Hopgop1's RB 182

[EthanMenace]

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.

Back seat fold-down button/escutcheon, replace - how?

I'm talking about the button that is used to fold down the rear seats, adjacent to the head-rests. I'm sure this must of happened to others - the seat-belt clip that is incorporated with the button has broken, as anyone successfully replaced the button or escutcheon, how is it attached to the...

cliosport.net

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!

 

[hopgop1]

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!

View attachment 1634405

That would be excellent, can you drop me a PM?

 

[hopgop1]

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:

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:

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.

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.

Old broken one next to the new:

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.

 

[EthanMenace]

No problem, glad it’s fixed! 👍🏼

 

[hopgop1]

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.

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

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.

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.

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:

Installed:

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.

 

[hopgop1]

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.

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:

Old, brittle adjuster out.

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.

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.

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:

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.

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.

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.

 

[Jekyll]

Fancy plates for the front plate mate.

RB is looking sharp. Headlights looks amazing.

 

[gavinf91]

I got my plate from Pro plates 5 years ago, it’s still mint.

 

[Louis]

I got my plate from Pro plates 5 years ago, it’s still mint.

Likewise.

 

[hopgop1]

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.

 

[Brigsy]

New headlamps look spot on. Nice and fresh.

 

[Adamm.]

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 😅

 

[SharpyClio]

New headlights really transform these cars. Looks great.

 

[martynrg]

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

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]

New lights looks great! Your RB keeps getting better

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?

 

[SharpyClio]

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?

I use Dual Lock, really heavy duty and never had an issue with a plate coming off.

 

[Amos91]

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?

I used velcro coins front and back on my 182, fine on track at 120mph+, never once fallen off in five or so years.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00186Q5WW/?tag=cliospnet01-21

I did 3 coins per plate.

 

[martynrg]

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.]

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.

 

[Jekyll]

Fancy plates for the front plate mate.

RB is looking sharp. Headlights looks amazing.

I got my plate from Pro plates 5 years ago, it’s still mint.

Likewise.

I meant pro plates. Fmacy plates used to be the go too ones, but quality and service has been crap for years now. Pro plates are great.

 

[hopgop1]

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:

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:

 

[Krarl]

I think @andy_con made them at one point?

 

[Andy_con]

I think @andy_con made them at one point?

Www.custompedals.co.uk

 

[hopgop1]

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.

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.

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.

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]

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:

After a clean:

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:

Then a vac out and wipe down, followed by two coats of hydrate 80:

Quick pic of the products:

Quick coat of etch primer for good measure once the hydrate 80 had cured overnight:

I was working in parallel on the passenger side also.

As I found it:

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

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:

(cont. due to image limit)

 

[hopgop1]

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.

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.

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:

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.

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.

Old vs new:

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.

 

[hopgop1]

Haven't had masses of free time for the Clio recently, MOT is coming up though so I've been focusing on some smaller jobs in preparation for that. Not many pics here, but it's all small stuff so you're not missing much.

I swapped my wheels front to back, going through tread on the fronts quicker than I expected (have been on the car about 2 years now to be fair), but the backs are basically untouched, so as I'd rather replace all 4 when the time comes, I figured more tread on the front is a good thing.

When I had the wheels off however, I noticed that the small outer clip on the outer CV on the driver's side had snapped and was just hanging out on the drive shaft. Not flung grease everywhere fortunately, I tried a zip tie as a temporary fix, but you just can't get it tight enough to compress the boot.
I ended up buying a cheap set of clips and pliers to compress them. The tool was absolutely awful and to add insult to injury I found I could've bought a proper one for not much more a few days later. That aside, managed to get the new clip on, MOT fail (I think?) avoided.

Next, when I was washing the car I noticed my rear wiper blade had started to come apart at the outer edges, it's a decent Bosch one, but not one I put on so probably been on for years. Few quid on Amazon and new Bosch rear blade fitted.

This isn't MOT affecting, but one thing that bothered me was the bonnet catch, I replaced the original with a cheap eBay one a couple of years ago as the original was very tired, but the new one had already gone rusty and generally looked pretty crap. I've been after a genuine one as a replacement, but it seems they're NLA, or at least very expensive from Renault. Only ones I could find brand new were ridiculous money, plus postage from mainland Europe. In a stroke of luck I checked eBay one evening and found a new old stock one for sale in the UK for reasonable money (£21 posted, bargain IMO).

2 year old eBay job:

New genuine, 2013 dated:

Final product:

I spent far too long cleaning the area, it was properly filthy under and around, I even cleaned the nuts up. The bonnet action is so smooth now, I pull once on the lever on the passenger side and the bonnet pops up nicely. No more pulling on the bonnet to get it to pop, just pleasant to use, nothing like the eBay job, even when it was brand new.

I'm embarrassed to admit this, but in my excitement to fit my new headlights I completely forgot to change the lever to left hand traffic as @SharpyClio discovered exists a little while ago. I had one of those heart sinking moments when I realised I had no memory of changing it a few weeks after fitting, I've not driven at night since fitting either, so not seen how the beam pattern looked. I did see if it would be possible to change without getting the bumper off and headlights out, but it looked far too tight to bother. So off the bumper came, it's a good job I did check, as the headlight for the passenger side that I got in the UK was also set wrong. So both headlights now on the proper setting.

Last but not least, my 3/4ths front plate I got a couple of years ago had started to deteriorate/delaminate right at the top, not too visible and I don't think would've even been an MOT advisory, but it looked a bit crap so I figured I'd get a new one sorted before the MOT. Not actually attached the new one yet, waiting for some velcro coins to arrive to stick it on. Old plate was a pain to remove with the sticky pads, had to use a plastic trim tool to get some leverage, then ages scraping the sticky residue off with a plastic scraper and tar + glue remover.

Car cleaned, ready for the new plate and MOT, ignore the building site in the background:

Car is booked in for Thursday at the garage for MOT, headlight beam pattern check as I believe there's some manual adjustment as well as the leveller on the rear beam, as well as new auxiliary belt + tensioner and idler pulley. Fingers crossed for another first time pass!

 

[Bleu]

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.
View attachment 1645956

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.
View attachment 1645957
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:
View attachment 1645958
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.
View attachment 1645959

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.
View attachment 1645960
View attachment 1645961

Old vs new:
View attachment 1645962

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.
View attachment 1645963
View attachment 1645964

All 182s should've come on Turinis, not the terrible things they all came with. Your car looks superb.

 

[Mr Squashie]

Haven't had masses of free time for the Clio recently, MOT is coming up though so I've been focusing on some smaller jobs in preparation for that. Not many pics here, but it's all small stuff so you're not missing much.

I swapped my wheels front to back, going through tread on the fronts quicker than I expected (have been on the car about 2 years now to be fair), but the backs are basically untouched, so as I'd rather replace all 4 when the time comes, I figured more tread on the front is a good thing.

When I had the wheels off however, I noticed that the small outer clip on the outer CV on the driver's side had snapped and was just hanging out on the drive shaft. Not flung grease everywhere fortunately, I tried a zip tie as a temporary fix, but you just can't get it tight enough to compress the boot.
I ended up buying a cheap set of clips and pliers to compress them. The tool was absolutely awful and to add insult to injury I found I could've bought a proper one for not much more a few days later. That aside, managed to get the new clip on, MOT fail (I think?) avoided.

Next, when I was washing the car I noticed my rear wiper blade had started to come apart at the outer edges, it's a decent Bosch one, but not one I put on so probably been on for years. Few quid on Amazon and new Bosch rear blade fitted.

This isn't MOT affecting, but one thing that bothered me was the bonnet catch, I replaced the original with a cheap eBay one a couple of years ago as the original was very tired, but the new one had already gone rusty and generally looked pretty crap. I've been after a genuine one as a replacement, but it seems they're NLA, or at least very expensive from Renault. Only ones I could find brand new were ridiculous money, plus postage from mainland Europe. In a stroke of luck I checked eBay one evening and found a new old stock one for sale in the UK for reasonable money (£21 posted, bargain IMO).

2 year old eBay job:
View attachment 1651185

New genuine, 2013 dated:
View attachment 1651186

Final product:
View attachment 1651187

I spent far too long cleaning the area, it was properly filthy under and around, I even cleaned the nuts up. The bonnet action is so smooth now, I pull once on the lever on the passenger side and the bonnet pops up nicely. No more pulling on the bonnet to get it to pop, just pleasant to use, nothing like the eBay job, even when it was brand new.

I'm embarrassed to admit this, but in my excitement to fit my new headlights I completely forgot to change the lever to left hand traffic as @SharpyClio discovered exists a little while ago. I had one of those heart sinking moments when I realised I had no memory of changing it a few weeks after fitting, I've not driven at night since fitting either, so not seen how the beam pattern looked. I did see if it would be possible to change without getting the bumper off and headlights out, but it looked far too tight to bother. So off the bumper came, it's a good job I did check, as the headlight for the passenger side that I got in the UK was also set wrong. So both headlights now on the proper setting.

Last but not least, my 3/4ths front plate I got a couple of years ago had started to deteriorate/delaminate right at the top, not too visible and I don't think would've even been an MOT advisory, but it looked a bit crap so I figured I'd get a new one sorted before the MOT. Not actually attached the new one yet, waiting for some velcro coins to arrive to stick it on. Old plate was a pain to remove with the sticky pads, had to use a plastic trim tool to get some leverage, then ages scraping the sticky residue off with a plastic scraper and tar + glue remover.

Car cleaned, ready for the new plate and MOT, ignore the building site in the background:
View attachment 1651191

Car is booked in for Thursday at the garage for MOT, headlight beam pattern check as I believe there's some manual adjustment as well as the leveller on the rear beam, as well as new auxiliary belt + tensioner and idler pulley. Fingers crossed for another first time pass!

I made sure my headlights were set up the exact opposite of the ones I removed, due to being on the wrong side of the road now, but I have no clue what the beam pattern is supposed to look like with xenons. In the old days you'd have a big diagonal bit going towards the pavement, but my beam pattern looks like this 🤷🏻‍♂️

 

[hopgop1]

All 182s should've come on Turinis, not the terrible things they all came with. Your car looks superb.

Thanks, the camera hides a bit to be fair, she's on 145k miles, so I can't expect perfection, but I'm very happy with the cosmetics overall. I need to get it properly polished up, but I promised I'd do the rust correction work first haha.
To be honest I didn't hate the original wheels on my arctic, but I think there's a reason everyone puts Turini's on these cars, they just look right.

 

[hopgop1]

I made sure my headlights were set up the exact opposite of the ones I removed, due to being on the wrong side of the road now, but I have no clue what the beam pattern is supposed to look like with xenons. In the old days you'd have a big diagonal bit going towards the pavement, but my beam pattern looks like this 🤷🏻‍♂️View attachment 1651208

I used these images for reference, I didn't drive it in the dark the whole time they were set for RHT, gets dark so late at the min, so can't say if yours look right or not tbh. I'm sure the difference is quite minor, when I adjusted the lever the headlights barely move anyway.

I've never even adjusted the beam on a car myself before so no idea what I'm looking to set it to. Garage should have one of those lens things so hopefully they can get it set right.

 

[Bleu]

Thanks, the camera hides a bit to be fair, she's on 145k miles, so I can't expect perfection, but I'm very happy with the cosmetics overall. I need to get it properly polished up, but I promised I'd do the rust correction work first haha.
To be honest I didn't hate the original wheels on my arctic, but I think there's a reason everyone puts Turini's on these cars, they just look right.

What rust correction work are you having done/doing?

 

[Mr Squashie]

I used these images for reference, I didn't drive it in the dark the whole time they were set for RHT, gets dark so late at the min, so can't say if yours look right or not tbh. I'm sure the difference is quite minor, when I adjusted the lever the headlights barely move anyway.
View attachment 1651209
I've never even adjusted the beam on a car myself before so no idea what I'm looking to set it to. Garage should have one of those lens things so hopefully they can get it set right.

I'll find out when I get round to getting my car registered over here. Nobody has flashed me for dazzling them yet so I'm assuming there's nothing to worry about. Your car's looking great by the way, testers over here would probably pass it without even taking it into the garage 😂

 

[hopgop1]

What rust correction work are you having done/doing?

Just the standard preventative maintenance work that a few on here have been advocating for. As I've done above, behind the rear door cards (inner sills).

Want to get the side skirts off, get the sills nice and straight, they're slightly bent on the front driver's side, but nothing major, then treat and paint etc. Same with the fuel filler area, some light bubbling, so want to get that all treated before it becomes a bigger issue.
Will also get to the underside of the car, but that'll be later down the line, can't have my car out of action for too long, my daily so don't have the luxury of having the rear beam off and the car on stands for a few weeks while I slowly crack on, want to make sure I do a proper job and would rather take my time.

Rust isn't a massive issue on these like say an EP3, but they're not impenetrable and I want to ensure mine can stay on the road for many years to come, without having major surgery.

 

[hopgop1]

Collected the car this afternoon, straight through pass on the MOT, no advisories. ~5600 miles this year which is a new record low for me. Car's now on Just under 146k miles which I don't think is bad going for the old girl.
Mechanic did some headlight adjustment to get it right, as well as the auxiliary belt + tensioner, so hopefully nothing big to worry about now until the cam belt is due in a few years. He complained about how bloody tight the engine bay is on that side and I don't blame him, 2L in a Clio is a mad idea when you think about it really. Otherwise very complimentary as usual.
Just some preventative work to do now and probably the odd little job as always, going to try and enjoy it a bit this summer!

 

[hopgop1]

Not a ton to update, aside from a couple of jaunts. Weather in July was shocking, but I made a trip down to C&M one morning for the first time with a few friends, it was absolutely hammering it down for most of the day, so didn't really get to chat to people much about the car, but it was enjoyable nonetheless. Only got the one photo, but I was very pleased when I was offered the best parking spot in the place.

Festival of the unexceptional is held very locally to me at Grimsthorpe castle, tickets sold out last year about a month before the event and I was too late, so this year I made sure to get a ticket early. Went with my Dad and it was a really enjoyable walk around, not the usual car show fodder, was a lot more interesting seeing lots of cars you never see anymore. I was directed to the show car parking, but I opted to park with the modern stuff, I'm not sure a 182 is unexceptional enough, or old enough really, even though there were more exceptional cars and more modern cars in the 'event' parking. Will think about it next year, but I think it's an event for properly old unexceptional stuff, like a 1.1 poverty spec metro, I think that's what people come to see.
Had a nice chat with a guy who's late mother purchased a top spec mk2 Clio in the crazy Initiale Paris spec which I think cost more than a sport, complete with suit bag under the parcel shelf. Cool to see one in the flesh, as well as a ph1 Initiale elsewhere in the show. Really unique car show, looking forward to next year already.


Bonus photo of a Trophy I happened to spot on an industrial estate where I was working that day, not sure I've seen one in the wild, outside of an event.

Does make me jealous of a proper cup splitter, definitely want one for mine at some point, even though sod's law says I smash it up immediately.

Only two recent jobs done on the car. First was a flash to the RSTuner 98RON map, I put this off for a while because a 'mapped' car sounds very unappealing to me if I was a buyer, but you can't ignore the constant praise it seems to get, plus I've already got an RSTuner. So I bought an unlock code and the map from Henk and backed up my original firmware and cal files and saved them safe.
Flashed on the map and my god what a difference, it's now lovely and smooth even at a cold idle which I would've been happy enough with, but you can really feel the torque difference at lower revs. Feels like the 5000 rpm kick people talk about is moved down to around 3000 instead and goes all the way. Really happy with the change and it can always go back to standard now easily, but I'm not sure anyone who's driven a car with and without the map would want to it back to factory. I'm already quite used to it, so I feel like I'd think the car was broken if I went back to the standard map now.

Finally and most recently, I bought my Recaro Trendlines from @Call Me Dangerous Dave about a year ago now, I got them at what I think was a very fair price, but they aren't perfect, namely the driver's bolster had some cracking in the vinyl/leather. I can't find a more recent picture, but I've stolen one from when Russ listed them:

Made some enquiries and booked myself in with Capital Seating in Leicester for a day when I was off work to have this sorted while I waited. Here's the result, ignore the dust on the seats, needs a quick vac out:

Really happy with the work, obviously looks a bit more matte vs the other side being a brand new panel stitched in, but I'm confident it'll wear in nicely, a proper leather clean may help too. Ended up taking a fair few hours for them to do, they took the seat out which I didn't realise they were planning and they didn't realise they're bolted in from under the car against a hot exhaust that I'd just warmed up nicely in the hour drive there. For the longer than expected wait, which wasn't really their fault, they gave me a proper recaro seat cover for free, so very happy with the service. Price was very good too for the amount of time involved. Highly recommended if anyone needs the same doing to their trendlines, think that's quite a common wear spot.

 

[hopgop1]

Haven’t done much over the winter, just been using the car, currently just below the 150k mile mark.
Car has just been in for a service:
- Purflux LS932 oil filter - this is the OEM for the genuine one, managed to basically steal one from Amazon at £7.25 delivered.
- RN710 oil from Renault (Castrol). New packaging is awful, so will probably just buy equivalent castrol next time.
- Genuine air filter
- New type D coolant
- Gearbox oil change, went with Liqui Moly Top Tek 5200 MTF 75W-80 instead of the millers stuff I went with a couple of years ago. The new stuff is purely GL4 instead of GL4/GL5, had no issues with the old fluid, but hadn’t seen anyone use Liqui Moly on here before so I thought I’d try it. I refuse to pay the ridiculous price for Redline MTL as I don’t track this car. Very happy so far, gear change is excellent.

Also had a couple other small bits done, as you’ll notice I’m missing the gear knob cap, that’s because it’s on a new shifter that I sent to snappy to be retrimmed to match my old one. I have had a rattle from that area for a while, so I bought a low mileage shifter, sent to snappy to be retrimmed and had it swapped over at the service with the brass bushings swapped too. A bit of a risk if it didn’t fix the rattle, but fortunately it has, old shifter looks fine but there must be something a bit worn/loose. Will try to sell this on, seems a shame to bin a lovely snappy shifter.
I also had a weird rotational squeaking sound develop in the last few weeks, quickly diagnosed as the drivers front wheel bearing, couldn’t get an SNR on short notice, so went with a FAG bearing in the end.
Mechanic also noted that the clamp between the milltek and cat was past its best, so got a new genuine clamp and had that fitted.

Also made up some new pretensioner covers for my recaros, far nicer and matches the bolsters well.

I can make these up so drop me a PM if you’re interested in a set.

Hopefully that’s the majority of my car spend for the year, fingers crossed for no surprises at the MOT in July. I’m in the process of buying a house so I feel very poor at the minute, but I’ve still got some smaller jobs to do on the car over the summer, should be far easier when I’ve got my own driveway.

Thanks for reading.

 

[Mr Underhill]

You’re probably aware of it, but the Purflux A1224 filters are the same. Half the price.

Good updates and looking like it’s still going strong.

 

[hopgop1]

You’re probably aware of it, but the Purflux A1224 filters are the same. Half the price.

Good updates and looking like it’s still going strong.

No wasn't aware of that actually, makes sense though, will look out for one next year.

Reminds me actually, I didn't say how well it's driving. It did feel like an old scrapper for a bit with a noisy wheel bearing and an exhaust leak, but it's now back to driving really well, probably a bit of a placebo after a service. I ended up on some nice roads over the weekend picking up a new (to me) pressure washer as my trusty K2 died a few weeks ago, wasn't being a complete lunatic or anything, but it really has no right to drive as well as it does at nearly 150k and 20 years old. I'm sure my days of having it as a daily will come to an end, but I don't think I could bring myself to sell it, especially if it keeps going as it has been.

 

[Tin.tin]

Been bad at updating this again as usual.
Not long after that last update I changed the OEM upper exhaust brackets for some custom ones from BTT motorsport for some more adjustability with the exhaust as I'm not 100% happy with how the tips are sitting, but to be honest I think I'm wasting my time going for absolute perfection. They've got the added bonus of not rusting away like the OEM ones, plus they come with nice shiny new hardware to mount it all up which is always nice. I did have an issue with one of the 2 brackets, 1 of the captive nuts was just spinning, but to BTT's credit they had a replacement sent out to me very quickly. Great customer service which matters as much as a good product IMO.
View attachment 1597868
Quick pic of one installed, my Grams 3D printed bushes seem to have warped a bit, presumably from the exhaust pulling one way + heat. I think to get them as close to perfect as I can, I'll have to flip the bush on one side to get them an even height and straighten the bushes out in the hangers now I've got some adjustability. They're fine for now and it's only me or the sweatiest Clio nerd that would notice, so I'll save that for a quick weekend afternoon project.
View attachment 1597869

Incredible mate ! plan on fitting the same BTT mount. In typical fashion one of the nuts won't come off; the bolt/ pin attached to the car just spins endlessly when turning nut driving me mad 😭 did you face anything like this?