Potatoes does a project - BG 182

[Potatoes]

Life after my VX220 went to it's new home was bleak, I spent days lying in my bed, staring blankly at Judge Judy or Storage Wars lacking any interest in life and I ate A LOT of Walkers Ready Salted crisps... Then, I thought "f**k it, life is a steaming pile of turdballs without a fun car in it". 26 days later I was in my newly acquired BG 182 heading back to Wembley from Milton Keynes with a smile back on my face, exciting times! In those 26 days, I spent a lot of time thinking what amazing mods I'd make to my Clio. However, when I got home after picking it up, I realised I really liked it the way it was.

Here's what I've got:

• 2004 Black Gold Clio 182 (both cup packs), including original anthrecite wheels in fairly good condition
• 108,000 miles, 6 owners and many supermarket dings
• Some history, all stamps but the majority of receipts are missing
• 3 different brands of tyre, including 1 Goodyear Eagle F1
• K-Tech Ultra exhaust including the decat pipe
• Apex springs (on cup dampers), providing a 40mm drop and a ridiculously harsh ride
• Very balanced car, superbly smooth at high speed, brakes are solid, suspension is solid (figuratively and literally) and wheels & tyres are balanced

Immediately on arriving home, I wanted to take the following action:

• Dephaser rattle: I will take it to a specialist to get belts, pulleys and dephaser done (+plus a service) for peace of mind
• One of my calipers is sticking so I'm going to get it up and investigate (more to come on that I'm sure)
• Get the tyre situation sorted out
• Clear the fogged headlight lenses
• Do something with the inlet manifold and fuel rail guard which are currenty very pitted
• Clean and possibly paint the plastic engine cover
• Replace the Apex springs with Eibach Sportline springs, raising the car slightly and improving the ride... slightly?
• Replace the driver's door card which as an annoying cigarette burn on it...
• Wash the seatbelts and fix the driver seatbelt retractor
• Buy a catalytic converter (for MOT time!)
• Obtain a 2nd set of wheels, probably 15" for sticky rubber trackday fun
• Fit braided brake lines and replace brake fluid
• Replace/fix the windscreen which has scratches from the windscreen wiper (this isn't a priority)

Bugger, that's a long list when written down... will need to prioritise!!

Enough waffle, here's the car as it stands:

It's arse:

Starboard:

other Starboard:

Cataracts:

Also, while I'm here, I'm hoping for help on the following two questions I have:

1. Any idea what this cable-tie is holding together (below the fuel guard and just behind the radiator) and how is this usually secured?:

2. You may notice from the below picture that my grille is not secured... after much lurking I'm still not sure what the rights clips are to secure the grille to the chassis:

More to follow, in the meantime, happy Clio-ing

 

[imprezaworks]

Looking good.

 

[Stay Puft]

Looks a good base, and plans sound good.

The grill clips into the front bumper, and then a bolt in each corner, like mine..

 

[Potatoes]

Looks a good base, and plans sound good.

The grill clips into the front bumper, and then a bolt in each corner, like mine..

Thx @Davyy , I'll find some capped bolts and fix it in properly. I thought they were originally held in with plastic clips but I'd be happier with bolts.

 

[pastymaster]

The car looks good :smile:

My bumper was cable tied in at the top when I bought it. I just replaced the clips with some of these from eBay

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/190786050385

 

[cliosscott]

Lovley looking car matey! It looks like that cable tie is holding together the black clip around the pipe which as that 8mm bolt into the fan. You could get a new clip out of a breakers or renault but id say the zip tie would do the job indefinately

Sent from my SM-N910F using Tapatalk

 

[Potatoes]

Great, thanks Scott.

1 less thing to do

 

[Potatoes]

I've been quite busy this morning but took a moment to raise the car and work out which of the wheels was not spinning freely. Culprit found, my front drivers-side brake caliper has seized, I suspect a rusty piston is to blame:

I've now got to make the decision, do I refurb them or do I get myself some new front calipers? I would love a nice fresh set of brake calipers :smilingimp:

Other jobs I'm working on today: cleaning the plastic engine cover, polishing the headlights and, if I get time, polishing the inlet manifold

 

[cliosscott]

Give it a refurb first! Strip it an grease it im sure theres a guide on here somewhere

 

[Sunglasses_Ron]

Probably the best project thread intro ever 😂

Subscribed :up:

 

[182_steve]

Car looks a great base for a little project, but an even greater write up....... brilliant 😂:up:

 

[Potatoes]

Thanks for the comments guys :smile:

Give it a refurb first! Strip it an grease it im sure theres a guide on here somewhere

I've taken a look at a couple of threads and YouTube videos, I'll give it a refurb and see how it goes... another bullet point added to the project list!

@pastymaster - clips ordered, thank you :smile:

After my last post I got into it and ended up doing quite a lot!

Headlight Polish:
I sanded and polished both headlights using 800, 1,000, 1,500 and 2,000 grit sandpaper followed by many coats of PlastX. The outcome is okay, I don't think I used all my elbow grease on the sandpaper stage and this may be a job I come back to in the future, they look a lot better than they did yesterday though. Look, here's a generic picture of a headlight with masking tape around it to give this paragraph some context:

Engine Cover Cleaning...:
I went a little further than planned with this task. Originally I just wanted to clean it - as you can see from this picture of the semi-clean engine cover next to some cleaning stuff:

The problem is I sometimes get a little manic about things. In this case it manifested in me deciding to paint the engine cover black. In between headlight polishes I'd pop around to my makeshift paintbooth and stick another coat of heat resistant black paint onto the engine cover. Halfway through, I looked at it and thought "what a f**king disaster!". Seriously, what possessed me to paint an engine cover having only ever painted once before in my life, my bathroom in 2010... and I did a s**t job then, I got most of the f**king paint on the ceiling, floor and some on the window which I never managed to remove fully. I almost posted in the Wanted forum as I thought I'd ruined my engine cover. Powered through though and gave it five coats of the stuff, and to my surprise it actually turned out pretty medium!

Top Inlet Manifold Polish:
Polish probably isn't the right word, I wanted to remove the pitting and give it a solid polished finish like some of the amazing inlet manifold finishes I've seen on this forum... the problem is I don't have much patience. I did polish the Renaultsport logo very nicely, this now has a nice mirror finish which makes it stand out against the pitting behind it, at a certain angle. I then began to work on the 4 inlets, I started with a wire brush, followed by 600, 800 and 1,000 grit sand paper. Once done I used some alloy polish and a polish tool attached to my drill. In hindsight, I would have spent much more time on the wire brush stage and the sanding stage to remove the pitting. The outcome was very shiny pitting, it does look a lot cleaner but a little ridiculous... here's a before and after:

I am mildly embarrassed by my efforts but this is a learning process and I have A LOT of learning to do.

Jobs added to the list:

• Refurb driver-side front brake caliper
• Install grille clips

More to follow, in the meantime, happy Clio-ing

 

[imprezaworks]

Love you write ups lol

 

[GavC]

Great effort so far! I had a second go on my headlights too, the sanding process definitely requires patience. Check out this video tutorial by Larry of AMMO NYC on youtube. Some technique adjustments he shows makes all the difference in the final finish :up: I've got a sticking caliper myself, doing my head in at the moment!

 

[JKING3008]

All the best bud, will be keeping an eye on this. Shame I didn't get to speak to you on Friday at Snetterton:down:

 

[massiveCoRbyn]

Glad you found one you like mate.

I know you said you were after Sportlines, but I've got a set of Cooksports I might be tempted to part with if they would be of interest?

 

[Clio_fool]

Good to see you found one spud, and in the best shade too[emoji106]. Excellent write up, this will certainly be a project worth following.

 

[Potatoes]

Good to see you found one spud, and in the best shade too. Excellent write up, this will certainly be a project worth following.

That's right @OssPoop!

Glad you found one you like mate.

I know you said you were after Sportlines, but I've got a set of Cooksports I might be tempted to part with if they would be of interest?

Thanks dude, I would probably be interested in these actually, anything would be better than the Apex springs which I'm sure are great on track but not so great on NW London roads!

A short update; I'd not planned on doing any work on it today but then I did some work on it. I was spurred on by a delivery I received in the early afternoon, a delivery of some stickers I ordered before I'd bought a Clio and am not sure I actually want now that I have a Clio: French flag Grille stickers and yellow tints for my fog lamps. They're still just sat on my table annoying my wife and intriguing my 3 year old right now...

So anyway, they arrived, I opened the package with that excited curiosity you get when you order something and then completely forget about it, followed by disappointment of remembering what it was. I emptied the contents onto the table, left them there and thought I'd try and refurbish my right drivers side brake caliper. This is where the reoccurring themes of failure and mediocrity that we're seeing in this project thread continued, I loosened the pins and, using brute force I managed to pry the pads off the disk. I then came across 2 rusted bolts holding the caliper on, properly rusted. I used every technique I could find on Youtube, bar the blowtorch technique due to lack of blowtorch but failed to loosen either bolt. I applied copious amounts of WD40 and left it stand for a few hours, applied a few hefty hammer blows and applied more brute force but failed to loosen the bolts... Fail. I spent a bit of time working on prying the pads away from the disk and then pressing the brakes to see if it was definitely the piston that needs refurbishing but couldn't get it out to fix it.

I also got my bodywork clips today so stuck that in, so not all failure!

Having lived with the car now for a little under a week, I've come to realise it's REALLY f**king LOUD! The K-Tech Ultra exhaust coupled with a decat pipe make it annoying to live with. Although it would sound awesome on track, it's not a lot of fun when doing the weekly shop or heading up the M1 to Yorkshire to see family. Therefore, I think I'm going to accelerate my purchase and installation of a cat. I've been trying to work out what I'll need to install but struggling to find a guide or Youtube video, how hard are they to install? I think I'll keep the decat pipe as I'll probably stick it on for trackdays while I'm swapping the wheels around (I've yet to buy the wheels) to more sticky rubber.

So, French flag grille stickers and yellow foglight tints...

More to follow, in the meantime, happy Clio-ing

 

[Clio_fool]

I had my cat changed today as ive had the emissions light on forever. Turned out my cat was actually a decat in disguise! Now I have a real one on my dash is warning light free and my exhaust is a little bit quieter. Get a cat and purr until you poke it proper.

 

[imprezaworks]

My 2.25 ktec unsilenced with Decat is ace and not too loud. The 2.5 version would be 'eh what did you say?'

 

[Clio_fool]

My 2.25 ktec unsilenced with Decat is ace and not too loud. The 2.5 version would be 'eh what did you say?'

2.5 a bit like @Sj1782 exhaust then. [emoji38]

 

[imprezaworks]

That the mega loud thing?

 

[Clio_fool]

That the mega loud thing?

Yep, you've probably heard it already.

 

[Budgie]

Those brake bolts won't be rusty on the inside. They'll just be bloody tight and have loctite on them...

Don't need to take them off unless you're swapping the discs... To get the caliper/pads off, undo the little 13mm slider bolts. You'll need to lock off the slider anchors with a 17mm socket. Then put a screwdriver/lever bar in here:


and lever the caliper/pads off the disk..

 

[Potatoes]

Thanks @Budgie

I'll have another go

 

[Budgie]

Thanks @Budgie

I'll have another go :smile:

If you're planning on doing a fair bit to your Clio, well worth investing in one of these mate:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/HEAVY-DUT...073706?hash=item4b00174aea:g:RSAAAOSw5dNWo96p

I couldn't be without mine now.

 

[Clio_fool]

I really expected that to be a big f off hammer. #fixitlikeclarkson

 

[Potatoes]

Sunday-update time!

I've been working through the list of actions I want to take and I actually drove it a few times too!

Brake Caliper Refurb, pt. 2:
It's been a busy-ish week of car stuff. I wanted to prioritise the brake calipers this week so focused on that issue initially. I took the driver-side caliper off as per @Budgie's helpful guidance and pulled out the piston, it was completely rusted, as was the housing. I worked out how many s***s I gave about this particular caliper and quickly realised it was 0, so off I went to buy 2 new front calipers from a car parts shop I won't name but will clarify it's not one of our preferred traders = my first mistake. OEM passenger-side and driver-side front calipers bought, I came home to fit them but before I could do that, I took a picture of them to fill this post out with some pictures... otherwise it would be a little wordy:

I got the car up, took off the old calipers and began to fit the new driver-side caliper. Initially, I thought I was being an idiot, followed by "f**k, why won't this thing fit!?", finally realising it was a passenger-side caliper... for a different Renault altogether. I popped back to the un-named car parts shop fuming about the fact that I'd been disturbed mid-job by incompetence. On arrival I realised I'd left the incriminating passenger-side caliper for a different Renault at home, I didn't care, I was picking up the correct caliper, giving them a piece of my mind and returning the passenger-side caliper for a different Renault when I finished the job. I didn't quite get to the bit where I gave them a piece of my mind as the chap behind the counter was so apologetic that he just gave me the correct caliper and told me to bring back the incorrect one when I was done, not charging me... this made me happier so I went off to finish the job. Calipers fitted, brake fluid topped up, wheels on, car on floor I returned victorious to the un-names car parts shop to silently gloat over my success and return the incorrect caliper. This is where things got a little bit lucrative. I handed in the caliper along with my receipt and was about to turn and head out then the guy said "insert your card here and I'll process your refund"... um, I guess I'm not too proud of what I did next, but I did it. "Okay" I said, entered my card and got refunded, not for the caliper on the receipt that I paid for but for the caliper I returned which was actually £30 more expensive. It was all a little strange and involved lots of confused people: me, the chap behind the counter, his boss and the person in the queue behind me but it played out in a way that meant I had an unexpected £120 in my bank account. What does one do with a free £120? Buy some motherf**king track wheels!!

Some Motherf**king Track Wheels!:
This post is no longer following the chronological order in which these actions took place, but let's move past that. Once the caliper was on and the job below was done, I got back onto ebay and offered a chap £100 for his Clio 182 wheels complete with nearly new Toyo Proxes T1-R tyres. We agreed £120 and I went off to pick up my free wheels

And look! I never knew you could fit 4 wheels into the boot of a Clio...:

...until I measured the boot prior to my trip to pick them up.

They're now sat around the back of my garage under some tarpaulin ready for use when I get round to booking a trackday. I plan on getting through the T1-R's on track and, based on my experience wrapping them in similar rubber or wrap them in Nankang/Federal track tyres. I'm just not sure at this stage whether a Clio 182 needs that kind of sticky rubber - will do some more lurking on this.

Re-Catting The Exhaust System:
I have to admit I'm one of those Clio owners who got sick of the volume of a decat exhaust system. While I was at the un-named car parts shop I picked up an OEM cat and got a mate to fit it while we were doing the calipers. After re-catting the exhaust system, I took a trip up the M40 and the difference meant I could actually have a conversation with my wife! Absolutely gutted, I immediately thought how I could stick the decat back on but the M40 is not a great place to work on a car, plus I didn't have my toolkit, jack or decat pipe with me so turned the radio up and looked serious - that often works. I have decided to keep the decat pipe as I'll probably fit it in the summer for trackdays and take it off in the winter for normal usage and MOT as it's got a lot of life left:

In Other, Sticker-Related News:
I can't decide whether I like the French flag grille stickers so I stuck them on to see what I thought. I'm still on the fence with these but I cannot bring myself to apply the fog light tints:

Action List:
For my own benefit, an updated list of actions I wanted to take last week, actions completed in bold:

• Install grille clips
• Dephaser rattle: I will take it to a specialist to get belts, pulleys and dephaser done (+plus a service) for peace of mind
• One of my calipers is sticking so I'm going to get it up and investigate (more to come on that I'm sure)
• Get the tyre situation sorted out
• Clear the fogged headlight lenses
• Do something with the inlet manifold and fuel rail guard which are currenty very pitted
• Clean and possibly paint the plastic engine cover
• Replace the Apex springs with Eibach Sportline springs, raising the car slightly and improving the ride... slightly?
• Replace the driver's door card which as an annoying cigarette burn on it...
• Wash the seatbelts and fix the driver seatbelt retractor
• Buy a catalytic converter (for MOT time!)
• Obtain a 2nd set of wheels, probably 15" for sticky rubber trackday fun
• Fit braided brake lines and replace brake fluid
• Replace/fix the windscreen which has scratches from the windscreen wiper (this isn't a priority)

I'm adding the following to the list:

• Remove passenger seat and diagnose/fix the seat rails

It's been a week full of unexpected outcomes and not bad progress for a bloke who likes computer games, beer, watching sport and having clean hands... but there's a lot more to do,

More to follow, in the meantime, happy Clio-ing

 

[imprezaworks]

Great update. Sadly the t1r won't last long or be good on track

 

[Potatoes]

Oh

Oh well, I'll give them some abuse and upgrade next summer

 

[182_steve]

Another great write up, this is rapidly becoming one of my fav threads on here. True story!

Back to the car, great progress and that was sooo jammy about the refund........... got you free wheels though, so even better :up:

 

[Clio_fool]

Good progress, and a great result with the brake calipers. Maybe you should name the dealer so we can all enjoy their great service.

 

[imprezaworks]

Ecp at a guess

 

[Potatoes]

Just checked the rules - I hadn't realised we could "name and shame" on CS.net.

@imprezaworks nailed it!

 

[imprezaworks]

Was Allways going to be them lol

 

[bloke]

of course it's euro. they cocked up with me and i ended up getting clutch and dmf for free off them!!!

 

[leeds2592]

Liking this, good update.

Always annoying when you storm back in, ready to have a go at someone and they're so nice and apologetic you just can't bring yourself to go all guns blazing haha.

 

[Stay Puft]

I had some great fun (not necessarily good for laptimes) with T1rs on track. Squeeeeeeeeeel.

 

[Potatoes]

Looking forward to getting on track soon on the T1-Rs, I'll use and abuse them before upgrading next summer.

Air Intake:
This week I mainly focused on diagnosing and then fixing the rough idle when cold. Having done much lurking on the subject, I decided to tackle the throttle body as a likely cause. I grabbed my WD40 and a microfiber cloth and headed for the car with a purposeful demeanor. Elbow greased and ready to tackle a dirty throttle body I popped the bonnet, took off the air box housing and the elbow. I was surprised to be faced with a very clean throttle body:

Undeterred, I began giving it a right good polish to remove some of the grime that I'd convinced myself would be there and once I got that out of my system, I looked at it and thought "f**k me, that was a waste of time". If you'd like to know what it looked like when I'd finished, refer to the picture above as it looked almost exactly the same! I turned my attention to the air box itself and the filter. That filter... what's the point of it, to ensure that no air gets into the engine?! The bloody thing was rock solid!

Off to ECP to get a different air filter and who knows, maybe I'd get some more free money... free is my favourite type of money! I returned with an air filter but much to my expectations, I did not receive any free money on this occasion. So, refocusing on the task at hand, my little helper and I inspected the air box and inserted a new K&N filter panel:

Airbox Inspection:

New Shiny Air Filter:

The difference is completely unnoticeable, it sounds the same and goes the same. I may have increased power by very slightly but without having put it onto the dyno yet, we'll never know! When cold, the rough idle has improved though so goal somewhat achieved. The issue is not completely resolved and since re-catting the exhaust last week the emissions light has remained on so I suspect there may be more to fix, I want to stick on a code reader to diagnose the issue... not having a code reader makes this task a little difficult.

PistonHeads Sunday Service:
Took the Clio and the little lad down to PistonHeads Sunday Service today in Brands Hatch to enjoy the weather and see some of the metal on show. Saw a few awesome cars including a totally original Jaguar XJ220, an Ultima GTR and Renault Sport Clio V6, 5 Turbo and I saw a Spider in the flesh. That has to be the most impractical car Renault has ever made? I do really like it though.

"Yellow!":

Bloody Cyclists:

Fun day out was had and I was pleasantly surprised to see that people were actually interested in the Clio, I fielded a few questions, saw people taking pictures of it and spotted a few blokes educating their visibly uninterested other halves on various technical details of a ph2 182. Had an awesome impromptu convoy down from the M25 with a B4 RS6, Chrysler Crossfire and an M3 CSL at the front. It was clear the M3 knew the area well, he was flying through the B roads with us trying to tag along behind him. We did get lost at one point when it transpired the M3 wasn't going to PistonHeads Sunday Service but it was a fun convoy none-the less. In hindsight, the chap in the M3 must have thought we were a bunch of complete weirdo's chasing after him... no wonder he was going so quick!

Anyway, still lots of work to do, more to follow and in the meantime, happy Clio-ing.

 

[182_steve]

I too purchased the K&N panel air filter and I too noticed not a huge amount of difference......... but it's sooo much better than the standard paper version! Induction kit may be the way forward should you be into such things :smile: