BG Clio 182 - Amos

[Amos91]

Hi guys,

Here is my BG Clio 182 FF that I bought from Steve over at R-Sports car.

Purchased it with 42k miles and its cracking good fun to drive.

Here are some shots of the car after a clay, polish and wax:

One of Steve's refurbed alloys:

And the exhaust before and after a quick polish:

On the way back home I noticed that the alignment seemed to be out and the brakes were soft and not as responsive as I would of hoped for. A quick trip to a hunter system allowed for a quick toe adjustment to sort that problem out. Took the car over to TDF, they bled the brakes but pointed me toward some knackered front discs. A quick message to Steve and he agreed to pay for a front set including pads. Cheers Steve.

Before and after of the discs:

Recently fitted aeroblades to the front and popped in some non return valves:

This has completely fixed my leaky headwasher lamps that drained the washer tank in about 5 days.

Next up is a Skoda splitter as the Renault one has split on the drivers side. Also need to buy a RS192 system as the centre section rattles when cold. I believe Steve had some clamps replaced here but it must have only lasted temporarily.

Will update with anymore progress.

Amos

 

[chriscummins7]

Looks tidy that mate.

I hear nothing but great things about buying from Steve @ Rsports... so you will have a great motor!

 

[Wayne-G]

Looks neat + tidy so far !

 

[tomka]

It was a good deal

 

[Amos91]

Skoda splitter put on:

Excuse the bugs

Next job is the exhaust...

 

[Amos91]

Thought I'd do a little update with this.

Got the Scorpion RS192 catback fitted as the original was getting a tad rusty:

Done other little cosmetic changes as well... Fitted Silver vision indicators front and back, also fitted some LED sidelights/number plate light. This picture is half way through fitting:

Here is a shot next to a 172 with the indicators done and a 3/4 front plate which looks significantly better:

Whilst things were improving aesthetically, there was an annoying rattle when accelerating from 3k to the limiter. A little investigation and I thought I had fixed the problem with an oversized washer:

Unfortunately this wasn't the cure... A trip to 519 automotive, a new manifold cat gasket and exhaust realignment sorted this problem out

Now just got to save the pennies, will need four new tyres soon, service and aux belt. £££




And that's about it so far, just waiting for a new climate control panel to arrive as my current one has a scratched AUTO button. Also want to respray the front bumper and remove some blemishes. Little things like that annoy me

Anyway, here it is after a winter protection, 48k miles and colour cliosport sticker applied (excuse the poor shot):

And finally a beading shot which I thought looked quite good :

Cheers,
Amos

 

[Reko]

Nice one buddy!

Surprised I never see you around. I visit my parents in Raunds quite often. I'll cya some day

 

[Amos91]

Holy thread revival...

As the festive season approaches and everything starts to wind down, I thought it would be a good opportunity to pull together all the bits done to this car over the last year or so.

Therefore, this could be a pretty long post but I'm sure someone may actually read it!

Apart from the odd few bits & pieces shown above, I really started to get working on the car when -
1) I stepped up the detailing with a DAS6Pro
2) When my mate decided to get various tools & a socket set to start doing general maintenance etc.

I began with the detailing side of things, the paint wasn't horrendous but age had certainly taken its toll and the black paint just makes it very noticeable! (note to self, do not buy another black car).

The original detailing thread is here (click me), I basically went on various recommendations on here from Scrooge etc who recommended the Menz & Hexlogic range. With various pad combinations I managed to get some really decent results which have stood up till today. A quick snippet -

Also at a similar time I cleaned up the seatbelts by soaking in a bucket of fairy, agitating with a brush and then pressure washing (the last bit being the most effective)

Before -

After -

Whilst going over the car, there was a considerable amount of moisture in one of the rear brake lamps, taking it apart revealed some substantial rust to the bulb holder and tracks.

A quick look over eBay resulted in me purchasing a used brake light complete with bulb holder. However, it did unfortunately come with a few scuffs / marks to the top and middle sections. I wasn't too sure if I would be able to remove them but a quick pass with the Das6Pro removed them surprisingly well!

Before -

After -

After that was installed I ordered a few more goodies -
• Ktec Induction Kit
•Powerflex Dogbone
•New Upper Engine Mount (Febi one off eBay)
•New Upper Gearbox Mount (New Renparts eBay)
•Cat to Mani Kit (Renault Wolvehampton)
•Passenger door lock solenoid (used Renparts)

On the last point, I noticed that sometimes the passenger door would randomly either stay locked or unlocked with a key press, typical sign of a faulty / sticking solenoid -

Door card all removed for access -

New goodies -

Upper cover removed to change the mount, cambelt & dephaser had just been changed by 519 too -

New upper gearbox in place -

New cat to mani kit (poor photo) -

And finally the Ktec induction -

Obviously, as soon as I spent some money on the belts, new parts etc, an unplanned cost decided to crop up.
I was driving through town on the way home and noticed a tick sound on each wheel revolution. At first I thought it was just a stone and nothing to worry about but when I went to drive it a few hours later the back tyre was flat -

With no spare I had to borrow another car and get to the local tyre place -

This monster bolt in the PS3 -

Unfortunately the hole was too large to repair, so that was a PS3 with 7mm tread left in the bin... Rather annoying!



The next set of upgrades were a new rear exhaust mount, a 197 style sport badge & clean rear plate:

Absolutely wrecked -

Old badge, shite photo -

Before removing, I placed some masking tape across the top of the old badge to get a reasonable idea of level and required height. With the badge removed and Tardis used -

A pass with the Das6 Pro -

All done -

More to follow...

 

[Amos91]

Next was another group of modifications & repairs...

First up was the washer pump, which was ridiculously weak and hardly cleaned the windscreen. Initially I went with the ECP pattern part recommended often on here, but once installed I found that the valve would stick on one direction. For instance pulling the stalk to clean the front would only clean the rear screen - this was somewhat intermittent and a replacement didn't fix it either. Therefore I went back to the original genuine one and pulled it apart -

Swollen valve -

Trimmed with a Stanley -

I perhaps took a little too much off the side but nonetheless this fixed the issue and the washers have been working at full power since.

Also purchased a slightly wider accelerator pedal from Sprayshack to help with the heel & toe -

And some MLR braided lines with new SuperGold fluid -

It was during this change I noticed that the drivers side outer pad was well worn compared to the passenger outer pad. From researching on here I found this was an unusual combination and if anything, the inners typically tend to wear faster.

After removing the pads the difference was obvious. Drivers side outer pad on the left, inner pad off the right -

The sliders were all fine but if anything the piston was a little stiffer than the passenger side to push back in. Thankfully a pretty good offer came up on the Bigg Red eBay page. A pair of calipers that had brand new seals, piston & nipple but had an issue with the electrolyte coating (one was pitted silver, the other gold). As a result this pair cost me £70 which is a good saving and didn't require me to strip or send the old ones off-

A quick lick of Hammerite paint fixed the mismatch -

And installed with new Brembo HC discs and pads -

Just after this was my birthday and I received some Halfords vouchers. After thinking about what to spend them on, I decided to go for some high temp paint and finally tackle bringing the engine bay up to standard.

A quick, but dusty black gold bonnet shot before I started!

Engine bay -

Inlet and gubbins removed -

Masked

Painted (also did the throttle body, fuel rail & upper mount cover):

Then a nice new coolant bottle, which really does freshen up the bay!

And finally I replaced the numberplate light. Originally when I looked at it I though the colour of it was still okay but its only when you get a new one that you realise the difference!

To end the updates, how the car stood on Saturday -

Thanks for reading!

 

[Saamjohn]

The reflection off that paintwork is amazing mate! @Amos91

 

[GavC]

Awesome BG :smiley: Would you kindly link me the non-return valves you got for the headlight washers? :up: Can't wait for spring to crack out my DA to spruce up my BG!

 

[Stefan.]

Lovely!!!

I really do like bg 182s they look so good when clean and kept oem

Nice work

 

[Amos91]

Awesome BG :smiley: Would you kindly link me the non-return valves you got for the headlight washers? :up: Can't wait for spring to crack out my DA to spruce up my BG!

Cheers guys.
You'll want a pair of these -

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1-Windscr...265291?hash=item5d5f8142cb:g:bloAAOSw37tV~t~T

To be honest, I found it best just to get a new pair of headlight washers, not too expensive and has been fine for a year or so now.

 

[Amos91]

A couple of extras -

Powerflex upper engine mount installed -

Then for the stained oil cap I ordered a replacement -

May look next at refreshing some the engine bay bolts etc.

 

[dann2707]

Car looks perfect mate. All the best upgrades done.

Epic!

 

[cod3oz]

awesome read ..car looks stunning bro

 

[Simon_16v]

@Amos91 Where did you manage to find the upper powerflex engine mount bush?

 

[Amos91]

@Amos91 Where did you manage to find the upper powerflex engine mount bush?

Cheapest I've seen is on eBay -

http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&id=141891827183&alt=web

 

[Amos91]

I decided to give the alloys some attention on the 182 at the weekend. Although the wheels were refurbed when I bought the car (45k miles ago) I was not into detailing at the time so a wheel sealant wasn't high priority!

As a result, whilst I kept the front faces tidy (never curbed) the rear was always neglected and it seems that some brake dust has etched into the clearcoat irreversibly.

Regardless of this, I tidied them up with ironx, tardis & clay bar. To be honest, it was good just to get rid of all the old tyre weight glue!

Jacked up -

Dirty unprotected wheels, including old glue -

Product of choice, plus tardis & claybar!

Iron-x doing its thing -

Result -

Then they were brought inside, prepped with eraser and a coating of Dlux applied (should give 1-2 years protection). They were left for 24 hours to cure before being put back on.

I'll update with how I get on with the coating.

 

[Amos91]

Look through some old pics whilst it's wet and miserable outside and thought I'd pop them in here.

This was toward the end of last summer after prima amigo and reload -

Looking forward to getting the DA out again.

 

[dann2707]

Your house is so cool.

Car's not bad either

 

[RDH]

I love that. Awesome mate.

 

[Amos91]

A little update from the last few months.

In chronological order, I was getting annoyed with the RS192 blowing at the cat join, even though it was modified and sleeved.

On closer inspection, it was found that the whole silencer face had cracked around the pipe causing additional blowing. Having spent considerable sums of money now on this stupid joint I went for the sod it, weld it all up option.

In the end, we opted to weld a new face on to the silencer, weld the join and add a reinforcement plate -

It was also noted at the time that the clutch was really heavy, I thought it was typically clio sport heavy, but it was apparently much stiffer than normal.

As a result, it had a new valeo clutch kit installed, where it was found the old release bearing had collapsed and was embedded partially in the clutch. Now it is really light and great to use!

With the recent spell of good weather I also noticed that the aircon was no longer working, the clutch seemed to engage but no 'click' sound when it starts operating. The garage found that the gas had escaped and it was no longer holding vacuum.

Cue my saturday morning having a look over the system and with a bit of luck I found the issue -

It was the pipe that goes from the condenser to the compressor, just below the alternator. No idea how this occurred but I've fitted a replacement pipe and hopefully a regas later this week won't yield any further issues.

The day after this, the sun was out so thought it was time to bring the DA out for the first time in 2016. Decided on a quick Tripple fix with black hexlogic -

I always find it hard to capture, but the gold was popping nicely, a cup spoiler shot -

And that's it so far. Roll on summer!

 

[Clio_fool]

Your car looks amazing mate, I hope I can get mine like that.

 

[Amos91]

Your car looks amazing mate, I hope I can get mine like that.

Cheers mate, thankfully I enjoy spending time on the paint / little details. I'm sure a lot of people can't be bothered on what is now a cheap car.

 

[Clio_fool]

I've never been one for polishing, think I've probably waxed 2 cars I've owned, which is a real sin considering what I've owned, but a shiny BG clio looks so smart I've gotta have one!
Actually make that 3 cars as j polished the C4 last weekend as practice.

 

[Iain C]

Great work fella. It's looks mint

 

[Euan94]

Car looks great, paint especially!

Who did the welding on your exhaust? If it was Beaniesport that may prove very handy.

 

[Amos91]

Thanks! The mechanics at ATS were enjoying it today.

I just like that the AC is working again. Typical that its overcast though...

 

[Amos91]

Car looks great, paint especially!

Who did the welding on your exhaust? If it was Beaniesport that may prove very handy.

Got it in one! Chris' welding is great.

 

[Euan94]

Got it in one! Chris' welding is great.

That is good news! I know he's got that mini he's having to do a lot of welding on but I was unsure if he did any customer stuff.

He can sort my blowing exhaust out as well.

 

[Amos91]

Small update...

I had noticed that like most clio sports, the door pull plastic was looking pretty worn and scratched up. On eBay Black Sheep Flocking had a few listings and an impulsive best offer from myself was accepted on some black door pulls.

I've just switched them over, it looks better in person but I'm not totally sold yet... I'm going to order some new flocked door handles to try and match it a little bit and see...

Old ones -

New -

 

[Saamjohn]

Nice door pulls I Like that ! , hope you don't mind me asking but how much did you pay for the clutch kit and fitting ?

 

[Amos91]

Nice door pulls I Like that ! , hope you don't mind me asking but how much did you pay for the clutch kit and fitting ?

Was in the region of £450, subframe completely removed.

 

[Amos91]

Thought it was time to update a few parts on the car with the impending Germany trip, I got these bits fittedlast Sunday with a mate but it was absolutely baking hot all day working in the sun, so my pictures are unfortunately are a bit limited as we pushed on.

We started off with the brakes as they were completely shot and one pad was down to the metal, thankfully it only happened the previous day so got those swapped over asap -

Didn't get an after picture but I decided to remove the anti-rattle shims in case they were causing the pads to stick a little with heat. Also decided against lube on the back of the pads etc which seems to be working fine after 200 miles. No rattles or squeaks.

This was followed by a flush through the ATE Type200 Gold fluid, although it was done last year I thought might as well for £10!

The original shocks also came off relatively easily and I used the new top mounts with revised spacer nut. Some people have said this has resulted in knocking etc but this has been fine on my car.

Once the really messy bits were done we moved to to the spark plugs and went with genuine Renault -

Old ones weren't too bad (roughly 45k miles on them)

The other week, the injector on cylinder 4 died so I decided to get a brand new set to mitigate the chance of further failures. They were easily installed and new o-ring placed on the fuel connector (these often break when removed).

Finally, the power steering was changed with a bodged pipe method, this basically involved covering the return hole in the header tank with a bit of pipe, turning the engine on and pumping the old fluid out whilst replacing with new - it was easy and the old gunky fluid was removed!

With all this done and everything working correctly, I got a new pair of Pilot Sport 3 tyres and went for a Hunter Alignment. Whilst it technically drove straight, the steering wheel used to always hang slightly to the left. Previous alignments have been unsuccessful but STS in Bedford got it right first time.

Its currently set at -0.08 toe a wheel as I find it gives a little extra weight to the steering.

Next job is to rotate the tyres, change the oil and head to Germany!

 

[Amos91]

A little update & summary of where the parts purchases and alignment were building up to...

Last weekend I went on a road trip with a few mates and a Clio 200 following the same routeas our previous visit to Germany, 6 years ago...

Basically we pop over to the Nurburgring on Thursday eve to do a lap or two then head south to watch the WRC rally around Trier (a lovely old city surrounded by vineyards, river & valleys).

Before we set off, the final bits of prep included a polish with CarPro Essence (great product & gloss) and getting everything packed up -

Relaxing with a view the night before -

The next day (Thursday morn) was an early start leaving my house at 5am, collecting a mate, meeting up with the Clio 200 on the A1 and catching the 10am Eurotunnel.

All went smoothly and we got on to French soil by 11.30am -

We went a slightly different route to the sat nav by taking the German A roads through the Eifel National Park, taking in some of the views about 1.5 hrs from the ring.

This was about 1 hour from the Nurburgring and we arrived at the car park moments before the track opened. Unfortunately it was wet and raining and the track looked sketchy. We decided to wait 30 mins for a dry line to form once the rain had stopped.

It was the first time I have driven on track, and at the ring so drier conditions would have been preferred!! As a result, we decided to go for one lap before heading towards the first stages of the WRC.

Overall it was an awesome experience, absolutely love the track and I need to get back there soon! It was great to finally put the 182 through its paces.

Only had one moment, through the compression at the bottom of the Foxhole the rear stepped out slightly and needed some correction 110mph. Otherwise a fairly decent lap but was held up by a German Mondeo estate for the last two minutes -

It was a short and sweet trip to the ring and we hit the autobahn straight after to get the first stages for the WRC run through on Friday.

There are some lovely views in this part of Germany too -

Plus some rally shots -

Ogier the winner -

And some of our other camping spots -

We headed back to the UK via Luxembourg City (to drop a mate off for work) and went up through Belgium and France to get to the Calais by mid afternoon.

Back in the Uk, the final trip mileage, Thursday to Monday was -

Only issue with the car was a whining toward the end of the weekend from the belt area, plus an unusual smell. Its currently at my specialist but its likely the PAS pump is on its way out!

Thanks for reading.

 

[Amos91]

Thought I'd do a token update, Dropbox have removed most of the links to my old images which is useful - time to start fresh then!

So over the last year since the Nurburgring... First up was was the Renault UK day offering free tickets to the BTCC at Brands Hatch. This included a separate parking area next to the main entrance & access to the Renault Sport hospitality tent. We got to watch a Q&A session with the championship contenders in the Clio Cup. To be honest it was good to be in the warm & dry!

In terms of the car, I managed to get in the first round of Marc's battery covers which I think really finishes off the engine bay with the Ktec induction kit.

Soon after it was time for its MOT which it passed with zero advisories, which I was rather happy about! At around this time I bought my first house with a garage so decided to see how it would fit. A little bit cosy but looked good!

Due to the visit to the Nurburgring earlier in the year, I decided I wanted to start using the 182 for track days, particularly now that they are worth so little it almost becomes a disposable car. The first thing I needed were some 15" track wheels as I didn't want to wreck the PS3s on track. It was after trawling for sale threads on here I saw @Budgie selling a set of Speedline Vegas with R888s for a very reasonable price. I couldn't resist so took the trip down to Budgie's to collect -

As most know, they are an old (& heavy!!) alloy but I wanted to tart them up a bit for track, knowing that they would get pretty wrecked with brake dust regardless. With the garage I had a perfect opportunity to get them sanded & sprayed. I went all out purchasing filler etc but quickly got bored and just decided to spray them. Although I try to get things perfect I really couldn't be bothered with a set of track wheels...

Trial fitted they looked alright to be fair, better than I was expecting:

In the more recent summer months I've spent a bit of time correcting the paint, various Menz polishes with Hexlogic pads & coating the car with CQUK. One of the benefits of having a garage to let coatings cure -

And after its first subsequent wash -

Carrying on with the CarPro theme, I thought I would give Ceriglass a go with a rayon pad to see if I could remove any lighter scratches from the windscreen. My 182 is still on its original windscreen so its sporting many marks and stone chips which are impossible to do anything with but I think I made some minor improvements to wiper scratches. I've got some Flyby Forte to put on at some point but ran out time -

More to come.

 

[Amos91]

My girlfriend's family are locating up near Darlington and until recently I didn't appreciate how good some of the roads are in that area. I can no longer take the 182 for a drive where I live as every road is flat & boring!

The best by far has to be the Hartside Pass which takes about an hour from the family home. On the most recent occasion, I got up around 7am and took a drive out to get to the Hartside Cafe for opening time. It situation just up from lovely hairpin and various twisty corners headed down & out of the North Pennines. At about lunch time it gets very busy with bikes & car enthusiasts but when going early you get the majority of the roads to yourself. So much fun and highly recommended:

And the obligatory breakfast shot -

In June the first proper track event happened, which ended up being an evening session at Bedford Autodrome by Opentrack. I didn't realise at the time, but it was an unbelievably quiet event with only a handful of cars out. It turned out to be the perfect intro -

Then in August we took a trip to Snetterton for a full day which was brilliant, weather was lovely and a great but busy mix of cars:

Although a mate managed to buzz the engine of his 350z which left him without a car by 10.30am...

Exactly one week later we were back at Bedford for another Opentrack evening but much busier! If anyone is bored one evening I've got various clips etc on Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/user/olivercamos/videos


And finally the most recent addition to the car involved some Recaros. Chris at Beaniesport text me one Sunday evening to say that he had some Trendlines from a Megane that he was breaking and whether I would be interested. I wasn't looking to get any but I simply couldn't refuse! A quick message back and one to @JON FOZ for some mounts (top guy to deal with) I had done a deal and got them fitted. They needed a quick clean but nothing to drastic. No rips, no tears and the alcantara is in great condition:

Might head for another track day next month, I'll see what updates that bring!

 

[Amos91]

From the vids, here is a reasonable one, chasing down a stripped out EP3:

 

[Amos91]

Before the first track day in June I went to bleed the brakes, all going fine until I tried to crack the nearside nipple. It didn't move a mm and snapped off with very little effort!

As it wasn't leaking I left for a couple of months, however with yesterdays good weather I took the opportunity to get it switched over before the cold weather comes in.

As you can see, it sheared off well:

I decided to get a used caliper off eBay and crossed my fingers it will be all free & moving. Although a bit dirty, the piston moved nicely & the bleed nipple was free:

For the sake of a semi-refurb, I replaced the nipple with a new one and bought new sliders & seals. After a lick of hammerite it came up pretty nicely. Fitting it was easy enough, the hardest part was stopping the brake line from cross threading (a little swearing ensued). Got there in the end and all bled through.