The French Wiganese

[Cunney]

Owned my car for a good bit now but never made a progress thread so thought I'd make one :approve:.

Before this my car histroy consisted of vauxhall corsa's (all 1.2's), the 182 has always been the car I wanted since leaving school so can imagine how made up I was to get my hands on one.

A racing blue 182 with cup packs was the car I had to have, after a month of waiting though it just didn't happen and the couple that I did find were high mileage (car had to below 40k).

Eventually came across my car, only 33k miles, cup packs, full service history, 55 plate, owner was away in the army and asked his dad to sell it as it was only sitting on the drive, a steal at £5700 along with a shed load of detailing stuff (easy £200 worth).

What was going:

Got 3k from it on 80k miles so was happy enough.

Pic from the advert:

Only thing wrong with it was didn't have a splitter.

The 1st time I drove it or any other 182 for that matter was when I was pulling it off the owners drive, 1st few things I noticed, obviously drivers height, felt like I was in a tank, the clutch I couldn't get used to until I hit the motorway and also how effortless it was.

1st thing I did was give it a detail, using products like clay for the 1st time, came out lovely.

Same day fitted the 3/4 plate



Customary Silvatecs



Added Cliosport sticker and silvatecs too back


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Next up, Yozza (cat back)


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Shortly Followed Eibach Sportlines, made a nice difference to the car for the money





Old off





New Rear Pads & Discs


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Was all set then for the long drive down to Weymouth, car didn't put a foot wrong, really started to fall in love with it!

When I got back from there car had a photshoot the next day... (lots of pics but i'll just post the couple)





The hardest choice was then what wheels to go for, I couldn't decide whether to keep it sublte and tidy or make it more raw & focused.

Went with the later, so stripped it to a point



Then took it to USC



Set about finding some light weight wheels, before buying I had said that I wanted some sort of colour scheme going through, I love black and red as you can see from my corsa, so decided on Oz Ultra Leggera Seria Rossa's.

Was pleased to find out that nobody else had modified a black 182 with a red theme neither did anyone appear to have these wheels.

No wheels of when i got them fitted weirdly, after I got them I started doing a grey and red type theme, don't know why as it looked to messy, a pic of how it looked come TRAX time

 

[Cunney]

Not long after this was happened...

I was gutted, standing by my car I was devestated that I'd just ruined my dream car and I'd be back to driving small engine cars for the next few years due to insurance

My excess was £900 on my insurance and considering the after effects insurance would have I decided to see if it was worth me trying to repair it.

It was £300 just to get it towed to a garage, everybody was on holiday at home so spent the full night stewing over it.

Dad had his garage collect the car from Egertons next morning, my dad had already said to me that it probably won't be good news (he was away bare in mind) although my mate who picked me up from the accident said there might be a chance it won't be a write off.

Waited for the worst, my dads boss rang me that morning and told me that amazingly the car was fine and was now driveable again, i was baffled, turns out the track rod end had snapped and saved the entire underside, so apart from the obvious cosmetic damage it was ok.

Took 2 1/2 months to get it back due to delays from suppliers and other companies, alot of buses to work and alot of driving other cars, Audi A4 Quatro, 406, Long Wheel Based Tranny, Fiesta.

I was also £3k down but was worth it in my eyes, as soon as I got it back I did what I was planning to do and clean the look up a bit so put the badge back to chrome and blacked out the side bullets and got rid of the stick on the front

3 weeks after getting it back, 2 weeks before crimbo somebody keyed the entire left side, front to back, felt like just getting rid, but I didn't and paid out another £300 to have it sorted.

While it was in the garage I got them to spray the bullets black gold as opose to the gloss black I'd sprayed them, they were spot on so I coloured in the letters red, made a nice difference.

Then she was back at the shows

All that happened in the following months was a cambelt change, a full service at NW Performance where they put my mind at rest that it was fine from the accident, i'd been positive ever since that something was wrong but it was just my head, the only issue being a slightly dodgy rear shock and some seriously under flated rear tyres!

Small update of a front splitter, £5 from the scrappies plus a good clean, polish and wax

Took her out for some piccies with my mates ZR

 

[Cunney]

Went and booked a holiday around that week, so once again money was needed some where else and the car got forgotten about, fell out of love with it especially as tax & insurance was due just before I went away and I was skint.

Got back a few weeks ago so focus back on the french again.

Booked in with NW performance again weekend just gone for two new rear tyres, michellin pilot's again, they've made the world of difference, think the tyre walls had gone a bit soft on the others as it just felt very skittish on corners.

While I was there, my mate joined forces with Ryan at NWP and the two b4stards some how talked me round into buying a de-cat, which if any of you own a yozza you'll know how loud it is, stripped it's even louder, stripped with a de-cat... insane

He's a right tart when it comes to camera's, you can't get him away from the lens

Got back to my mates and set about removing the tar, what a ***** that is.

Next was remove the panels, I stood there for 5 minutes wondering if I should be doing this :-\

Here's me having a moment alone with the car, just apologising

Couldn't be arsed storing it all so straight to the tip I went, with a couple of guys there looking in the car as if i'd gone mad as I left the car ticking up burbling and popping with it's new de-cat and empty rear.

Got some of these ordered for the dust caps, should be here tomorrow, bit different!

Also arriving tomorrow is these...

These will be welded in to the floor and then the whole rear painted satin black and then my 5th red alloy fitted into the car, which should hopefully set it all off really nice.

After stripping the car and getting the de-cat done I went for a drive with a few mates down some nice roads, couple of vids to show you how it sounds in the cabin with strippage and exhaust, I love it, probably not to every1's tastes though..



As you can see the roads were quite bumpy in parets so couldn't really get any decent driving in



Then got a few piccies

 

[VIICarCare]

wow, sexy clean 182. lovely

 

[Sarah]

wow nice project

car looks great :approve:

 

[jenic]

Love the wheels

I would have broke the car and bought another instead of paying £3K to fix it! Would have cost less.

 

[Camble]

Lookin good Cunney mate, remember me from Corsa C...Liam

Spoke to you about Carmel College etc haha!

 

[Danny133]

gorgeous mate well done!

 

[ROB91]

Good read mate, love the car, The wheels are perfect for it, good work

 

[Cunney]

Lookin good Cunney mate, remember me from Corsa C...Liam

Spoke to you about Carmel College etc haha!

Vaguely mate, that must of been a couple of years ago now lol!

Thanks for all the good comments

 

[Trainerbrow]

LOL

Look at how empty the unit is there!!!

Where was his toolbox at that point?

 

[Cunney]

They've just bought that place mate, so opened it up purely to form the de-cat and fit.

Their actual garage is a couple of bays down, they were plenty busy, must of been 5 clio sports there that morning.

 

[Curley]

Good going. Nice save after potentially writing it off!

 

[JamieH]

Lovely Example mate. Really enjoy those wheels!

Fair play for sticking with it! Plenty of people wouldn't have bothered! :approve:

 

[Cunney]

cheers lads, straps have arrived now so going to get them in at the weekend, should hopefully be a cliosport 1st as i've not seen anybody else with them in! So looking forward to the response, good or bad :rasp:

 

[mat-nos]

christ its been through a lot lol
looks really nice with the red wheels, whats next??

 

[Mcaff]

was thinking of selling up after reading this its gave me some insperation .. all beit mines a non sport but

pretty much spot on this

 

[Cunney]

christ its been through a lot lol
looks really nice with the red wheels, whats next??

In terms of looks on the outside mate I think i'll leave it exactly as it is (apart from a better splitter and new renault badges), I like how it's quite clean and simple looking even though it's got some colour.

So next it's onto sorting the inside, get it painted, buckets, harnesses, some nice touches such as carbon fibre dash bits with red decals and also a smaller steering wheel & eventually a black roll cage (with red touches).

And then i'll go into the big money and start improving brakes, suspension and performance (talking in a year though).

 

[Cunney]

was thinking of selling up after reading this its gave me some insperation .. all beit mines a non sport but

pretty much spot on this

Yeh nothing worse mate, glad it's changed your mind

 

[mat-nos]

nice plans i look forward to seeing the

 

[Cunney]

I've had a busy weekend, went to dads garage saturday morning to get the OMP tow straps hook eyes welded in, ended up welding the hooks to the plates and then the plates to the car for added strength.

Bit dodgy welding over the fuel tank as the underside was filling up with smoke due to the under seal burning, so was at the ready with a fire extinguisher!

Next I went to B&q to get a few bits, more paint, some masking tape and face mask to get ready for spraying inside the car.

Got home and started masking off the car as best as I could with every passer by asking what I was doing annoyingly (where I live the car is in a communal car park rather than on my own drive). Once I got down to painting I quickly realised that the hammerite 'straight to rust' paint was a bit of a swizz as it was running as soon as it touched the sides, which resulted in a few drip marks.

Started to get the hang of it though and after a few hours had finished both sides of the rear, or at least I thought, only until after it had dried did I notice the paint was quite thin in places, with the sun shining in it's quite hard to spot where black paint has been properly applied, especially when you're colour blind so not the best with shades, primered the floor ready for the next day as had to get off to a party.

Went and got some more paint yesterday morning, the cans were going no where and used 5 cans @ £10 each in the end!

Got finished though and looked really good, not the best of finishes due to all the general elements such as dust blowing in, dodgy light and a general impatience to get it done as I was hoping to go the NW meet yesterday.

Hoovered the car, tidied everything up, cleaned the dash, removed all the masking tape then washed down the spare alloy as its been in the garden since march, tyre shined it up and finally fitted it (what I saw as the cherry on the cake after all my hard work).

Really pleased with it The red stands out really nicely, something different for the shows aswell to grab peoples attention.

Will take pictures tonight (as my phone is broke so will use the gf's).

 

[Trainerbrow]

They've just bought that place mate, so opened it up purely to form the de-cat and fit.

Their actual garage is a couple of bays down, they were plenty busy, must of been 5 clio sports there that morning.

Ahhhhhhh

so thats the exhaust side??

I never saw that when I was down there. Identical to the other unit

 

[Cunney]

Ahhhhhhh

so thats the exhaust side??

I never saw that when I was down there. Identical to the other unit

Don't think it's specifically for exhausts but they had the welder/steel bender thingy majig in there.

Yeh same lay out as the other place, got a couple of new additions parked outside two, was v.smart.....

 

[Trainerbrow]

Urrghhhhh

Told him not to buy that piece of tat

He'd be better off fixing his 182

 

[Cunney]

Urrghhhhh

Told him not to buy that piece of tat

He'd be better off fixing his 182

They've got two! The 182 wasn't looking to clever, no engine

 

[Christopher]

Nice work!

 

[Cunney]

So like mentioned above, finally fitted my 5th alloy and painted the rear, really pleased with it although i'm still in two minds whether to leave it in.

Before:

After:

 

[Cunney]

A unique mod 2bh, flat blade wipers... (bit of a pit stop mod, couldn't see a thing on saturday with the rain)


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Bit of a general front end tidy upto aswell, polished the badge with some metal polish (not metal I know but came up nice), fixed the reg plate back as it was peeling off one side and finally removed the strip of glue from the windscreen that has been there since fast show in march :-|

 

[Cunney]

On Saturday I went to visit ipodsandguns off of here in Rotherham, genuinely sound fella, was trading my standard suspension and eibach sportlines for his k-tec coil overs.

I did get some picture of the work but my phone seems to have lost them.

All was going well until a socket got dropped into the engine bay lol, couldn't find it anywhere so took it for a drive down the road to try and make it fall out, it didn't, but noticed my steering felt very strange, was put down to them not yet being set-up so off we went.

The car was completely undriveable though, to give you an example it was understeering at 30mph on moderate bends, imagine driving in the ice, down a bumpy road on flat tyres with bad tracking and you'll get the idea, so a very dodgy drive over woodhead pass followed along with a long line of traffic behind.

Was looking everywhere to try and find a garage open on sunday and then finding out i'd left my locking wheel nut keys on rotherham didn't help lol.

An example of how the wheels were sitting (although the picture doesn't really capture the crazy camber as it's on a bit of a slope):



Anyway found out it was possible to adjust camber bolts with wheels still on, so they were adjusted to as much negative as possible, figured at least they would be equal on either side then, plan is to get them set-up.

Finished result:



Thought they were spot on at first however if the road is anything but perfect and when I have a passenger in the rear arch rubs on hard corners, especially roundabouts so may need to be brought up a bit at the back, or remove arch liners and shave a few bits, but I can't do this until I have the locking wheel nut keys.

When the road is near perfect though and I'm on my own they're spot on.

 

[Cunney]

Next up is much needed buckets, as the standard seats really look out of place now, especially with the car having a fast road feel to it.

I've struggled to find any black with red seats, any I have found either look like a child has made them or look like something a child would choose.

Think I may be going with these, pic doesn't really do them justice as they have some nice detail up close..

Along with red harrnesses:

 

[mat-nos]

i heart this car

 

[Pep]

Loving the red wheels mate, good work!

 

[172ben04]

stunning

 

[Cunney]

Cheers lads

stunning

Ben off corsa-c I presume? :rasp:

 

[172ben04]

you would be correct mr cunney

 

[Blue Mez]

this forum will be over-run by CCUKers soon

 

[Pete.M]

Hello,

Can I ask Where you got the smaller plate from?

Is the actual text smaller or just the plate? If it is it doesn't look alot smaller, do you get any interest from the police?

 

[Cunney]

this forum will be over-run by CCUKers soon

We can only hope

Hello,

Can I ask Where you got the smaller plate from?

Is the actual text smaller or just the plate? If it is it doesn't look alot smaller, do you get any interest from the police?

fancy plates, search them on google mate, yeh the writing is smaller but i've never had any bother with it in 12 months even when i've been pulled.

 

[LowLife.]

Alright mate, Im stripping my 182 because of this thread!!!! How do you get the seat backs out? i have taken the bench but i cant see how to remove the backrests grrrr!

 

[Cunney]

Alright mate, Im stripping my 182 because of this thread!!!! How do you get the seat backs out? i have taken the bench but i cant see how to remove the backrests grrrr!

It's called an iso bar mate (the large bar behind the seats found in the boot), literally a couple of bolts and then just lift the back up and out