I had the week off work after easter and the car needed prepping for an MOT attempt. I'm not a fan of bleeding brakes, I'd prefer someone else gets the blame when I cant bloody stop and end up a tangled mess. So I booked the car in at my local garage for a once over and a service and in a massively optimistic way I booked the MOT for a couple of days later. But the brakes needed a bleed so I could drive it to the garage so I bought a gunsen ezibleed and some fluid and set about making a mess. Starting at the rear it turned out it wasn't just new discs that had been fitted by the previous owner.
New calipers on both sides too. After finally sealing the gunsen I managed to get a fair bit of air out of one side and the fluid was lioke new too so I moved onto the front. And then hit a snag. The bloody wheel won't come off! I wiggled it, waggled it and swore at it (lots) and then twatted it with a mallet and it didn't budge a mm! In a strop and with the Mrs telling me dinner was 10mins out I packed up and cursed myself for buying another clio😆. I'll have to revisit the front again but I'm hoping that the air that came out the rear will have done the trick. It only needed to get to the garage a mile away!
I also noted that the handbrake cable seemed fully withdrawn on the drivers side and yep the wheel was easily spun with it engaged.
That'll need looking at then.
Up early the next day with the aim of getting the front wheels off first and then continuing the battle with the brakes. I'm not a fan of jacking clio sports up. I really don't know why they have a front and rear jacking point as they are so stiff either one lifts one side clean off the floor! With an axle stand under one side the 200 is even worse than the 182 as it was blowing in the breeze with 3 wheels in the air! With the front on stands and the rear back on earth my trusty deadblow mallet was recruited for some gentle persuasion.
Ok so that's a tad rusty and gentle persuasion soon became full twatting to get the wheels off! At least I could carry on with bleeding the brakes.
Oh that nipple doesn't look very friendly does it? After attacking them with a wire brush and spraying with WD40 I started cleaning the disc face with some emery cloth while the WD did its best.
As expected the surface rust cleaned off easily and I ran a tap down to clean out the threads. At this point I had an epithany regarding the spastic blue. The previous owner told me the wheels were blue when he bought it at auction and he had later had them refurbished anthracite and fitted new discs and pads. Note the blue on the discs. So either he didn't fit the discs or
he was the spastic with the blue paint! I'll have to remove the discs and clean the blue off but for now it's back to those scabby nipples.
No joy. As I don't have a flamethrower to hand I'll pass the job to my trusted mechanic and let him replace the nipples. After hammering off the other wheel that was in the same state.
I cleaned up the hub and face and gave every nut and bolt I could see a good dose of WD, there's a good probability I'll be back to replace more parts here in the not too distant future! Note to self: buy a blow torch:thumb:.
At this point I considered taking the front bumper off to sort the peeling diamond out but I remembered the handbrake needed sorting so went to put the front wheels back on, but they were still tight as hell. The dremel was spun up with a scotchbrite wheel to shave off the powder coat in the spigot bore which had the desired effect and the wheels then slid on easily. A little coat of nail varnish to protect the ally and while that dried I cleaned up the rusty and blue wheel bolts.
The hand brake took a bit of fiddling around until I got it to a point where it actually locked the wheel. I'm not sure if the cable is the right one as it definitely doesn't have the same length of motion as the passenger side one does, and the cable is pretty rusty too. Its better than it was but mot worthy is another thing!
While I had the wheels off I noticed the passenger side front arch liner is broken so that will need replacing and all the mud cleaning out.
To finish up I drove it 20 metres to park at the in-laws while they are away and I didn't die. The brakes worked a lot better than before I bled the rears and when I went past an hour later it wasn't in their kitchen so the handbrake appeared to be working too.
With sports cars in the park approaching on May 8th I booked the car in the garage on the 4th and an MOT on the 6th. There's more fun to be had before then though
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The following week it seems the keycard has given up as I had to unlock the car with the key. I'd not been near it all week but no amount of handle pulling or sensor caressing had any effect on it. Even the boot wouldn't open. It also seems that the buttons on the keycard are unresponsive, although after putting the card in the dash slot to stop the alarm from going off the car did then lock with a press of the boot button. I have a feeling its going to be expensive to get it working as it should. New sensor for the drivers door at leas, new handles and a new key card as the buttons on that don't work either and although I've put 2 new batteries in it the car still says to replace the keycard battery. Damn.
