George's FF 182 Progress Thread

[gogs_101]

Hi all,

Been lurking on this forum for a couple of months now, decided to finally start a thread for my Arctic Blue FF 182.
Picked up the car from a private seller over in Pontefract back in November, paid a fair price given its mileage (~70k) and the crucial belts and timing done in Aug 15 on 64k miles.

Aesthetically, she's not the best, small dent in drivers door and the boot panel, and wheels are all a bit curbed, but I'm more concerned about the mechanical wellbeing of the car, which all seemed good.

Post-clean, pre-wax shot, and another one of the exhausts because I was dicking about with my gopro:

Exhaust looks quite mis-aligned in that one, doesn't look that wonky in reality I promise!

Anyway, after enjoying thrashing her around the streets for a couple of weeks like the immature plonker I am, I got down to finding the inevitable faults in this 11-odd year old lump of French steel.

Got her some fresh oil and filter in, along with fitting the Fatty's induction setup. Also (badly) sprayed the engine cover and fitted a battery cover:

The brakes were pretty shot, pads worn down low and discs scored and pitted. Once hot, they were almost unusable, a bit scary trying to throw the anchor down on a twisty B-road and getting very little in response!

Fresh OEM discs and some barely-used Redstuff pads (courtesy of @pj_sibley on here - thanks man) on the front, got some Brembo pads waiting to go on the rears, along with some OEM discs. A good bleed all round should see them good as new.

Next came an ever-increasing growl from the exhaust - not in a good way. Turns out there was a large hole in the joint of the catalytic converter to the mid-secton. I don't know who last had the cat off but I think they put it back on in about 3 minutes with their eyes closed... not good:

And the join between the manifold and cat wasn't much better looking:

Car was due MOT in December so acquired a cheap cat to get it the tick in the box, and now ordered a Milltek decat from anothe user on here, will update when that's arrived and getting fitted.

Much more I need and want to do on the car in the next weeks and months, watch this space for updates!

To be continued...

 

[gogs_101]

Had an issue recently with the bonnet catch, it was sitting higher than usual and wouldn't shut properly without me leaving something heavy on the release catch:

Having read a thread on here with someone having similar issues, I removed all the catch mechanism from the bonnet, along with the slam panel, gave everything a clean and re-adjusted. All fixed and fitted back up now, and bonnet's sitting back where it belongs:

Bit of a checklist of upcoming jobs:

Fit decat pipe
Fit up new rear discs and pads
Fresh dampers all round
Possibly fresh springs depending on condition
Gradually replace bushes - dogbone, top suspension mounts
Yanoo shift kit
Good wax and polish
Refurb alloys when funds allow

 

[Jekyll]

So was the bonnet just a build up of crap from over the years?

 

[gogs_101]

It was quite clogged up with crap yes, but having thought about it further, I think the cause was this:

I loosened off the slam panel to get the fuel rail cover off easier when doing an oil filter change.

When reattching the slam panel, it was screwed in slightly to one side (there's a tiny bit of play in the left-right alignment in terms of where you can screw it in)

This, combined with the stiff catch mechanism meant the catch couldn't engage properly because it couldn't push the catch across just with downwards pressure.

Hope that makes sense, just in case it can help someone else out with the same issue

Sent from my HTC Desire 820 using Tapatalk

 

[Jekyll]

Yeah it makes sense.

Glad it's all sorted now mate. Quite a few of you on here from Leeds now.

 

[gogs_101]

Yeah not managed to get to a meet yet, that'll defo be on the agenda for this year. Spend some quality time with other 'sad car men' as my girlfriend would put it

Sent from my HTC Desire 820 using Tapatalk

 

[pastymaster]

The car looks well. I'll look forward to following your progress with it :up:. There can't be many 182's out there with exhausts that look perfectly in align :smile:.

 

[Potatoes]

Yeah it makes sense.

Glad it's all sorted now mate. Quite a few of you on here from Leeds now.

Life is all about "sad car men"!

I'm in the process of moving back to Stanley which is almost Leeds! Will get more active on the regional thread when the move is imminent but loving this thread mate, you have similar challenges to me, will be keeping a close eye on this

 

[Tobz_mw]

Good progress so far mate, i have just done abit of maintanence on my bonnet catch to hopefully prevent the trouble you had.

I'm only across in harrogate so hopefully area rep will sort out a meet towards warmer weather!!

 

[gogs_101]

First overdue update since Winter, amongst a house move and all the crap weather, not much work on the car until April.
Since then, she's had fresh discs and pads all round (HC with redstuff on front, OE on rear)
Due partly to the rusted over calipers and partly to my lack of mechanical precision, I ended up ruining the thred of one of the bleed nipples and splitting a handbrake cable.

Simple enough solution was to grab a new caliper from eBay, scrub it up a little and chuck it on in place of the now ruined one. It meant the car was on stands for a few days (hence the massively rusted old disc!) but only cost £27 and was actually a surprisingly easy job to do, as long as you accept you'll lose most of your brake fluid down the pan when you unplug the brake line from the caliper. All refitted, air forced out and new Dot4 bled in all round, and the brakes marathon was complete.

Other jobs completed recently: resolved issues with the crumbling old cat and fresh oil, filter, brake fluid, power steering fluid and, of course, the obligatory ClioSport.net window sticker.

Cont...

 

[gogs_101]

The last week or so has seen me go a little mad with power (having some spare money due to tax rebate and a bit of time on my hands) and getting a few big jobs out the way.
With a debut track outing for me and the car hastily booked for Blyton Park on 24th May, the race was on to get the car track-ready.

Accepting I wasn't going to be breaking any records on my first trackday, I've kept the mods gentle for now. Fresh oil and filter went in this week, and the brilliant lads down at DDC in Doncaster performed the infamous belts service (slightly before it was due, but wanted the peace of mind) along with fresh water pump, dephaser and a full fresh coolant flush.

I dont know if its just me (bit of a placebo effect?) but the car felt incredible driving away from the service, pulling so nicely up the whole rev range.

With the exhaust issues I've had previously all (hopefully) sorted, and a Fatty's induction kit fitted up, that's the noisy bits of the car sorted for now.

Fresh Goodyear Eagle F1s fitted up and feeling good, these are rarely mentioned here but have recieved some good marks frm reviewers, and came in at decent value from Blackcircles.com

Also managed to pick up an Evol Engineering purple polybushed dogmount replacement to firm up the changes. (last one available from them on eBay, £45 http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/gearbox-m...099435?hash=item2383dc2a6b:g:CYMAAOxygj5Sm3br) Although the vibrations were annoying at first, I've kept the old mount to maybe swap in when out of track season. In the week or so since fitting though, I've largely got used to it and pretty happy to live with it (my girlfriend may force the issue here - she hasnt been in the car since I fitted it so can't judge her reation... yet)

Finally (and this really has to be a temporary measure for track fun) the 182s been on a diet at the back end, shedding back seats and carpets - hopefully a decent bit of weight saved and unleashes the noise of the Miltek cat-back! Double bonus!

Quick cleanup of the back left her looking track-ready and exciting:

cont...

 

[gogs_101]

Last thing this evening I excitedly took the old girl for a drive to get fuel and supplies for tomorrow with the GoPro suction-cupped to strategic locations - see attached for some lovely Miltek roar! [EDIT - it seems instagram has completely bollocksed the sound on that video - you get the idea though]

Anyway, thats enough waffle for tonight, time to get some sleep before hitting the track tomorrow - I'll get some pics up and a bit of a write-up done in the next few days, for now I'm just super-excited to finally be able to really see what these 182s can do :up::car:

 

[imprezaworks]

Looking good mate.