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Hopgop1's RB 182

EthanMenace

ClioSport Club Member
  2010 Clio 200 Cup
Yeah please do, passenger side is what I'm after, but I'd take a pair if you find another set like that. My cracked one will mostly satisfy the itch for now, but a cheaper replacement than an £80 pair from Renault would be much appreciated.

I didn't have a clue how to get them out either, of even if you could, but found a post here that details it pretty well. Basically unzip, pull the cover off the back as much as you can then get a long screwdriver to unclip each side, while pulling out from the top if that makes any sense for anyone else wanting to do the same.

I’ve got a passenger one you can have if you just cover postage?
took me ages to find a a replacement for mine, ended up stripping the rear of my 200 for a half cage and realised they’re the same so kept them for the stash!

6041D309-9CF9-494C-BE7D-DA3ACC3453EB.jpeg
 

hopgop1

ClioSport Club Member
Did a couple of quick bits today, changed the cabin filter to finish off the service. I changed it last year, so wanted to see if it was dirty enough to warrant a yearly change.
Old one:
75DFF8A6-BF6D-4157-BB1B-B3700B366F47.jpeg

Not filthy per-se, but lots of dirt and other crap caught inbetween the pleats, lots more in the bottom of the filter compared to the middle too. Probably worth changing for the sake of a few quid. New one is a genuine Renault item, rather than the Motrio one I used last year, the Motrio has a lot more pleats which is interesting, but otherwise identically sized. I have no idea what difference that means in the real world, probably none, but I prefer the design of the Motrio tbh.
New:
911BDBBA-49E3-4EEB-B4B3-DD958E9DE2D9.jpeg

The immaculate seat release button from @EthanMenace arrived this morning (thanks again!), so would be rude not to get to fitting it.
Decided to keep the seats in the car as I read from @piotres here that it's possible in the car. It's incredibly fiddly and needs a pair of needle-nose pliers to get to the zipper, both extracting it from the seat and unzipping it along the isofix bar, but possible.
BE7C9EC9-B60F-4EA9-9822-D3595458BCFA.jpeg

Plus you've got to be folded like origami in the boot the whole time. More info in the thread I linked above, but once you've unzipped it and folded the backing out of the way you just need to pull the button out from the top and press the clips in with a long screwdriver.
2B7399A8-B6F1-46CD-8E2B-9220B49412E8.jpeg

Old broken one next to the new:
059C16B5-5BDC-4ECB-9045-972B610F2ED8.jpeg

Finished product, objectively not worth the effort, but it annoyed me seeing it broken and satisfying to know it's fixed. Sod's law says it breaks immediately if I have someone in the back.
45578854-2903-4560-B1B0-751F52CD48B8.jpeg
 

hopgop1

ClioSport Club Member
Had an afternoon last weekend and sorted another minor interior annoyance. The mirror switch is backwards, it's not something you can just unclip and flip around either. I bought a used grab handle with right way around mirror switch a while ago so swapped that out.
IMG-5507.jpg

Don't worry, gave it a good clean pre-install. New grubby one on the right, my old backwards one on the left.

IMG-5508.jpg

Installed and working as you'd expect, I can actually point the switch at the drivers or passenger side and adjust the mirrors now, without doing the wrong side first every time.

While I was on the topic of doors, I've been planning a speaker upgrade for a while, so I figured I'd take a look at the door speakers.

Popped off the cover with a trim tool, driver's side was perfect, but the passenger side has a nice rip in the cone. All the more reason to get them changed. Although I didn't notice any awful noises from that speaker, I'm probably an audio philistine.
IMG-5509.jpg

Gave the area a good clean whilst I was there, load of gross dust a long dead fly or two removed.

I've already got a nice (albeit old now) Alpine head unit with bluetooth (still going strong @Gordini-blue-182) and an Alpine SWE-1200 under-seat sub, which sounds pretty good with the bass left to the sub, but I'm lacking a bit of punch in the mid-range for my taste and it sounds a bit muddy at higher volumes, unsurprising really given the 20 year old and at least partially broken Renault speakers. I do have the fader set to the front which helps a bit, I'm not a big fan of the coaxials in the rear trying to do the job of a woofer and a tweeter.

Here's what I've bought:
Alpine KTP-445A head unit power pack, I have an Alpine head unit already so wiring is dead easy with this one, plus it's small enough that I should be able to hide it behind the dash somewhere I hope.
Rockford Fosgate Punch P152-S component speakers. These have an in-built crossover so I figured less wiring (more on these later).
These speaker adapters to use the factory connectors for the speakers, to try and avoid chopping up the factory loom; I don't think anyone would want to, but the idea is that it could go back to standard easily.
30 sheets of DodoMat Hex, not planning on deadening the whole car Frayz style just yet, but figured I'd add some where I can while I had the dash off etc.
As well as some 18AWG speaker wire and a speaker terminal crimping kit.
IMG-5524.jpg


The adapters I bought had speaker connectors crimped on already, but these were just too small for the speaker's terminals so I chopped those off and crimped some larger connectors on.

Didn't have much time today, so just did the easy bit, the woofers in the doors. Look at the size difference of the magnets:
IMG-5523.jpg


Installed:
IMG-5535.jpg

Even without the amp or tweeters it sounds way better, even at 25w RMS or so from the head unit and factory tweeters. Although I did need a fair bit of volume for them to wake up, I assume the factory speakers were less than the 4 Ohms of these new speakers, or just designed for less than the 50w RMS these are rated at.
I didn't record a good before clip of the audio (plus it would just be my iPhone's mic), so you'll have to take my word for it, plus I'm not finished either.

One problem though, the P152-S's have a crossover built into the woofer itself and I didn't realise quite how the factory speakers are wired. As it turns out, the Renault system has a simple filter in the tweeter, which is just wired directly to the headunit, it doesn't "daisy-chain" from the woofer if that makes sense. So if I wanted to wire these up as Rockford intended, I'd have to run a new wire from the door speakers, up to the tweeters, which sounds like a royal pain in the arse to do.
I've got a plan, which may be stupid so feel free to correct me, which is to just connect the new tweeters to the factory Renault wiring and use the integrated crossover in the headunit. Am I missing something, or will this work? Either way, I'll find out I suppose.

Tomorrow's job is to get the dash off and amp installed at least.
 
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hopgop1

ClioSport Club Member
Got the amp installed last weekend, dash off and managed to find a decent space for it as below. The kit has a ton of wiring which I didn't really need, but managed to get it tucked under the dash top.

IMG-5527.jpg

It looks precarious I realise, but it's actually quite well wedged in there and doesn't move about and it doesn't touch the top of the dash, nor is it touching the airbag or anything there.

At first I turned off "Power IC" in the settings menu on the head unit, which in the manual says is the built-in amplifier, which I assumed should be turned off, but I didn't get any sound output from the speakers. There's also a switch underneath the head unit, so may try switching that off too and see what happens, but perhaps because it's an Alpine specific head unit amp it's supposed to be left on. Either way, when I turned the internal amp back on I got the speakers going and they sound great, far more volume and the clarity is excellent, even at speed at half volume it's plenty loud enough. I've not pushed it yet though, as I've still got the factory tweeters in and a 10amp fuse for the head unit, the KTP-445A instructions say this needs to be a 15 amp fuse and I didn't have any lying around.

Haven't installed the tweeters yet as I completely forgot to order loom adapters for these (same as the door speakers) and I've misunderstood how the factory loom is wired. The new speakers have a filter on the door speakers which is supposed to then be wired to the tweeters, but running wires out from the door looks to be a nightmare, so I'm going a different route.
The factory wires for the tweeters just come from the head unit and are filtered at the tweeters, so I've ordered two in-line high pass filters to use instead so that I can use the factory wiring. Once those arrive I'll get the tweeters and 15amp fuse installed for the amp.

Onto this weekend, my headlights have gone really cloudy again over the last month or so, I could restore them again, but to be honest I'm bored of doing it and I was very jealous of @SharpyClio 's new headlights so I decided I fancy the same. Plus my passenger side headlight has some cracking where it looks like the reflector has melted a bit around the xenon lamp, it's been the same since I got the car, so I assume it's had the wrong type of bulb in there at some point.
As luck would have it a brand new passenger side headlight came up on Facebook, just had a broken adjuster and was less than half the price posted of a new Hella unit. It's even a Renault boxed one dated 2005, but clearly never used. Easily fixed with a pack of BMW e39 adjusters and this great tutorial on YouTube here:
IMG-5539.jpg

Old, brittle adjuster out.

IMG-5540.jpg

New E39 adjuster installed.

Now I just needed to find a new headlight for the driver's side, but this was far harder than I expected. They were out of stock on eBay, Autodoc and anywhere else I looked. After a bit of searching I found a single Hella unit (part number 1DL008461-781) on cars245.com, not a website I trusted massively, and it was coming from Latvia so would need EU import fees paying. It was the only one I could find though and all the signs point to Hella stopping production of the grey insert xenons to me so I ordered. Just over a week later I had the unit, the cars245 website now shows that part as "Out of Production" too, so I got lucky there I think.
IMG-5536.jpg

New driver's side headlight, fresh from Latvia, adjuster intact.

Now to install them you need to get the bumper off, again I followed the excellent YouTube guide for the headlight adjusters to take the bumper off which isn't something I've done before. I only had one issue, the bumper bolt that's in the drivers wheel well wasn't the factory bolt and instead was an abomination of nut bolt and washers, so it was far harder to remove than it should've been.

IMG-5546.jpg

Bumper off and stored safely in the garage with a sheet, cloudy headlight showing. It was pretty grotty behind there as you can see, so I gave it a good clean with engine bay degreaser to get the heavy grime off. Was pleased to see no signs of previous bumps there either, no dings in the crash bar etc., which is the sort of thing I was almost expecting to find on a car of this age and mileage.

Old headlight vs new:
IMG-5547.jpg

The plastic mounts on both the old headlights were cracked and had definitely seen better days. I swapped over the xenon adjuster motor, ignitor units and xenon bulb from the old lights (would've been a good time to put new ones in, but I didn't have that much foresight so I'll be annoyed when one inevitably dies in a few weeks). Also swapped over my silvervisions and LED side light bulbs.

The driver's side headlight hadn't ever sat quite even to the passenger side relative to the bumper, it's a tiny imperfection really, but there was a bit less of a gap under the headlight. I was half hoping this was the headlight itself, or the mount points, but they were all perfect. So it seems like it's the bumper that doesn't sit quite right.

After installing the new lights, I also installed the alternator splash guard I picked up a while ago and failed to put in with the bumper in-situ. It's not so obvious where it clips into the grille, but I figured it out and I'm very pleased to not have my alternator quite so exposed to the elements.
IMG-5548.jpg

Alternator plastic guard installed.

The lines for the headlight washers were also not installed in the right place, they were in the gap where the crash bar goes instead of in their channel higher up the bumper, being crushed a bit on the driver's side. I'm fairly sure the headlight washer pump is dead anyway, but that certainly wasn't helping.

Car was also covered in wood dust and dead insects, although it wasn't massively dirty thanks to the mostly dry weather recently. I gave it a quick clean and I'm really pleased with how the front looks now.
IMG-5550.jpg

Ignore the whopper parked next to me.

The fog lights stick out a bit to me now, so new fogs are on the cards I think, fortunately I believe you can get to them by removing the arch liners, so no faffing taking the bumper off. My 3/4ths plate is also a bit damaged on the top, like it's delaminated a bit. I got it from fancyplates about two years ago, so a bit disappointed it's dying already. Any recommendations for where I can get a better quality one?

Bonus photo, really like this one, shame I framed it like a blind man.
IMG-5554.jpg
 

hopgop1

ClioSport Club Member
Thanks guys, I'll give pro plates a go, believe mine is 520x94mm which I think is slightly larger than normal for a 3/4, but I think it fills the gap better. Bit annoyed this one has only lasted 2 years or so, so I'd rather avoid fancy plates. Now I've got to fight with number plate sticky pads.
 

Adamm.

ClioSport Club Member
You'll get free delivery from proplates with code CLIOSPORT. I just got front and rear plates from there and they seem good they do have the BS markings too just don't be a numpty like me and panic they're tinted from the film they put over the front 😅
 

martynrg

ClioSport Club Member
  Clio 182
Thanks guys, I'll give pro plates a go, believe mine is 520x94mm which I think is slightly larger than normal for a 3/4, but I think it fills the gap better. Bit annoyed this one has only lasted 2 years or so, so I'd rather avoid fancy plates. Now I've got to fight with number plate sticky pads.

New lights looks great! Your RB keeps getting better :cool:

Have you considered using Velcro discs to attach your number plate? Less faff to attach your plate and super easy to remove your plates when cleaning.
 

hopgop1

ClioSport Club Member
New lights looks great! Your RB keeps getting better :cool:

Have you considered using Velcro discs to attach your number plate? Less faff to attach your plate and super easy to remove your plates when cleaning.
I’ve seen posts about them, but always worry Velcro won’t be strong enough. Assume you’ve used them and your plates haven’t gone flying?
 

martynrg

ClioSport Club Member
  Clio 182
I’m using those Velcro coins that Amos has linked above and never had any problems.

It takes the stress out of ensuring your plate is level too as you can just take it off and try again ;)
 

Adamm.

ClioSport Club Member
Same with the velcro coins they grip really well I have 4 on but you could get away with 3 tbh. Feels like you'll snap the plate pulling them off.
 

hopgop1

ClioSport Club Member
Weather was lovely today, so figured I'd get another quick win sorted. I bought a replacement pedal set from @Ash J nearly 2 years ago, but never got around to fitting them. Also if anyone knows who made them feel free to let me know, they're excellent and I've never seen anyone advertising that they can make replacements, either here or on facebook.

Here's the before, obviously dirty, but the main issue is the brake pedal. No idea how it's possible and I've seen it on a few Clios, but there's a chunk missing from it:
IMG-5565.jpg


Drilled out the rivets, which was fairly easy, just had to stick some wood behind the accelerator pedal, clutch and brake I just held down and drilled.

Once the covers were off it's a bit more clear how they could've been damaged, the aluminium is a lot thinner than it seems and was probably made from recycled folding lawn chairs.

The brake and clutch were fine under the metal cover, just gave them a quick wipe. The accelerator though had all the paint flaking off and was a bit rusty on the top, I can only assume from poor paint adhesion to the metal underneath, plus wet shoes on the pedal.
I completely forgot to grab a pic, but I just gave it a quick sand down with 120 grit (I wasn't worried about the finish as it's all covered up, just wanted something durable), masked up the main accelerator unit and gave it two decent coats of etch primer, then a couple of thick coats of gloss black. Then I bolted it back up to the car and started riveting the covers back on.
I've never used rivets before and I only had a cheap rolson rivet gun, but it was dead easy and worked well. 4.8mm rivets are a perfect match to OEM too.

Finally, I gave the car a decent vac out for the first time in months, so plenty of dust and debris to remove, not to mention all the metal swarf from the rivets. Here's the finished product:
IMG-5567.jpg
 

hopgop1

ClioSport Club Member
Quick update to get the thread up to speed before I write up my work this weekend. Had some family visiting last weekend so didn't have much time to mess with the car.
I decided to take a look at dash trim that goes around the gear stick, I've got a rattle from there that I need to chase down, it's intermittent and goes away if you touch the gearstick or the trim on the passenger side. I pulled off the trim, but didn't bother fighting to get it all the way off, just needed some wiggle room to have a look for anything weird.
IMG-5571.jpg

Immediately I pulled this monstrosity out, it was just jammed down the side of the trim. Essentially a huge load of excess wire for the alarm LED. I guess I can thank Renault UK for that one.
IMG-5572.jpg

Chopped it straight off, I left a reasonable amount of excess wire in case I messed up the crimping a few times, but also so that you can take the trim off easily without ripping out the LED. I just used some speaker terminals to re-connect it, as it's what I've got around.

Wasn't sure that was the cause of my rattle though, although I'm sure it wasn't helping, the other suspect was my Alpine bluetooth module that also lives under there, so I moved that further back, unfortunately because of where the cupholders come down there's almost no room for it, it has to be a bit precarious and I don't think I can double sided tape it down. Might relocate it if it's an issue.

The tube for the vent that goes to the rear footwell was a bit loose, wiggling it around it sounded a bit like my intermittent rattle. It's just held in with a weird plastic screw thing that doesn't actually thread into anything. I had a bit of a play with it to see if I could get it held in place better. It's still not as solid as I'd like, but definitely slightly better.
Quick drive confirmed the rattle is definitely quieter, but still there. Will need to revisit this when I can be bothered.

Other quick job was installing the new tweeters. I forgot to grab many pictures of this, but basically I crimped speaker terminals onto the input and output of the in-line filters I bought and attached the input side to the Renault speaker adapter I bought and the other end to my new tweeters. The new tweeters must weigh 4x what the old Renault ones do. They fit almost perfectly in the weird shaped holes for the factory units, so I just used a bit of double sided tape to make sure they're not going anywhere. I preferred this approach to butchering the dash.

IMG-5585.jpg

Only pic I got of the operation, filter stuck down somewhere sensible. The electrical tape is just to avoid any potential short circuits across my speaker terminals, I stupidly put them next to each other instead of staggering them.

I also stuck a bigger fuse in for the radio, so I can turn my new amp up now without worrying about blowing the radio fuse.

The new tweeters are definitely an improvement, not a night and day difference like adding the amp and door speakers, but it's clearer in the highs for sure. I think with some tinkering on the radios settings I can get it sounding even better too.

I've started on some long overdue preventative rust maintenance this weekend, so I'll update once I've got a good amount to write up. Nothing horrific yet which is what I was worried about, but we shall see as I dig deeper.
 

hopgop1

ClioSport Club Member
Removed the rear door cards last weekend, as a bit of a start on ensuring my car is going to last. Found a fair bit of loose change behind the rear speaker covers and under the rear door cards too as a bonus.

Driver's side as I found it, doesn't look bad, but full of crap:
IMG-5603.jpg


After a clean:
IMG-5605.jpg

It's far harder to access than I realised it would be, proper pain. Ended up using my phone's camera to see what I was doing and even then it wasn't ideal. As you can see, some light bubbling and what I believe is the drain hole, easy to see with the sun shining on that side of the car.

Gave it a sand back:
IMG-5618.jpg


Then a vac out and wipe down, followed by two coats of hydrate 80:
IMG-5626.jpg


Quick pic of the products:
IMG-5623.jpg


Quick coat of etch primer for good measure once the hydrate 80 had cured overnight:
IMG-5637.jpg


I was working in parallel on the passenger side also.

As I found it:
IMG-5630.jpg


Without cleaning it out you'd think this was completely rust free, but after a wipe down:
IMG-5632.jpg

Worse bubbling than the driver's side. The drain on this side had a fair bit of crap in it which is probably why it suffered slightly worse.

Didn't grab a pic of it sanded back, or with primer, but here's the hydrate 80:
IMG-5634.jpg


(cont. due to image limit)
 

hopgop1

ClioSport Club Member
While I'm in here I added some sheets of dodo mat, it's a bigger space than you'd think, managed to get about 3.5 sheets in each side.
IMG-5642.jpg


Then as a final measure, some dynax S50 cavity wax. Not sure if this technically counts as a cavity, but I'd say it meets the criteria and I feel much better with some sort of wax in there.
IMG-5638.jpg

Everything mirrored on both sides.

I even managed to cure a small squeak from the driver's seat belt area, again it was intermittent and quiet, but really annoying. The screw for the upper b pillar trim wasn't all that tight, so I gave that a couple of turns and it's properly held in place.

My plan for this weekend was to get the side skirts off, but I ended up getting derailed. I got the car up on axle stands and removed all the wheels, ended up giving them a proper clean while they were off. Pretty filthy as you can see:
IMG-5648.jpg

Didn't grab an after pic, but they came up perfect, ceramic coating these wheels straight after I got them powder coated was a great decision.

Then while I had access, I gave the callipers and general wheel arches a good clean.
IMG-5649.jpg


Then I figured I'd stick my new fog lights in while I had good access to remove the front arch liners. They were covered in crap after winter which was unsurprising, so gave them a wipe down while they were off.

Old fogs, hard to tell because they're filthy and badly stone chipped after 145k miles in just about the worst spot on the car, but the reflectors inside are coming off, so definitely needed.
IMG-5657.jpg

IMG-5658.jpg


Old vs new:
IMG-5659.jpg


Needless to say I didn't end up getting the skirts off, was worried I wouldn't finish before today and I'm away the next two weekends. I did tackle the rusty screws on both sides of the inner front arches that hold the skirts on though. I somehow managed to get them out without drilling them out and replaced with nice new ones I bought a while ago. So it should save a fair bit of time when I come to do it. Also swapped my front wheels with the backs, tread on the front is down to around 4mm all over and I'd rather change all 4 tyres at once, so evenly wearing all 4 makes sense to me.

Finally gave the car a proper clean, doesn't scrub up too badly considering I haven't yet paint corrected or polished the car, but I've promised myself I wouldn't go crazy on the paint before I've done some preventative rust maintenance.
IMG-5668.jpg

IMG-5669.jpg
 
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