Mondial 172 Cup OEM+ / Rolling Resto

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Hi,

I've recently bought a Mondial Blue 172 cup as a weekend toy, it's a solid car that's clearly been loved by it's previous owners (last owner was a CS member and had it for 10yrs) but as with all things, age and miles take their toll so the intention is to carry out a bit of a rolling restoration while keeping it fairly standard.

I've had it a few weeks now, first job was to give it a deep clean, clay, polish and wet vac the interior, the inside looked clean but the water that came out of the seats was vile

then put some fresh plates on it, and touch in a load of little stone chips etc

then put some miles on it

I've had it in the bodyshop this week to get the rear bumper, side strips, door bullets and original gearknob insert painted to tidy it up a bit

 

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That's it pretty much up to date, I've got a load of service bits to fit - engine and gearbox oil, sump gasket, selector seal & bush and a whiteline rear ARB

next on the list will be a new steering wheel, and a wheel refurb and some new tyres as the wheels are scruffy and Rainsport 5's are absolute dog toffee.

 

[yeecup]

looks a really nice example.

 

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Fitted the whiteline ARB this afternoon, rear beam is a bit scruffy but it's fine for now, I will get round to getting it blasted and powder coated at some point but for now I've given the beam and the ARB a wipe over with some ACF50.

Cleaned off the awful sticky remains of the soft touch coatings with some isopropyl alcohol too..

I've added a new head unit to the list.. I can live with the one that's fitted for now but it looks rubbish and more annoyingly the removable faceplate rattles 🤦‍♂️, Blaupunkt do some nice plain OEM looking stuff so I'll probably go for one of them.

 

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I've put another few hundred miles on the Clio in the last week or so, had a snapped spring on the daily last weekend so I've had to press it into daily duties this week.. driving up to work with no AC and cruise control was miserable, but being able to take it on some amazing roads up here makes up for it .

It's crying out for a LSD and some proper tyres though...

 

[Jamess182]

Tidy that mate! Good effort.

 

[Colin-S]

Rest and be Thankful Viewpoint! lovely Cup

 

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Off work for a couple of weeks so decided to get a couple of jobs done, the previous owner had mentioned a leaky selector seal and weeping sump gasket when I bought it so I knew what was coming...

Bought a Febi split seal kit (I know...) And some brass bushes

Got the Jizer out and cleaned off the grime, took it apart and went to fit the half moons of the seal and they were tight.. very tight, even without the O rings. Attempted to put the kit in anyway but they were simply too big, got them knocked in eventually but the selector was so tight it wouldn't even move 🙄. Removed it and ordered a Mapco kit to see if that's any better.

Don't worry.. it gets worse. I drained the oil and it's full of brass. The box has been a bit whiney on overrun since I got it so I'm not really surprised.

It's just going to get a new seal and fresh oil for now, but I'm looking for a used box to get rebuilt with a LSD. Obviously I'm less than delighted after 1000 miles of ownership but these things happen.

Fitted the brass shifter bushes while I was under there too

And flushed the PAS fluid with a couple of litres of MOTUL Dex 2 ATF as the old stuff was well overdue

That's the old gear I sucked out of the reservoir to start with, not the worst I've seen but it smelled burnt.

Today was a bit better, jacked the engine up, drained the oil and removed the sump to change the gasket

Sump came off easily with no nasty surprises this time.

New oil, filter and sump bolts to go in.

 

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I started to scrub the grotty sump with Jizer and scotchbrite but quickly got bored and took it somewhere local to get vapour blasted while I waited, much better. New Victor Reinz gasket fitted too.

Mating face on the block cleaned up nicely (after this pic..)

And sump refitted with bolts torqued to spec.

Just waiting on the new selector seal to arrive now then I can fill the box, and hopefully I'll be able to pick up a spare box in the next few weeks

 

[Mr Underhill]

Lovely job

 

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The Mapco/TND selector seal kit arrived today, loads better than the Febi kit, in that it actually fits.

Got that fitted straight away and refilled the gearbox with the correct amount of Millers 75w/80 gearbox oil.

Drove it to the gym this afternoon, everything feels fine. The box still has a very feint whine when coasting, something I'll monitor for now.

 

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Good and bad news..

Bad news, the gearbox is pissing out oil, about 100ml a week, it's got a drip tray under it on the drive at the moment and when you drive it you can smell the drops of gearbox oil presumably being blown off the under tray onto the downpipe/cat and burning off.

I've topped it up again today, but having driven it since, and bearing in mind the weather is about to turn I'm just going to SORN it this weekend and start getting the bits together to sort it out, it needs a timing belt too so I may as well take the engine and box out and give the whole front end a refresh.

Good news, a little while back I picked up this lovely BTB exhaust & 182 manifold.

I then spotted a 172 Milltek decat pipe on eBay, thought it would be a good idea to buy it and get a magnaflow sports cat welded into it

I could have stainless MIG'd it myself, but there's a lad local to me who TIG'd it together for less than it would have cost me to get some more stainless mig gas.

I'm really happy with that, I've chased the lambda boss threads out and stuck it in the corner of the garage for now.

 

[PerthRS]

Is the gearbox leaking out of the selector seal?

 

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Is the gearbox leaking out of the selector seal?

yeah, the original seal was leaking, and so is the TND seal kit.. the box is whining and needs a rebuild anyway, no big deal

 

[yeecup]

dont think that cat will work with the 182 manifold

 

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dont think that cat will work with the 182 manifold

nah it won't, I've decided (for now) to use the stock manifold and the miltek DP, keeps it more original and it means I don't have to fabricate a link pipe with a cat in for the 182 manifold

 

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Been a long time since I've updated this..

I've been away working for most of the year so the Clio has been under a cover getting started occasionally by the Mrs, now I'm back I've got round to fitting the plates I bought last year

Other than that I'm just collecting parts at the moment, with the intention being to pull the engine and gearbox and refresh everything from the windscreen forward, I've bought a Black line LSD to go in the box

The parts I've bought so far look something like this:

•oem timing belt/water pump kit
•oem timing tools
•grp n timing tool
•197 cams timing tool (just incase)
•LUK clutch
•The big diff bearing that was discontinued
•oem tie rods and track rod ends
•bottom ball joints
•Victor Reinz top end gasket kit
•spare steering wheel to get retrimmed
•caliper refurb kits

Got a spare set of front calipers off being blasted and cerakoted this week too...

there's still loads left on the shopping list, bushes, engine internals, discs and pads etc, I'll chip away at the parts list and maybe make a start on it after the winter

 

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Got my wheels back from powder coat yesterday, gave them a coat of Gtechniq C5 today so I can get them back on and get the car off axle stands over the weekend.

Spare calipers are back from Cerakote too, so I'll get them built back up at some point

I've ordered some more new parts too, wheel bearings, discs, bottom end gaskets etc..