Part 1.
Back in February and after the wife banned me:dapprove: from tracking the Fabia after trashing a number of tyres, my thoughts turned for a Me only car which I could use as a runaround and trackday car, but with a modest budget of £2k.
After much deliberating and advice from various sources I decided on Clio Cup. After a few weeks perusing the usual websites like Pistonheads, Cliosport, Autotrader a ready to go Cup was out of the question as the cost was more like £3k+, so the search was on for Cup costing between £1k and £2k. Condition wise was not that important as I've done many a diy projects on previous cars but the car I would buy would have to have a straight body, no rust and an internally strong engine.
Eventually this one came up for sale on Autotrader in my price range----
With full service history, 80k. miles, all the docs, handbooks etc. but a cat c insurance jobbie due to frontal damage that had been bodily repaired but leaked oil, water & PS fluid. So I set about removing the front bumper, grill, radiator, airbox and all the front hoses that leaked. Coolant, PS fluid, engine oil, gearbox oil were all drained and later refilled with new fluids. The radiator and top hose had to be renewed, they were easy enough but the high pressure PS hose was a pain to remove.
I traced the hose around the engine bay and it turns out to be the longest pipe going from the pump - along close to the radiator bottom -under the battery tray - then dives under the bulkhead and runs along the front of the rack. 4 brackets hold the pipe steady en route.
My first choice was to go to Renault and buy a new one, £230, shocker. As I some previous hydraulic pipe repairs from Pirtek I went down this route but 1st I had to take the pipe out without any further damage, with help from a friend it took us 3 hours to remove after removing many other parts for access. The nice Pirtek engineer renewed the leaking flexible hose and inserted a union to allow us to refit the hose assembly much easier than when we took it out. The difficult part when refitting the pipe was screwing the connector back in to the steering rack as there is not much space to work in.
As this pipe was in the bottom off the engine bay and now fixed I could now refit the new radiator, airbox, cooling fan, hoses and all the other brackets and screws to tidy up the engine bay.
Since I bought the car I was always aware of the smell of petrol in the garage and hunted down the cause of this. sniffing my way around the car and eventually to under the rear seat I found the culprit.
There is a plastic cover to access the top fuel tank connections with a plastic collar and O ring to seal the fuel pump to the tank, you can see the flange had broken away from the collar on the right hand side of the photo and the new collar with O ring on the left. I fitted the new collar and O ring nice and tight
After another couple of days still I could smell petrol fumes coming from the same place. The reason, there is no other seal between the pump mounting plate and the tank lip, so an old tyre inner tube was cut up and a flat rubber washer trimmed to shape to make an extra sealing ring, the result now, no petrol fumes.
Back in February and after the wife banned me:dapprove: from tracking the Fabia after trashing a number of tyres, my thoughts turned for a Me only car which I could use as a runaround and trackday car, but with a modest budget of £2k.
After much deliberating and advice from various sources I decided on Clio Cup. After a few weeks perusing the usual websites like Pistonheads, Cliosport, Autotrader a ready to go Cup was out of the question as the cost was more like £3k+, so the search was on for Cup costing between £1k and £2k. Condition wise was not that important as I've done many a diy projects on previous cars but the car I would buy would have to have a straight body, no rust and an internally strong engine.
Eventually this one came up for sale on Autotrader in my price range----
With full service history, 80k. miles, all the docs, handbooks etc. but a cat c insurance jobbie due to frontal damage that had been bodily repaired but leaked oil, water & PS fluid. So I set about removing the front bumper, grill, radiator, airbox and all the front hoses that leaked. Coolant, PS fluid, engine oil, gearbox oil were all drained and later refilled with new fluids. The radiator and top hose had to be renewed, they were easy enough but the high pressure PS hose was a pain to remove.
I traced the hose around the engine bay and it turns out to be the longest pipe going from the pump - along close to the radiator bottom -under the battery tray - then dives under the bulkhead and runs along the front of the rack. 4 brackets hold the pipe steady en route.
My first choice was to go to Renault and buy a new one, £230, shocker. As I some previous hydraulic pipe repairs from Pirtek I went down this route but 1st I had to take the pipe out without any further damage, with help from a friend it took us 3 hours to remove after removing many other parts for access. The nice Pirtek engineer renewed the leaking flexible hose and inserted a union to allow us to refit the hose assembly much easier than when we took it out. The difficult part when refitting the pipe was screwing the connector back in to the steering rack as there is not much space to work in.
As this pipe was in the bottom off the engine bay and now fixed I could now refit the new radiator, airbox, cooling fan, hoses and all the other brackets and screws to tidy up the engine bay.
Since I bought the car I was always aware of the smell of petrol in the garage and hunted down the cause of this. sniffing my way around the car and eventually to under the rear seat I found the culprit.
There is a plastic cover to access the top fuel tank connections with a plastic collar and O ring to seal the fuel pump to the tank, you can see the flange had broken away from the collar on the right hand side of the photo and the new collar with O ring on the left. I fitted the new collar and O ring nice and tight
After another couple of days still I could smell petrol fumes coming from the same place. The reason, there is no other seal between the pump mounting plate and the tank lip, so an old tyre inner tube was cut up and a flat rubber washer trimmed to shape to make an extra sealing ring, the result now, no petrol fumes.
. amazing for a 2k-3k car mate!!!
