Clio 172 Project

[Dex90]

I've always wanted to have a car project so bought myself an 02 Clio 172 from fleebay for £400 with supposedly a snapped cam belt, paid for recovery, £40, and now it's sitting on my driveway! hopefully when working will be a little track car.

I've not got any experience of working with cars at all but always had an interest in them and so far it's been a big learning curve. pics from ebay
below:

came with 182 alloys and had some spare rear 172 seats in with it also which I'll be selling on at some point

there's more pics but this should do for now
What I want to do:

• remove engine and inspect
• buy new engine/rebuild head on existing engine whichever is more suitable
• fit new belt/maybe dephaser, I probably picked the worst car to try and do a timing belt on for first go
• fit new water pump
• replace brake disks
• paint engine/ sub-frame/ wishbones/ calipers/ transmission
• refurbish headlights
• give interior a good clean

 

[Rubicon_]

Sounds good! I done similar with a cup although my engine was still running. You'll get carried away with painting and cleaning bits though lol.

 

[Dex90]

so I've just learnt that google drive sucks for sharing images and I can't figure out how to edit my original post so I've uploaded to flickr, hopefully will be better. pics below:

 

[Mr Plums]

Bargain imo, needs lows

 

[Dex90]

just got home from work so I've got some time to upload some images of what I've done so far.

first step was to buy some tools:

• Trolley Jack
• Axle Stands
• Small Socket Set
• Cheap Socket Set ( a week later because I realized i didn't nearly have enough sockets )
• 4 Set of Circlip Pliers

armed with my new tools I started pulling things off the car
quick pic of car being picked up

removed

• engine cover, managed to snap head off one of the bolts! go rust!
• airbox
• throttle body
• coil pack
• bunch of plugs
• drained coolant/power steering fluid/ oil in sump

at this point I've been to halfords a few times for extra bits, feel like I've spent more time in halfords then working on car! the male torx socket i was using from the cheap set rounded off, no drain plug socket either and my 1/4" 10mm socket rounded off from my cheap set! so following items were bought

• 11 Piece 1/4 Socket Rail
• 8 Piece 3/8 Torx Rail
• Drain Plug

back to work, removed:

• Remove front bumper and headlights
• Spent ages trying to figure out how to get radiators out, the two brackets holding the a/c radiator to the radiator were completely gone
• could not for the life of me figure out how to get a black wire out that went around the alternator to the a/c pump. took the alternator and a/c pump out and the wire just pulled straight away, that was annoying spent ages figuring this one out. was tempted to cut it at one point and solder it together
• removed drive shafts. I spent roughly an entire day getting the O/S driveshaft out
• unplugged more wiring loom
• removed exhaust manifold bolts.

progress pic.
could not for the life of me figure out how to get ecu cover off to disconnect it, ended up removing fuse box on right.
engine ready to be taken out.

but wait! my car was parked to close to garage door to get an engine cranes arm to lift high enough to remove engine, had to get wheels back on and this involved putting the metal plate, don't know name for it, connecting ball joint to wishbone back together. I probably spent about 3 hours trying to get one back together before quitting for the day and asking my mate for some advice. he offered to come around and we managed to get one side on through pure luck and by lifting up brake disc with jack. the other side wasn't so lucky but got one long bolt through one hole to keep it together enough to roll car back. I think there might be some aftermarket stiff springs that stopped this being a simple job?
pic below of distance between wishbone and balljoint plate.

ready to take engine out now.

it's out!

 

[Dex90]

would it be possible to get this moved to the project section?

So now that the engine is out I thought I would check out the internals of the engine last night and see what damage has been done.
I should have probably looked at this while the engine was sat in the car but I'm still learning! took the lower inlet manifold out and started taking a look to see if any valves had bent/gone
Cylinder 1

Cylinder 2

Cylinder 3

Cylinder 4:

so all the valves look fine from what I can see. next i removed timing belt top cover

the timing belt is still attached at the top.....

the timing belt hasn't snapped! that's odd, was sold as non-runner snapped cambelt. I now want to confirm that everything else is fine in the engine so next step was to remove:

• Cam Cover make sure there isn't some oil sludge possibly?
• Head Bolts to check out cylinders aren't scored/valves haven't hit pistons
• remove valves and check they are all ok
• remove sump and check a couple crankshaft bearings and check to see if any heat damage on piston

That's all I've researched so far to check, any more advice welcome!

So last night I attempted to remove cam cover, I slackened timing belt and I removed all bolts on cam cover and hit on both sides with prybar/lump hammer to remove. I got the cam cover to move freely everywhere but it won't come off, it seems to be stuck on the pulley side. It's possible I should have removed pulleys first?

 

[Waite_87]

Good little read. I'm new on here so will keep checking back on your progress. Looking forward to it