I've copied this from elsewhere so apologies if it reads badly....
Last Saturday was stupid.
I'd travelled down from Durham Friday night after work on a one way train ticket (brave). The car was booked in for an MOT the next morning and tax was needed before the post office shut at lunch. No pressure then. I arrived at Gatwick station and Mum collected me about 10pm. I hate trains, have I mentioned that?
I agreed to be at Gareth's (the guy that fitted the rollcage for me) at 8.30 the following morning, so opened the garage door and glanced over the work Dad had been doing on the car over the last week or so when he had time. He'd fitted the front uprights and AST top mounts in place and also tidyed the wiring inside the car. He'd also fashioned a dash panel for various switches and had refitted the passenger seat and harness. The car was as ready as it'd ever be, though it was far to low.
Bright and early I started the car and backed it onto the road. This was the furthest the car had moved in 13 months and would also be the engines maiden journey. Half hour later i was at Gareths and apart from a weird burning smell and continual suspension bangs it was fine. Phew.
Here's where the day became crap.
The MOT was booked for 11 am so there was a little bit of time to check the suspension and do a pre mot check. The car had coilovers fitted alround but i'd also got hold of a set of (used) H&R coilovers. They are a lot better quality but the tophat had fused itself to a spring, Dad gave up and never fitted them. Jamie started cleaning them up whilst Gareth looked over the car. The rear disks were beyond repair so a set was ordered up. We looked at the low front suspension to discover it had already been notching the chassis itself!
We talked about the suspension and as it was an easy job (in theory) we decided to fit the rear H&R stuff. It was about 9.30 at this point, MOT was in 90 mins. It was halfway through fitting the rears it became apparent that the H&R stuff had a different thread for the top nut and I didn't have them. Gareth shouted something about secondhand stuff and I nodded in agreement. After a lot of searching G found some suitable nuts and sorted the back end. He'd also had to customise the rear H&R adjustable platforms as I hadn't got all of the kit there either.... Back down on the floor and the car resemballed a dragster. Back in the air and G lowered the rear. It still looked stupid high but Gareth was swearing about time. Nobody had made coffee. Things were getting dire.
In the meantime Jamie had done a cracking job on refurbing the front H&R struts and they looked great. The height adjusters were seized but the rest was great. Fear not though, these were originally setup by Mark Fish, a man that knows a thing or two about Clios. Plenty of time untill the MOT (45 mins), lets put them on.
On they went (actually reasonabley easily) along with some Eibach camber bolts, and the car was on the ground, still looking like a dragster, 5 mins to spare. G and I jumped in and off we set.
On the way there the car started to play up. It was running fairly badly and at one junction it stalled. When we got to the mot place it stank of rotten eggs and the engine light appeared of the dash. Feck. Mr friendly mot man stuck the pipe thing up the terrible exhaust and in doing so nearly passed out. Within 3 seconds his computer started saying 'you're having a laugh'.
We got the car plugged in to Gareths machine and it said Lambda. Luckily my Clio has 2 of them, earlier ones only have one. We swapped front to back and whilst it wasn't great it ran a great deal better. Phew. I needed tax in half an hour. Feck!
Gareth quipped 'i'd be lucky to drive the car home'. I then let on that home wasn't my Mum and Dads but my home 320 miles away. (I've since found out my mother thought this 'foolhardy'. Pah) I'm not sure what Gareth made of this but at that point he noticed the rear numberplate light was fecked and the offside rear lights were interfering with each other. Feck. I'd assured him the lights were fine as Dad had told me he'd checked them. Gareth swore at me. We sorted out the earth on both issues and left the MOT station with a sense of relief. I taxed the car. Pressure was off. It wasn't really off as the car was still idling badly, but whats 320 miles in a car thats done 1 mile in the last 13 months?
Back at Gareths he got all the guages out and aligned the H&R's and dialed in 2.5 degrees of camber. Nice. After more swearing the back also got put on maximum low. It's still visably to high for me, but Gareth decided [enter expletives here]... I did about 5 trips up the road to make sure steering wheel was straight and the car felt alright. It felt bloody brilliant, I was chuffed!
The new rear disks and bearings (it's one thing on a Clio) arrived and were fitted. The nice parts lady forgot to include new abs rings and the old one cracked coming off the old disk. Gareth swore, Jamie pointed out 'who needs abs anyway'. I nodded. I now have 2 lights on the dash, one about ABS and one telling me it needs a service because the abs is fecked. Thanks Renault.
At the same time my secondhand (more swearing) EBC Blue pads were fitted. I say secondhand, they were almost new. Jamie cleaned them, they looked like new to me. That'll do.
At this point a customer showed up in a Merc ML. Gareth perked up and told them there turbo was fecked. Feeling superior as my car had a brand new MOT and the expensive Black Merc 4x4 had a massive bill awaiting them I think I went and made coffee.
By this time it was about 3.30ish and the final job of the day was one which will cheer Weeman up no end. Gareth took a large air tool to the rear exhaust box and attached a bit of pipe to it that points nicely at pedestrians walking along the footpath. Jamie was suitably impressed. In the meantime Jamie had attached the TRS tow strap for me as we figured somewhere along the M1 later that night I might need it. lol.
After saying thanks a million times and loading the car up I waved goodbye. The car got to the gate and my phone rang. I answered it and sat talking with the car idling for 5 mins whilst i talked. '....i've got to go sorry, the engine lights come back on'. Feck! The car had made it 200 metres of it's 320 mile journey
Back at Gareths we plugged the car in and it said 'Destructive misfire 200'. I'm not sure if that referred to Gareth or the car, but swearing was apparent. Off came the inlets and it appeared plug lead number two was loose. This must've always been like this because brand new plug number 2 was coaked up as well. All back together again and i set off sometime after 6. It'd been a long day. I decided it was sensible to go via mum and dads and have a bite to eat. Car seemed fine after the 20 mile run back there. Mum then spent the next half hour trying to talk me out of driving home, but I set off anyway. Dad said, 'here, take this sleeping bag incase you break down'. haha.
I made it home at 1am, the car was brilliant. I was deaf, slightly loosing the will to live and bored to hell with driving a car that everyone seems to want to race you in. The only casualty of the journey was the speedo with died around Luton and accasionally came back to life. I can confirm that this is a nightmare when you are trying to negotiate average speed limit sections without traffic for reference. I think 2250 rpm is about 50mph in top. I guess i'll find out soon! It does mean though that my 320 mile journey was only 167 miles on my limited mileage policy! Kapow!!
About 40 miles from home, about midnight my phone lit up, it was Gareth. 'Don't know if I dare ask... How's it going???' I replied. I got one back 'You're not texting whilst driving are you?' I was picturing the swearing.
So, the car isn't finished, it's a bit rough round the edges and one thing to come out of the journey was it's running a bit lumpy on idle and a bit cold + it's using a little bit too much fuel, but i'm on it as we speak! So fingers crossed i'll see you all Friday night in Corby.
Cheers!
(Well done for reading all that btw!)