Paint Colour

[REN TIN TIN]

Can anyone tell me what colour a motor from an 1963 R4 is supposed to be? Is it dark green as in the attached picture, or a light green (similar to the background border on this site)?
Or, to complicate things even more, I have 6 R4 gearboxes and they all appear to have been painted an olive green. Is the correct colour olive green?


Ren.

 

[KIMDEB]

Re R4 engine paint colours.

This is really testing the memory box!! The early engine types (Ventoux) were the 727cc, & then the later 848cc. Both those engines were painted in a 'dark' green colour, including the rocker cover & (I think) the sump.

I am not sure about the gearbox colours. I do know that my 760 (yes, not 750) (R1060) had a green coloured gearbox.

The later R4's with the Sierra engines were black.

Am not sure if this helps, but possibly you could get more info from another car club member.

Cheers,
Kim.

PS Still a lot of R4's running around in Spain.

 

[Aln]

After looking at many 750s, Dauphines,and afew R4s I believe the colour to be somewhere between the two, at least on my monitor. It is an olive green kind of colour. I don't have a paint code as I just polished up a cover of some sort off the motor and got it matched.
If your gearboxes paint can be cleaned up, I am sure that will point you in the right direction. Only a true fanatic would have repainted an R4 gearbox years ago.

 

[Simon]

The original colour of a 1963 R4 motor is Valentine Moteur Vert, Valentine being the brand name similar to Dulux etc. From my cheapo monitor your colour on the pic could be OK, but I'd go off the colour on the old gearboxes which is more the dark olive green. The colour changed from green to black in 1965. Also the whole motor/gearbox was painted green from tip to toe including the rocker cover, head to carby/manifold bracket, but not the manifold. The 845cc motor also had the Diable 5 (5 devil) sticker on the rocker cover to indicate it was the Hi-Po 5CV version.......

Also incidently, the motor in that pic is not a 1963 R4 motor, it is a much later 1966 or later motor as it has a chain driven camshaft (indicated by the corrugated timing chain cover) unless the later timong gear has been retro fitted. Also the rocker cover is a later version with the breather tube pointing up over the rocker cover. The '63 motor just had it pointing down the RHS of the motor with a plastic tube breathing to the atmosphere. The rocker cover there is the correct black colour for that version.

 

[GeorgeC]

My territory is the 4CV rather than the R4, but Ventoux motors were in both and I'd expect the colour for early R4s and 4CVs was probably the same. As Simon says, "Valentine Moteur Vert".

On my monitor, the green in your pic looks more a Brunswick green (check the colour in Solagard/Killrust at your local hardware) than the 4CV colour, which is a little darker and more olive. Mind, I doubt most people would argue .

From memory, Melun-Retro Passion in France had the correct motor green paint in their catalogue: it may still be available through their website at www.melun-retro-passion.com/ .

Hope this helps.

PS - a quick plug: the Renault 4CV Register website is back in operation at www.4cvregisteraustralia.org .

 

[REN TIN TIN]

Thanks all for your replies. It's a bit hard to talk about colours as everyone's monitors would have different colour balance.
The reason I'm doing this is that the motor for my R4 was completely reconditioned a few years ago and when it was done the motor was painted the light green. This was done by the former owner, not me. My motor is the early one as described by Simon with the fibre timing gear and vent on the side of the rocker cover. I posted that photo because it was the only clear photo I could find of an R4 motor.
The gear box wasn't reconditioned at the time and all the gear boxes I have are a different colour from the motor (what paint remains at least). Again, it's hard to describe shades of colour but Simon's description of dark olive green is pretty close. I guess it would a similar green to that used by the army to paint their vehicles.
Anyway, the gear box, once it's reconditioned will need painting and if I'm going to paint the thing I might as well paint it the correct colour. I don't like the light green so I'm happy if the dark green is the correct colour and I have an excuse to repaint the motor. It's out of the car so it wouldn't take much to mask up and paint. I'm that much of a stickler to originality that I would need to get the exact colour, just some thing close that’s readily available or can be mixed. (I believe that there were Nissan Pintaras painted a similar colour, probably ex-army).


Ren

 

[Simon]

(I believe that there were Nissan Pintaras painted a similar colour, probably ex-army).


Ren

It isn't a khaki green colour as in army vehicles, more olive with a touch of blue. My thought would be to match up the best two gearboxes you have for uniform colours, and then take the best of those to a decent paint shop to match the paint. Then again from my experience there are even places around that have no idea even if a sample and exact paint code are provided......But at least it should be a lot better match then the BMC green that many restored older Renault motors are painted.