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Bought them off eBay I believe bud!
Haven't had a chance to do anything sadly. I literally haven't fixed the cat even yet. I've been fitting a kitchen for my Dad in his rental flat. Never done it before so it took me a fair while to learn all the new skills/figure everything out! It's all finished now though so will be looking to clear out the garage and get the car back on the road ASAP.
Quite handy actually as the newly learned skills should come in handy with doing up the garage.
A before and after on the kitchen for anyone interested...
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Haha. I'll probably get in trouble for this but as it's car related... here she is sat in a lovely old Bently.
Well...
I took the car off again today. In some sense it's good news. The cats actually fine. That however has just served to piss me off! It now needs reattaching which to be honest I've always found a ball ache on my own on a gravel drive with stands. I'm going to check if the decat pipe I swapped for an old rear brake caliper is the right diameter dor my exhaust. If it is I'll have it chopped and welded onto the end of the cat to replace the olive joint which is frankly nothing but a PITA.
That also means bad news; I don't know for sure what's wrong with the car! Some research and asking for opinions on the symptoms (sulphur smell, not running smoothly, slow acceleration and intermittent flashing EML) throws up that there's a very likely chance it's an injector so once the cats back on I'll be firing it up and unplugging them one by one with the engine running.
In a stroke of luck I've found a guy selling genuine used injectors for a good price. Not sure if he's on here to tag him! He works with formula renault and apparently they're only used for 20 hours before being changed. With that in mind I'm tempted to change all four at the same time, if it proves to be the problem. I might do it anyway even if it's not!
Other suggestions have been the leads and plugs. I doubt it's the latter as they're less than 9k/2 years old and genuine parts.
No progress on the other fronts yet, sorry!
And just to keep Joe happy... Haha. The lady at a Aston Martin factory:
I took the car off again today. In some sense it's good news. The cats actually fine. That however has just served to piss me off! It now needs reattaching which to be honest I've always found a ball ache on my own on a gravel drive with stands. I'm going to check if the decat pipe I swapped for an old rear brake caliper is the right diameter dor my exhaust. If it is I'll have it chopped and welded onto the end of the cat to replace the olive joint which is frankly nothing but a PITA.
That also means bad news; I don't know for sure what's wrong with the car! Some research and asking for opinions on the symptoms (sulphur smell, not running smoothly, slow acceleration and intermittent flashing EML) throws up that there's a very likely chance it's an injector so once the cats back on I'll be firing it up and unplugging them one by one with the engine running.
In a stroke of luck I've found a guy selling genuine used injectors for a good price. Not sure if he's on here to tag him! He works with formula renault and apparently they're only used for 20 hours before being changed. With that in mind I'm tempted to change all four at the same time, if it proves to be the problem. I might do it anyway even if it's not!
Other suggestions have been the leads and plugs. I doubt it's the latter as they're less than 9k/2 years old and genuine parts.
No progress on the other fronts yet, sorry!
And just to keep Joe happy... Haha. The lady at a Aston Martin factory:
Gus
ClioSport Moderator
182Turbo,DCi90
Does sound like an injector, swapping them will make a nice difference. Might be worth you pulling out the spark plugs first to see what condition they are in and you might find one is looking worse than the others and help you pinpoint which injector isnt pulling its weight - although when putting spark plugs back you need a torque wrench ideally. There has been a bit of talk of "genuine injectors" not being genuine on here in the last week so that link might help you.
I think I'll just pull the injector electric plugs out one by one and listen to see if it changes or stays the same! I've got a torque wrench but it just saves the hassle of taking the plugs out first as well! Thanks for that link that's really useful! Will be careful and check the O-Ring.
The injectors I'm getting off this guy are all genuine as they aren't allowed to use non-genuine in the championship he works with.
Just went to stick the cat back on and that turned out to be a cluster f**k! Haha. Dropped one of the washers in the gravel for the sprung bolts. It's the plain one with a notch out of it.. looks like the middle ones in this picture:
Unsure if I actually 100% need it, as I can't seem to find anywhere to buy one on its own.
Unsure if I actually 100% need it, as I can't seem to find anywhere to buy one on its own.
I found the washer! Moved the car by hand and sifted through the gravel. I came to the conclusion I could probably just use any suitably sized washer but... I'm a bit pedantic like that.
Due to the snow/lots of rain lately I've not really done anything outside on it, so instead I've made a bit of progress internally. The map light now has an LCD panel in it. It's much brighter and disperses light better imo. Great if your drive is pitch black like mine!
I bought it off ebay on a bit of a whim. 99p, including postage from Hong Kong! What I didn't realise was that it also came with some adapters. One of which is the same fitment as the bulb in the light. As a result no soldering was required at all, just a little epoxy to hold it in place. I used the epoxy sparingly so it can easily be removed if so desired in the future.
Was quite impressed it also came with a 3M taped backing. The end result works well for my tastes, though I've not yet fully fitted it back as I've got some connectors for the foot well lighting to solder onto the top because I decided I'd like to be able to remove the light unit. And it just feels like it's more of a proper job doing it that way.
I also turned my attention back to the clocks. Having resolderd the smds to white, I'd been experimenting with making the needles blue. In the end I didn't find a blue colour that I felt was both easily visible and aesthetically pleasing during the day time. Making them glow a nice blue at night is he easy part for sure!
I'm the end I decided to change colour entirely and keep it simple, by going for a white needle with a red tip. After a suggestion from facebook when I asked about appropriate paints I ordered a couple of pots of Tamiya acrylic model paint. White (X-1) and red (X-7).
I painted the red first, left it an hour and painted the rest with the White making sure it was a good coverage.
One thing I would do differently if I did it again, would be to firstly (after scraping the original paint off the needles) paint the scraped area with a clear/translucent paint. The scraping/sanding off leaves very small scratches and a slightly opaque effect and I think the clear paint would act as a filler. The solid colour paint painted over the top should them get a better finish.
I should also say, due to the needle design, solid colours seem to work better than translucent ones.
Anyway, i refitted everything and then had some trouble with the fuel gauge not working after the first couple of times I turned the ignition on. A bit of disconnecting the clocks, moving it around to different positions, reconnecting and turning it on later though and it came back to life!
Here's how the dials are now.
Im really happy with them. I think it looks so much cleaner and should be much nicer over long journeys and in the day time. I'm also planning to redo the window switches to white I think.
Tomorrow I'll (weather permitting) be finishing off the soldering for the foot well lighting and refitting the dash.
Due to the snow/lots of rain lately I've not really done anything outside on it, so instead I've made a bit of progress internally. The map light now has an LCD panel in it. It's much brighter and disperses light better imo. Great if your drive is pitch black like mine!
I bought it off ebay on a bit of a whim. 99p, including postage from Hong Kong! What I didn't realise was that it also came with some adapters. One of which is the same fitment as the bulb in the light. As a result no soldering was required at all, just a little epoxy to hold it in place. I used the epoxy sparingly so it can easily be removed if so desired in the future.
Was quite impressed it also came with a 3M taped backing. The end result works well for my tastes, though I've not yet fully fitted it back as I've got some connectors for the foot well lighting to solder onto the top because I decided I'd like to be able to remove the light unit. And it just feels like it's more of a proper job doing it that way.
I also turned my attention back to the clocks. Having resolderd the smds to white, I'd been experimenting with making the needles blue. In the end I didn't find a blue colour that I felt was both easily visible and aesthetically pleasing during the day time. Making them glow a nice blue at night is he easy part for sure!
I'm the end I decided to change colour entirely and keep it simple, by going for a white needle with a red tip. After a suggestion from facebook when I asked about appropriate paints I ordered a couple of pots of Tamiya acrylic model paint. White (X-1) and red (X-7).
I painted the red first, left it an hour and painted the rest with the White making sure it was a good coverage.
One thing I would do differently if I did it again, would be to firstly (after scraping the original paint off the needles) paint the scraped area with a clear/translucent paint. The scraping/sanding off leaves very small scratches and a slightly opaque effect and I think the clear paint would act as a filler. The solid colour paint painted over the top should them get a better finish.
I should also say, due to the needle design, solid colours seem to work better than translucent ones.
Anyway, i refitted everything and then had some trouble with the fuel gauge not working after the first couple of times I turned the ignition on. A bit of disconnecting the clocks, moving it around to different positions, reconnecting and turning it on later though and it came back to life!
Here's how the dials are now.
Im really happy with them. I think it looks so much cleaner and should be much nicer over long journeys and in the day time. I'm also planning to redo the window switches to white I think.
Tomorrow I'll (weather permitting) be finishing off the soldering for the foot well lighting and refitting the dash.
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Gus
ClioSport Moderator
182Turbo,DCi90
Looks good ! like that a lot.
Must have been a pain trying to find that washer, neighbours must have thought you were insane haha.
How are you getting on with your Alpine stereo. Im really liking mine but have been finding the bluetooth audio doesnt always resume playing when i get in the car , im always having to go into my phone and press play. Does yours do that?
Must have been a pain trying to find that washer, neighbours must have thought you were insane haha.
How are you getting on with your Alpine stereo. Im really liking mine but have been finding the bluetooth audio doesnt always resume playing when i get in the car , im always having to go into my phone and press play. Does yours do that?
Stereo is great - though the Bluetooth doesn't always auto connect when I get into the car.
I play my music from an old iPod permanently wired to the back through to the glove box, so couldn't really say about the Bluetooth audio, sorry. But with the Bluetooth not always auto connecting it's fairly annoying, because I use Siri to play music, as there's loads on my iPod and it's hard to scroll through it whilst driving.
Finding the washer was indeed a pain in the arse! Haha.
Glad you like the dials! Took a while of trial and error and thinking about what would work colour wise!
The wheels are on! As soon as the car is running correctly again and I've solved the misfire/potentially dead injector, I'll be taking it to get the new ps3s put on the rims and give everything a clean for the photos!
Slow I know [emoji14]
I play my music from an old iPod permanently wired to the back through to the glove box, so couldn't really say about the Bluetooth audio, sorry. But with the Bluetooth not always auto connecting it's fairly annoying, because I use Siri to play music, as there's loads on my iPod and it's hard to scroll through it whilst driving.
Finding the washer was indeed a pain in the arse! Haha.
Glad you like the dials! Took a while of trial and error and thinking about what would work colour wise!
The wheels are on! As soon as the car is running correctly again and I've solved the misfire/potentially dead injector, I'll be taking it to get the new ps3s put on the rims and give everything a clean for the photos!
Slow I know [emoji14]
Bit more progress, albeit it minimal. Found time to take a second look at my solution for powering the footwell LEDs as the weathers not been good for doing the cat.
Previously the wiring was soldered directly to the light unit meaning it couldn't be removed from the car without snipping the wires or de soldering. I wasn't really happy with that so iv harvested some molex connectors off an old computer power supply. It was a cheap one I never used to its brand new and the connectors are in tip top condition.
I stripped the connectors down to just the two wires as that's all I need, then joined them together and soldered them to a spade connector I had lying around. The spade connectors then got soldered to the +\- sides of the map light, like the wires were before.
Next step is to crimp and solder the other half of the metal connector internals to the wiring in the car, check polarity and then fit them into the plastic half of the connector.
I think it's going to be a much nicer end result as the light can be removed easily at any time for whatever reason and it just feels s bit more professional, even if my soldering on this is a bit amateur hour.
I really struggled to get the solder to stick to the copper sheet that powers the lamp. Does anyone have any soldering tips on that front? Was I doing something wrong? Should I have prepped the surface somehow? Is copper hard to solder to or does it perhaps need a specific type of solder? The stuff I have is meant for PCB work and has flux in it.
Will update once it's all finished and the dash is back in. Might do a little video f I can get it to come out alright, as its fairly nice how the SMDs fade in time wih the map light (as they're powered from the same source).
Previously the wiring was soldered directly to the light unit meaning it couldn't be removed from the car without snipping the wires or de soldering. I wasn't really happy with that so iv harvested some molex connectors off an old computer power supply. It was a cheap one I never used to its brand new and the connectors are in tip top condition.
I stripped the connectors down to just the two wires as that's all I need, then joined them together and soldered them to a spade connector I had lying around. The spade connectors then got soldered to the +\- sides of the map light, like the wires were before.
Next step is to crimp and solder the other half of the metal connector internals to the wiring in the car, check polarity and then fit them into the plastic half of the connector.
I think it's going to be a much nicer end result as the light can be removed easily at any time for whatever reason and it just feels s bit more professional, even if my soldering on this is a bit amateur hour.
I really struggled to get the solder to stick to the copper sheet that powers the lamp. Does anyone have any soldering tips on that front? Was I doing something wrong? Should I have prepped the surface somehow? Is copper hard to solder to or does it perhaps need a specific type of solder? The stuff I have is meant for PCB work and has flux in it.
Will update once it's all finished and the dash is back in. Might do a little video f I can get it to come out alright, as its fairly nice how the SMDs fade in time wih the map light (as they're powered from the same source).
It's been a fair while since I've updated here as I've been getting information and posting elsewhere for a while and doing ~235 hours a month at work so between that and the girlfriend, time to work on the car has been scarce... never mind post about it! I do truly want to keep this thread going though as a record of the cars progress and change over time so I will be making an effort to go back and write up some posts for pictures I've taken along the way. This place frankly does have the best section for project threads.
Suffice to say many things have been fixed since I last posted and in typical style for an old car many others have developed!
For now, here's a picture of the clocks etc refitted.
Suffice to say many things have been fixed since I last posted and in typical style for an old car many others have developed!
For now, here's a picture of the clocks etc refitted.
The footwell and interior lighting was finished off, heat shrink wrapped and installed to the car:
Boot Lighting
I was fed up with the boot lighting as standard. The Clio has a pretty small boot and that usually means that if you're using it, it's probably pretty full. Why oh why they decided to place just one light in that position I don't know. It means you can't see... well.. anything unless you're on a lit street or use a torch/phone to see. Either way, I set about coming up with a solution and I'm pretty pleased with the end result. s. I bought way too much LED strip for my footwell courtesy lights in case I balls'd them up and because it was relatively cheap. I harvested more wire off a computer power supply for the wiring and bought a quick release connector off ebay for 99p, delivered (how do these people make money?!).
The idea was a simple one - to flood light the whole boot from above by fixing the light to the parcel shelf and then fit a quick release connector into the boot trim so that the parcel shelf could still be removed. I measured up and cut a strip off the LEDs.
I picked out a drill bit that matched the size of the quick connector's outer metal sleeve and made a hole above the original boot light fromw hich I planned to draw power.
Currently, the light is powered by using an adapter that I got for free when replacing my interior light for an SMD panel. I'll probably remove this at some point and solder the wires directly to the boot connector. I've deliberately chosen not to splice into the cars main wiring loom for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it's actually way easier to just draw power from the original light unit as you don't have to figure out which is the earth. Secondly, with every electrical modification I've made, you can simply remove a unit from the car (map light, boot light etc) and replace it with another and plug the connector in. If I was chopping the loom up left right and chelsea it wouldn't be easily put back to standard if I ever need to.
So, the adapter looked like this:
I split the metal caps off by pulling them with a screwdriver. They weren't glued on, only held by the pressure of the cap being forced over the end of the wire.
I soldered the wires into the caps
The plastic spring assembly has one flat edge that creates a convenient gap at the edge of the metal cap, through which the wire can fit.
All assembled
And fitted into the car, with the connector end pressed into the hole. In the end I didn't even need to epoxy it in place as the fit was so good that the pressure around the metal end of the connector holds it tightly in place.
I test cut a small piece off the spare SMD strip I had left to test whether the 3M tape backing would be suitable to hold the strip onto the parcel shelf as I was dubious due to the material finish. Awesomely, I think it's perfectly adequate. I may have to secure the wiring end of the strip with a small clip or something, but certainly the backing tape is good enough to hold the strip itself securely.
Fitted things to the car for a test..
A little darker..
And then finally in the dark! Apologies for the quality of the photos of the end result, they're taken on my phone.
Boot Lighting
I was fed up with the boot lighting as standard. The Clio has a pretty small boot and that usually means that if you're using it, it's probably pretty full. Why oh why they decided to place just one light in that position I don't know. It means you can't see... well.. anything unless you're on a lit street or use a torch/phone to see. Either way, I set about coming up with a solution and I'm pretty pleased with the end result. s. I bought way too much LED strip for my footwell courtesy lights in case I balls'd them up and because it was relatively cheap. I harvested more wire off a computer power supply for the wiring and bought a quick release connector off ebay for 99p, delivered (how do these people make money?!).
The idea was a simple one - to flood light the whole boot from above by fixing the light to the parcel shelf and then fit a quick release connector into the boot trim so that the parcel shelf could still be removed. I measured up and cut a strip off the LEDs.
I picked out a drill bit that matched the size of the quick connector's outer metal sleeve and made a hole above the original boot light fromw hich I planned to draw power.
Currently, the light is powered by using an adapter that I got for free when replacing my interior light for an SMD panel. I'll probably remove this at some point and solder the wires directly to the boot connector. I've deliberately chosen not to splice into the cars main wiring loom for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it's actually way easier to just draw power from the original light unit as you don't have to figure out which is the earth. Secondly, with every electrical modification I've made, you can simply remove a unit from the car (map light, boot light etc) and replace it with another and plug the connector in. If I was chopping the loom up left right and chelsea it wouldn't be easily put back to standard if I ever need to.
So, the adapter looked like this:
I split the metal caps off by pulling them with a screwdriver. They weren't glued on, only held by the pressure of the cap being forced over the end of the wire.
I soldered the wires into the caps
The plastic spring assembly has one flat edge that creates a convenient gap at the edge of the metal cap, through which the wire can fit.
All assembled
And fitted into the car, with the connector end pressed into the hole. In the end I didn't even need to epoxy it in place as the fit was so good that the pressure around the metal end of the connector holds it tightly in place.
I test cut a small piece off the spare SMD strip I had left to test whether the 3M tape backing would be suitable to hold the strip onto the parcel shelf as I was dubious due to the material finish. Awesomely, I think it's perfectly adequate. I may have to secure the wiring end of the strip with a small clip or something, but certainly the backing tape is good enough to hold the strip itself securely.
Fitted things to the car for a test..
A little darker..
And then finally in the dark! Apologies for the quality of the photos of the end result, they're taken on my phone.
I did a deal with Spinksy on some alloys. At the time I had Turini's in Anthracite. The new ones are BBS RS772's. To my knowledge there's only two sets in the UK that have been modified to a Clio fitment. I love them and can't wait to get some decent pictures up once I've bought and fitted some spacers and given them a decent full detail. The only downside is they needed some new shoes fairly immenently! I've opted for Michelin PS3's again in 205/45/16 83V. I picked them up from Tyreleader.co.uk for a mega price as well!
Got to say I'm impressed - arrived within 4 days of ordering, all the way from the Netherlands (I checked tracking info!). I think they sell tyres from all over Europe as others have had theirs shipped from France, Germany etc.
Got to say I'm impressed - arrived within 4 days of ordering, all the way from the Netherlands (I checked tracking info!). I think they sell tyres from all over Europe as others have had theirs shipped from France, Germany etc.
Front Wheel Spacers
After some discussion with Chip and research, I've ended up with H&R trak+ DRA spacers. They're 20mm each/40mm on the axle. They're a bit dearer (£95 delivered), than you can get spacers for off ebay etc, but there's a number of reasons why I think they're worth the extra £35. They're made of an alloy, opposed to just softer billet aluminium and they have steel inserts for the threads.
The spacers I ordered have arrived direct from H&R. I'm really pleased with the quality of them!
Looking forward to getting them on the car, along with the PMS 10mm stub axle spacers for the rear. I'm planning on using Loctite 271 to secure the studs but I'm unsure if I should use any Loctite on the bolts to hold the spacer onto the hub? My thoughts are that the wheel will physically prevent the bolt from coming out but it could still work loose which would be a PITA.
If I do use Loctite, I'm unsure of the strength I'd use. I have both 271 and 2400 available to me though.
UPDATE:
The wheel spacers are on. Following the Pure Motorsport fitting guide, I used Loctite 271 to secure the studs I bought into the front wheel spacers. I left them overnight and then fitted them to the car the next day. Very happy with how the fronts are spaced now. Aesthetically, it would be awesome to go lower, but living in Gloucestershire doesn't really go together very well with a low car.
You can see how far 'in' the arches the rear wheels are. Looking forward to seeing them with the 10mm PMS stub axle spacers on. I think I'm probably going to need another 5-10mm's worth of spacing on the studs though to get them sat nicely.
After some discussion with Chip and research, I've ended up with H&R trak+ DRA spacers. They're 20mm each/40mm on the axle. They're a bit dearer (£95 delivered), than you can get spacers for off ebay etc, but there's a number of reasons why I think they're worth the extra £35. They're made of an alloy, opposed to just softer billet aluminium and they have steel inserts for the threads.
The spacers I ordered have arrived direct from H&R. I'm really pleased with the quality of them!
Looking forward to getting them on the car, along with the PMS 10mm stub axle spacers for the rear. I'm planning on using Loctite 271 to secure the studs but I'm unsure if I should use any Loctite on the bolts to hold the spacer onto the hub? My thoughts are that the wheel will physically prevent the bolt from coming out but it could still work loose which would be a PITA.
If I do use Loctite, I'm unsure of the strength I'd use. I have both 271 and 2400 available to me though.
UPDATE:
The wheel spacers are on. Following the Pure Motorsport fitting guide, I used Loctite 271 to secure the studs I bought into the front wheel spacers. I left them overnight and then fitted them to the car the next day. Very happy with how the fronts are spaced now. Aesthetically, it would be awesome to go lower, but living in Gloucestershire doesn't really go together very well with a low car.
You can see how far 'in' the arches the rear wheels are. Looking forward to seeing them with the 10mm PMS stub axle spacers on. I think I'm probably going to need another 5-10mm's worth of spacing on the studs though to get them sat nicely.
PMS 10mm Stub Axle Spacers
Where to start with this... turned out to be a real ball ache! I don't know what I was expecting really. The bolts have probably never been moved since leaving the factory ~11-12 years ago. With that in mind it's fairly understandable they'd be pretty caked on and it's actually fairly remarkable on that basis that I only had significant problems with one of them! The car hasn't move for a while so the discs look a bit horrible, but they're actually fairly newish.
I got the car up, undid the hub nuts and slid the discs off. Or at least one of them! The n/s rear bearing had stuck slightly to the stub axle and just wouldn't come off! A few love taps with a rubber mallet evenly around the disc and some wiggling later though and the disc came free but sadly half of the bearing decided not to come with it! I'm not massively impressed - the discs have done less than 10k miles and are only ~20 months old. It's just luck of the draw I guess though really. I didn't fit these myself, rather my local garage did. I can't fault them though because the area was greased appropriately and the deflector spacers are present and the correct way round.
I freed the other half of the bearing from the stub axle by using a spanner behind against the metal inner sleeve, levered against the stub axle surround and then tapped with the rubber mallet. With that out of the way I then set about removing the stub axles from the car to fit the spacers. I found I had to remove the rear shock absorbers to get reasonable access to the bolts. This is because I used a deep socket, to get a proper grip in the hopes of not rounding off the corroded nuts. For me that also meant removing the links for my Whiteline rear ARB!
Fortunately, everything on the N/S came free very easily. Unfortunately the O/S wasn't so simple. With the stub axle being held on by 3 x M10 bolts and 1 x M8 it was of course the case that the smaller bolt had entirely ceased into its hole! I couldn't budge it with anything. Blow torch, penetrating oils, shocking it with a hammer, prolonged soaking etc etc. Nothing worked and eventually I sheered the bolt off trying to turn it.
I drilled through it, but the bit(s) I had weren't quite getting through to the end and I was really hoping that the vibration from drilling would set it free, rather than having to drill the entire thing out! With the other three bolts out though it eventually wiggled free and the stub axle came away from the rear beam, allowing me to see just quite how 'attached' the bolt had become to its home!!
With it off the car I was able to get much better access to the end of the bolt and gave it a good smack with a hammer. It started to move small a small amount, so I knocked it back and forth from both sides and sprayed penetrating oil into it each time. Eventually it was most of the way out, so I quickly bolted it back to the car and used a screw driver and hammer to give it one final big smack and it shot out!
The offending bolts
I gave the mating surfaces a scrub/brush/wipe and then fitted the stub axles back to the car with the new spacers in place.
I left it there for a day whilst I thought about what I was going to do bearing wise. I'm still unsure as the discs have LOADS of life left on them and I don't want to remove my studs from them really. A new bearing by SNR (who i believe supply the OE rear bearings) from ECP is £25, plus the cost to press it. New discs will be about £90 delivered, but you do get a lot more for your money value wise!
Either way, yesterday I decided as I couldn't refit the discs and wheels I might as well do something productive! The axles looked a state so I decided to take them off again and clean them up.
I used a hammer to carefully free up the stub axles from their surrounds. It was fairly easy despite heavy dirt/corrosion build up and I quickly started to clean them up.
I used a wire brush by hand to start with some brake cleaner and degreaser, being careful not to damage or soak the ABS sensor. I then got the compressor running and used a wire brush in a drill to do the heavier work. Once they were clean I gave them a wash with some warm water to remove any degreaser residue. The stub axles I submerged but the surrounds I wiped carefully with a heavily damp cloth to protect the ABS sensors again.
With everything cleaned, the ABS sensors were masked up, along with the stub axles ready for painting. I used stove paint from a local shop. It's designed for engines/stoves etc so is a high temp paint and good for applying to bare metals. Being black it shouldn't show the dirt up too much either. A quick spray, an hours wait (as per instructions) and they were painted and left to dry.
I'm very happy with the end result! It will be much nicer bolting them back onto the car instead of leaving them in the crappy condition they were before. It only took a few hours to do it all and I think it will be worth it in the end.
If I go down the route of buying new discs to solve my bearing issue, then I'll be painting those black where appropriate too.
Where to start with this... turned out to be a real ball ache! I don't know what I was expecting really. The bolts have probably never been moved since leaving the factory ~11-12 years ago. With that in mind it's fairly understandable they'd be pretty caked on and it's actually fairly remarkable on that basis that I only had significant problems with one of them! The car hasn't move for a while so the discs look a bit horrible, but they're actually fairly newish.
I got the car up, undid the hub nuts and slid the discs off. Or at least one of them! The n/s rear bearing had stuck slightly to the stub axle and just wouldn't come off! A few love taps with a rubber mallet evenly around the disc and some wiggling later though and the disc came free but sadly half of the bearing decided not to come with it! I'm not massively impressed - the discs have done less than 10k miles and are only ~20 months old. It's just luck of the draw I guess though really. I didn't fit these myself, rather my local garage did. I can't fault them though because the area was greased appropriately and the deflector spacers are present and the correct way round.
I freed the other half of the bearing from the stub axle by using a spanner behind against the metal inner sleeve, levered against the stub axle surround and then tapped with the rubber mallet. With that out of the way I then set about removing the stub axles from the car to fit the spacers. I found I had to remove the rear shock absorbers to get reasonable access to the bolts. This is because I used a deep socket, to get a proper grip in the hopes of not rounding off the corroded nuts. For me that also meant removing the links for my Whiteline rear ARB!
Fortunately, everything on the N/S came free very easily. Unfortunately the O/S wasn't so simple. With the stub axle being held on by 3 x M10 bolts and 1 x M8 it was of course the case that the smaller bolt had entirely ceased into its hole! I couldn't budge it with anything. Blow torch, penetrating oils, shocking it with a hammer, prolonged soaking etc etc. Nothing worked and eventually I sheered the bolt off trying to turn it.
I drilled through it, but the bit(s) I had weren't quite getting through to the end and I was really hoping that the vibration from drilling would set it free, rather than having to drill the entire thing out! With the other three bolts out though it eventually wiggled free and the stub axle came away from the rear beam, allowing me to see just quite how 'attached' the bolt had become to its home!!
With it off the car I was able to get much better access to the end of the bolt and gave it a good smack with a hammer. It started to move small a small amount, so I knocked it back and forth from both sides and sprayed penetrating oil into it each time. Eventually it was most of the way out, so I quickly bolted it back to the car and used a screw driver and hammer to give it one final big smack and it shot out!
The offending bolts
I gave the mating surfaces a scrub/brush/wipe and then fitted the stub axles back to the car with the new spacers in place.
I left it there for a day whilst I thought about what I was going to do bearing wise. I'm still unsure as the discs have LOADS of life left on them and I don't want to remove my studs from them really. A new bearing by SNR (who i believe supply the OE rear bearings) from ECP is £25, plus the cost to press it. New discs will be about £90 delivered, but you do get a lot more for your money value wise!
Either way, yesterday I decided as I couldn't refit the discs and wheels I might as well do something productive! The axles looked a state so I decided to take them off again and clean them up.
I used a hammer to carefully free up the stub axles from their surrounds. It was fairly easy despite heavy dirt/corrosion build up and I quickly started to clean them up.
I used a wire brush by hand to start with some brake cleaner and degreaser, being careful not to damage or soak the ABS sensor. I then got the compressor running and used a wire brush in a drill to do the heavier work. Once they were clean I gave them a wash with some warm water to remove any degreaser residue. The stub axles I submerged but the surrounds I wiped carefully with a heavily damp cloth to protect the ABS sensors again.
With everything cleaned, the ABS sensors were masked up, along with the stub axles ready for painting. I used stove paint from a local shop. It's designed for engines/stoves etc so is a high temp paint and good for applying to bare metals. Being black it shouldn't show the dirt up too much either. A quick spray, an hours wait (as per instructions) and they were painted and left to dry.
I'm very happy with the end result! It will be much nicer bolting them back onto the car instead of leaving them in the crappy condition they were before. It only took a few hours to do it all and I think it will be worth it in the end.
If I go down the route of buying new discs to solve my bearing issue, then I'll be painting those black where appropriate too.
The bearing issue(s) are now solved. In the end I decided to go with a new bearing pressed into the disc and luckily for me the local garage my family has used for decades pressed it in for free! It's an SNR bearing which after some research, I believe to be the OE supplier for the rear bearings anyway.
With it pressed in I put the stub axles back on the car, wired the ABS sensors up again, bolted the caliper back on again and then wound the piston back in.
I refitted the n/s disc with the deflector ring refitted beforehand and then torqued the new nylock hub nut (that came with the bearing) to 175N-m and checked for play. Everything was fine, so I put caliper carrier back on, torqued the 16mm bolts to 40N-m and chucked the wheel on.
I then went to put the o/s disc back on and found it much more difficult to push onto the stub by hand as the other one just slid on nicely. I thought somehow it might be misaligned so pulled it off (just using my hands again) only to find.... yep... the bearing in that one separated on the stub! I can only assume that those bearings had been weakened somehow. It could perhaps be the case that the garage over torqued the hub nuts using an air gun as they were extremely difficult to get off and retorquing them took much less effort. Either way, I got another bearing and that was kindly also pressed in for free too so it's only cost me £54 which is a reasonable amount less than the cost of new discs delivered.
With the new bearing in that disc, I used a little grease on the stub axle but it still took a few taps with a rubber mallet on the disc centre before it slid all the way on. I finished everything up and then dropped it on the floor to see how it looked! The wheels actually sit lower than that, but I'd left the handbrake on after lowering the car to the floor and forgot to take it off.
I really noticed how much easier it was to put the wheels on now that the studs have been fitted! My wheels have a very tight centre bore as they were originally VW wheels, with a centre bore of around 57.1, I think. They've been re-bored to the 60.1 spec, but I think they were coated when being painted so the fit is rather tight indeed. They do fit on with a little wiggling just fine but it's a paint in the ass when you have to hold the weight of the wheel the whole time, especially as one of my front discs doesn't have retaining screws (sheered in hub)!
Fuel Injectors
This morning was nice and bright though so I took advantage of the weather and set about changing the injectors! I didn't take many photos of this as I wanted to do it quickly what with there being fuel involved and to make the risk of dust/dirt stuff getting where it shouldn't be as minimal as possible.
The car had previously shown a flashing EML, had a horrible sulhper/eggy smell and was sturggling to run. I started it up expecting to see the same flashing light but nothing showed up and everything seemed fine at first. I let it idle for about 10 minutes or so and then ran it at a fast idle to get up to temp. Once it did so the stuttering/bogging down started to show up again though the dash EML never lit up. After removing the fuel rail guard and unplugging the injectors one by one with the engine running I was pretty sure that the injector on cylinder 3 was different when unplugged to the rest. Oddly, from my research it seems to always be cylinder three that has issues!
I let the engine cool down for the best part of an hour and then following a guide I unbolted the injector wiring loom and got it out the way before unplugging the fuel line. It's a good job I put plenty of old (but clean) rags around because there was a nice spurt of fuel where the line had been pressurised earlier! It was all containted though as I didn't lift the cap all the way off as I knew it would happen. It still took me by surprise!
With the fuel rail unbolted I wiggled it back and forth to set it free. It took a lot more force than I was anticipating, considering the fuel rail is made of plastic! Eventually I got it out and could have a look at the injectors. I know you can't really tell anything just by looking at them, but 3 & 4 certainly at least looked a little worse for ware.
After draining the fuel rail I removed the clips that hold that injectors in place and pulled them out of the fuel rail. One O-ring came off and had to be fished out the fuel rail with a clean screwdriver. I replaced all four of the injectors as I got a good deal off a barely used set and they seem to be going on a lot of peoples cars lately, so it made sense to just do them all as a set. I've kept the injectors from cylinders 1, 2 and 4 in case I have any problems with their replacements though! Everything got refitted to the engine and bolted back in place and I triple checked the fuel line connector and fuel rail were all secure. Whilst being a bit stubborn a little petrol on the O-Rings of the injectors helped to coax them back into their holes. I turned the ignition on to prime the fuel pump and had a look for leaks before finally turning it over only to find the car didn't start! I believe that's because the fuel rail still had air left in it as it fired up beautifully when being turned over for a second time!
And it was beautiful... to finally hear the engine running as it should be with no coughing and spluttering. I quick squeeze on the throttle confirmed that everything at least seemed to be much better as there was no bogging down before acceleration at all just a nice smooth willingness to rev! I took the car out for a gentle drive, stopping to check the wheel nut torques a few times, checking on the exhaust sealant at the cat olive joint and giving the brakes some usage to clear off the light corrosion that had built up on the discs due to not being used for a while. Ironic, considering the front discs have been used for less than 50 miles since new! Finally with the engine warmed up and once I was sure that the wheels weren't going to fall off and that the brake pedal was actually going to do something when asked to... I gave it the beans.
Ear to ear grinning was pretty much all that happened for the next 45 minutes. The sense of satisfaction was immense as a month earlier I'd honestly wished that I had either not bought the car two years ago, or sold it before spending so much on it. The drive today wiped all those thoughts away completely and I reminded me why I'd been bothering in the first place!
Just needs a clean and the under tray putting back on and then I hope - fingers crossed - to have some trouble free driving for a while so I can just enjoy the car!
No time for a clean today but I think it will scrub up well, especially with my basic phot editing skills! Saturation dropped and hue changed only. Not bad for an iPhone I thought.
.....GAZ coilies are looking tempting when I have some money looking at that arch gap! Not ideal for Gloucestershire roads however. I'm also more inclined to look for a trophy sachs setup in need of a rebuild or some bilsteins from Germany.
Code:
UPDATE: The OE bearings are 110% manufactured by SNR, at least in the genuine discs I was supplied by Adam @ Renault Wolverhampton. I checked the old bearings as I asked to have them back after pressing and both are the same SNR bearing.With it pressed in I put the stub axles back on the car, wired the ABS sensors up again, bolted the caliper back on again and then wound the piston back in.
I refitted the n/s disc with the deflector ring refitted beforehand and then torqued the new nylock hub nut (that came with the bearing) to 175N-m and checked for play. Everything was fine, so I put caliper carrier back on, torqued the 16mm bolts to 40N-m and chucked the wheel on.
I then went to put the o/s disc back on and found it much more difficult to push onto the stub by hand as the other one just slid on nicely. I thought somehow it might be misaligned so pulled it off (just using my hands again) only to find.... yep... the bearing in that one separated on the stub! I can only assume that those bearings had been weakened somehow. It could perhaps be the case that the garage over torqued the hub nuts using an air gun as they were extremely difficult to get off and retorquing them took much less effort. Either way, I got another bearing and that was kindly also pressed in for free too so it's only cost me £54 which is a reasonable amount less than the cost of new discs delivered.
With the new bearing in that disc, I used a little grease on the stub axle but it still took a few taps with a rubber mallet on the disc centre before it slid all the way on. I finished everything up and then dropped it on the floor to see how it looked! The wheels actually sit lower than that, but I'd left the handbrake on after lowering the car to the floor and forgot to take it off.
I really noticed how much easier it was to put the wheels on now that the studs have been fitted! My wheels have a very tight centre bore as they were originally VW wheels, with a centre bore of around 57.1, I think. They've been re-bored to the 60.1 spec, but I think they were coated when being painted so the fit is rather tight indeed. They do fit on with a little wiggling just fine but it's a paint in the ass when you have to hold the weight of the wheel the whole time, especially as one of my front discs doesn't have retaining screws (sheered in hub)!
Fuel Injectors
This morning was nice and bright though so I took advantage of the weather and set about changing the injectors! I didn't take many photos of this as I wanted to do it quickly what with there being fuel involved and to make the risk of dust/dirt stuff getting where it shouldn't be as minimal as possible.
The car had previously shown a flashing EML, had a horrible sulhper/eggy smell and was sturggling to run. I started it up expecting to see the same flashing light but nothing showed up and everything seemed fine at first. I let it idle for about 10 minutes or so and then ran it at a fast idle to get up to temp. Once it did so the stuttering/bogging down started to show up again though the dash EML never lit up. After removing the fuel rail guard and unplugging the injectors one by one with the engine running I was pretty sure that the injector on cylinder 3 was different when unplugged to the rest. Oddly, from my research it seems to always be cylinder three that has issues!
I let the engine cool down for the best part of an hour and then following a guide I unbolted the injector wiring loom and got it out the way before unplugging the fuel line. It's a good job I put plenty of old (but clean) rags around because there was a nice spurt of fuel where the line had been pressurised earlier! It was all containted though as I didn't lift the cap all the way off as I knew it would happen. It still took me by surprise!
With the fuel rail unbolted I wiggled it back and forth to set it free. It took a lot more force than I was anticipating, considering the fuel rail is made of plastic! Eventually I got it out and could have a look at the injectors. I know you can't really tell anything just by looking at them, but 3 & 4 certainly at least looked a little worse for ware.
After draining the fuel rail I removed the clips that hold that injectors in place and pulled them out of the fuel rail. One O-ring came off and had to be fished out the fuel rail with a clean screwdriver. I replaced all four of the injectors as I got a good deal off a barely used set and they seem to be going on a lot of peoples cars lately, so it made sense to just do them all as a set. I've kept the injectors from cylinders 1, 2 and 4 in case I have any problems with their replacements though! Everything got refitted to the engine and bolted back in place and I triple checked the fuel line connector and fuel rail were all secure. Whilst being a bit stubborn a little petrol on the O-Rings of the injectors helped to coax them back into their holes. I turned the ignition on to prime the fuel pump and had a look for leaks before finally turning it over only to find the car didn't start! I believe that's because the fuel rail still had air left in it as it fired up beautifully when being turned over for a second time!
And it was beautiful... to finally hear the engine running as it should be with no coughing and spluttering. I quick squeeze on the throttle confirmed that everything at least seemed to be much better as there was no bogging down before acceleration at all just a nice smooth willingness to rev! I took the car out for a gentle drive, stopping to check the wheel nut torques a few times, checking on the exhaust sealant at the cat olive joint and giving the brakes some usage to clear off the light corrosion that had built up on the discs due to not being used for a while. Ironic, considering the front discs have been used for less than 50 miles since new! Finally with the engine warmed up and once I was sure that the wheels weren't going to fall off and that the brake pedal was actually going to do something when asked to... I gave it the beans.
Ear to ear grinning was pretty much all that happened for the next 45 minutes. The sense of satisfaction was immense as a month earlier I'd honestly wished that I had either not bought the car two years ago, or sold it before spending so much on it. The drive today wiped all those thoughts away completely and I reminded me why I'd been bothering in the first place!
Just needs a clean and the under tray putting back on and then I hope - fingers crossed - to have some trouble free driving for a while so I can just enjoy the car!
No time for a clean today but I think it will scrub up well, especially with my basic phot editing skills! Saturation dropped and hue changed only. Not bad for an iPhone I thought.
.....GAZ coilies are looking tempting when I have some money looking at that arch gap! Not ideal for Gloucestershire roads however. I'm also more inclined to look for a trophy sachs setup in need of a rebuild or some bilsteins from Germany.
Throughout my ownership of the car so far, I've always tried to do things in the 'right' order:
1. Repairing or replacing parts because they're broken or out of date.
2. Replacing parts that could do with being refreshed as they're old and probably a bit tired.
3. Mods and upgrades that give good value for money in terms of performance or 'feel'
Recently it all got a bit boring and I was fed up with it, so it was time to do a few bits simply because I wanted to! The car's very much a learning project as well as a daily, but it's also supposed to be a fun! Constantly ploughing money into parts I'm not overly excited about (such as catalytic converters..) made me somewhat fall out of love with the car. Again. Rather than sell it, I just left it alone and barely drove it for a few weeks or so as luckily I can walk to work. That all changed though after a bit of late night ebaying...
Recaro Trendlines
First job was to whip out the old seats..
... so that I could replace them as quickly as possible with these:
[imghttp://i1378.photobucket.com/albums/ah95/Chaski453/IMG_4850_zps5eccbdgi.jpg][/img]
Unfortunately, I don't have as many pictures as I'd like of the process as I hate to get them in as quickly as possible due to taking up space and because I needed the car a couple of days later. It's been covered by a lot of other threads on CS anyway. Having removed the dust caps from the underside bolt holes, I took the old seats out and removed their runners because the Recaro's I bought came from an R26 Megane and would need different frames fitting.
I bought some frames from Jon Foz in one of the group buys where he sells his 'VBD' seat frames. It's worth checking them out, they're great quality and I understand he's now developed and extra low seat frame for bucket seats (the VBD X-Low frame).
One of the quirks of swapping the frames over though, is that the drivers seat position sensor has to be removed as it's rivetted to the runner and the wiring is regrettably passed through the seat frames so they can't be removed without either snipping the wires and rejoining them after, or removing the rivet. I chose the second option as frankly I think snipping the wires and soldering them together isn't ideal considering the sensor is part of the airbag system and if it's not working correctly then the wheel airbag might not deploy correctly. With that in mind I drilled the rivet out and free it from the runners.
Next up was fitting the VBD frames, which was IMHO easier said than done, though that's user error/inexperience rather than any problem with the frames. I found it extremely difficult and frustrating to get everything setup correctly so that the tilt and slide feature still worked. The whole point in plumping for more expensive Recaro's instead of some other seats for me, was that they retain the ability to tilt and move forward to let someone in the back. My car is a daily after all and I want to retain some elements of OE feel to it.
After much bending of the original seats slide grab handles so they fitted, fitting them to the seats and frames, tweaking, pushing, pulling, swearing and texting Jon I eventually got everything setup correctly! A tip for anyone doing it is to make sure the cable is correctly seated in its guide at the side of the seat, on the back as it easily comes out of place whilst everything's loose. One of the other problems I had was the tolerance (at least with the seats/frames I have) is quite small for this part of the runners mechanism..
There's only a very small gap, so everything has to be perfectly lined up which is quite difficult on your own, or at least I found it so. With that done it was time to secure the drivers position sensor back in place. To do this, I bought a hand riveter from a local shop. It come with a number of different sized rivets one of which looked to be the perfect width, which it was! The only difficulty was the hand rivets weren't as long as the factory rivets, so I had to trim a bit of the plastic attaching point away to drop it lower so that the rivet would be long enough to clamp the sensor to the metal rail.
I'm really pleased with how it turned out with the hand riveter. It took a few rivets to clamp properly but for all intents and purposes it's as secure as when it left the factory and functions just as it should, with the metal arm being pushed by the runner to press a button on the sensor as shown in the video.
[video]http://vid1378.photobucket.com/albums/ah95/Chaski453/IMG_4818_zpsqecdsy46.mp4[/video]
The seat cables fitted into the runners nicely, though unfortunately one of the clips on my cables was broken and I had to find a work around. I'd like to replace the cable eventually if I can find one for a reasonable price, but for now it's functioning perfectly well, so I'll leave it. The other one was just fine though..
I don't have any pictures, but I then soldered all of the appropriate resistors in place under the seats to prevent the airbag light coming on (which it hasn't), heat wrapping both them and all the joins where I reconnected the pretensioners from my car, which had to be cut to be removed from the standard seats.
They could really do with a clean and have a small cigarette burn (from previous owner(s)) on each of the thigh rests. I'm hoping to ask my sister if she would be able to retrim them if I can find suitable alcantara as she's fairly handy with textiles and the covers can be removed easily.
Over all I'm very happy with them aesthetically, but if I'm really honest my feelings on them are mixed. The standard seats are frankly more comfortable, though that's not necessarily a surprise or a problem as these are 'sports' seats. It's just worth noting that if you're after out and out comfort, these are actually a downgrade. The support isn't really that much better for my tastes either. The seat is firmer and I do feel gripped, but I felt similar in the OE seats. I am quite tall though so perhaps it's just something particular to me. For the total price I've paid, I should have been more patient and waited for a better condition set with standard runners. Even so, I'm still not convinced that the seats are worth what people pay for them. £700 buys you a lot. I'll probably keep them now I've got them, but you have to really love them aesthetically for it to truly be worth it. To me.. some days they are, some they aren't.
1. Repairing or replacing parts because they're broken or out of date.
2. Replacing parts that could do with being refreshed as they're old and probably a bit tired.
3. Mods and upgrades that give good value for money in terms of performance or 'feel'
Recently it all got a bit boring and I was fed up with it, so it was time to do a few bits simply because I wanted to! The car's very much a learning project as well as a daily, but it's also supposed to be a fun! Constantly ploughing money into parts I'm not overly excited about (such as catalytic converters..) made me somewhat fall out of love with the car. Again. Rather than sell it, I just left it alone and barely drove it for a few weeks or so as luckily I can walk to work. That all changed though after a bit of late night ebaying...
Recaro Trendlines
First job was to whip out the old seats..
... so that I could replace them as quickly as possible with these:
[imghttp://i1378.photobucket.com/albums/ah95/Chaski453/IMG_4850_zps5eccbdgi.jpg][/img]
Unfortunately, I don't have as many pictures as I'd like of the process as I hate to get them in as quickly as possible due to taking up space and because I needed the car a couple of days later. It's been covered by a lot of other threads on CS anyway. Having removed the dust caps from the underside bolt holes, I took the old seats out and removed their runners because the Recaro's I bought came from an R26 Megane and would need different frames fitting.
I bought some frames from Jon Foz in one of the group buys where he sells his 'VBD' seat frames. It's worth checking them out, they're great quality and I understand he's now developed and extra low seat frame for bucket seats (the VBD X-Low frame).
One of the quirks of swapping the frames over though, is that the drivers seat position sensor has to be removed as it's rivetted to the runner and the wiring is regrettably passed through the seat frames so they can't be removed without either snipping the wires and rejoining them after, or removing the rivet. I chose the second option as frankly I think snipping the wires and soldering them together isn't ideal considering the sensor is part of the airbag system and if it's not working correctly then the wheel airbag might not deploy correctly. With that in mind I drilled the rivet out and free it from the runners.
Next up was fitting the VBD frames, which was IMHO easier said than done, though that's user error/inexperience rather than any problem with the frames. I found it extremely difficult and frustrating to get everything setup correctly so that the tilt and slide feature still worked. The whole point in plumping for more expensive Recaro's instead of some other seats for me, was that they retain the ability to tilt and move forward to let someone in the back. My car is a daily after all and I want to retain some elements of OE feel to it.
After much bending of the original seats slide grab handles so they fitted, fitting them to the seats and frames, tweaking, pushing, pulling, swearing and texting Jon I eventually got everything setup correctly! A tip for anyone doing it is to make sure the cable is correctly seated in its guide at the side of the seat, on the back as it easily comes out of place whilst everything's loose. One of the other problems I had was the tolerance (at least with the seats/frames I have) is quite small for this part of the runners mechanism..
There's only a very small gap, so everything has to be perfectly lined up which is quite difficult on your own, or at least I found it so. With that done it was time to secure the drivers position sensor back in place. To do this, I bought a hand riveter from a local shop. It come with a number of different sized rivets one of which looked to be the perfect width, which it was! The only difficulty was the hand rivets weren't as long as the factory rivets, so I had to trim a bit of the plastic attaching point away to drop it lower so that the rivet would be long enough to clamp the sensor to the metal rail.
I'm really pleased with how it turned out with the hand riveter. It took a few rivets to clamp properly but for all intents and purposes it's as secure as when it left the factory and functions just as it should, with the metal arm being pushed by the runner to press a button on the sensor as shown in the video.
[video]http://vid1378.photobucket.com/albums/ah95/Chaski453/IMG_4818_zpsqecdsy46.mp4[/video]
The seat cables fitted into the runners nicely, though unfortunately one of the clips on my cables was broken and I had to find a work around. I'd like to replace the cable eventually if I can find one for a reasonable price, but for now it's functioning perfectly well, so I'll leave it. The other one was just fine though..
I don't have any pictures, but I then soldered all of the appropriate resistors in place under the seats to prevent the airbag light coming on (which it hasn't), heat wrapping both them and all the joins where I reconnected the pretensioners from my car, which had to be cut to be removed from the standard seats.
They could really do with a clean and have a small cigarette burn (from previous owner(s)) on each of the thigh rests. I'm hoping to ask my sister if she would be able to retrim them if I can find suitable alcantara as she's fairly handy with textiles and the covers can be removed easily.
Over all I'm very happy with them aesthetically, but if I'm really honest my feelings on them are mixed. The standard seats are frankly more comfortable, though that's not necessarily a surprise or a problem as these are 'sports' seats. It's just worth noting that if you're after out and out comfort, these are actually a downgrade. The support isn't really that much better for my tastes either. The seat is firmer and I do feel gripped, but I felt similar in the OE seats. I am quite tall though so perhaps it's just something particular to me. For the total price I've paid, I should have been more patient and waited for a better condition set with standard runners. Even so, I'm still not convinced that the seats are worth what people pay for them. £700 buys you a lot. I'll probably keep them now I've got them, but you have to really love them aesthetically for it to truly be worth it. To me.. some days they are, some they aren't.
Gus
ClioSport Moderator
182Turbo,DCi90
Are R26 Recaros the full leather ones. Got any pics of them installed. Retrimming just the base of them should be easy, I got Alcantara off ebay when i needed some for my pretensioner covers. Let me know if you need the template for sewing pretensioner covers.
That would be incredibly useful mate! I currently don't have any covers and it does bug me that they're exposed.
Unsure on the full leathers, these ones are the fairly standard half leathers and alcantara. It might have been an 'F1' that they came from actually. Can't remember.
Unsure on the full leathers, these ones are the fairly standard half leathers and alcantara. It might have been an 'F1' that they came from actually. Can't remember.
Brembo 4 Pot 'Big Brakes'
I think I talked about 4 pots earlier in this thread when posting about my OE caliper refurb. I wanted them then and I still want them now! To be clear, I don't need these. My refurbished calipers have proven more than capable of everything I've asked of them. Paired with DS2500's, if anything I actually find them to far surpass my road going needs. So why the 4 pots? Why not! I love the look of them and I was never truly satisfied by refurbishing my OE calipers. I've built the conversion kit up over a few months to spread the cost and also to give me time to find the best deals as well as to have time do things.
First things first, the calipers. I picked up a single 225 caliper from ebay and then (I thought) found its perfect pair! A mint condition caliper that needed no refurbing at all. Only problem was, it was for a 265! Despite a bad start to the project I managed to find someone braking a Megane 225 locally and picked up the calipers from him for the tidy sum of just £90. They were definitely in need of a refurb when I got them, very dirty but not too bad on the corrosion front just some pitting on the inside areas where the disc spins through. A couple of the dust seals had seen better days from visual inspection, but the link pipes looked to be in good form, if a little tatty.
The very first job was to remove the pad pins. One came out fine, one came out with some persuasion using a hammer and some mole grips and the other two had to be cut with a hack saw and the persuaded to part ways with the caliper. It wasn't really as bad as I've seen people make out it is, not once I'd figured out a technique at least.
After that they were given a scrub with degreaser a wire brush, a nail brush and some rags to remove the dust etc caked on.
[imghttp://i1378.photobucket.com/albums/ah95/Chaski453/4%20pots/IMG_5155_zpsurb7f7eu.jpg][/img]
At this point, they sat around for a few weeks whilst I found a local powder coater I was confident in using and had done calipers before. I wasn't sure if I'd need to remove the seals & pistons so left them in. In the mean time I started picking up all the other parts necessary for the conversion. The brake lines in particular were a bargain at just over £40 delivered from France for custom Goodridge lines, which they sell off the peg over there! It must be a popular conversion for the Frenchies too! Hats off to @optical for the cheap lines find.
I also picked up some 'Mr Pink' (of the MeganeSport club) stainless steel pad pins that use R-clips. They're thinner in design to the OE pins and rely on the R-clips to be help in place but should hopefully mean no ceasing. I uhmed and ahhed over whether I really needed these at £40 for the pair, but the quality is great and I have little to no doubt I'll be thankful when the next pad change comes around. I also picked up some stainless bleed screws from a CSOC member for a good price. The decals are 12 year high temp cut vinyl from eBay. I'm impressed with the quality of them as it was £4 for four (two in front size, two in rear size) delivered. The replacement seals were a no brainer from BiggRed again. They're a tiny bit dearer than some of the seal kits on eBay, but I wanted to stick with what I know and their customer service was great last time.
Eventually, I found some time to get to a powder coaters and spent some time removing the pistons and seals at their request so they could be chemically dipped. My apprehension before was that they'd shot blast them and I wanted to protect the caliper bores. I found a cork block normally used for sand paper was a really useful size/fit. Wiggling the pistons out with compressed air took some time and technique but I got there in the end!
If like me you have a cheap ebay air gun attachment for your compressor, I recommend using an elastic band wrapped tightly around the end of the metal nozzle. It makes a great seal flexible seal and it's considerably easier to get the air into the caliper in a controlled manner. I don't recommend rubber gloves! Way too fiddly...
After a quick two weeks being busy at work my calipers were ready for collection from the powder coaters. A great price at £50, they're much more used to doing large industrial pieces but I think they squeeze these little jobs into between the big ones. I went for RAL3020 VHT powder. It's not an exact match for the Brembo red, but it's pretty damn close. I highly doubt anyone will notice unless the correct shade is right next to the RAL3020.
Unfortunately, they did forget to mask off a few of the mating surfaces but for the price and quality I wasn't bothered about having to scrape it off.
I gave the caliper a good clean, including the bores and couldn't resist putting the decals on for a sneak peak at the finished result!
I also found it interesting to compare the 225 caliper (left) to the 265 caliper (right) I have from a 2014 car. I think it's a great illustration of how fresh these are looking again!
It's also worth noting that the picture shows that Brembo have painted/coated the link pipes on the 265 caliper as standard from the factory. This is one of the reasons that I left the link pipes on mine in place, but it's also because I am sure that Brembo do it as an anti-corrosion measure to protect the link pipe.
With the bores cleaned it was time to get the rebuild under way, fit the new seals, reseat the pistons and fit their new dust covers. Having inspected each piston closely whilst out of the caliper, I decided I needed to replace one of them and at £13.04 or so each from BiggRed it hardly broke the bank to do so! the process was much if not completely identical to refurbishing my OE calipers, just on a smaller scale and more of them.
[imghttp://i1378.photobucket.com/albums/ah95/Chaski453/4%20pots/IMG_5198_zpsv12cz9l9.jpg][/img]
I offered the brake lines up (just finger tight) just for a quick check and also to keep dirt from making its way into the caliper hole as I don't have any proper bungs. A lot of fiddly scraping later and the mating faces for the bolts were cleaned off too.
I'm going to run them with Mintex 1144's this time round. That's not because I'm unimpressed by the DS2500's in my OE calipers - I am - but more because I just don't think I'm getting anywhere near how well they can perform and that the money is frankly wasted! The 1144 pads seem to get great reviews as a fast road pad with minimal tracking and that's exactly my usage having not made it onto a track still! It will be interesting to see how they fare, though it will be difficult to compare given the caliper change. I'll also be running the bigger 300mm scenic discs. The BBS' are 16's and I've got no intentions of trying to run them under 15's at any point, so I might as well go for the bigger disc. Unfortunately to get the best price, I had to order them from Italy and wait a week or so but it was a good £20+ saved (even after postage) so worth doing.
Once they arrived, they were destined to be painted. It's something I really regret not doing on the OE setup currently fitted to the car. Within weeks the hub areas exposed had a coating of surface rust and were generally looking a bit shabby. Keen not to make the same mistake twice, I masked the discs up for painting.
My top tip for anyone wanting to do this is to make sure you have a few fresh Stanley blades or similar to hand and to be patient! It takes so much long to mask them up than you think! To cover the inside hub faces, I masked the rear side of the disc entirely in straight lines and then cut out the circle at the edge of the pad swept area. This was then pushed inside, flat against the inside hub face and a Stanley blade (just the blade no knife handle) was used to trim the excess untidy bits off for a nice clean edge.
A little painting later...
...And then a little waiting for them to cure before peeling off the tape and they finally came out like this:
They're not 100% perfect, but there's no need to be as it's really just to try and help keep them looking a bit cleaner in general and when looking through the wheels. I did have some discussion with others as some people think that it would affect heat dissipation and thus be a bad thing to do. For my usage at least, I don't think that's really a consideration. I also wasnt swayed as a number of manufacturers now have OE discs that come with some sort of zinc based coating as standard. The paint I used is VHT Rust-Oleum Stove Paint. It's been fantastic stuff so far IME, as it dries quickly with a nice dark matt black finish. As it's designed for stoves, it has anti-corrosion properties built in and is rate for a good 600-650 celcius, so if my brakes are that hot then the paint having issues will be the least of my worries!!
I'm really happy with how they've turned out in the end and I can't wait to get them fitted to the car and bled through with some fresh ATE Typ200.
I think I talked about 4 pots earlier in this thread when posting about my OE caliper refurb. I wanted them then and I still want them now! To be clear, I don't need these. My refurbished calipers have proven more than capable of everything I've asked of them. Paired with DS2500's, if anything I actually find them to far surpass my road going needs. So why the 4 pots? Why not! I love the look of them and I was never truly satisfied by refurbishing my OE calipers. I've built the conversion kit up over a few months to spread the cost and also to give me time to find the best deals as well as to have time do things.
First things first, the calipers. I picked up a single 225 caliper from ebay and then (I thought) found its perfect pair! A mint condition caliper that needed no refurbing at all. Only problem was, it was for a 265! Despite a bad start to the project I managed to find someone braking a Megane 225 locally and picked up the calipers from him for the tidy sum of just £90. They were definitely in need of a refurb when I got them, very dirty but not too bad on the corrosion front just some pitting on the inside areas where the disc spins through. A couple of the dust seals had seen better days from visual inspection, but the link pipes looked to be in good form, if a little tatty.
The very first job was to remove the pad pins. One came out fine, one came out with some persuasion using a hammer and some mole grips and the other two had to be cut with a hack saw and the persuaded to part ways with the caliper. It wasn't really as bad as I've seen people make out it is, not once I'd figured out a technique at least.
After that they were given a scrub with degreaser a wire brush, a nail brush and some rags to remove the dust etc caked on.
[imghttp://i1378.photobucket.com/albums/ah95/Chaski453/4%20pots/IMG_5155_zpsurb7f7eu.jpg][/img]
At this point, they sat around for a few weeks whilst I found a local powder coater I was confident in using and had done calipers before. I wasn't sure if I'd need to remove the seals & pistons so left them in. In the mean time I started picking up all the other parts necessary for the conversion. The brake lines in particular were a bargain at just over £40 delivered from France for custom Goodridge lines, which they sell off the peg over there! It must be a popular conversion for the Frenchies too! Hats off to @optical for the cheap lines find.
I also picked up some 'Mr Pink' (of the MeganeSport club) stainless steel pad pins that use R-clips. They're thinner in design to the OE pins and rely on the R-clips to be help in place but should hopefully mean no ceasing. I uhmed and ahhed over whether I really needed these at £40 for the pair, but the quality is great and I have little to no doubt I'll be thankful when the next pad change comes around. I also picked up some stainless bleed screws from a CSOC member for a good price. The decals are 12 year high temp cut vinyl from eBay. I'm impressed with the quality of them as it was £4 for four (two in front size, two in rear size) delivered. The replacement seals were a no brainer from BiggRed again. They're a tiny bit dearer than some of the seal kits on eBay, but I wanted to stick with what I know and their customer service was great last time.
Eventually, I found some time to get to a powder coaters and spent some time removing the pistons and seals at their request so they could be chemically dipped. My apprehension before was that they'd shot blast them and I wanted to protect the caliper bores. I found a cork block normally used for sand paper was a really useful size/fit. Wiggling the pistons out with compressed air took some time and technique but I got there in the end!
If like me you have a cheap ebay air gun attachment for your compressor, I recommend using an elastic band wrapped tightly around the end of the metal nozzle. It makes a great seal flexible seal and it's considerably easier to get the air into the caliper in a controlled manner. I don't recommend rubber gloves! Way too fiddly...
After a quick two weeks being busy at work my calipers were ready for collection from the powder coaters. A great price at £50, they're much more used to doing large industrial pieces but I think they squeeze these little jobs into between the big ones. I went for RAL3020 VHT powder. It's not an exact match for the Brembo red, but it's pretty damn close. I highly doubt anyone will notice unless the correct shade is right next to the RAL3020.
Unfortunately, they did forget to mask off a few of the mating surfaces but for the price and quality I wasn't bothered about having to scrape it off.
I gave the caliper a good clean, including the bores and couldn't resist putting the decals on for a sneak peak at the finished result!
I also found it interesting to compare the 225 caliper (left) to the 265 caliper (right) I have from a 2014 car. I think it's a great illustration of how fresh these are looking again!
It's also worth noting that the picture shows that Brembo have painted/coated the link pipes on the 265 caliper as standard from the factory. This is one of the reasons that I left the link pipes on mine in place, but it's also because I am sure that Brembo do it as an anti-corrosion measure to protect the link pipe.
With the bores cleaned it was time to get the rebuild under way, fit the new seals, reseat the pistons and fit their new dust covers. Having inspected each piston closely whilst out of the caliper, I decided I needed to replace one of them and at £13.04 or so each from BiggRed it hardly broke the bank to do so! the process was much if not completely identical to refurbishing my OE calipers, just on a smaller scale and more of them.
[imghttp://i1378.photobucket.com/albums/ah95/Chaski453/4%20pots/IMG_5198_zpsv12cz9l9.jpg][/img]
I offered the brake lines up (just finger tight) just for a quick check and also to keep dirt from making its way into the caliper hole as I don't have any proper bungs. A lot of fiddly scraping later and the mating faces for the bolts were cleaned off too.
I'm going to run them with Mintex 1144's this time round. That's not because I'm unimpressed by the DS2500's in my OE calipers - I am - but more because I just don't think I'm getting anywhere near how well they can perform and that the money is frankly wasted! The 1144 pads seem to get great reviews as a fast road pad with minimal tracking and that's exactly my usage having not made it onto a track still! It will be interesting to see how they fare, though it will be difficult to compare given the caliper change. I'll also be running the bigger 300mm scenic discs. The BBS' are 16's and I've got no intentions of trying to run them under 15's at any point, so I might as well go for the bigger disc. Unfortunately to get the best price, I had to order them from Italy and wait a week or so but it was a good £20+ saved (even after postage) so worth doing.
Once they arrived, they were destined to be painted. It's something I really regret not doing on the OE setup currently fitted to the car. Within weeks the hub areas exposed had a coating of surface rust and were generally looking a bit shabby. Keen not to make the same mistake twice, I masked the discs up for painting.
My top tip for anyone wanting to do this is to make sure you have a few fresh Stanley blades or similar to hand and to be patient! It takes so much long to mask them up than you think! To cover the inside hub faces, I masked the rear side of the disc entirely in straight lines and then cut out the circle at the edge of the pad swept area. This was then pushed inside, flat against the inside hub face and a Stanley blade (just the blade no knife handle) was used to trim the excess untidy bits off for a nice clean edge.
A little painting later...
...And then a little waiting for them to cure before peeling off the tape and they finally came out like this:
They're not 100% perfect, but there's no need to be as it's really just to try and help keep them looking a bit cleaner in general and when looking through the wheels. I did have some discussion with others as some people think that it would affect heat dissipation and thus be a bad thing to do. For my usage at least, I don't think that's really a consideration. I also wasnt swayed as a number of manufacturers now have OE discs that come with some sort of zinc based coating as standard. The paint I used is VHT Rust-Oleum Stove Paint. It's been fantastic stuff so far IME, as it dries quickly with a nice dark matt black finish. As it's designed for stoves, it has anti-corrosion properties built in and is rate for a good 600-650 celcius, so if my brakes are that hot then the paint having issues will be the least of my worries!!
I'm really happy with how they've turned out in the end and I can't wait to get them fitted to the car and bled through with some fresh ATE Typ200.
Last edited:
Thanks mate, it's a slow burning project at times due to funds but also due to the learning curve! Glad you like the write ups. I'm a fan of the more in depth threads with plenty of illustration so have tried to do the same in my own and possibly even go a little further where possible! It's always encouraging to hear good feedback and to know people are actually reading this!
Bruneau Motorsport Gear Stick
B.M.S on Facebook
B.M.S forum Group Buy thread
Ashley of B.M.S (@Ash-b-84) has been producing these modified shifters for quite some time now as I'd read about 'a guy' who made them and people seemed to rave about them. They've really gone up in demand since he started producing custom aluminum shafts for them and fitting quaife nylon knobs but I was lucky enough to pick up an early spot a few months or so ago. I understand he's now only selling them as the 'full' package with aly shaft and nylon gear knob which is great because it's so worth it to have the extra level of quality in the mod.
There was a little controversy at first on Facebook with Pure Motorsport being concerned that B.M.S had just copied their design. Given then length of time modified scenic shifters have been around on this forum from Ash, and the fact he is an engineer in his own right, that is obviously not the case. It all ended well though and B.M.S don't have any plans to provide the linkage between the stick and the gearbox anyway which makes the B.M.S shifter a great option for guys like me that just need a bigger shaft and a better feeling knob in their hand! I opted for a black knob as I felt it has a more OE aesthetic.
Seriously though, the shifter is perfectly placed for fast road and track use as it comes in at just under half the price of the PMS kit at £130 and yet it still boasts a lot of tangible benefits over the OE 'spoon in the porridge' stick. I never really understood that phrase properly, until I'd finished fitting my BMS stick, actually. With an angled back and taller stick, the gear knob ends up much closer to the wheel which if you're tall is especially beneficial. No more leaning forward a bit to go into second! Under the housing, the bottom 'arm' is a touch longer on the scenic units than the OE clio ones, which I believe has something to do with the throw.
BMS themselves say:
....and it's all so true! It's also worth mentioning that on the whole it's actually a surprisingly easy mod to fit! Here's a side to side of my OE stick (left) and the BMS shifter (right).
Installation was fairly easy, but regrettably I didn't take many pictures due to having limited time and wanting to get it done.
Removing the gear stick gaitor is the first job and is an absolute doddle as it's only secured by two plastic clips at the handbrake end. A flat head screw driver was enough to lever it out gently. I then pulled the gaitor up over the knob so that it turned inside out and in doing so gave myself access to the cable tie which holds the top of the gaitor to the stick. I needed to snip it so the gaitor could be refitted on the BMS shifter. The center plastic surrounding the gear knob area also had to come out of the car. It's only held in by a clip/stud on both of the ends inside the footwells - these just pull out - and then one larger clip at the end just in front of the handbrake which can be a bit more fiddly. With it out of the way I removed the brown coloured foam on top of the gear stick housing.
Next job is to get yourself under the car as you need to drop the catalytic converter out of the way and remove the center heat shield. Jacking the car from the front gives much more room for this IME. With the car in the air and everything moved out of the way, I had access to the four bolts that hold the gear stick housing in place. They were a little corroded, but not too bad considering they've probably never moved after leaving the factory. A bit of tighten/loosen and they came off. If you're sometimes impatient this can feel like a lifetime! However, once they are off, the whole housing just drops out of the car and an amusing hole in your car appears!
it is as simple as you'd imagine to fit the new BMS shifter housing into place. Push it into position and tighten down the nuts! The center console can all be replaced, not forgetting the brown foam! To refit the gearstick housing I just looped a new cable tie through the top of the gaitor whilst it was inside out, put the knob through the gaitor and then tightened it securely before clicking the base back into the plastic trim.
There is one slight difficulty to the whole process, which is if your catalytic converter sits quite high - mine does at least - then there is little room for the bottom of the stick to move around without making contact with the center heatshield. Many people simply removed it altogether though and so far no one has reported back with any negative consequences, despite numerous track days etc. I opted to try and retain the center heatshield though and spent a very long time bending it into the 'perfect' shape. The only problem is that the heatshield now makes contact with the catalytic converter whilst driving over bumps which is incredibly annoying!! It's on the hit list to be removed entirely.
I have bought something to replace it though, which is a flexible, material heatshield that should make no noise. I may not fit it, I'm still unsure.
The first drive after installing it though was just awesome and I was totally amazed at how gear stick and gear change feel can totally transform a car. I was so impressed that so far I have to say this is the best modification I think I've made yet. Certainly, pound for pound it is by far the best value mod I've made in terms of increased performance, functionality and feel. £130 is a great and very fair price IMO and I'd thoroughly recommend anyone in search of better gearstick feel gets themselves on the waiting list ASAP.
B.M.S on Facebook
B.M.S forum Group Buy thread
Ashley of B.M.S (@Ash-b-84) has been producing these modified shifters for quite some time now as I'd read about 'a guy' who made them and people seemed to rave about them. They've really gone up in demand since he started producing custom aluminum shafts for them and fitting quaife nylon knobs but I was lucky enough to pick up an early spot a few months or so ago. I understand he's now only selling them as the 'full' package with aly shaft and nylon gear knob which is great because it's so worth it to have the extra level of quality in the mod.
There was a little controversy at first on Facebook with Pure Motorsport being concerned that B.M.S had just copied their design. Given then length of time modified scenic shifters have been around on this forum from Ash, and the fact he is an engineer in his own right, that is obviously not the case. It all ended well though and B.M.S don't have any plans to provide the linkage between the stick and the gearbox anyway which makes the B.M.S shifter a great option for guys like me that just need a bigger shaft and a better feeling knob in their hand! I opted for a black knob as I felt it has a more OE aesthetic.
Seriously though, the shifter is perfectly placed for fast road and track use as it comes in at just under half the price of the PMS kit at £130 and yet it still boasts a lot of tangible benefits over the OE 'spoon in the porridge' stick. I never really understood that phrase properly, until I'd finished fitting my BMS stick, actually. With an angled back and taller stick, the gear knob ends up much closer to the wheel which if you're tall is especially beneficial. No more leaning forward a bit to go into second! Under the housing, the bottom 'arm' is a touch longer on the scenic units than the OE clio ones, which I believe has something to do with the throw.
BMS themselves say:
Bruneau Motorsport said:
....and it's all so true! It's also worth mentioning that on the whole it's actually a surprisingly easy mod to fit! Here's a side to side of my OE stick (left) and the BMS shifter (right).
Installation was fairly easy, but regrettably I didn't take many pictures due to having limited time and wanting to get it done.
Removing the gear stick gaitor is the first job and is an absolute doddle as it's only secured by two plastic clips at the handbrake end. A flat head screw driver was enough to lever it out gently. I then pulled the gaitor up over the knob so that it turned inside out and in doing so gave myself access to the cable tie which holds the top of the gaitor to the stick. I needed to snip it so the gaitor could be refitted on the BMS shifter. The center plastic surrounding the gear knob area also had to come out of the car. It's only held in by a clip/stud on both of the ends inside the footwells - these just pull out - and then one larger clip at the end just in front of the handbrake which can be a bit more fiddly. With it out of the way I removed the brown coloured foam on top of the gear stick housing.
Next job is to get yourself under the car as you need to drop the catalytic converter out of the way and remove the center heat shield. Jacking the car from the front gives much more room for this IME. With the car in the air and everything moved out of the way, I had access to the four bolts that hold the gear stick housing in place. They were a little corroded, but not too bad considering they've probably never moved after leaving the factory. A bit of tighten/loosen and they came off. If you're sometimes impatient this can feel like a lifetime! However, once they are off, the whole housing just drops out of the car and an amusing hole in your car appears!
it is as simple as you'd imagine to fit the new BMS shifter housing into place. Push it into position and tighten down the nuts! The center console can all be replaced, not forgetting the brown foam! To refit the gearstick housing I just looped a new cable tie through the top of the gaitor whilst it was inside out, put the knob through the gaitor and then tightened it securely before clicking the base back into the plastic trim.
There is one slight difficulty to the whole process, which is if your catalytic converter sits quite high - mine does at least - then there is little room for the bottom of the stick to move around without making contact with the center heatshield. Many people simply removed it altogether though and so far no one has reported back with any negative consequences, despite numerous track days etc. I opted to try and retain the center heatshield though and spent a very long time bending it into the 'perfect' shape. The only problem is that the heatshield now makes contact with the catalytic converter whilst driving over bumps which is incredibly annoying!! It's on the hit list to be removed entirely.
I have bought something to replace it though, which is a flexible, material heatshield that should make no noise. I may not fit it, I'm still unsure.
The first drive after installing it though was just awesome and I was totally amazed at how gear stick and gear change feel can totally transform a car. I was so impressed that so far I have to say this is the best modification I think I've made yet. Certainly, pound for pound it is by far the best value mod I've made in terms of increased performance, functionality and feel. £130 is a great and very fair price IMO and I'd thoroughly recommend anyone in search of better gearstick feel gets themselves on the waiting list ASAP.
Your thread makes me feel lazy again and again!! Looks like its getting along well. I know the feeling with small issues, just one little noise and it makes me paranoid and unable to like the car at all but when its all good I know I never want to sell it!
No worries mate, it's a great product and deserved a good write up! It's taken a little while to get round to it unfortunately with work etc! It definite does make a big difference to the feel of driving the car. Honestly, I'd go so far as to say that it's worth £130 for the feel alone, regardless of the shorter throw.
Haha, sorry! This all started for me as just sprucing the car up a bit really. If you told me three years ago that I'd be rebuilding brake calipers for fun I'd have laughed at you! It's truly amazed me quite how much I've enjoyed taking on progressively bigger challenges and learning ever increasingly more about cars. I was never interested in mechanics, engines or even cars as a whole beforehand. I don't think I'd even changed a battery before. The vehicle I had prior to the Clio was a 1998 Astra van with a dodgy clutch and over 140k or so on the clock if my memory serves me correctly! Certainly not a drivers car!
I really know what you mean with the sounds as well. They make me nervous and unable to enjoy the driving so I have to fix them; there's no choice! Unfortunately as with most cars that are over a decade old, that means a fair amount of work has to be done and it has been a bit difficult financially at times to keep standards up. Still, I've tried to approach each job with the attitude that if it's worth doing, then it's worth doing properly. For me, that means looking at what other parts could be refreshed or replaced in preventative maintenance just as much as fixing the issues that are being symptomatic. Writing a project thread has actually been a great help with that as (for some strange reason) I feel like it's made me accountable for the work I do on the car.
Sometimes I take a step back and wonder if I've taken it all a little bit too far, after all it is "just a Clio! - a phrase I'm sure most of us hear all the time! The thing is... for me, it's become a bit of a passion. It's my hobby. It's engaging, challenging and practically speaking, it's useful! Most importantly though, it's just so much fun! It puts a smile on my face in a way that money can't buy (outside of Indonesia, anyway) and I think that's why I keep pouring money and time into it.
Haha, I was literally thinking the same thing today. Letting working on the car make me feel crap when really I don't "need" it and I had to remember that I enjoy the small successes I have had gaining knowledge on it and actually improving it in the way I want. I have though that yes I could have bought an M3 with the money Ive spent on it in the last while but then I would have done the same with that (at higher cost) and after driving one recently I still think the clio is more fun and doesn't involve going at warp speeds. Anyway, cheers for the detailed write ups, when I get round to some of the work you have done it will help a lot.
Ive had the same thoughts myself, albeit spending the money on different things. As you say, there are newer, faster, 'better' cars available for the money I've spent. Certainly for me I could have bought a much more socially acceptable car for a 27 year old. I wouldn't have learned anything though, nor have had any hands on experience. I probably still wouldn't really be interested in cars!
Glad to hear the write ups will be of use to you! It makes it worthwhile writing them! I might make a post linking to some guides/info sheets I've written up.
Customer Gearstick Gaiter
Over on CSOC a guy - Matthew Ashmore - put up a photo one day oh his custom suede gearstick gaiter that his girlfriend made him. It looked great and well made as she did/does fashion/textiles at university or something. Matt was soon asked if she'd be willing to produce more! Thankfully, she was willing to and here we are now. I managed to get in on the first batch to the public.
There's not incredibly large amounts to say about this one... it's a minor aesthetic mod, but I think it suits the gearstick and car really well! At £11 posted it was an absolute bargain, frankly I think he could have easily charged £15-20. Possibly even as much as £30-35 if he provided them with the plastic gaiter base already attached and a choice of suede colour. Thread colour was an available choice though and to follow on from the engine bay and to complement the lighting, I chose blue.
A few days later a nice padded envelope dropped through the door. Inside was the gaiter, brief instructions and some strong sticky 'tabs' to hold the material to the gaiters plastic base. The last part is because you do have to detach the OE gaiter from its base to be reused when fitting the custom one.
Was cool that it even came with the cable tie and ready to be assembled! I took the old gaiter off the gearstick by unclipping it from the centre console, pulling it up over the stick and cutting the cable tie inside. With it removed from the car I set about removing all of the staples from the plastic base. You could just cut the gaiter off/pull it off, but I wanted to be neat and do a proper job!
All that was left to do after that was to distribute the sticky 'dots' around the plastic base in appropriate places, I went for 1 front/back and 2 on either side but I don't think it really matters!
I'm very happy with the end result. Great little mod for £11 and much nicer than the OE gaiter which is quite thick and plasticy so that it's durable. I don't see it being a problem though. Just need to get the rest of the interior looking less like a shed now!!
Over on CSOC a guy - Matthew Ashmore - put up a photo one day oh his custom suede gearstick gaiter that his girlfriend made him. It looked great and well made as she did/does fashion/textiles at university or something. Matt was soon asked if she'd be willing to produce more! Thankfully, she was willing to and here we are now. I managed to get in on the first batch to the public.
There's not incredibly large amounts to say about this one... it's a minor aesthetic mod, but I think it suits the gearstick and car really well! At £11 posted it was an absolute bargain, frankly I think he could have easily charged £15-20. Possibly even as much as £30-35 if he provided them with the plastic gaiter base already attached and a choice of suede colour. Thread colour was an available choice though and to follow on from the engine bay and to complement the lighting, I chose blue.
A few days later a nice padded envelope dropped through the door. Inside was the gaiter, brief instructions and some strong sticky 'tabs' to hold the material to the gaiters plastic base. The last part is because you do have to detach the OE gaiter from its base to be reused when fitting the custom one.
Was cool that it even came with the cable tie and ready to be assembled! I took the old gaiter off the gearstick by unclipping it from the centre console, pulling it up over the stick and cutting the cable tie inside. With it removed from the car I set about removing all of the staples from the plastic base. You could just cut the gaiter off/pull it off, but I wanted to be neat and do a proper job!
All that was left to do after that was to distribute the sticky 'dots' around the plastic base in appropriate places, I went for 1 front/back and 2 on either side but I don't think it really matters!
I'm very happy with the end result. Great little mod for £11 and much nicer than the OE gaiter which is quite thick and plasticy so that it's durable. I don't see it being a problem though. Just need to get the rest of the interior looking less like a shed now!!
Nothing much to report, just a little clean and down the hill for some new shoes ready for the wet/cold seasons! Despite having generally shoddy paintwork, she does scrub up alright on a nice weather day!
Score one for the skoda splitter - was a little tight getting it up onto the ramp! Should be interesting if I go any lower...
Had a quick check of all the ABS rings, calipers, pads etc whilst I was there and the guy was doing the tyres. Top man for letting me mooch around my car fiddling with stuff whilst he worked! I was checking the ABS rings as I've had the ABS/ESP/Serv lights coming on again under braking. I've replaced the brake pedal sensor a couple of weeks back and have now checked all the ABS rings for cracks. Next step is checking all the ABS connectors. I hope one of those hasn't died! I also checked on the rear calipers whilst the wheels were off. The o/s rear is a fair bit stiffer to turn than the n/s. The pads have all worn evenly though and despite being stiff, it does turn? Any thoughts on that would be appreciated.
Score one for the skoda splitter - was a little tight getting it up onto the ramp! Should be interesting if I go any lower...
Had a quick check of all the ABS rings, calipers, pads etc whilst I was there and the guy was doing the tyres. Top man for letting me mooch around my car fiddling with stuff whilst he worked! I was checking the ABS rings as I've had the ABS/ESP/Serv lights coming on again under braking. I've replaced the brake pedal sensor a couple of weeks back and have now checked all the ABS rings for cracks. Next step is checking all the ABS connectors. I hope one of those hasn't died! I also checked on the rear calipers whilst the wheels were off. The o/s rear is a fair bit stiffer to turn than the n/s. The pads have all worn evenly though and despite being stiff, it does turn? Any thoughts on that would be appreciated.
Another small modification after the post arrived today and I fitted it in my break. The car is now full of very small modifications and I'm really starting to enjoy how it's turning out and the plans that I've got for it yet to come. Over time I've grown particularly fond of the addition of footwell lighting. It makes a huge difference in a very subtle way, especially when combined with the changes made to the dash and dial lighting, too.
Carrying on the theme of 'small' updates, I gave the Alcantara on the Recaro's a clean the other day and I'm really, really pleased with how it came out. I watched/red a few cleaning guides and in the end I bought a 500ml spray bottle for £10 off ebay. It was manufactured by Autobrite Direct and just called 'Alcantara Cleaner'. I've used probably 450ml of the bottle doing both seats, which is a lot, but they really were filthy. In some places the fibres were so dirty they'd matted together and made shiney/reflective patches that looked like worn leather. I'm pleased to say that a bog standard nail brush used very lightly along with lots of patience, plenty of microfibres to wipe with later and the seats look a million times better. Interestingly, it's really changed my opinion on their value, too. I still think they are rather expensive for what you get over the standard 182 seats, but I do feel like I've got more for my money now.
I feel as if the car is starting to come together a little bit now. There's a long, long way to go until it's 'perfect' (for me) and a lot more effort involved in getting there. And with that in mind...
Heel/Toe Throttle Pedal
Fairly simple mod. Bought from @Simon@SprayShack for the very reasonable price of £16.50 delivered to my door. It came with all the necessary rivets too, which also gave me a chance to get more use out of the hand riveter I bought to do the seat frames with. I won't go into too much depth on this one, it's pretty simple really. Some comparison shots before fitting.,
I drilled the rivets out, prised the pedal off and then tapped through a couple of the rivet centers that had been left behind.
]
Then popped the new pedal on and riveted it in place. Was interesting on a couple of them as the angles get a bit weird and you have to put quite a lot of force through the hand riveter for rivets of this size! A few minutes later though and she was in place..
It's not a large amount, but for someone trying to learn to heel/toe the gap on the standard pedals feels absolutely chasmic!! That extra 1cm really does feel just that little bit closer and hopefully it will both be helpful in learning and generally make life a bit easier once more proficient. The pedal itself is made from good quality aluminium. It was pre-bent, but I had to tweak mine to get a perfect fit. It really wasn't hard to do though, literally taking me no more than 2-3 minutes to get into the right shape. That's not to say the metal bends easily by the way, it doesn't! If you're really picky, I guess the holes in the pedal could have been finished a little neater, but I don't really care as when do you ever look that close/it's always under your foot! The supplied rivets were of good quality too and even came with a spare one. Overall for £16.50 delivered I think it's a very fairly priced little mod!
Carrying on the theme of 'small' updates, I gave the Alcantara on the Recaro's a clean the other day and I'm really, really pleased with how it came out. I watched/red a few cleaning guides and in the end I bought a 500ml spray bottle for £10 off ebay. It was manufactured by Autobrite Direct and just called 'Alcantara Cleaner'. I've used probably 450ml of the bottle doing both seats, which is a lot, but they really were filthy. In some places the fibres were so dirty they'd matted together and made shiney/reflective patches that looked like worn leather. I'm pleased to say that a bog standard nail brush used very lightly along with lots of patience, plenty of microfibres to wipe with later and the seats look a million times better. Interestingly, it's really changed my opinion on their value, too. I still think they are rather expensive for what you get over the standard 182 seats, but I do feel like I've got more for my money now.
I feel as if the car is starting to come together a little bit now. There's a long, long way to go until it's 'perfect' (for me) and a lot more effort involved in getting there. And with that in mind...
Heel/Toe Throttle Pedal
Fairly simple mod. Bought from @Simon@SprayShack for the very reasonable price of £16.50 delivered to my door. It came with all the necessary rivets too, which also gave me a chance to get more use out of the hand riveter I bought to do the seat frames with. I won't go into too much depth on this one, it's pretty simple really. Some comparison shots before fitting.,
I drilled the rivets out, prised the pedal off and then tapped through a couple of the rivet centers that had been left behind.
Then popped the new pedal on and riveted it in place. Was interesting on a couple of them as the angles get a bit weird and you have to put quite a lot of force through the hand riveter for rivets of this size! A few minutes later though and she was in place..
It's not a large amount, but for someone trying to learn to heel/toe the gap on the standard pedals feels absolutely chasmic!! That extra 1cm really does feel just that little bit closer and hopefully it will both be helpful in learning and generally make life a bit easier once more proficient. The pedal itself is made from good quality aluminium. It was pre-bent, but I had to tweak mine to get a perfect fit. It really wasn't hard to do though, literally taking me no more than 2-3 minutes to get into the right shape. That's not to say the metal bends easily by the way, it doesn't! If you're really picky, I guess the holes in the pedal could have been finished a little neater, but I don't really care as when do you ever look that close/it's always under your foot! The supplied rivets were of good quality too and even came with a spare one. Overall for £16.50 delivered I think it's a very fairly priced little mod!
A friend got married last weekend, so I dug out my SLR after not having used it for years. In the end I didn't use it on the day, but I had charged up all the batteries, so I wanted to check it all still worked ok. So today a couple of little decals arrived in the post and I thought it was the perfect time to play about with it again. I sold all the lenses years ago as I wasn't really using them, so I'm left with a solitary fixed focal length 50mm 'nifty fifty'. It was my favourite lens and not really worth much second hand so it's the one I kept!
I can't remember who the guy was that I've 'borrowed' this idea from, but it's no doubt unoriginal anyway. I do think it's a nice little touch though, so without further ado..
And here's a couple of better shots of the gearstick gaiter whilst I was at it.
Will probably use it to take more photos if I have time - not just ones that look nice; hopefully it'll get better quality for some of the technical stuff.
I can't remember who the guy was that I've 'borrowed' this idea from, but it's no doubt unoriginal anyway. I do think it's a nice little touch though, so without further ado..
And here's a couple of better shots of the gearstick gaiter whilst I was at it.
Will probably use it to take more photos if I have time - not just ones that look nice; hopefully it'll get better quality for some of the technical stuff.
I was chatting to Spinksy earlier and the BBS 772's came up in conversation. I've managed to trace them back a bit, so.. as far as I know they've always been owned by someone who posts on CS.net. That is Me -> @Spinksy -> @crazyasswhiteboy -> JamesT87. I think there may have been another owner @Ash. but I'm not sure. Maybe he can shed some light on that if he's still active here?
Crazyasswhiteboy's selling post: http://www.cliosport.net/threads/custom-bbs-rs772-rx2s-16.704147/#post-10004951
Original owners selling post: http://www.cliosport.net/threads/custom-bbs-rs772-rx2s-16.609982/
No real reason other than interest and keeping the history of the wheels/car updated! That brings me on to the reason they came up in conversation today, which was the Brembo 4 pot conversion. I finally got around to putting them on the car. Or rather, putting one... of them on the car as the case may be! A few pictures off a technical thread posted to facebook earlier should easily highlight the problem (phones in the other room with the sleeping girlfriend!).
Everything went fairly smoothly regarding the install. Only tricky part was the bottom bracket bolt needing torquing up and was in an odd spot due to the shape of the wishbones. A long extension bar solved that problem though.
As you can see in the above pick, the bolt heads foul the wheel just ever so slightly. I took the washers off, refitted the wheel to get to the point where the above picture was taken. I gave turning the wheel a go, it turned easily but I could feel it scraping lightly so stopped and inspected behind. Unfortunately it's scraped the coating back, which will need to be touched up in the future. The plus side to those marks though is that it's a great illustration of just how much more clearance I need and confirms that the caliper body itself has enough clearance from the rim. Although it is tight!!!
The next step will be to get my hands on a lathe to try and turn down the tops of the bolts a little bit to increase their clearance both in height and diameter. My preferred method for that will be to make the top edge of the bolt slightly domed/conical in shape so that there's still some height for torquing them up or removing at a later date. Ideally I'd like to get enough off them to be able to put the washers back in, as I'm reliably informed by @Ant_Smiggy that steel onto metal is an engineering no no! Or at least certainly not best practice.
Crazyasswhiteboy's selling post: http://www.cliosport.net/threads/custom-bbs-rs772-rx2s-16.704147/#post-10004951
Original owners selling post: http://www.cliosport.net/threads/custom-bbs-rs772-rx2s-16.609982/
No real reason other than interest and keeping the history of the wheels/car updated! That brings me on to the reason they came up in conversation today, which was the Brembo 4 pot conversion. I finally got around to putting them on the car. Or rather, putting one... of them on the car as the case may be! A few pictures off a technical thread posted to facebook earlier should easily highlight the problem (phones in the other room with the sleeping girlfriend!).
Everything went fairly smoothly regarding the install. Only tricky part was the bottom bracket bolt needing torquing up and was in an odd spot due to the shape of the wishbones. A long extension bar solved that problem though.
As you can see in the above pick, the bolt heads foul the wheel just ever so slightly. I took the washers off, refitted the wheel to get to the point where the above picture was taken. I gave turning the wheel a go, it turned easily but I could feel it scraping lightly so stopped and inspected behind. Unfortunately it's scraped the coating back, which will need to be touched up in the future. The plus side to those marks though is that it's a great illustration of just how much more clearance I need and confirms that the caliper body itself has enough clearance from the rim. Although it is tight!!!
The next step will be to get my hands on a lathe to try and turn down the tops of the bolts a little bit to increase their clearance both in height and diameter. My preferred method for that will be to make the top edge of the bolt slightly domed/conical in shape so that there's still some height for torquing them up or removing at a later date. Ideally I'd like to get enough off them to be able to put the washers back in, as I'm reliably informed by @Ant_Smiggy that steel onto metal is an engineering no no! Or at least certainly not best practice.
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