LY Megane F7R Coach

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Parts bought

Rear subframe bar

oil pump & bearings & rings bought from France

Beaaring that were taken out

Gearbox overhauled, bought 2 jc5 gearbox for spare parts

diff plate installed

And head comparation, oem vs ported

 

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some more parts washing

Later on, I was sad that I didnt go with 197 pistons, but well.. at that point money was going really fast through my pocket..

And assembly time

Oh yes, and while waiting, i've send all the bolts to get them zync coated, just looks mega on a restored car

Made a mistake and sent wrong cam pulley for zync plating lol..

 

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In the mean time, went for some parts shopping, full inox exhaust, 2-1 exhaust section that was custom made, that OEM section is fully restrictive

F7R from that guy sitting in a barn.. he also has megane maxi that he's build long time ago, but he's not using it..

And assembly time for engine bay!!

In the meantime, moved my car to my buddys garage, big thanks to him, this couldnt be done without my friends.

Made new custom gasket for exhaust manifold, and ptfe intake gasket

New master cylidner

 

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And lets go and tidy up engine bay

Checked the harness

Light weight pulleys

 

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Engine on stand, and lets goo

Swapped the crank pulley for aluminum one

That ugly alternator is replaced ( you'll see in the future post)

The flywheen is lightened..

 

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Ready to go into the car!

Aaand it's in!

other bits and bobs

subframe was used from my car, it's all polybushed ( pic from above )

ph1 2.0 16v had the biggest arb at front, but as my 5 door is ph2, and uses the same concept as megane and clio sport, it also has 25mm arb, and the track is wider, i dont know how, but simply is, but my 5 door was originally 1.4 8v lol..

 

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1st start



and rough idle..



it would idle rough like this for 15 - 20 seconds and then idle normally, I couldnt figure out what is was, but my buddy told me to unplug the lambda sonda, and it stopped doing that. Didnt know if your lambda sonda is bad, it will behave like that, idle like it's maxi lol

 

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Time to put it all back togeather

This was in 8/2023, so almost 1 year later, compared to the start of project

Now, since this was everything new, ofcourse the whole car needs to be new as well.. The rabbit whole was deeper and deeper, and boy was I unaware of it..

Front put togeather

Lets talk about the rear end, brakes and suspension.. First I need to tell you that I obviously managed to pick the most rusty and rotted Megane and decided to lay my hands on it.
Remember what I've typed, that after looking the engine bay I've sat on the garage floor and decided I'm gonna keep the car and repair it?

Well, my smart ass didnt look at the sills, at the rear end etc, but you will see everything as you go throught the topic..

So, everything on this, regarding the underside was rusted and non functional, ripped everything apart

And took everything from my 5door

Custom steel brake hoses

Brake's rebuild and painted

 

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For the pads, went with ds 1.11 at front and regular ate at back

Regarding the rear subframe, oem is quite narrow, popular mod is to put scenic axle to get +6 cm ( 3cm on each side), and I bought used scenic rear axle.

With that axle, you have completely different brake system, the more modern one, like on cs197 and all modern renaults ( where the handbrake actually does something)

New discs

What I didnt mention, when we started the car, it had a leak, from crank seal ( flywheel side ) and it was quite bad.
To change it you need to remove the exhaust manifold, subframe, gearbox, flywheel etc.. so not quite a fun job..

Left it with new seal till next morning, and once upon arrival it was a bit oily, but I said to my self, meh, it's just from before

Assembled everything back togeather

1st start

aaaaannnndd it's leaking again.. ever more than last time... sigh..

1st it was mounted like this, I think too much on the inside

2nd seal was mounted so that is sits flush with the block.. but on the crank you can feel the lip.. still didnt touch that to this day.

 

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10/2023.

My stupid ass found out that I've painted the wrong front calipers..
Brakes on Megane came in 2 versions ( on 16v), in 262mm and 280mm. I knew that on my (5door) there were 262mm discs and calipers, but somehow i measured that original brakes from the yellow one are 280mm.. yep.. they weren't.. also 262..
So once again,dissasemble the fresh painted and rebuild ones, paint other calipers for 280mm, and rebuild them

Sorted that, and little upgrade for brake dics, from captur, they have bigger spacing between the discs, and also more wholes for cooling in the middle.
This was tested by a friend, almost 100C difference in disc temp after hard braking if I remember correctly

And the biggest satisfaction, brake overhaul

 

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Next on the list was ABS. I presume at some point in the life of this megane, this catched on fire

So once again, parts were taken from 5door donor

This is what happends when your friend come over..
I didnt really care that the engine was only run at the spot ( for many hours ) but not driven. a freshly built engine.

 

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lets get back on track
Front strut mount mounted, it really looks good. It was powder coated in red, but I dont quite like the colour, might paint it in the future to match the calipers.

The drivers door lock wasnt working, it was turning in circles, so dissasembled that and took a look, I couldnt figure it out, thought it was more complex then it was and could get it to work, but friend helped me, actually it's really simple, but sometimes you just dont see it

Few outside shots

Had a big problem for radiator fan not kicking in, replaced the switch, resistor, everything, in the end it was bad plug and just not bled good.

Water from rain was getting into the cabin, sealing the ventilation box is quite tricky, I did it on my 5 door, but couldnt succed here, althought I tried 2 times, still didnt solve it. Just need to give it one more proper go with a sealer.

Then out of nowhere, the alternator stopped charging, but it was charging before.. the car died while working, because it consumed the battery.

And then the testing, I had another alternator but also it's not working, we almost took them both apart, wondering what's wrong, it cant go bad in such a short time.

Ok, went and bought a new one

Installed it, and also it wasn't working.. I was breaking my head for few days, googling, and thanks to forums, to be precise, thanks to cliosport.net there was a guy that had the same issue but with a clio!

So, what happened, i powder coated the mount for auxilary. And the alternator get's it's ground through that, so basically somehow it worked for a good time, until it decided not to work anymore.
I didnt feel like dissasemblyng everything, so my friend made me a ground cable, and once i put that in place, voila!

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That was a relief..

Pulley replaced

Then, it decided it will piss the gas on the connection to fuel rail

So I zip tied it like they were free.. The gas hose is also cracked, its original, so I need to replace that, and will put F7P fuel rail, that's aluminum and can put a normal clamp..

Although it hasnt been washed for few years, it looks clean(ish) and really mean. I do love the front end on this thing.

 

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29/1/2024

The next step was getting the sills done, they were really, really bad.. Couldnt jack up the car..
This time I took it to different guy, he really is an oldschool guy, knows his job, but like all of them, he takes his time..

5/2024

It took only 4 month to replace the sills and few more bits, here are the photos

Pickup time, luckly the car was on dry the whole time, it was outside only for me to pick it up

Did I say the sills were bad?

 

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Went with epoxy primer over it, just so it doesent rust, as I couldnt get my hands to work on the car.

Oh, I didnt say this. The previous owner ( the young one, that had the car painted ) sad the body was done and everything was ok. Mhm, i'll let you take a look for yourself

Thats like 0.5-1 cm of filler. Somebody did the arches as they were also rotten, but got carried away with the filler..
Just to clarify, this was never a project to make a perfect car, but to make a fun, fast F7R that i can drive on the street but also go on track and competition with, so I always told to myself, oh cmnon, it's a track focused car, it doesent needs to be perfect, so I didnt try to fix the bad arches..

Anyways, made a progress

 

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Ready for primer sealer

Bit of luck that day, although this part is with no delivery date in renault, I placed an order, and it arrived after 3 months

Syncro kit for jc5 ( its for jc5, but 1st and 2nd gear are not "double" like at later jc5, for example 089, this fits for jc5 053 ( megane one ))

 

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So I went with sanding all the car, to have it fully painted, and so I sanded and sanded and sanded....

Remember what I've said that I didnt look the rest of the car when sitting on that garage floor?

Well, I also didnt look at the rear of the car when I realised the sills need to be changed... I guess I want this car to be a suprise that just keeps on giving!!

Remover rear bumper

Driver side, above muffler hanger

Welp, here goes another year of my life on this car

7/2024
I decided ( again ) to go full r****d and dissasemble everything, wire wheel brush it and clean it, replace what needs to be replaced, and paint the car from underneath.

 

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Also thought it was a good idea to wash the car when i dissasembled everything... yep..

Remover the seal around the front & rear windshield, the front was good, but rear no to much

Went on with the cleaning

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This was still early stage and I was really optimistic I would get this done very soon and that wouldn't set me back for long

 

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10/2024
It's always nice to spend the summer working on the car, not on the beach, right? Right? mhm..

So, once again, this car has took almost 1 more summer from me, and my job also, life is fun when you are living it to the max... yea,, nope..

I'm just gonna throw bunch of pictures of how it all went, no comments needed

 

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Removed the rear axle, fuel tank, exhaust, everything

Factory sealer is a perfect hider of rust, on the outside it doesn't look that bad, but underneath, it's crying for it's life

 

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The ammount of selaer on the car, and the fact it's so slow to remove, it's exhausting

 

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11/2024

That's the current state. I moved the car outside of my friends garage because this is very dirty work and dont want to occupy the garage, because we do our regular maitnance in there.
Since I do this after work, it was easy in the summer, day last very long, it's warm etc, but now when I finish with work, there is like 30 - 40 min max of daylight, it's cold etc, can't do progress like that.

I've decided that I'm gonna try to weld all that pieces that I've matched to fit ( cut it from 5 door megane ) myself, I want to lean how to weld, and this is great oportunity for it.

I am in active search for a garage/space to work on a car, to rent it, but it's very hard here in Rijeka, people dont want to rent to someone who's noisy etc etc, rent fee is high, everthing is really pointless.
Inside of the country, for example Zagreb, the prices are much better, less money for bigger space, also bigger spaces for rent etc..

After the summer I really got sick of this car and working on it every day, I really got fed up of it, so, it's kinda "good" that I cant find a space to work on it, so I can get a motivation for everything.
Bad thing, the car is in the open, covered with a car cover, and water finds a way inside..

Biggest regret, now, is that I didnt look the car as a whole in the 1st place , if I did, and if I decided to keep it, at least I could make a "hanger" for the shell and clean and weld everything much easier, then like this, laying under the car, cleaning, everything falling onto you and so on.. Only the guys that have done this know the struggle.

But hey, not everything is bad, much of the hard work is done, kinda.
In plan is to clean all of the underside, paint it, and then paint the exterior of the car.

I also sourced plastic fenders and bonnet for the car, that's lot of weight saving because the car is factory really heavy, would like to find carbon/fiber rear bonnet as well...

Oh, almost forgot, engine has blowby out of dipstick hole and oil cap, so something is bad with the rings..

Hope you enjoyed reading this, cheers from Croatia