so got home, removed the gearbox on my driveway and brought it away to get looked at. Noticed A LOT of scoring around the pressure plate and bellhousing but the actual clutch plate was pretty much fine. Then spotted that a spring had came off the pressure plate and rattled around the bellhousing making a bit of a mess
Gearbox wasnt economical to repair (needed 4 synchro rings and a 3rd gear) so looked for a replacement. Finding a 182/172 box that hadnt been abused all its life was going to prove difficult so I went to a local scrappy and looked for a box that would fit. The variety in renault boxes is mad ended up with a scenic box tho lol that was 99% there. Couple of mounting lugs needed removing and a bolt moving and it was good to go. Probably had a nice easy life too.
up in the air:
Also fitted a new valeo clutch kit for the princely sum of 80 notes
Managed to wrestle the box up and onto the engine. Happy days everything seemed cool. bolted everything back up, shafts in, wheels on and dropped the car back on the ground. Around 12hrs in at this point
Was a long job alright. So went to start it, nothing. Could see the lights dim on the dash when I tried to crank it so thought maybe the battery was flat just. Tried to jump start it, same problem. Opened bonnet and could smell a funny smell. So suspecting starter at this point. Popped exhaust manifold off, whipped starter out and tested with a jump pack. Was fine.
Then I had an awful thought, the box was jamming the flywheel. Tried to turn the flywheel by hand (with a screwdriver on the teeth) and nothing, would not budge. Contemplated suicide at the thought of removing the box again.
Cracked on anyway, pulled the box out (again) and sure enough there were some marks on the casing where the fly was catching. Mr grinder soon removed those and box went back on. A worse wrestling match this time to get the box up and on took me bloody ages. Put two bolts in and tried manually moving the fly again. This time it moved fine. So put the starter etc back in and connected up the battery and gave it a quick crank. Spun up fine so carried on connecting the shafts etc all back into the car (again). Car started fine so happy days. Put oil in the box and tried it on the drive. Gears were way out (reverse was where 1st is) so some adjustments to the linkage later and all was well. Quick run down the street and it was getting all gears nicely. Ratios seem pretty much the same to be honest, still has a vicious pull to it!
Absolute god awful of a job tho, real hateful f**ker! Especially having to do it twice :$
Also fitted k-tec uprated engine and gearbox mounts, along with the compbrake solid upper suspension mounts so should be nice and tight on track now
Wish they would include instructions with these things ffs, bloody nightmare trying to figure out how they assemble
