project 155K 172 cup

[lewisredfern001]

Project 155k 172 CUP

Some of you guys may remember me when I had the supercharged mars red V6
Now thought I best get a thread up about the tidying up of my missus 172 cup, this is our 4[SUP]th[/SUP] renaultsport, 1[SUP]st[/SUP] being a 182 FF racing blue, 2[SUP]nd[/SUP] arctic 182 no cup packs, 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] Mars red phase 1 V6 low boost supercharged, and now this a 172 cup with 155k on the clock.

With this being for sale by a friend it was up for £1300, it slowly went down to £1000, but I kept walking away and after some new rear discs and pads, a bearing, both lower arms, a tyre and fresh mot and tax I then purchased it at £700!! It has been in the same family since it 3 years old. So has 2 previous owners, service history is a little vague with it being stamped into the book from Renault up to 80k.

I was very wary of this but I know it had been serviced and looked after by the guy I purchased it off. However no proof of a cambelt, since Renault done it at 80K.

Suffice to say I’m telling my missus to take it easy in it and With this in mind I have a cambelt coming early next week and will order a dephaser come Monday as it sounds a little diesel like! I have managed to burrow the tools to complete the job myself as I fully intend to do it correctly. I will also do a completed service with new oils, incl gearbox and all filters. With this complete I then have a to do list which goes like this:

To fix:
Service and airbag light came on today when seat was moved forward while cleaning
Wiper stalk only works on fastest setting
Passenger seat cable

Mods:
Silvervisions
Clear side repeaters
Smaller aerial
¾ front plate and new rear plate
New rear wiper
Wheel refurb- anthracite
Decent Rear exhaust bracket
Dent removal
Some paint work-front bumper and bonnet is covered in stone chips
Maybe stainless stealth exhaust

 

[lewisredfern001]

Here are some pics of a brief machine polish of the bonnet to see what I could achieve.

Swirls

50/50

After
To get 2mro as i forgot!!

I intend to do the rest of the car before Christmas so I can work out exactly what panels require painting.

Some Wheels are flaky and covered in brake dust, wolf de-ironiser didn’t quite cut it today, gonna try iron-x next. The pictured below is one of the better ones.

MPG wise my missus has been seeing 30mpg which is combined and I know she hasn’t been driving slow!

 

[fletch8]

you need to tell her more sternly to drive slower, if the cambelts not been done as that £700 will soon double and it wont be so much of a bargain!

looks good though, cracking project !

why did you go back?

 

[Alastair.]

nice buy

 

[lewisredfern001]

if you mean why did we go back to another clio, the answer is simply she loves them, we've had a few other cars inlcuding MCS,impreza since the above but clios have always ticked the box and now weve got a family started we wanted another as it is useable as her car and fits kiddy equipment in. but to put it simply, i havent had a project for a while, fancied another but something which was useable with tax n mot, and wasnt going to cost a fortune to buy initially as funds are low after a bit of house DIY.

 

[rosco454]

Can go wrong for £700 mate,even with the cost of the belts & dephaser doing its still very cheap for a fun little car.

 

[lewisredfern001]

Yes we're both very happy. Would love to know what sort of power it's running when I've got it up to scratch, it just wants to spin the wheels all the time, and is very raw. Totally
Different from our 182's as far as i can remember. Plus has a very on/off clutch but feels like it could be a healthy One. 'nice and loose, with plenty of it' is how I would describe the power, and coming from e46 325 coupe it flies!

 

[lewisredfern001]

Little update

Had a play with the airbag connector under the seat and hey presto, air bag light and service light went out.

Also had a go at sorting the misty headlights!
Before

During – started with 800grit, 1200, 1500, 2500 then machine polished with 3m fast cut, they’re about 85% corrected but still need another hit with some 1500,2000,2500 I think.

After

The next day my missus went to the shop after dropping me at a friends for a game of darts, to then phone me (from a phone box using 0800 reverse!! as she left her phone at home, after realising as we pulled off the drive and then saying, ‘its ok i wont need it’!!!!) saying the car won’t start, it turns over but stops turning over after a couple of seconds. Sounded immobiliser like to me.

I went to her rescue and low and behold her description was spot on, it goes to start and turns over for a couple of seconds but even with the key held on to start it just cuts off. After a few lock and unlock attempts it wasn’t having it, then i felt the urge to press the key fob and turn the car over at the same time. She started! Not sure what i did, maybe reset the immobiliser? I did notice it reset the trip computer? Anyway it’s been fine ever since. Is this a sign of something that will crop up again? I’ve not had a search to see?

Anyway, although this type of project thread is the same as everyone else’s, its mine! And although sheepish, it’s my diary.

Mods ordered:
Silvervisions
Clear side repeaters
Smaller aerial
¾ front plate and new rear plate
New rear wiper

Parts ordered:
Wiper stalk
Cambelt kit
Aux kit

Dephaser to order today

 

[Kieran..]

Good read mate, the cup looks good and will look much better with all the little mods you have coming, bet the supercharged v6 must of been a monster!

 

[200 Alex]

This is making quick progress, very nice!

Im sure it will look great when your done and a great bargain too!!

 

[Tombola]

Mate is this sitting on standard springs? Very nice by the way?

 

[edde]

Check the battery i'd bet its dead.

 

[Gaz_]

aye, resetting clocks *usually* means battery issues

 

[lewisredfern001]

no its not standard springs, no idea what they are until it goes up on a ramp. since the other night there have been no more immobiliser issues? i do have a battery tester so could be worth a check when it goes on the ramp for a blowing exhaust

 

[lewisredfern001]

UPDATE

had the car over my friends pit and sorted the blowing exhaust which just needed the clamp re-aligning, there was also an annoying rattle, which turned out the be a washer/nut type combo which attaches the heat shields to the underside of the car. Quick trip to renault and £1.80 later it was renewed.
Also fitted a new wiper stalk, brand new gearnob, silvervisions, clear indicators, ¾ front plate and standard rear plate.

Then the coolant temp sensor was playing me up intermittently, with fan always running from cold and really lumpy idle. I was sat at home waiting for a courier and couldn’t go out or to Renault, so I thought I’d make use of my AA home start. Bloke came round plugged it in and bingo. CTS failure. nipped over to renault in the afternoon and £22 and 5 mins fitting it later, all was good again.

Also fitted a set of front components courtesy of sir_dave, which sound a lot better than the standard crap.

Since the last 'car not starting' problem outside the shop it has happened another 2 times, once outside the same shop!! Suffice to say it’s not been driven for 2 days now as it’s so intermittent. After some research I don’t believe its immobilizer related. The red light goes from flashing normally to coming on and staying on solid when the key is put into position 2. This I’m lead to believe is the key and decoder recognizing itself but a power issue to the ecu. Im off for 4 days after tonight so shall be doing some loom unwrapping to see if I have any broken wires, corroded pins on ecu and various sensors, relays.

Still waiting on a dephaser pulley but purchased a cheeky bargain off here, phs1 cambelt kit. Which i need to get a spacer for to fit our car. Saved me 50% off the price of a new one so made sense.

Also need a new hazard switch which im awaiting delivery and still need rear wiper, washer pump, one side light bulb and panel filter, all to be fitted this month, when the above fault is fixed.

I don’t plan to do the belts and depahser till mid jan now, as I have just secured a unit to work in. Where it shall also be prepped for paint, as the guy im renting it off will paint it for free if me and my father in law prep it which is result.

I also fancy some track time next year, or maybe a little drive down into France. Im not gonna go down the whole strip it out route but maybe some better brakes and tyres when the paint and belts are done. then maybe a stealthy exhaust.

 

[Daz.]

Nice write-up, looking forward to the changes!

 

[chapperzuk]

Looks really smart mate, looking forward to seeing pictures of the mods.

 

[Tombola]

Nice mate, looks like its coming along a treat! Did you find out what springs its on?
Cheers!

 

[lewisredfern001]

So it appears the fault of the red
Light is the uch loosing data, not too sure why it has done this. Shall find out later when I quiz the guy who has the car.

Hoping after this I can get the project back on track.

I fitted new rear wiper, and a mild steel k-tec stealth yesterday. Had to grind the old bolts off! Hopefully this gives the desired sound effects I want. As this is now going to be my car and not for ferrying my son around I could go for a stainless exhaust if I fancied it.

Service and cambelt are high on the priority list next

 

[lewisredfern001]

UPDATE

I cant believe how long this has been sat down. After lots of advice about broken wires i spent a few hours stripping back the loom and checking the wires over and continuity testing the suggested wires between ecu and uch. all seemed ok. I decided that i would take the car to a local auto electrician. Biggest mistake ever. He was the most local guy with the renault clip and sounded like he knew what he was talking about. He said the Uch had lost some data and wasnt sure why, but was confident that he could re-program a new one, so i left it with him. 3 weeks later he hadnt touched it! i decided to take the car back and buy a known working, key decoder ring uch and ecu. i fitted them and it still didnt work, with the same fault as before.
the car sat for a week before i took it back to him, this was 6 weeks ago. in that time all he has done is confirm that the fault is identical to when i first took it in. sufice to say me and my missus both gave him some agro and told him that if it wasnt fixed by Wed 6th june this week that we would be taking the car and he would not be paid for his time. (he has been working on all other customers cars other than mine, which i let him know how p*ssed i was about).

Anyway i shall not let this dis hearten the project. I ordered my missus a citroen DS3 in dec and it arrived 5 weeks ago. this is her daily car and im currently driving a ford Ka while the clio is off the road.

i have tried not buying things for the clio but after a quick ebay browse i found a cheap set of wheels. won the auction for £30 and (a petrol paid for) work van 230 mile round trip last night i now have 4 OZ chronos Evos in 15 inch guise. these i plan to use while the turinis have a refurb in the future and also i would like to shed these in some r888's for some track days. this is a way off yet but do hope this happens!
(the below arent mine, mine are renault fitment not multistud)

i also have some of these for a stud conversion.

So on wed we will see if its fixed like ive been promised. if not im gona have another look myself before i tow it a fair distance to have a proper renault specialist look at it.

 

[lewisredfern001]

It's only running!!! Reckons it was a voltage drop across fuses/relays. Have only had a 2 minute call from him. Pick it up Wednesday

 

[lewisredfern001]

The clio is finally home. Its all running on original ECU and UCH. He said it was some dodgy connections and low voltages across fuses. i felt robbed paying him but its done now. Its looking very sorry for itself so a good clean tomorrow is in order along with re-wrapping the loom up and insurance and tax. Then i hope this project can continue. Going to run it for a couple of weeks to work and back to see if any other problems arise

 

[lewisredfern001]

Right update time,
however my iphone has a hazy scratch on the case, hence all my pictures are very poor so i apologize in advance.

Since being back on the road it’s not all been plane sailing. I re-wrapped the loom and re-filled with coolant then done a few test run miles. It had a lambda sensor fault and a TPS fault, this resulting in limp mode. I purchased a known but good 2nd hand bosch lambda sensor and that was that cured. The TPS seemed to clear after an ecu reset and a good drive, it hasn’t been back since. This happened within the first 2 days of having it back. It had been sat for a while so I put it down to just ‘getting to know itself again’
With wanting to refurb the turinis, I wanted some cheap alloys to run for a few weeks, but then be good enough to use as track wheels, but i had some criteria, 15 inch, no centre cap cover which cover wheel bolts, for easy access to the wheel bolts, and fancied something different. After some browsing these came up cheap and were 2 hours away. Anyway, they were too cheap to miss out on so burrowed the works van and all they cost me was £30 and my driving time. they are ET37 off the top of my head so have gained a little poke either side. i love them, they looka bit smaller than they are due to the design, but am very happy with them.

After I picked them up I got up nice and early the following morning to see how clean I could get them and assess the tyre situation.

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Tyre situation isn’t great. 2 x 195/45/15’s which are all well legal and will suffice for a month or 2, but are Wanli and another cheap brand. The other 2 are snow tyres! These will be getting replaced in a couple of days, and plan to be used while I refurb the turinis.
They should go nicely with my new studs.

I had last Wednesday off work so treated the cup to an inspection, machine polish and a wheel clean, I only had 10 hours to do this in so didn’t achieve all that I wanted to, heres a run down:
Check of the condition of the cambelt as it really is in need of changing – it is however - ‘serviceable’,(i understand that its not a comprehensive check but its not cracked or split or damaged!) its clearly been changed, as its a genuine belt but i spotted tip-ex marks on the dephaser, assuming they are timing marks!!!!
Oil, coolant, brake fluid level check – all ok – to be replaced in the coming week though for peace of mind.
Removal off all wheels for a deep clean – took 3 hours! Bilberry and iron-x cleaned them up nicely but left some tar spots as I have run out of tardis. They are 10 times cleaner so am happy. And saves me doing it before I refurb them next week. the paint is all peeling of with edge of rim curbing, nothing deep or worrying.


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while the turinis were off i tried on my spare wheels.

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As I had the car on axle stands I spotted the carbon canister and thought, I may as well remove it. So I did - Took all of 5 minutes.
A general check over of the underside condition and nothing was to alarming, I don’t suffer any knocks or bangs so wasn’t expecting to find much. However, Inner ARB bushes looked a little perished. I have some new poly ones coming this week.
With the wheels cleaned I moved onto the paint work. It had been clayed and decontaminated with iron-x, tardis and clayed when I first purchased it so no need for these stages. this is before:

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I cracked out my festool and loaded it up with a 3m yellow pad and megs 105. I got round the car in 4 hours and removed the majority of swirls but left some RDS, the paint work up close is not in very good condition at all.

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Even the rear arches have very speckly, small stonechips. I put this down to high motorway usage. The front is peppered and really wants painting aswell. However it came up really nice, as I didn’t have time for 2 stage polishing I opted for poorboys black hole to finish up. Then seal it all in with some swissvax shield. Glass with Auto finesse crystal, and tyres with my old faithful megs endurance, love this stuff.

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Over the past few weeks I have purchased the following to go on, im going to have a day or 2 a side to do it in (have 14 days off work as from 19th june):
Gearbox oil
Genuine oil filter
Denso tough iridium plugs
K-tec panel filter (not for gains, but because it only needs a clean yearly and is good to go again. Plus it only cost £15)
Braided front and rear lines
Wheel stud kit
Poly front ARB bushes
Engine oil
ATE blue brake fluid
Some new tools and 2 x tyres

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Had 2 tyres fitted yesterday, and all 4 balanced. it would appear they arent all as straight as i would like, so i shall be sending them to an engineering shop when the turinis are refurbed.

Also fitted my K-tec filter after an oil up and renewed the plugs. the rest will be tackled when i have more time in the coming week or 2.

After fitting the above i gave it a quick no touch wash using magifoam, need to have a play with my lance though as it wasnt as thick as id like although dwell time was good, and it was in direct beaming sunlight.

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After fitting the new plugs and filter (old one was minging) it felt a lot more responsive and but more importantly smooth, it was almost a little hesitant (but far from slow) before and now its not, so im very happy. all new fluids and bushes should also do her some good. then as soon as i have a big enough disposable income (probably bonus month) i shall be doing/having the belts done.

All in all im very happy with how the car performs, looks and feels. However, The drivers seat is clearly 155K old, so i may keep an eye out for a cup drivers seat, or if half leather comes up close and cheap enough i may get some, but not on the lookout for leather. It is my daily and i do have 2 young children so no buckets yet. It has covered 500 miles since having it back and its been faultless. Returning and average of 36mpg with some spirited A road driving to and from work.

Im off to butlins with the family on sunday for a week so i plan to start the turini refurb when i am home.

Thanks for reading

Lewis