My orange lemon:
Hello, this is Maurici, an Spanish petrolhead, living in Crewe, uk since few years ago… so apologies first of all for all the spelling and gramar mistakes you will find.
My love for the Renault Sport hot hatches, comes from quite a long a go. I had two Renault 5gtTurbo when I was 18, one of them became a Group A… then I had a Williams, and my road banger was a clio DCI. Then, I moved away from the fail wheel drive cars, falling in love with RWD cars, as light and fast as possible… with no roof, doors or useless things (I do compete with Seven-style cars) any my dailys were normally roadsters.
After selling my last roadster, a 3 litre Z4, and having had all shape and models of MX5 and Vx220 before, decieded to was time to give another go to my origins and go back to a hot hatch again.
I fancied an Organge CUP, and it was like magical. I opened facebook to buy one and the first I saw was an Orange 182 cup, 20 miles away by train, full service history and described like inmaculate. Some things seemed dodgy… Last owner had it only for 3 months, and the seller seemed very very dodgy… (I won´t go deeper here). But was worth a try.
Car was far from described, but the engine ran sweet, and the gearbox was surprisingly good for being an old JB… (remember the gearbox bit) so, knocked the price down, and got the car. I only saw two problems on it… the car was pulling to the rig, but I could not see any obvious sign of crashes, to worst case scenario would be a bent subframe, and the aircon didn´t work (and that didn´t bothered me at all).
Got the car, insured it, and started my journey home. Arrived at home with a massive differentia whining noise…
Went under the car and… SURPRISE surprise!!!
Paper covered with oil and graffer tape in the gearbox... That is not a good sign:
But the worst was UNDER the paper....
whenI saw the hole, nearly burnt the car straight away... but decieded just to park it, and have a though about it.
Next morning, decieded to investigate, how a fully operational gearbox could have this massive hole... as this normally means that something is tried to escape from there. And decieded that someone had trown the car over an axle stand while working on it. And... decieded to seal the hole, put oil and see what happens.
That was my bodge (chemical metal with an aluminium plate to the shape underneath). 500 miles after, is still perfect. Of course, I´m on the hunt of a gearbox... but meanwhile this one works.
then... went to investigate why the car was pulling so badly to one side... and found the following... it is pretty obvious to me, that someone tried to fit 172 shocks in a 182 CUP... and while fighting with them, the car fallen down, cracking the gearbox... moment when they decieded to sell the car straight away....
This bodge, left the car with 2 degrees of camber in one side, and +1 in the other... no wonder it was pulling. 80 quid later that was sorted with two OEM 182 CUP shocks.
Other than this two bodges, I have to say that the car is Spot On. All the electrical gadgets work, inside is in surpirsingly good condition, and ousdie is very decent with no rust at all underneath.
The service history stops just before the last owner bought it, so it means that with a bit of luck, its only been in the wrong hands for a few months.
Find a few pictures of the car after a quick clean up...
Next job: A clean to the brake calipers. It brakes well, but I´m sure the front right is sticky.
hope to see you around here... I may ask A LOT of questions, to bring this clio back to its deserved condition!
Hello, this is Maurici, an Spanish petrolhead, living in Crewe, uk since few years ago… so apologies first of all for all the spelling and gramar mistakes you will find.
My love for the Renault Sport hot hatches, comes from quite a long a go. I had two Renault 5gtTurbo when I was 18, one of them became a Group A… then I had a Williams, and my road banger was a clio DCI. Then, I moved away from the fail wheel drive cars, falling in love with RWD cars, as light and fast as possible… with no roof, doors or useless things (I do compete with Seven-style cars) any my dailys were normally roadsters.
After selling my last roadster, a 3 litre Z4, and having had all shape and models of MX5 and Vx220 before, decieded to was time to give another go to my origins and go back to a hot hatch again.
I fancied an Organge CUP, and it was like magical. I opened facebook to buy one and the first I saw was an Orange 182 cup, 20 miles away by train, full service history and described like inmaculate. Some things seemed dodgy… Last owner had it only for 3 months, and the seller seemed very very dodgy… (I won´t go deeper here). But was worth a try.
Car was far from described, but the engine ran sweet, and the gearbox was surprisingly good for being an old JB… (remember the gearbox bit) so, knocked the price down, and got the car. I only saw two problems on it… the car was pulling to the rig, but I could not see any obvious sign of crashes, to worst case scenario would be a bent subframe, and the aircon didn´t work (and that didn´t bothered me at all).
Got the car, insured it, and started my journey home. Arrived at home with a massive differentia whining noise…
Went under the car and… SURPRISE surprise!!!
Paper covered with oil and graffer tape in the gearbox... That is not a good sign:
But the worst was UNDER the paper....
whenI saw the hole, nearly burnt the car straight away... but decieded just to park it, and have a though about it.
Next morning, decieded to investigate, how a fully operational gearbox could have this massive hole... as this normally means that something is tried to escape from there. And decieded that someone had trown the car over an axle stand while working on it. And... decieded to seal the hole, put oil and see what happens.
That was my bodge (chemical metal with an aluminium plate to the shape underneath). 500 miles after, is still perfect. Of course, I´m on the hunt of a gearbox... but meanwhile this one works.
then... went to investigate why the car was pulling so badly to one side... and found the following... it is pretty obvious to me, that someone tried to fit 172 shocks in a 182 CUP... and while fighting with them, the car fallen down, cracking the gearbox... moment when they decieded to sell the car straight away....
This bodge, left the car with 2 degrees of camber in one side, and +1 in the other... no wonder it was pulling. 80 quid later that was sorted with two OEM 182 CUP shocks.
Other than this two bodges, I have to say that the car is Spot On. All the electrical gadgets work, inside is in surpirsingly good condition, and ousdie is very decent with no rust at all underneath.
The service history stops just before the last owner bought it, so it means that with a bit of luck, its only been in the wrong hands for a few months.
Find a few pictures of the car after a quick clean up...
Next job: A clean to the brake calipers. It brakes well, but I´m sure the front right is sticky.
hope to see you around here... I may ask A LOT of questions, to bring this clio back to its deserved condition!
