172 Cup OEM+

Where do I begin.

1. - Two months before I was due to go on another Euro Trip to Switzerland the gearbox developed a leak from the selector seal.

2. - Two weeks before leaving for Europe I decided to fit EPAS. Had it on a previous 182 and REALLY rated it and wanted it again. @KivsGarage aided in fitting it. I 'helped'.
After fitting EPAS, I had mega issues with where the boss sat on the spline and centering the steering wheel. When I took it for alignment I was being told I needed to leave the boss, but undo the 6 grub screws and move the wheel which didn't sit well with me. Much faffing later and it seems the person who I bought it off may have had the column apart, I didn't even know they came apart. Ughhhhh anyway. 4 alignments in one day and the wheel was straight, the rack was central and the boss was in the correct place. Hooraaahh! Or so I thought.

3. - The day I was leaving for Kent (staying the night there before Le Shuttle) the Clio threw up an "oil - - - -" light on the dash. No problem, I'll do a full oil and filter change on the day I'm leaving at 9am.

3.5 - I pack the car and leave for London. Driving on the motorway and the steering isn't happy. It felt like I was driving on a windy bridge and I needed to make micro adjustments to the steering to keep the wheel stable/straight. Closer I got to London, I noticed going around roundabouts, going right felt fine, turning left felt awful like no PAS. UGHHHHH!

4. - Le Shuttle is booked for 4pm. So I woke up early, checked the car over and thought I'd take it for an alignment. It wasn't quite straight. However it still didn't feel right, so I decided to pull out of the trip.

5.- As I packed the car up at my friend's in Kent, I turned the car over and saw "oil - - - -" again. I added 200ml to turn it off.
Drove home. Unpacked the car. Moved the car in to the garage and "oil - - - -". It took a other 600ml to turn the light off.
I then decided to drop the oil, (waste of adding that 600ml).

There was 3L in it. No external leaks.
5.1L + 200ml + 600ml =5.9L. So it burnt almost 3L in 400miles.

Looking at the oil that came out, it looks like grit with metal shavings in it.

So I'm glad I didn't take the Clio to Europe.

HUGE thanks to @KivsGarage for holding my hand through all of this. Been an absolute legend.

Some random photos from all the above.

Whats going on in the last photo? Getting ready to have the engine out?

Bad luck all round. Do you have a tracking sheet print out?

Touring_Rob said:

Whats going on in the last photo? Getting ready to have the engine out?

Bad luck all round. Do you have a tracking sheet print out?

Click to expand...

Tracking, I have multiple print outs. It is pointing straight. I think the column motor is faulty or the wire supplied isn't up to task.

Yeah, started to strip it down and see if I can see any signs of what led to this point. Plugs are clean. However the oil smells alot like fuel.

Oddly grateful, that this happened when it did and not at some random petrol station in France. I had a feeling the car didn't want to go on the trip, after the selector seal leak and then the epas column and then the alignment chaos.

If the Mk2 motor is faulty have you looked into fitting a mk3 epas set up instead?

This weekend @KivsGarage and I (well I watched) took the engine out and stripped most of the usable bits off the old engine on to a lower mileage 172 Engine.





Dropped the 197 cams in, fresh cambelt, dephaser and waterpump. Went to do the timing and the Cam Stud started to snap. So we stopped and called it a day and I ordered a new Cam Stud from RPD. £4 part stopped us timing it all up etc. Ahhhh well.






We didn't inspect exactly what has failed on the old engine, I'm leaving that to @KivsGarage in his spare time, as he took the engine off with him for the parts bin. Kiv also took my gearbox off to replace the selector seal as that's leaking.

The new 172 engine, I'll give it a good scrub and a lick of paint, same for the engine bay.


I also dropped the subframe to send some bits off for powdercoating.



Lots to do.

But if you thought that put me off you'd be wrong..... a few months a go I bought a cheap 182 to daily for my daily.

Glutton for punishment.