1995 Clio 1.8 16v - Project 'not a project'

[C16V_Adam]

Starting a thread to keep track of the work I am carrying out to my 1995 Naples Clio Valver. I bought this car as a roadworthy rolling project which is just what I wanted, I already have a long term project (started in 2012 and probably has another decade to go ) so was determined to get a car that needed tidying up but I can use and enjoy now. I absolutley do not want or need another car that is going to be off the road for a long time.

Enter my valver

Now obviously the arches are shot, standard stuff. And the sills seemed a little bit...spongy... in places but generally reasonably solid. They should be fine until I can do a proper job on them next year, for now I can just drive and enjoy the car. It does however have some jobs that need doing.

-The roof is leaking and the IR reciever is bagged up
-There is a really irritating whistle coming from the engine
-The drivers door does not lock and unlock
-The passenger door window does not work
-The electric mirrors do not work
-The side repeaters do not work
-The horn does not work
-The seat fabric is unstitched on both seats
-The front bumper is barely attached and looks ugly due to being cut up for a previous FMIC
-The bonnet is rusty and dented
-The paintwork has lacquer peel all over
-1 tailgate hinge pin is broken

First job was to have a look at the leaky roof, and decided to have a look at the ariel first and aha! it is loose! So I remove the ariel and clean it up and stick it back on with some tiger seal.

Then I build a little dam and check my work...

Perfect, it's not leaking. Job Done.

I had probably better check the sunroof though just to be sure

oh..

So out comes the sunroof, and I can see why it was leaking. There is not much in the way of original manufacturer seal. Somebody has been here before and there has been an attempt to seal it with silicone from the inside. I clean up the roof and sunroof frame throughly, mask them both up and use a whole tube of tiger seal before refitting the sunroof and cleaning up the bead.

I put it on thick, taking no chances

Another dam built, another leak check carried out. A vast improvment, no longer streaming in. There is a slight trickle that I can see it coming past the seal on the window glass. So i open up the sunroof manually (as the sunroof motor also doesn't work I forgot to put that on the list!). I clean the surround and seal thoroughly cleaning all the gunk out from underneath the lip of the seal. This seems to do the trick and it is holding the water at bay.

Next job was to have a look at why the passenger window wasn't working, I have no pictures of this because that turned out to just be a blown fuse. Replaced the fuse and jobs a good 'un, albeit it winds up and down very slowly.

I remove the door cars anyway to find out why the electric door mirrors aren't working and the drivers door lock and also lube up the window regulators at the same time. The mirrors aren't working because the aren't plugged in, and they aren't plugged in because someone has cut the plugs off the loom for some reason! So I managed to source 2 complete door looms from a top bloke on facebook who had them spare in his loft and posted them to me for no charge. Swapped the door looms and got the passenger mirror working, however the driver mirror still doesn't work. I need to do some more investigation into what the issue is, if it's the switch of the mirror itself.

I replaced the drivers door lock actuator also whilst the door cards are off, and that solved the problem of the door lock not working. Another job done.

Next job, investigate why the horn is not working. I find this is also not plugged in when I take the bumped off, easy fix then. But just plugging it back in doesn't help. The horn looks very corroded and connecting it direct to the battery produces no sound. So a generic 2 tone horn is ordered from ebay and fitted, and that is another job ticked off the list.

Next I look into the side repeaters, pop them out and find no bulb or bulb holder in there. So I take the arche liners out and dig around and find this set up, a bulb bodged into the look with what looks like speaker wire! Not sure what the plan was to hold it in the side repeater as it has no holder. And it doesn't work anyway, it the same on the other side.

I order and fit some generic LED side repeaters from ebay as a quick fix, they are smoked and are 'animated' style. I don't like them but are a quick solution, I will be ordering the correct parts for the original look down the line.

 

[C16V_Adam]

Next I tackle the bumper and bonnet. Luckily the car came with a spare boot, bonnet and front bumper. I stripped the bootlid and drilled off the hinges and scrapped the rest, it wasn;t in good condition and I don't have the space for it. I decided to rub down and tackle the bumper myself.

It isn't perfect but I am pretty happy with how it turned out on a rattle can job (plus have you seen the rest of the car? )

I had planned to do the bonnet also but I underestimated just how much time and material this takes, I used way more paint on this bumper than I thought I would and I just ran out of time. So I stripped the spare bonnet and prepped a little bit of rust along the front edge before sending it off to be painted.

I don't have any picture of the resprayed bonnet, but I do have picture of it 4 days after collecting it after I dropped it right on the corner whilst trying to fit it on my own

Many swear words were said.

I will straighten that out and and touch it up another day, for now it is back off and in the garage as I need to do some work on the engine anyway.

Time for a poke around underneath to see how bad these sills really are...that was a mistake.

Well there goes the 'not a big project' then. Needs front and rear jacking point, inner and outer sills on the drivers side. Passenger side it a lot more solid at the front but needs a repair to the inner and out sill towards the rear arch. So this work will be carried out over the winter with the aim to have it all done and MOT'd for the spring. It is disspointing but it is probably my fault for digging too much with a screwdriver, and I would rather just get it sorted now than let it get worse.

Whilst I was under the car I noticed the front wisbone bushes were perished, so I had them off and replaced the bushes. I was looking to replace the whole arms but couldn't find reliable information on the correct wishbones. Most websites insist that all MK1 wishbones are the same including the williams, some websites same all the same except 16v and williams which are the same etc etc, so I just decieded to replace the bushes.

 

[C16V_Adam]

I investigated the whistling noise convinced it is an air leak in the vaccum system as it is come from around the inlet manifold somewhere. After a comment from my wife about how strong it smells of petrol after running I thought hmm you're right and had a look at the fuel injectors. Maybe a little bit wet but not too bad, but with the engine running a squirt of WD40 around the no4 injector changed the note of the whistle. So I stripped out the fuel injectors to replace the injector seals.

I have also replaced the injector plugs on the loom as the original plugs were brittle and broken

I also carried out a smoke check on the intake and it is leaking slightly from the inlet manifold area, so as you have to remove the injectors to remove the inlet manifold I figure I may as well do this at the same time. And as I have to drain the coolant to remove the radiator to remove the inlet manifold I may aswell do the timing belt and water pump.

I had already had a quick look at the timing belt to see what condition it is in, helpfully the last person to do it wrote the date and mileage on it

May 2021 and 134K, so it has barely done any mileage since, less than a thousand, But it is over 5 years old and it will give me peace of mind to change it.

And that's pretty much where it is at today. Complete the engine work and then start cutting into the body work.

Whilst I was doing the wishbones I noticed the brake pads are clearly too small for the discs. Quick look at the haynes manual says the discs should be 259mm diameter and these are 285mm.

Can anbody shed any light on this? Do these look like the original hubs/calipers but with a caliper spacer and bigger discs? or is this set up from a different model?

Cheers for reading this far, I will update when there is more.

 

[Brigsy]

The larger discs are the old ktec big brake conversion or a copy of it, using extender brackets and renault 21 txe discs from memory. The pad only using the outer surface is normal for this kit.

I believe the discs for this kit are pretty much nla everywhere now, and when i ran them, i didnt think they worked any better than standard discs & just added more weight.

Great project, in for updates.

 

[16v_paddy]

The paint finish on the bumper looks just as good if not better than what it was from the factory so you're all good

As for the brake discs, since they're nla you can use 172 discs which are 280mm or bin the caliper spacers and drop back down to the standard discs

 

[C16V_Adam]

Nice one, thanks for that. Ok so if the pads and discs have plenty of life left in them I'll just run them until they need replacing then revert back to standard valver items. Cheers

 

[AUS-172]

Definitely a project now!

It never ceases to amaze me the rust you guys deal with over there - that would deadset be crushed if it were in Aus.

 

[C16V_Adam]

Definitely a project now!

It never ceases to amaze me the rust you guys deal with over there - that would deadset be crushed if it were in Aus.

Nothing a bit of grinding cutting and welding can't sort out haha

 

[Rojer]

I saw this advertised on FB a while ago, the guy was trying to do a deal with me for my Civic.

 

[C16V_Adam]

Not much of an update, I had the engine stripped down to replace the timing belt, water pump, inlet manifold gasket, new auxiliary belt.

Took the opportunity whilst cleaning the mating faces to give the block a bit of a degrease.

The removed waterpump looked really good condition internally so presume that was changed when the camblet was last done.

Block looks quite rusty internally, is this a fairly standard condition for these blocks to be in?

I had an issue getting access to the timing belt, the middle cover has a spinning bolt and would not come out. I managed to swivel the cover out of the way so I could get the timing belt off. However, the kit comes with a new tensioner and idler and when looking at just how little room there is to remove them and considering how good condition the belt looks and knowing it has done less than a thousand miles I decided not to change the belt.

Looking around the engine bay, the condition of the subframe, and the general condition of the engine itself. it all needs a lot of tidying up. So, somewhere down the line I will have the engine out to clean it all up and this will be the best time to change the timing belt. I had also planned to paint the inlet manifold and upper timing belt cover whilst I had them off, but again the condition of the rest of the engine bay convinced me it wasn't worth the effort at the moment.

After putting it all back together and firing it up it was only running on 3 cylinders. Removing HT leads one at a time I worked out it was cylinder 3. The only thing I have touched that would effect the running is the injector wiring and injectors themselves. Took the number 3 injector plug off and found the pins pushed back in the new plug.

Reset the pins, I needed to bend the retaining lug out on the pins a bit.

All back together, running on 4 cylinders again, happy days. Engine sounding good, new injector seals have got rid of the awful whistling noise thankfully! The new aux belt squeals now on full lock though so I need to revisit the tension for that but other than that all good.

I won't be getting around to the rot and welding until the new year when I can free up some space in my workshop, so next few updates will be some of the other jobs from the to do list.

Cheers for looking.

 

[Darren S]

Definitely a project now!

It never ceases to amaze me the rust you guys deal with over there - that would deadset be crushed if it were in Aus.

We have the wonderful climate to contend with. Combined with the Govt. being obsessed with chucking highly corrosive road salt out when the temps drop to anywhere near zero.

 

[16v_paddy]

The rust is pretty common inside the coolant passages and it's especially worse when people use tap water

My preferred method for flushing these is fill up with the cheapest nastiest shittiest concentrate coolant you can possibly find, then drive it for a bit, drain it, flush with a hosepipe and repeat the process 1 more time.
I usually do it 1 more time but with water, drive it about & if the water looks clean enough I'll then put the Type D coolant in. The worst 1 I ever did took 4 flushes with the crap stuff

 

[Brigsy]

Citric acid solution could be the one to clear the rust out of the block.

 

[C16V_Adam]

Thanks for the advice guys. In terms of flushing it, how are you doing that? Thermostat housing off and putting a hosepipe straight in the block there?

Also whilst I'm talking about the thermostat housing, which temperature sender is for the temperature gauge on the dash? I ordered a replacement temperature sender but the one that arrived is different to the one on the top (green plug iirc) and from my understanding the one on the top of the thermostat housing is for the temperature gauge? I wanted to change it as the couple of times that I have driven it I have never seen that gauge move more than a few increments. The day I picked it up it was a really hot day and it was a 40 minute drive home so should be seeing some temperature in that gauge in my opinion.

 

[16v_paddy]

Basically just stick the hosepipe into every possible orifice & start blasting

Top of the thermostat housing is the sensor for the gauge
The 1 pointing towards the bulkhead is a fan switch
And the one pointed towards the wheel arch is for the ecu