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Carls 172



Well I have had my 172 for around a year and was going to get it through the MOT and sell it on. Took it for MOT and FAILED!

Both front coil springs broken
Headlights pointing too high
OSF suspension ball joint dust cover fail

Advisories
OHB only 21%
Major oil leak
OSR tire near limit

So I decided to go for cheap parts and just run through the MOT and be done with, Well that was the plan.

Unfortunatly I dont have pictures for the first things I did but will post all other work with descriptions as it may help others.

First of all I had changed the front discs and pads as I knew they would fail (didnt even look at the coils)
2 new front tires

Sourced some cheap coils on ebay and they came the next day, seeing that the top nut was not too bad from seeing what people were saying I was hoping for a straight forward swap. (WRONG)

First of all I jacked the car up to see what was going on with this oil leak, cleaned off the back of the engine and sump and run the car for a while. No leak. I decided that in my haste of getting to the MOT in time I had spilt quite a bit of oil whilst making sure all was topped up correctly. So been checking on frequently with no oil showing.

I then turned my attention to losening the top nut on the strut, 21mm ring spanner in hand and 6mm hex key I thought I would be all set, I threw in the towel for the night after breaking 3 hex keys and darkness had fallen. Popped up halfords for a pro toolkit as I had heard good things and it had pretty much all the replacement tools I had needed to replace the rusty 1s of mine. Before retreating to the house I filled up the top cups with WD40 in hope ot would work its magic.

The next morning I decided to tackle the problem with shiney new tools in hand, still that nut would not budge 1 bit. Did a bit of searching online and found a strut upgrade guide and it mentioned on the 172/182 a electronic impact wrench may be needed. First thing I tried was a manual impact socket, and no matter how hard I hit my thumb the nut just sat there.

Thought I would just take it to a garage to get a air wrench on it but took a look online to see the cheapest electric one was. I found machine mart had a 12v one for £29, for that price I doubted it would be much cop but decided that I would have to drop the garage a drink to do it, so paying for this tool if it worked just got me a new tool if not I would take it back.

Got home conected the wrench to the battery and crossed my fingers, and first try the nut came free! I now want to become a preacher for the Clarke 12v impact wrench as it got me out of a very frustrated situation.

Taking it all apart and compressing the spings and putting the struts back in place was pretty straight forward, other than the OS bottom bolts were fiddly to get back in whilst trying to line up the holes with a screwdriver and being right handed left me in a awkward position on the floor to get the bolt in, nothing the missus couldnt manage pushing through after swallowing my pride and asking her for a hand. The NS was easy in comparrison and managed it fine on my own.

Problem is doing all this work has reignited my passion for this car and I have now decided to keep it.

Tommorow im going to change the rear discs and pads and sort the lights out before getting some new boots on the rear and looking for the dust cover for the suspension arm ball joint. Ill update this with pics etc of what im doing.

My plan is to use it for a few weeks untill I can buy another car and then sorn it and recon the engine, maybe add some upgrades such as forced induction etc and generally get this puppy in good shape. I will be replacing the cheapo parts I have put on for the MOT for more robust uprated parts.
 

GavC

ClioSport Club Member
  Black Gold 182FF
Nice read :) The car seems sound going by the issues highlighted in the MOT none of which are relatively major.

Get some photos up whenever you can!
 


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