Sean's Racing blue 182 FF Project

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Hi all, first let me introduce myself. I'm Sean, 20 from sunny Cornwall. Now that's out the way here we have my first project thread, this is my 3rd Clio Sport, i first started with a black gold 182 FF, then sold it for a Nimbus 197 after having that a while and not really getting on with it, that was sold. So i looked into every car and couldn't find anything that took my fancy. So while owning the Black gold, I'd all ways loved Racing Blue. So the hunt started.

So, looking through social media, Ebay, Pistonheads, i finally found a Racing blue 182, which ticked most of my boxes, a Full Fat module with low mileage and Full service history (65k) only problem was the car was in Swindon (around 200 miles away) anyway after contacting the
owner, i spoke to him on the phone and was happy with what i was hearing. The car had been sat for around 18 month, due to the owner sadly passing away in a motorcycle accident. it was his Dad selling the car a lot of the owners friends offered to buy the car from his parents but they declined as they didn't want to see their deceased sons car being drove around locally which is totally understandable, anyway after speaking to him me and a friend jumped in his car at 9am the next morning and headed up the motorway to arrive in Swindon for 13:00. we arrived and seen the car parked on the drive looking a bit sorry for itself we had a look over it and had a drive and everything was ok and we were aware it needed a bit of TLC.
So i handed over some money sorted all the fun bits and by 14:30 we were off to bring the Clio home. We stopped in a nearby services to get fuel and some food so i took the opportunity and took some first photos of her.

so here she is, this was back in October, 26th to be exact. so i have a few updates to upload between then and now, anyway this was the start of it :smile:

 

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The Next week
Now on the way home after a short while the car developed a miss fire, so after nursing the car home i set to find the problem. first thing first was a service. so i booked the car in with a local garage after ordering Oil, Filter, Plugs from Paul at Renault Parts direct. (who is a wizard, very helpful and swift service) after that sure enough it was the spark plugs that were very past it to say the least, i had also had the EML on so plugged it and and monitored the feedback from the post cat Lambda and sure enough it was dead. So a new Bosh lambda later and she was running lovely.

So to celibate i gave the car her first proper clean and here was the outcome.

she was looking nice, at this point the stripe was looking tatty and had gone yellow, so that was the next job. and to get rid of the rear tints as they weren't my cup of tea. and sort the wing mirrors, as one was wrapped and the other was painted black.

 

[Ashh]

Thought your front fog was hanging out until I noticed it was a cold air feed haha. Could do with making it a little more flush with the fog surround? Just a thought :smile:
Then again, "function over form" and all that jazz.

I haven't seen the door's painted before to match the window lines. Was that your job or was it there before? Think I'd wan't it back to the body colour if it were mine.

Stubby aerial and revive/paint the plastics on the outside would be on my list too and keep the F1's!

 

[Pobox]

It's actually wrapped, still haven't got round to peeling it off! This was back in October but I'm going to be updating the thread every few days to catch up for lost time! Alot to go through haha

 

[Ashh]

It's actually wrapped, still haven't got round to peeling it off! This was back in October but I'm going to be updating the thread every few days to catch up for lost time! Alot to go through haha

Ah, that makes sense.

Miss my Arctic 182

 

[LeeRS]

I quite like the black between the windows.

 

[Jcs]

Needs cooksports, PMS exhaust, stripes taking off & turinis, other than that looks good man.

 

[LeeRS]

so like everyone elses then?

 

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The next week

So, as JCS has mentioned (thanks James) you can kind of guess where the thread is going. anyway so painted the wing mirror the previous night.

The the next day i set to remove the stripes. after three hours fun i finally managed to remove them went to the local Halfords for a few bits and took some pictures -

next job was to get some new alloys, my old 182 i put some Trophy Turini's on it anyway here's what she looked like-

i wasn't really a fan of the F1's purely as the car would need to be on coilovers to look low enough to suit the smaller alloys and the previous owners parents had put budgets on them which made the car terrible to drive, coupled with the awful crashey Apex springs on the car at the time so a member on here has some for sale with Federal 595 RSR tyres on with good tread all round so i bought them.

 

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November

now by this time the Turini's had arrived, to my delight the new owner of my black gold had removed the Cooksport springs i put on it for Coilovers.
So i make him an offer and went to pick them up, so as the shocks had probably never been touched i ordered new shocks all round and new genuine top mounts. I did look into PMS top mounts and brace, but as the car is used daily to commute to work on back road i decided against it. while all this was happening i decided to buy a new set of plates with the front being a 3/4 in size i also ripped the cold air feed and ph1 airbox out as i bought a standard Airbox from a nearby breakers which had a K&N filter in! Win. and i only gave £18 for the box with hoses. Anyway i bought a new Fog to fill the hole the cold air feed left behind, this was a picture taken at work with it's new plate. As you can see the bottom grill has a hole in it as well, the Previous owner had cut a hole in the grill for the cold air feed (i know i don't know why either) so i bought a new one and sprayed it Satin Black.

The car was dropped off at the garage for its new Suspension and i took the new alloys to go on as they had to remove the old ones anyway here is what she looked like when i brought it home

the next few days and me and a friend (Megane 225 owner) took the front bumper off to fit the new fog and grill, wasn't too bad of a job but i then decided to paint the fog shrouds to match the grill anyway here's a photo of how it looked (a lot better)

 

[imprezaworks]

Looks miles better on those wheels

 

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December

This month turned out to be a very expensive month, the car had a awful noise which sounded like the water pump so with the belts being changed in 2012 with only the cam belt being done nothing to say the water pump was done. So i ordered Cambelt, Water pump, Depasher and aux kit and booked in with a local specialist to complete the work (sadly i didn't get any photos) but i did find another RB friend so the Mrs hopped out and took a pic -

now while the car was in there i had planned on freshening up the engine bay as it was a bit tatty i had them bolt in a new coolant bottle and i also ordered a power flex yellow engine mount and dog bone so they done this more me while it was in there, so this was a pic of how the engine was before -

now me and a friend set to paint the rocker cover and inlet so we got some paint and got cracking, so we took the inlet off and masked off all around the rocker cover and painted it-

this was the end result -

i was very pleased how it came out just goes to show if you put the time and effort in the prep it makes a big difference in the finish-

with the inlet on -

so this pretty much catches me up, i also bought a used engine cover to paint racing blue to go over but that's on the to do list! sorry for the explode in up dates but i had to make up for lost time :smile:

 

[Pobox]

Looks miles better on those wheels

I have to agree, not a fan of the F1's and trying to get the centre caps its like gold dust nowadays it seems fills the arches a lot better

 

[Pobox]

Just a small update, removed the tints today while it was dry and gave her a wash, along with a coat of wax:

few more bits to come as the dreaded MOT is dawning :O

 

[Pobox]

Another update, been a busy week, with he cars MOT looming i knew my brakes were running low, so i ordered new rear OEM discs and pads along with front Brembo discs and pads and some Dot 4 new fluid from George at road,track,race parts.

The car had a Ktr/Janspeed super sports exhaust fitted and was a bit too loud and raspy for me so a friend of mine was breaking his track peppered car and was selling a basically new Pure motor sport exhaust (£550 RRP) so it was up for a price too good to refuse, so i popped over and picked it up-

a couple of nights later a Friend is a mechanic and has a ramp which we can use after hours so that made life a lot easier, anyway old system off and new one on within 20 minutes! the PMS products are fantastic so well engineered.

and today was D Day, first MOT in my ownership, and to my surprise she flew through with flying colours! :smile:

Booked in for wheel alignment tomorrow, then just a few more bits to do mechanically till i'll be happy with it, looking at the "stiff shift kits" produced by a chap on here along with a box oil flush, then after that it's on to paintwork, paint correction and Referbing the alloys. seems to be finally coming up to standard again.

 

[dann2707]

Nice one mate. Always a great feeling when a car passes!

 

[Pobox]

Was expecting a few odd jobs tbh was quite surprised haha, what do you guys think of the new style "RS" badge on a 182? I'm still undecided

 

[imprezaworks]

It's on my list of things to get.

 

[Stefan.]

Cracking transformation!!

Keep up the good work, oem is best and good rb's are hard to find now

 

[Pobox]

Thank you that's my plan to keep it clean and comfortable for daily but also have a few choice mods, it really does drive like new now. Want to make it a well maintained example not so race car or ASBO haha