm in this camp. I want to enjoy the car myself as intended, it wasn't bought to be kept perfect for the next custodian, or as an investment to sell on. For me the driving experience on Sachs is a crucial part of the package, if I wanted a Clio on coilovers, or other race derived set-up, I'd just go out and buy a ratty 1*2 and build a trackday car, the Sachs are what makes the Trophy a Trophy as it were.

It helps that I've accumulated a spares hoard over the years though. I've learnt (sometimes the hard way) that it's prudent to do this if you're intending on keeping cars into the 'classic' stages of their life-span. A couple of years ago, when the old Mini spat it's dummy, I wasn't half pleased I'd kept a few sheds worth of rare bits and bobs for 30 odd years to cherry pick from for the subsequent rebuild.

 

[marrow]

I have no parts squirrelled away other than one wheel, so that could be interesting... did we come to a consensus as to the best aftermarket damper/spring options? I thought Bilstein B14s, but a quick Google search suggests these are far from perfect

 

[photo_ed]

It’s a shame there’s not someone enthusiastic about keeping these dampers at going at Sachs - for their legacy (and our convenience). But at the end of the day, for them, as with Renault, there’s probably simply not the demand for the numbers to stack up economically for them to start remaking stuff. It’s a big problem for us trying to keep the cars in their more or less original trim.

To cut a long story short, a few years ago I was desperate to source or have some internal damper parts re-made. I hit a complete brick wall with Sachs regarding this. It was only down to the kindness of a certain member of this very forum that No.407 continues to run on Sachs dampers. To this day I am deeply indebted to that person.

 

[BenG]

Surely they’re only talking about main components? Oil, seals and gas are the only service consumables, unless an internal component has failed.

 

[photo_ed]

Surely they’re only talking about main components? Oil, seals and gas are the only service consumables, unless an internal component has failed.

I'd be interested to hear the status on shafts now, as they seem to be a fairly regular 'service' item too. My discussions with them previously revolved around major components being unavailable, rather than as you say; service items.

 

[hoolio]

All a bit concerning this but quite surprised that BG are not thinking about reverse engineering various bits, things like the shafts are pretty simple bits of metal.

 

[Lewr1407]

Is there anyway that ‘us’ - all as a group can put across our worries and concerns in a constructive manner to Renault & Sachs in the hope to try and maintain the one component that makes the Trophy unique.…? Does anyone even think that this would be worth it?

 

[photo_ed]

Is there anyway that ‘us’ - all as a group can put across our worries and concerns in a constructive manner to Renault & Sachs in the hope to try and maintain the one component that makes the Trophy unique.…? Does anyone even think that this would be worth it?

In all honesty, I think trying to get anywhere with Renault is going to be a waste of time. I think them disposing of their ‘heritage fleet’ of cars a couple of years ago signalled their attitude towards any legacy cars going forward. I don’t think they hold their past in any kind of importance - their focus is on making and selling the world new stuff - mainly in the shape of EV’s and SUV’s. The demise of Renaultsport at Dieppe or rather it’s amalgamation into Alpine as I understand it is also poignant.

I’m certain somewhere Renault have a good few containers filled with bits for ‘our’ cars, but currently it’s not worth their while to be bothered with it.

Sorry to sound defeatist, but this is a huge corporate company and the interests of a handful of blokes on a forum for a niche ( albeit in time a historically important) car are not going to be of interest to them.

If we were to lobby, it would probably help to have someone fairly high profile on board - who they might take notice of if they felt it good PR for their brand. Some Luddite called Ed from the North of England somewhere for example ain’t gonna cut it…

 

[hoolio]

I will echo Ed almost word for word here. RenaultSport is no longer and it always seemed to be a British “thing” so that is a complete dead end. Sachs would be a more likely option but would there have been some kind of licensing with Renault that has now lapsed hence their closed door.
Which brings me back to the remanufacturing thing. From what I have seen the internals are just machined, I think, presumably any decent machine shop could copy?

 

[BenG]

I haven’t heard of anyone having any internal component replaced other than the shafts, which seem to commonly suffer from scoring. I have a set of dampers which have DLC coated shafts that Rik Perry manufactured, so they’re able to be replicated by anyone with a decent lathe and skills to do it. Components like the valve mechanism seem pretty robust, which is good as they would be difficult to make.

 

[BenG]

It would be tricky to make any of these components but I can’t see why they would fail. I’m not sure what’s inside the main shaft assembly but I presume it’s just the shaft and some seals?

 

[photo_ed]

I haven’t heard of anyone having any internal component replaced…

I won’t bore everyone with the details, but BG found an issue with the internals of one of my spare sets which I sent for refurb, the inner shaft as I understand it which the main shaft runs in. Either a materials fault or damage from being run low on oil. Either way, it turned into a nightmare, luckily as alluded to earlier, @hoolio came to my rescue in that instance.

I asked BG about re-manufacturing this part as they & I had got nowhere with Sachs themselves. BG said they were unable to recreate such a part, which did surprise me at the time, but without the materials spec & more than likely knowledge of specific hardening treatments on such a part, you’d be making some sort of educated guess, which could be fairly catastrophic if done incorrectly.

 

[BenG]

Fair enough, I’m glad you got it sorted and fair play to hoolio for helping out. I’m sure there are some other examples of internal component failure that haven’t been mentioned but it’s not something I’ve come across reading the forum, hopefully it was (and remains to be) a rare case.

 

[Titan]

In all honesty, I think trying to get anywhere with Renault is going to be a waste of time. I think them disposing of their ‘heritage fleet’ of cars a couple of years ago signalled their attitude towards any legacy cars going forward. I don’t think they hold their past in any kind of importance - their focus is on making and selling the world new stuff - mainly in the shape of EV’s and SUV’s. The demise of Renaultsport at Dieppe or rather it’s amalgamation into Alpine as I understand it is also poignant.

I’m certain somewhere Renault have a good few containers filled with bits for ‘our’ cars, but currently it’s not worth their while to be bothered with it.

Sorry to sound defeatist, but this is a huge corporate company and the interests of a handful of blokes on a forum for a niche ( albeit in time a historically important) car are not going to be of interest to them.

If we were to lobby, it would probably help to have someone fairly high profile on board - who they might take notice of if they felt it good PR for their brand. Some Luddite called Ed from the North of England somewhere for example ain’t gonna cut it…

If you were to try and do something like that, the person who came into my
head, was a certain Mr. H Metcalfe.

As a long time owner, he must be thinking about what to do with his car, knowing
that it will only get harder to keep his car going, as originally designed and intended.

To me anyway, he would still carry some clout and might be able to get talking to
the right sort of people, the Renault top brass, or those who make these sort of decisions.

At the very least, it might (just) cajole them into supporting their heritage models more.

 

[photo_ed]

If you were to try and do something like that, the person who came into my
head, was a certain Mr. H Metcalfe.

Not a bad shout there Francis, I'd had thoughts along similar lines.

Perhaps the owner of #001 also may be someone 'of influence' for the cause too?

 

[Titan]

They would certainly make a pretty decent double team to try it
at least, I'd have thought Ed.

Both would be very well connected, and if I'm not mistaken, I think the
#001 owner is also French (I believe).

 

[MarcB]

1, Mr. H Metcalfe does not own the car now, it's his son's.
2, A parts supplier only need to make or produce parts for up to 15 years and then they can stop.
3, Renault UK / France will not give a flying toot about this, All they would want to do is sell new units at a crazy price.
4, Sachs Uk / Germany would be the people to contact but once again it would lead back to bullet point 2.
5, There is also no such thing as a Renault sport period, Its now Alpine and Renault now produce more EVs than anything else.

If anyone wants to bang there head of a brick wall and start contacting these people -

Mr Guillaume Sicard - Managing Director Renault UK - Guillaume.Sicard@renault.com (https://uk.linkedin.com/in/guillaume-sicard-62539b3)
Philippe Ernest KRIEF - Renault Sport Racing Limited - Philippe.Krief@renault.com
Luca de Meo - CEO, Renault Group, CEO, Ampere - Luca.demeo@renault.com (https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucademeo)
Herbert Steiner - VP, Passenger Cars & Renault Brand Industry - Herbert.Steiner@renault.com (

https://fr.linkedin.com/in/herbertsteiner

)

 

[MarcB]

Oh I also have e-mail addresses for people at Sachs Germany if anyone wants to bash there heads also.

 

[MarcB]

Everyone stop worrying.
Had 110% conformation that if you want your sachs fully refurbished send them off to BG

BG can refurbish these no problem with all parts

 

[NickReilly063]

Thanks Marc - Your a Star

Glad I didn't put No63 up for sale