Oh, I forgot to mention above, first Sunday job was the clutch system. It's hydraulic, and the meg pipework on the gearbox plugs straight into the Clio line from the body, at the bulkhead. I'd connected it the day before, and bunged some fluid in to let it drain down in to the concentric slave. there is no through-bleed on this system (SHIT IDEA). The bleed point is at the joint to the slave as it enters the 'box. Soooo...how do you get the air out of the slave?!. As I said, shit idea. You have to assume that given time gravity will allow the fluid to drain down into the slave, leaving the air higher up, hopefully behind the bleed point. If i'd had a syringe handy i'd have filled the slave like that before connecting the pipe. Anyway, I filled the brake master with fluid, stuck 10psi behind it and unclipped the line to the slave - you dont even get a screwy bleed nipple you have to half release the clutch line itself (SHIT IDEA ALSO). I ran the fluid through till the new stuff was bleeding out, then clipped the line back in. Amazingly, when I tried the pedal, it was bang on first time.
I took the pipes off the Meg header tank and sized up the Dacia Sandero one I was advised to use, the pipes fit OK....However, do NOT mount it like this as the bloody bonnet wont shut!!!
So I cut off the back left mounting lug, trimmed the front mounting lug and then modified the rear right mounting lug to hold a spire clip. I fed an M6 through from the back of the turret into the spire clip, so the header tank is now bolted to the suspension turret, sat further back and lower than the first attempt. At least the bonnet shuts now.
I'd also lobbed the boost hoses on so I could connect the two sensors in the pipe leading to the plenum, then I filled the coolant up and bled from the stat housing and matrix pipe, then fired it up to see if 1)it held water and 2)it ran without chucking any errors on the dash. I ran it to about 1/4 on the gauge and there didnt seem to be any (large) leaks and no errors on the dash
I'd spent a lot of the time trying to trim as little of the slam panel as possible, so this is as far as I got other than putting the wheels back on so I could check it moved under its own steam. It did, so it got hoofed out the garage so the Vee could go back in its spot as I didnt want to leave it outside through the week.
I'm still debating on whether to drop the rad and fit a new, unmolested top slam panel, or whether to go for a 197 alloy rad, or what.
Still to do -
Exhaust
Reassemble scuttle and wipers
Reassemble front end/headlights
Decide on what to do about the rad/slam panel
Sort an air filter, I was gonna use the 21's old one but it's way too big to get in the space! I've order a filthy cheap eBay cone filter for the interim.
Pick up the Megane 18's I accidentally bought for it
Figure out the AC system, and see if it's keep-able. The Clio AC rad has the condenser thing attached to it, the meg one doesnt and the Clio pipework doesnt match with the Meg AC rad. I think if it's retained i'll have to make the Clio AC rad fit on the meg radiator. We'll see. The AC didnt work anyway (though i would like to fix and retain it).
All the gears engage and work but it's really hard to get reverse, I have to give it a proper wrench right and down, so I need to look at that, what needs adjusting or whatever.
Budget wise to date, I have spent:
£1000 on the conversion package
£90 on the decat downpipe
£15 on the header tank
£80 in fuel viewing and collecting the conversion package
£30-£40 on engine oil, box oil, oil filter. Coolant and brake fluid I had 'in stock'
I bought a Meglio shifter and Meglio engine loom separate but didnt use either in the end so not counting those
£15 eBay cone filter
£70 on having my 197 immobiliser data copied to the Meg ECU, at EFI parts but I didnt pay for that my mate did after I lent him the 197 for a couple of weeks last month.
Running total - £1240
