Some of a Clio 1.8 16v
Well chaps, when we thought the Clio Valver project was coming to an end we decided to start another project out of Moo's newly aquired Citroen Saxo, I know it's not a Clio I know but i'm sure you'll let it slide as many of you know Moo and will agree he's a pretty decent chap and knows what makes a good car/ project.
Well since moving out to his own place the Vx220 had to go as it's far from cheap to keep this free'd up space for another french car and since this one was cheap and pretty quick it seemed like a good start.
The car is a 1998 Saxo Vts with 86k on the clock and a years ticket however that didn't seem to mean a great deal as the floor had 2 gaping holes in it which needed mending first off. So it was down to my work for good ol' Pete to work his magic with the welder.
While this was was being done we were doing everything in our powers to sell the moretti's as they're really not to our tastes.
To replace these we went for standard headlamps but the grille we wanted something smoother so we sourced a standard grille and a second patern one which i combined to make this..
Happy as Larry with that we set about the most important part of any Euro car, the wheels. This meant dealing with people in the fatherland involving tonnes of dodgy translations and confusing currency conversion rates. However in a very efficiant fashion these arrived and we couldn't wait to get them to bits and start "specialing them up"
Also in order to get the ride height right we'll need rid of the cat as even at this height it spends more time on the floor than not.
We went to see our favourite Wheel***** and advice centre Jeff for the BBS rim socket and set up this photo (mainly for winston lol) 15" 16" 17" RS's all together.
Once that was done we headed back to our garage and after 120 bolts, a bit of heat and a good twatting we broke the wheels up into they're individual bits to start the redrilling. Polishing. Sand blasting painting and powder coating.
Then we had the rare privelage of a massive state of the art workshop to play in (cheers julio) so we took advantage of it and get loads of little things sorted that've been on our minds for a while now
The BBS's returned over the christmas period redrilled to 4x108 and since the lancia delta they were originally off of had the same offset as a saxo they were ready to trial fit and do some measuring to see how deeeeeeeeeeper rim we can have on the back. Started off getting the car onto the ramp, got the wheels off the N/S and trial fitted them. Next we let the car down onto some tall stand to load up the suspension (and with a few wheels in the boot to stop it tipping off the ramp lol). heres the results and we think you'll agee, Uber,just Uber.....
Difficult to make out what your looking at here but basically your looking upward at the wheel and showing the clearance to the arch. This is the front and as you can see there pretty much a spot on fit and width.
This however is the rears and as you can see there's some clearance to be rammed with shiny shiny dish! Woooo So we using a straight edge (read massive pry bar) worked out we had the width of the prybar and Beanie's forefinger clearance which in european measurement is 1" meaning we will be getting 2" of juicy rim under the rear.
While this was going on this rocked up which we were very impressed with indeed.
But to be honest it's still the french hatches at heart for us....
I can safely say I had no idea at all that putting new wheels on a car could ever cost this much, take this long, or be this complicated but i'm so sure now they will be more than worth it all. This week more provisions arrived from the fatherland in the form of 2 brand new rear rims. Then a week after expected but more than worth the wait the rest of the wheels returned from powder coating. Anyway enough waffle heres the pics.
Still got to get the front rims and the centre nuts polished, and some new centre caps to arrive but they are certainly coming together, and beginning to look like I really wanted them to!
Cheers for looking and we'll keep you posted.
Well since moving out to his own place the Vx220 had to go as it's far from cheap to keep this free'd up space for another french car and since this one was cheap and pretty quick it seemed like a good start.
The car is a 1998 Saxo Vts with 86k on the clock and a years ticket however that didn't seem to mean a great deal as the floor had 2 gaping holes in it which needed mending first off. So it was down to my work for good ol' Pete to work his magic with the welder.
While this was was being done we were doing everything in our powers to sell the moretti's as they're really not to our tastes.
To replace these we went for standard headlamps but the grille we wanted something smoother so we sourced a standard grille and a second patern one which i combined to make this..
Happy as Larry with that we set about the most important part of any Euro car, the wheels. This meant dealing with people in the fatherland involving tonnes of dodgy translations and confusing currency conversion rates. However in a very efficiant fashion these arrived and we couldn't wait to get them to bits and start "specialing them up"
Also in order to get the ride height right we'll need rid of the cat as even at this height it spends more time on the floor than not.
We went to see our favourite Wheel***** and advice centre Jeff for the BBS rim socket and set up this photo (mainly for winston lol) 15" 16" 17" RS's all together.
Once that was done we headed back to our garage and after 120 bolts, a bit of heat and a good twatting we broke the wheels up into they're individual bits to start the redrilling. Polishing. Sand blasting painting and powder coating.
Then we had the rare privelage of a massive state of the art workshop to play in (cheers julio) so we took advantage of it and get loads of little things sorted that've been on our minds for a while now
The BBS's returned over the christmas period redrilled to 4x108 and since the lancia delta they were originally off of had the same offset as a saxo they were ready to trial fit and do some measuring to see how deeeeeeeeeeper rim we can have on the back. Started off getting the car onto the ramp, got the wheels off the N/S and trial fitted them. Next we let the car down onto some tall stand to load up the suspension (and with a few wheels in the boot to stop it tipping off the ramp lol). heres the results and we think you'll agee, Uber,just Uber.....
Difficult to make out what your looking at here but basically your looking upward at the wheel and showing the clearance to the arch. This is the front and as you can see there pretty much a spot on fit and width.
This however is the rears and as you can see there's some clearance to be rammed with shiny shiny dish! Woooo So we using a straight edge (read massive pry bar) worked out we had the width of the prybar and Beanie's forefinger clearance which in european measurement is 1" meaning we will be getting 2" of juicy rim under the rear.
While this was going on this rocked up which we were very impressed with indeed.
But to be honest it's still the french hatches at heart for us....
I can safely say I had no idea at all that putting new wheels on a car could ever cost this much, take this long, or be this complicated but i'm so sure now they will be more than worth it all. This week more provisions arrived from the fatherland in the form of 2 brand new rear rims. Then a week after expected but more than worth the wait the rest of the wheels returned from powder coating. Anyway enough waffle heres the pics.
Still got to get the front rims and the centre nuts polished, and some new centre caps to arrive but they are certainly coming together, and beginning to look like I really wanted them to!
Cheers for looking and we'll keep you posted.
