Clio Clio 197 with forged Megane r26 engine

[DaveL485]

It bleeds on top of the csc, at the feed connector. I can measure you a megane csc tomorrow if you like.

Thrown away a few 02m slaves a while ago sadly

yes please, looking at sizes for the upgrade on the 21, in case I can't use the OE fork with a new bearing (clearance on the higher twin plate cover)

 

[stephenvenning]

UPDATE:

I hope everyone had a great xmas. I spent mine largely rebuilding the gearbox

Anyway the gearbox is done. On Monday I pressed on the last remaining fixed gears onto the output shaft. Simply got a thick piece of aluminium tube and placed it over a gear and gently applied pressure until it was in place, this was repeated for every gear and the taper roller bearing at the top. The retaining curclip was then installed above the bearing. Now was the tricky bit and was to get all the shifter-fingers, shafts and diff/final drive gear, reverse idler and barrel shift mechanism all in place at the same time. I achieved this by loosely placing the diff, shafts and fingers into the case, while holding everything inline I wiggled the case and everything fell into place. The input shaft was then pulled out a little bit so I had enough clearance to install the reverse idler and its shifter finger. The last step was to install the shifter mechanism, easiest part of the install, just make sure that the spring is in the correct position otherwise the shifting action will be sloppy. Once all this was in the magnet was cleaned and intalled and a bead of silicon sealant applied to the case mating surface, the other half of the casing was placed on top of the mating half, you have to rotate the shifter bracket at the same time to engage it into the barrel mechanism. The bolts were intalled and torqued to 24 ft/ib, left for 24 hours to settle and then torqued again. All parts inside the gearbox were coated in zx1 to aid lubrication on first start up.

gearbox is now finished and it shifts lovely and smoothly

Now with all the gearbox and engine done its time to remove my old engine, today i cleared out the rest of the garage and finally parked the clio in there the conversion starts now.....




















Thanks

 

[rhys h]

Great build mate!! Can't wait to see finished project!

 

[DaveL485]

Ridiculous

 

[stephenvenning]

UPDATE:

Little update today, got a lot done on the whole engine removal. Took the bumper,crash bar and lights off first, easy job, only takes 10 minutes. The next bit was a bit trickier, I had to drain the coolant and remove the radiator, as it always goes the coolant went everywhere and soaked the garage floor. i plan on installing a thicker radiator or another one in parallel to try and solve this cooling problem that plagues these conversions. With that out the way the inlet manifold was unbolted and the airbox was removed, just requires a short sharp pull and you should be able to remove it, the battery tray was then unbolted. This is as far as ive gotten today.

Tomorrow I plan on removing the drive shafts and suspension struts, I can tell its going to be an arse of a job.
















Thanks

 

[Big Steve - Raider]

What's happening to the engine you're removing @stephenvenning ?

 

[stephenvenning]

What's happening to the engine you're removing @stephenvenning ?

Not sure yet, I might take the head off and port it, paint it and replace service parts, then sell it on i reckon. Its a pretty strong engine, made 193hp on Euro specs dynos with only an exhaust.

 

[andybond]

I am looking into getting some uprated Meg rads done in the new year. Will one of those fit?

 

[stephenvenning]

I am looking into getting some uprated Meg rads done in the new year. Will one of those fit?

Possibly, there is quite a bit of room once the ac condenser is removed

 

[DaveL485]

And the crossmember just unbolts! First generation of Clio shells that do that isnt it? Everything before has welded-in crossmembers. 5, 9, 11, 19, 21, 25, Laguna, Clio 1, Clio 2...all welded. Looks a breeze to work on in comparison!

 

[stephenvenning]

UPDATE:

After a few days hard graft practically doing all the work on my own, the engine is out! Wasn't too tricky, the hardest part was removing the drive shafts. For that I undone all the droplinks, took the calliper off and the brake line mounting bracket, undone the lower balljoint, track rod arms undone. Now I unclipped the ABS sensor from under the wheel arch liner, the 3 top mount bolts were then removed. The whole suspension strut and hub now can be lowered, I then pryed the drive shafts out of the gearbox with a crowbar from underneath. The hubs will now be stripped and cleaned and also a snapped suspension spring will be replaced with lowering springs. Two drop links will need to be ordered as the bolts had seized solid so had to be cut off, also Ive noticed the inner drive shaft gaitor has split so will need to be replaced or if I cat find a proper gaitor Ill get a new drive shaft.

Anyway once the driveshafts were removed it was really straight forward, just disconnect the loom, gearbox linkage, clutch line, exhaust manifold and engine mounts and she could be hoisted out of the bay.

Ill now clean up the engine bay and adress some rust thats appearing on the front chassis rails and then Ill get the new engine bolted in.






















And the standard "Hey look no engine"




Thanks

 

[tutuur]

Clio 2 has it too Dave

 

[stephenvenning]

UPDATE:

With the engine out it became apparent that the subframes and front chassis member needed some attention. They were disgustingly dirty with caked on grease and dust, they had to have some attention. I also noticed that on the front chassis member there was rust starting to appear probably due to to water sitting there between the member and sump guard. Anyway I needed to take the subframe off anyway in order to replace my steering rack so in the end I removed the entire subframe and chassis member and will in turn shot blast them and paint them, I may also take this opportunity to replace all the bushes with powerflex ones.

As most of the engine bay hadn't been touched since it left the factory in 2007, the engine bay was filthy and I couldnt let it stay like this especially when so much attention has been spent on the engine. Therefore today I set about giving it a thorough clean. Starting with auto glym engine degreaser and a detailing brush I aggitated all the dirt, this was then jet washed off being extra careful around the wiring loom. It was then shampooed with my wash mitt and then washed again, followed by paint correction on the parts you will see and then a final wax using collinite 476s. Looks sparkly now and is in fact the cleanest part of the car at the moment

Some pictures of half a clio





















Thanks

 

[DaveL485]

Flipping heck, no way have you got a mrs or kids progressing at this rate LOL

With drop links, the nuts seize cos the threads jam up with crap above the nut, it sends the nut tight and spins the balljoint instead of the nut. It's common on all the balljoints from old to new. When I remove a balljoint like that (Track rod end, drop link etc) I wazz a little WD40 on the exposed thread and then blast around it with a wire brush fitting on a drill. This cleans the threads up, and then I lever the joint from the back (if possible) pushing it in to the fitting and hit the nut with an air gun or rattle gun. It spins the nut off 99 times out of 100. If the joint doesnt knock apart easily with the nut off (track rod ends stick sometimes) don't risk damaging the thread, just heat the arm, as it expands the TRE will just fall out.

 

[stephenvenning]

Flipping heck, no way have you got a mrs or kids progressing at this rate LOL

With drop links, the nuts seize cos the threads jam up with crap above the nut, it sends the nut tight and spins the balljoint instead of the nut. It's common on all the balljoints from old to new. When I remove a balljoint like that (Track rod end, drop link etc) I wazz a little WD40 on the exposed thread and then blast around it with a wire brush fitting on a drill. This cleans the threads up, and then I lever the joint from the back (if possible) pushing it in to the fitting and hit the nut with an air gun or rattle gun. It spins the nut off 99 times out of 100. If the joint doesnt knock apart easily with the nut off (track rod ends stick sometimes) don't risk damaging the thread, just heat the arm, as it expands the TRE will just fall out.

Hahaha I'm only 23 so none of that just yet lol

Yeah that would have helped but the studs were so corroded the torx hole has completed crumbled so I couldn't stop them twisting, and I don't have an air gun, I use the air gun at work but haven't been there the last few weeks. New ones have been ordered anyway

 

[stephenvenning]

UPDATE:

With the engine out focus has been drawn to the subframe. On Monday I shot blasted the wish bones and then painted them in black hammerite to keep them looking nice for a bit longer. Tuesday I took the subframe to work and shot blasted that, took a while to get into all the areas, Ill paint that this weekend and then hopefully get it bolted back onto the chassis, from then I can test fit the engine.

Ever since the conversions had started as shown by litchy and choppen it seems cooling is an issue, therefore I decided to delete to AC in my build after having chats with Choppen, I could have gotten the standard renault cup delete AC bracket but that isnt me Ive got to have something shiny therefore I opted for Pure motorsport's new delete bracket, beautiful bit of kit, billet machined bracket which will finish off my engine a treat

From day one of ownership of my car it has had the dreaded clunking of the steering rack, Ive replaced inner and outer track rod ends as well as tightening the U joint bolt, but to no avail, new rack was on the cards then. I ordered a newer and quicker 200 steering rack, should make handling a bit better. I also picked up some new drop link bars and a new abs sensor.

It will look brand new by when I'm finished



















Thanks

 

[stephenvenning]

UPDATE:

Small update today, first off I got my Loom back from SC autos, great service with Steve, posted it Tuesday and got it back today. Also got my ECU coded at the same time so it should now be essentially plug and play

Also started painting the subframe with hammerite, coming up lovely, a few air bubbles but these eventually burst when the paint dries. Hopefully get all the subframe completed this weekend








Thanks

 

[stephenvenning]

UPDATE:

Another weekend of long days on the clio. First was I finished my subframe, it was given 3 coats of hammerite smooth black, turned out pretty good considering it was brushed on. On saturday I assembled all the subframe, wishbones, ARB and new steering rack. It looked better than when it came out the factory. Today I bolted the subframe in position and connected the U joint to the steering rack, this was a right pain in the arse job getting everything lined up while curled up by the pedals, must have been at it for at least an hour. Once that was sorted the subframe bolts could be torqued up and the wishbones could be properly torqued on the to spec. I have to say I am really chuffed with how it turned out and the steering rack knocking issues are now sorted

Later on today I stripped down the hubs and struts ready for reassembling and painting, this is where the problems started. First off Renault seem to be obsessed with torx bolts, there great when they are new but after 8 years of grime and corrosion half of them just stripped as soon as I turned them, so had to be drilled out. The second bit of bad news that there is play in the swivel joints and upper ball joint so Ill have to replace them to save a job later down the line, @raptor I may need you for this






















Next week Ill start getting the hub swivels stripped and Ill finally get the engine ready for mounting in the engine bay.

 

[DaveL485]

I have torx bolt issues on the 21 wheel bearings too, usually if theyre being a **** I smash the heads off with a hammer and chisel, pull the bearing over the studs and they then come out with mole grips

 

[stephenvenning]

ATE:

Earlier this week I set about stripping the hub carrier with the aid of an oxi-acetaline torch and a press. The low ball joint was pressed out which was relatively easy actually, hopefully pressing the new one in is just as easy. The pinch bolt that holds strut tower in was siezed in so required some heat, a few minutes of heating and the bolt knocked out pretty easy. The hub assembly was then completely shot blasted, being sure to mask off critical areas. Ive now only managed to get the hub carrier painted, looks miles better than it did before and the paint should provide some corrosion resistance.

As I will be pushing over 300hp Ill need to have a high flow fuel system like mentioned in previous posts. Well today i set about running the lines, Ill be using AN6 teflon braided lines throughout my build. Luckily the clio has a spare slot for another line under the care, so this made is pretty straight forward. The hardest part was trying the wiggle the fuel line up the side of the fuel tank and through the fuel sender access hole that I have made bigger. The lines were run above the subframe along the heatshield into the engine bay, Ive then run them under the brake line junction box and along by the battery tray. Ive used aluminium clamps throughout and will sleeve the lines in heat shield material just in case.

Ive also this week bought some zircoflex heat shield material which Ill be installing once all the engine bay is finished. Some V-band clamps have also arrived which will allow me to attach the megane centre section to my cat back system and make it pretty much the same as the clio's stock system.
























Also fitted my AC delete bracket










Thanks