Wicked Neo
I visit now and then...
Due to the demise of my old R19 16V ph2 Hatch (L45 GYP) to corrosion issues, i obtained (K774 UCC) to replace it.
It was bought from fellow Retro-Renault member Digital Biscuit (Dave) who was selling it as he had bought himself a rather mint ph2 hatch.
So Neal and I went on a trip to bournemouth.
Neal turned up at mine at around noon, took delivery of his heater control panel, thumbscrews for rear lights and window for his pass door.
2 hours and 160 miles later and we are in bournemouth chatting to Dave
first impressions of the car made it look quite clean, no rust on the inner front arches or on the rear arches, no rust in the usual places on the bonnet.
Bonnet up and everything looks standard under there with the exception of how the throttle cable has been run, tie wrapped to the strut brace instead of the usual route round the front of the engine bay. good idea!
further inspection revealed that the drivers side front wing and the rear bumper are not original items, nor is the drivers side headlight, so i guess its had a little accident at some point.
also noticed a cable thats not normal running to the fan, its been wired up to a switch under the dash as the sender that controls the fan is not working, not a problem.
Interior of the car is in above average condition too but the drivers seat has the usual wear and tear to it, the remote plip also not working, again minor details as my hatch GYP will be donating its parts to this one.
Engine started first time on the key Smile
and for a 130,000 mile engine, it sounds very good, headgasket is defo on way out thou, tell tale signs of oil in the water and a lot of steam being produced by the exhaust.
Biting point on the clutch is very low but it has had a new clutch cable and clutch pedal.
Also the gearbox mount is knackered which caused some interesting vibrations and gear changes on the way home.
last real bad point on this car is the damn heater does not work!
the fan is fine but the heater matrix is up the creek so i froze my nuts off on the trip home.
Actual driving of the car is very smooth, suspension and brakes are spot on, the brakes are much better than GYP's and this is also a non abs r19.
no play on the column and the car ran true even if u took both hands off the wheel, no deviation to either side Smile
Pull away was very good, it accelerated quite happily and rapidly to 70 mph, althou it did have a vibration with it which is more than likely caused by the buggered gearbox mount.
only last thing about is that the rear reflector panel is non 16v, its the red one instead of the 16v smoked one, again not a problem because GYP will be donating its one.
The car is MOTed to april 2006 sand i am more than happy with it.
Thanks to Neal for the ride down to bournemouth, top fella!!
The car as it was when Neal and I went to pick it up.
Notice it has no aerial, no rear washer jet, red rear reflector plate, discoloured front indicators, standard ph2 alloys and a broken rear spoiler.
On the drive home noticed that the digi dash also did not work properly, the LCD has bled on it making it unreadable and also that a couple of the dash lights did not work, not a huge problem.
The next day i went over the car and made this list of jobs to do on UCC:
Head Gasket (its not gone yet but on its way)
Heater Matrix (+ coolant system flush)
Gearbox Mount
Change the instrument pods over
Change the seats over, leather from GYP to replace cloth seats in UCC
Cambelt, tensioner and idle pully (Dave had no idea when these were last changed on UCC)
Change the rear spoilers over (UCC's spoiler is damaged)
Sort the electrics for the radiator fan
sort the electrics for heated rear screen
sort the front fog lights out
change the rear bumper (One on UCC has had a bad spray job on it and u can see the original colour (red) coming thru under the blue paint)
change exhaust systems over (Standard coming off UCC and the stainless steel one from GYP onto UCC)
Oil and filter change
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To start with, some easy jobs
changed the standard ph2 alloys over for my 17's which came off my old mot failed ph2 hatch
changed the discoloured front indicators and swapped the side repeaters for the clear ones from the old hatch
this shot shows the difference between the indicators!
changed the rear reflector plate
and removed the broken rear spoiler
and replaced it with the one from the old hatch
small changes but it makes a whole lot of difference to the car!
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next out came the old cloth seats and replaced with the old hatchs leather ones
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job after that was to change the digi dash
this is why it needed changing
a dodgy lcd which is a common fault on these
clocks removed
the two sets of clocks, the decent ones were donated yet again from my old hatch
fitted and working
then gave the car a bloody good wash
looking really nice now
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Whilst i have been stripping my old hatch for parts, i have not really done any work on UCC but have been gathering all the parts required to get her sorted.
stainless steel & decat pipe from GYP, to be cleaned up and to be fitted to UCC
Head gasket set, rocker cover gasket, cambelt kit, clutch, all 3 engine mounts and an aux belt
Brand new fog lights, brand new header tank with brand new cap, oil filter and sump plug and various exhaust fittings
and some 'other' parts i have acquired
an ECU cover, an ignition module cover, both to be either polished or painted, Phase 3 dash switches and an 16S badge for the back of the car (Thanks to R19 16S from retro renault for the 16S badge, he found one on a scrapped 16S in France and sent me the badge)
Have also taken off the two front suspension struts with thier lowering springs off the old hatch and they are now also on UCC
and UCC at last has an aerial and a rear washer jet, both nabbed from gyp heh
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Some stuff to smarten up the engine bay
Bought a ECU cover and a ignition module cover from Nick Hill of Hill Power
they come very rough and ready in ally, with all the weld beads still on them
so for the ultra smooth look, need to remove those beads
beads off and starting to clean up the rest of the cover
The ignition module cover
After a day of cleaning up the covers, using finer and finer grades of wet and dry to get a nice finish, the 1st coat of primer goes on
flatten off the primer and applied the 1st coat of colour
more flattening after that and continue to apply the top colour until i get the finish i want, then lacquer them
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mot time for UCC soon came around so needed to sort out a couple of issues with it like the gearbox mount and fog lights.
The rear wiper, heated rear screen, rear fog light and the central locking had not worked since the day i bought it, one of those things that were put off because other stuff needed doing first.
Now the rear foglight and rear wiper are required items for the MOT so need to get those fixed.
did the usual and checked the fuses first, all ok, checked relays and again ok, checked the bulb and yep thats ok too, so has to be a dodgy earth in there, with the lights on i opened the rear hatch and BING, suddenly the rear fog was on, opened the hatch a little further and off it went, repeated that several times and the fog light was blinking on and off.
AHA! must be a dodgy earth i think . .
so i removed all the covers including the cover that keeps the wiring mounted inside the hatch, all the connectors were on properly, no corrosion on the heated screen connecters so i started wiggleing the loom and sure enough, the rear fog blinked as i shook the loom.
my conclusion was that there must be a dodgy wire somewhere in the loom, feeling down it i could feel a broken wire so i removed the insulation and was greeted with this!!
not one wire broken but several of them ( i have pulled them apart for the pic to show the damage)
i stripped the insualtion back further and found several more breaks in the wires.
so no prizes for guessing why the wiper, fog, etc dont work . .
So i cut the loom out of GYP and used that to replace the dodgy section on UCC
so now with the dodgy section replaced i now have a working rear heated screen, central locking motor, fog light and wiper
next job was to replace the feckered gearbox mount
so got the car jacked up, wheel off, axle stand under and sprayed the bolts with loads of WD40
got the first bolt halfway off when . . the heavens opened and it chucked it down with rain . . .
but i got lucky and half an hour later the sun came back out
so finished the job
Old mount out
old and new mounts
New mount fitted
another job done
UCC then went in for its MOT and went straight through and passed with no advisories
had a couple of last minute jobs to do first thing in the morning on it before she went down the MOT station, like the passenger side washer jets were not working so got a pin and cleared the nozzles and the front passenger side suspension struts top nut had come loose, so retightned that and also remembered to put the securing plate back onto the battery hehe.
UCC now also has GYPs front grille on it, the car came with this chicken mesh affair as you may just see from the first pic in this thread, tbh it did not look that bad with the bonnet closed but with it open it looked hideous!
UCC looks so much better now from the front with the proper grille back on her
So now the MOT is out of the way i fitted GYP's stainless steel exhaust and decat onto UCC and GYP's rear bumper onto UCC.
UCC's rear bumper was not an original item, all the paint was flaking off it and you could see its original colour, red, underneath the blue paint
much nicer now
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Next it was time to tacklel FOUR major jobs that UCC required
1: Headgasket
2: Cambelt & Tensioners
3: Clutch
4: Engine Mounts (x2)
First thing i wanted to do is get the head off whilst the engine is still in the car.
Why?
because as i have no where to hold, stand the engine when its out of the car i figure it will be easier to undo the headbolts whilst its still bolted in
so to start with, i started the engine to warm it up whilst i jacked it up into the air and put it on axle stands.
With the engine warmed up, i shut it down and drained the oil (always best to drain the oil when its hot)
As the oil was draining i removed the strut brace, top and bottom cam belt covers and the rocker cover.
next job was to make sure all the timing marks were lined up before the head gets removed.
next was to release the alt and remove the aux belt, then undo the cam tensioner and remove the cam belt.
then i removed the top and bottom hoses and removed the radiator.
then off with all the electrical plugs and anything else thats attached to the head that will prevent its removal like the fuel lines etc.
At this point i got stuck . .
its easier to remove the head with the inlet and exhaust manifolds still attached to it but when i tried to remove the exhaust manifold to the downpipe nuts with a deep 13mm socket, they both rounded off!!
BUGGER!
so i had to do things the hard way and remove the exhaust manifold from the head by removing the seven 10mm nuts,
I gave them all a liberal dose of WD40 and went inside for a coffee and a smoke.
when i returned to the job, i got a pleasent surprise . . ALL NINE of the nuts came off dead easy, wow thats a first lol
so exhaust manifold off and the head was removed
Yep the headgasket had gone but had only just started to go, traces of oil in the header tank gave that away
So now its clean up the mating faces of the block and head ready for its new headgasket and prepare the block for removal from the car so i can do the clutch, engine mounts and of course the cambelt
Next step was to get the block out
this is so i can put a new clutch, waterpump, tensioners etc onto the engine
I also gave the engine bay a bloody good clean as well as the block
here it is covered in good old cillit bang lol
bottom end cleaned up with new water pump, lower idle pully and new oil filter fitted
removed the old clutch
and gave the flywheel a good clean
the old one does not look too bad but it was slipping so needed to be done
new clutch fitted
No its not out of alignment, its just the angle the picture was taken lol
next job to do whilst the engine is out is to replace the other two engine mounts
again the rear one did not look too bad but might as well exchange it now than later
new mounts fitted
and started to clean up the engine bay
Old parts
Gave the mating faces another good clean and fitted the new headgasket and replaced the head back onto the block with new head bolts
Engine back into the car
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A few weeks after finishing the engine work i lost reverse gear on the hatch (in a garage forecourt of all places lol)
Not due to clutch problems or gearbox problems but all down to a tiny cable which had snapped.
As you know the gear lever has a pull up to select reverse, well this is done by using a little wire cable and this is what has snapped
So of course i need to remove the old one
This part is not essential, you should only need to remove the gaitor but i thought why not, means i can give the centre console a good clean up and also clean the carpet underneath it, as you can see from the below pic, how much crap was under it !
To remove the gear lever is fairly easy, get the car jacked up, undo the bolts that hold on the exhaust heatsheild to the bottom of the car and slide it backwards, then you can access the 4 x 13mm bolts that hold the gear lever assembly in place, make sure you also disconnect the gear lever return spring, then at the gearbox end, remove the rubber boot that covers the bolt that connects the selector rod to the gearbox and then undo the bolt.
It then all just falls out from under the car, BUT i would suggest if your car is fitted with a catalytic converter, you remove that as space will be cramped, mines got a decat pipe so space to remove the assembly was not an issue.
Here is the cable that snapped
A decent 2nd hand gear lever assembly was sourced from Chris H and fitted and now all gears are working
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the next lot of work on the car saw the fitting of a drivers side driveshaft and hub.
Why?
Well the wheel bearing on that side has been squeaking for about a month, progresivly getting louder and louder and starting to affect the steering and also because there is a tiny little cut in the CV gaitor at the gearbox end of the driveshaft.
To save myself the hassle of getting a wheel bearing pressed in, i'm using the driveshaft and hub from the chammy i'm breaking, no need to take out the driveshaft from the hub then.
So first thing to do is loosen the wheel nuts on the front drivers side wheel, then jack the car up and get an axle stand under.
Remove the wheel.
next job is to bang out the roll pin out of the driveshaft, i always seem to have a problem with these but today, it just pinged out first time
next its off with the brake caliper, supporting it with a bit of wire or string to the suspension strut and off with the brake disc.
Then removed the trackrod end from the hub and first snag, the damn thing sheared off so now i've got another job to do and replace that
i see no point in using the one from the chammy as a new one is not that expensive and will also save a future job, so got to wait until after bank holiday to get one.
Then i remove the two bolts that hold the hub to the suspension strut then undo the lower ball joint bolts and remove them, this is why you take the track rod end out first. because now with the hub free of that and the strut, you can swivel it to access the bolts on the ball joints better.
With it all free, pull the hub away from the car and with a couple of jerks the whole thing comes out.
Then i did exactly the same thing with the chammy and fitted its hub and shaft to the hatch.
Make sure before you slide the shaft onto the gearbox splines that you have the hole for the roll pin lined up, slide the shaft on, bolt up the lower ball joint, bolt up the hub to the suspension strut, refit the track rod end to the hub (except i cant do this at the mo lol), refit the brake disc and caliper, put wheel back on and lower the car to the ground, job done
All back together:
You can see the trail of grease from the CV joint down the exhaust downpipe caused by the split gaitor
And now the bonus work of replacing the track rod end
Old and new side by side, the OE Renault one is quite a bit more solid looking and feeling, i guess thats one of the reasons OE parts are more expensive, the replacement was obtained from Euro Car Parts at just under £11 incl VAT.
Off
On
and job done!
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Well UCC has now developed a rather annoying PAS Fluid leak, which was discovered on my way home from Brighton, was about 5 miles from home, approching a roundabout, went to take the roundabout and the steering was heavy as hell!
Got it home and every corner took an effort to get it round.
Popped the bonnet and PAS fluid was all under the radiator cowling and along the subframe, wonderful!
My first thoughts was that the PAS pump had cracked, i topped up the resovoir with fresh fluid, started the car and sure enough a jet of fluid seemed to be coming from the pump, where the main pipe is connected to it.
No problem, i had a spare pump so went about the task of swapping it out.
First things first, radiator out. then the PAS fluid resovoir was removed, then loosen the Aux belt and out with the alt.
Next loosen off the main pipe feed and removed the PAS pump complete with its bracket.
Chammys pump on the left, UCCs on the right
popped a new seal onto the main pipe and fitted the chammys pump
then refit the alt and all its various brackets
Refit the PAS Fluid resovoir and top it up
refitted the radiator, bled the cooling system and fired it up . . only to find, it's still leaking :cry:
Because whilst fitting the new pump i cleaned up the pipe etc, at least now i can see where its leaking!
Right where the arrow is, the PAS fluid is spraying from under the collar
so next job is to obtain and a fit a new pipe and hope that stops the leak!
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Power steering is now all fixed and i don't mind admitting that fitting the replacement pipe was a bit of a battle.
Basicly it's remove the radiator and rad shroud, to make life easier unbolt the aux water pump and remove the plastic liner that runs along the top of the subframe.
Undo the 4 captive nuts that hold the PAS pipe in place (2 along the front of the subframe, the 2nd being right next to the aux water pump, the third is also on the subframe right under the gearbox and the 4th is at the back of the subframe just above the mount for the PAS rack)
Unbolt the downpipe from the manifold and cat / decat (which ever you have fitted) and swing it to one side, this allows access to the pipe unions on the rack itself)
You have to unbolt and move out of the way the two smaller pipes to get access to the main feed pipe, undo this union and the union at the pas pump and thread the old pipe out from under the car.
Its also wise to have something under the car to catch the pas fluid that pours out of the pipes when you undo them
As haynes would say, refitting is a reversal of removal but they don't say it's a damn pain in the arse to thread the main feed pipe back into place along the rear of the subframe.
bolt everything back together and top up the PAS resovoir.
refit the rad shroud and rad and bleed the cooling system.
Job done, my PAS is now fully operational again and to celebrate i took the car for a 180 mile round trip to bracknell and back, car never missed a beat
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Well todays work (sunday 7th Jan 2007) was not planned but end result was another fully working system on the car.
I was bored last night so decided to take the 19 for a blast, well that did not happen as when i got into the car, nothing, no power from the battery what so ever, which was weird as it had only been used a few hours before with no starting problems what so ever.
As i was sitting in the car, a drop of water fell on my hand which was resting on the gearstick . . hmmmmmmm i thought, looked up the roof console and lo and behold, there was a few more drops of water waiting to fall!
I removed the bulb cover and found it full of water!
Now it had been raining all day here yesterday so seems i had sprung a leak from somewhere and the amount of water that had got in, had shorted out the plip sensor and the alarm ultrasonics unit!
Well, nothing i could do about it last night so checked it out today.
1st thing was to remove the battery and get it on charge.
Next pop off the roof console and have a look to see if it was easy to tell where the water was getting in.
It was not obvious so i got a bucket of water and threw it over the roof of the car.
Now it was obvious where i had sprung a leak, yep, where the aerial is bolted to the roof, the seal had gone and thats where the water was getting in (i had thought it was either the aerial or the sunroof)
Next was to unbolt the aerial and remove it, cleaned up the area around the hole and varnished it to prevent rust.
i then put a layer of mastic around the hole and around the edges of the bottom of the aerial and refitted it.
now the plip sensor and ultrasonics circuit were waterlogged and must have been happening to a lesser extent for a while as the copper tracks had a lot of corrosion.
Not a problem as i have loads of these spare.
So grabbed the spares along with the matching ecu (plip is coded to the ecu) and fitted them, changed the sender in the key fob and refitted everything.
I now have a fully working remote central locking system
It had never worked on the remote since i owned the car but now i have fitted matching fob, reciever and ecu, it all works
Battery charged and back on, and now 24 hours later, i am gonna go for that blast lol
24th Feb 2007
Passenger side track rod end fitted today and tracking done
reason for the new track rod end is that when i took the car in to get the tracking done, the mechanic could not free off the pass side track rod end to adjust it, so i took it to euro car parts, got a new pass side track rod end, went home, fitted it and 30 minutes later back at the garage to get my tracking done.
Mechanic was like ' ermmm told ya mate, cant do ya tracking til u got a new track rod end on it'
Told him it was done and he was like 'fucking hell, u dont hang around do ya!'
hehe
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Saturday March 10th 2007
Took the car up to Hill Power today with the Renault Sports Club and had it put on the rollers.
The car has been a tad sluggish of late so i wanted to know why the power was down
Got it on the rollers and Nick Hill gave it 3 power runs, best of these 3 was 102.6 bhp at the wheels.
Nick shut off the rollers and peered under the bonnet, telling me at the same time he could not get full throttle out of it,e played with the throttle inkage on the throttle body and gave it another 3 runs.
Still could not get full throttle out of it but managed to get it up to 107.2 bhp at the wheels (128bhp at the flywheel)
Nick also said its running very lean!
Not bad for a 120,000 mile engine only 9 bhp down on standard.
Nick gave some advice on how to get the lost ponies back
A: New Throttle Cable (mine has apparently stretched)
B: Lose the induction kit and use the original airbox with a performance filter
C: Get the injectors cleaned, properly cleaned!
D: Change the Fuel Pump, for a fuel pump thats done 120,000 miles worth of work in its life, he reckons its not putting enough fuel pressure through the system, another reason why its running lean
Also a ignition system change out would also help it loads, New Plugs, HT Leads, Dizzy Cap and Rotor Arm
He reckons it should be up to 140bhp by doing this.
so in my opinon it was well worth the trip up to Hill Power to get the 19 rolling roaded, i now know why its not running at its full potential and how to get it sorted
Thanks to Nick Hill of Hill Power and thanks to Mick from RSC for organising the day
Some Pics
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Well this should sort out the cars lack of power
which is being donated from this
A ph1 megane coupe 2.0 16v which was bought from ebay for £100!
I'll do a seperate report for the rebuild of the F7R
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Well since i had the Car MOTed 2 weeks ago and the clutch cable snapping during the MOT i have been having issues getting the car going into gear.
After much fiddling about and a suspected knackered clutch release fork, i decided to bite the bullet and renew all the clutch components.
This of course means the gearbox at least needs to come out but i've decided it will prolly be less of a headache to remove the engine and box as a complete unit.
So today saw the preperation of the removal of box and engine
First job, disconnect the battery
wheels off, brake calipers unbolted and tie wrapped to the suspension struts, track rod ends unbolted and removed, lower ball joints unbolted from the wishbones and hubs unbolted from the suspension struts.
Drivers side drive shaft roll pin removed and shaft complete with hub and brake disc removed.
Plastic carton under pass side and removed the 3 bolts that hold the rubber seal to the gearbox, pulled the seal back slowly and let the gearbox oil drain, then removed that driveshaft
Next job under the car and unplugged the lambda sensor, unbolted the down pipe from the decat pipe and unbolted the down pipe from the exhaust manifold.
Then removed all the wires to the starter motor.
Then disconnected the gear linkage.
then back on top and removed the air filter, the expansion tank, radiator, various coolant hoses, radiator shroud and front grille (makes life a whole lot easier to see where to disconnect the alt wiring)
Then i unplugged the ECU, injector loom, alternator, cold start injector, oil level, CTS, ICV, etc etc and pulled the loom through and to one side.
Then disconnected the throttle cable, clutch cable, rear earth strap and gearbox earth strap, king lead to dizzy and removed the strut brace.
Then a quick check round to make sure everything was disconnected (Have left fuel lines and PAS connected at the mo and will do those just before the engine is removed)
now its all ready to have the engine and box removed once i have picked up the engine hoist from Neal tomorrow.
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Sunday 24th June 2007 - Weather conditions = pissing it down!
Engine hoist picked up from Neal yesterday after the RR Sunny South Meet
So to it, engine and gearbox out (btw i hate that stupid bracket that connects the box and the rear engine mount)
With the gearbox removed from the engine there are no real obvious signs as to why its not engaging into gear but ... the white plastic piece that sits in the gearbox upon which the clutch release fork pivots on was worn away and you can see metal behind it
and some strange markings on the cover plate
when the clutch was removed from the engine, the friction plate looked fine and the clutch release bearing also looked in perfect condition.
So new parts have arrived from Renault
Just waiting on the clutch kit itself to be delivered now then it can all go back together
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Clutch kit arrived
new release fork, pivot bush and release bearing fitted
Dont forget the dummy bush into the flywheel!
engine and gearbox back together
and back in the bay
Thanks again go to Neal for use of his engine hoist
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July 14th 2007 - FCS 2007 -1 day
Clean!!
And the car at FCS 2007
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Quick update - October 6th 2007
Car now has new front brake discs and pads, new outer CV Gaitor on the passenger side fitted, reverse gear now fixed and working, exhaust rattle cured (was catching on the underside heat shield) and the odd grinding noise has been cured
[break="Bye Bye UCC"]
Stan came down today to pick it up, I will miss this car a lot, but funds from the sale are going towards the Maxi so its all good


I am sure Chet will start his own project thread with the continuing story of UCC
It was bought from fellow Retro-Renault member Digital Biscuit (Dave) who was selling it as he had bought himself a rather mint ph2 hatch.
So Neal and I went on a trip to bournemouth.
Neal turned up at mine at around noon, took delivery of his heater control panel, thumbscrews for rear lights and window for his pass door.
2 hours and 160 miles later and we are in bournemouth chatting to Dave
first impressions of the car made it look quite clean, no rust on the inner front arches or on the rear arches, no rust in the usual places on the bonnet.
Bonnet up and everything looks standard under there with the exception of how the throttle cable has been run, tie wrapped to the strut brace instead of the usual route round the front of the engine bay. good idea!
further inspection revealed that the drivers side front wing and the rear bumper are not original items, nor is the drivers side headlight, so i guess its had a little accident at some point.
also noticed a cable thats not normal running to the fan, its been wired up to a switch under the dash as the sender that controls the fan is not working, not a problem.
Interior of the car is in above average condition too but the drivers seat has the usual wear and tear to it, the remote plip also not working, again minor details as my hatch GYP will be donating its parts to this one.
Engine started first time on the key Smile
and for a 130,000 mile engine, it sounds very good, headgasket is defo on way out thou, tell tale signs of oil in the water and a lot of steam being produced by the exhaust.
Biting point on the clutch is very low but it has had a new clutch cable and clutch pedal.
Also the gearbox mount is knackered which caused some interesting vibrations and gear changes on the way home.
last real bad point on this car is the damn heater does not work!
the fan is fine but the heater matrix is up the creek so i froze my nuts off on the trip home.
Actual driving of the car is very smooth, suspension and brakes are spot on, the brakes are much better than GYP's and this is also a non abs r19.
no play on the column and the car ran true even if u took both hands off the wheel, no deviation to either side Smile
Pull away was very good, it accelerated quite happily and rapidly to 70 mph, althou it did have a vibration with it which is more than likely caused by the buggered gearbox mount.
only last thing about is that the rear reflector panel is non 16v, its the red one instead of the 16v smoked one, again not a problem because GYP will be donating its one.
The car is MOTed to april 2006 sand i am more than happy with it.
Thanks to Neal for the ride down to bournemouth, top fella!!


The car as it was when Neal and I went to pick it up.
Notice it has no aerial, no rear washer jet, red rear reflector plate, discoloured front indicators, standard ph2 alloys and a broken rear spoiler.
On the drive home noticed that the digi dash also did not work properly, the LCD has bled on it making it unreadable and also that a couple of the dash lights did not work, not a huge problem.
The next day i went over the car and made this list of jobs to do on UCC:
Head Gasket (its not gone yet but on its way)
Heater Matrix (+ coolant system flush)
Gearbox Mount
Change the instrument pods over
Change the seats over, leather from GYP to replace cloth seats in UCC
Cambelt, tensioner and idle pully (Dave had no idea when these were last changed on UCC)
Change the rear spoilers over (UCC's spoiler is damaged)
Sort the electrics for the radiator fan
sort the electrics for heated rear screen
sort the front fog lights out
change the rear bumper (One on UCC has had a bad spray job on it and u can see the original colour (red) coming thru under the blue paint)
change exhaust systems over (Standard coming off UCC and the stainless steel one from GYP onto UCC)
Oil and filter change
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To start with, some easy jobs
changed the standard ph2 alloys over for my 17's which came off my old mot failed ph2 hatch

changed the discoloured front indicators and swapped the side repeaters for the clear ones from the old hatch

this shot shows the difference between the indicators!

changed the rear reflector plate



and removed the broken rear spoiler

and replaced it with the one from the old hatch

small changes but it makes a whole lot of difference to the car!
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next out came the old cloth seats and replaced with the old hatchs leather ones




[break]
job after that was to change the digi dash
this is why it needed changing

a dodgy lcd which is a common fault on these
clocks removed

the two sets of clocks, the decent ones were donated yet again from my old hatch

fitted and working


then gave the car a bloody good wash
looking really nice now

[break]
Whilst i have been stripping my old hatch for parts, i have not really done any work on UCC but have been gathering all the parts required to get her sorted.
stainless steel & decat pipe from GYP, to be cleaned up and to be fitted to UCC

Head gasket set, rocker cover gasket, cambelt kit, clutch, all 3 engine mounts and an aux belt

Brand new fog lights, brand new header tank with brand new cap, oil filter and sump plug and various exhaust fittings

and some 'other' parts i have acquired
an ECU cover, an ignition module cover, both to be either polished or painted, Phase 3 dash switches and an 16S badge for the back of the car (Thanks to R19 16S from retro renault for the 16S badge, he found one on a scrapped 16S in France and sent me the badge)


Have also taken off the two front suspension struts with thier lowering springs off the old hatch and they are now also on UCC

and UCC at last has an aerial and a rear washer jet, both nabbed from gyp heh
[break]
Some stuff to smarten up the engine bay
Bought a ECU cover and a ignition module cover from Nick Hill of Hill Power
they come very rough and ready in ally, with all the weld beads still on them

so for the ultra smooth look, need to remove those beads

beads off and starting to clean up the rest of the cover

The ignition module cover

After a day of cleaning up the covers, using finer and finer grades of wet and dry to get a nice finish, the 1st coat of primer goes on

flatten off the primer and applied the 1st coat of colour


more flattening after that and continue to apply the top colour until i get the finish i want, then lacquer them

[break]
mot time for UCC soon came around so needed to sort out a couple of issues with it like the gearbox mount and fog lights.
The rear wiper, heated rear screen, rear fog light and the central locking had not worked since the day i bought it, one of those things that were put off because other stuff needed doing first.
Now the rear foglight and rear wiper are required items for the MOT so need to get those fixed.
did the usual and checked the fuses first, all ok, checked relays and again ok, checked the bulb and yep thats ok too, so has to be a dodgy earth in there, with the lights on i opened the rear hatch and BING, suddenly the rear fog was on, opened the hatch a little further and off it went, repeated that several times and the fog light was blinking on and off.
AHA! must be a dodgy earth i think . .
so i removed all the covers including the cover that keeps the wiring mounted inside the hatch, all the connectors were on properly, no corrosion on the heated screen connecters so i started wiggleing the loom and sure enough, the rear fog blinked as i shook the loom.
my conclusion was that there must be a dodgy wire somewhere in the loom, feeling down it i could feel a broken wire so i removed the insulation and was greeted with this!!

not one wire broken but several of them ( i have pulled them apart for the pic to show the damage)
i stripped the insualtion back further and found several more breaks in the wires.
so no prizes for guessing why the wiper, fog, etc dont work . .
So i cut the loom out of GYP and used that to replace the dodgy section on UCC

so now with the dodgy section replaced i now have a working rear heated screen, central locking motor, fog light and wiper

next job was to replace the feckered gearbox mount
so got the car jacked up, wheel off, axle stand under and sprayed the bolts with loads of WD40

got the first bolt halfway off when . . the heavens opened and it chucked it down with rain . . .
but i got lucky and half an hour later the sun came back out

so finished the job
Old mount out

old and new mounts


New mount fitted


another job done

UCC then went in for its MOT and went straight through and passed with no advisories

had a couple of last minute jobs to do first thing in the morning on it before she went down the MOT station, like the passenger side washer jets were not working so got a pin and cleared the nozzles and the front passenger side suspension struts top nut had come loose, so retightned that and also remembered to put the securing plate back onto the battery hehe.
UCC now also has GYPs front grille on it, the car came with this chicken mesh affair as you may just see from the first pic in this thread, tbh it did not look that bad with the bonnet closed but with it open it looked hideous!
UCC looks so much better now from the front with the proper grille back on her


So now the MOT is out of the way i fitted GYP's stainless steel exhaust and decat onto UCC and GYP's rear bumper onto UCC.
UCC's rear bumper was not an original item, all the paint was flaking off it and you could see its original colour, red, underneath the blue paint
much nicer now

[break]
Next it was time to tacklel FOUR major jobs that UCC required
1: Headgasket
2: Cambelt & Tensioners
3: Clutch
4: Engine Mounts (x2)
First thing i wanted to do is get the head off whilst the engine is still in the car.
Why?
because as i have no where to hold, stand the engine when its out of the car i figure it will be easier to undo the headbolts whilst its still bolted in
so to start with, i started the engine to warm it up whilst i jacked it up into the air and put it on axle stands.
With the engine warmed up, i shut it down and drained the oil (always best to drain the oil when its hot)
As the oil was draining i removed the strut brace, top and bottom cam belt covers and the rocker cover.
next job was to make sure all the timing marks were lined up before the head gets removed.
next was to release the alt and remove the aux belt, then undo the cam tensioner and remove the cam belt.
then i removed the top and bottom hoses and removed the radiator.
then off with all the electrical plugs and anything else thats attached to the head that will prevent its removal like the fuel lines etc.
At this point i got stuck . .
its easier to remove the head with the inlet and exhaust manifolds still attached to it but when i tried to remove the exhaust manifold to the downpipe nuts with a deep 13mm socket, they both rounded off!!
BUGGER!
so i had to do things the hard way and remove the exhaust manifold from the head by removing the seven 10mm nuts,
I gave them all a liberal dose of WD40 and went inside for a coffee and a smoke.
when i returned to the job, i got a pleasent surprise . . ALL NINE of the nuts came off dead easy, wow thats a first lol
so exhaust manifold off and the head was removed


Yep the headgasket had gone but had only just started to go, traces of oil in the header tank gave that away

So now its clean up the mating faces of the block and head ready for its new headgasket and prepare the block for removal from the car so i can do the clutch, engine mounts and of course the cambelt
Next step was to get the block out

this is so i can put a new clutch, waterpump, tensioners etc onto the engine

I also gave the engine bay a bloody good clean as well as the block
here it is covered in good old cillit bang lol

bottom end cleaned up with new water pump, lower idle pully and new oil filter fitted

removed the old clutch

and gave the flywheel a good clean
the old one does not look too bad but it was slipping so needed to be done

new clutch fitted

No its not out of alignment, its just the angle the picture was taken lol
next job to do whilst the engine is out is to replace the other two engine mounts


again the rear one did not look too bad but might as well exchange it now than later
new mounts fitted

and started to clean up the engine bay
Old parts

Gave the mating faces another good clean and fitted the new headgasket and replaced the head back onto the block with new head bolts
Engine back into the car



[break]
A few weeks after finishing the engine work i lost reverse gear on the hatch (in a garage forecourt of all places lol)
Not due to clutch problems or gearbox problems but all down to a tiny cable which had snapped.
As you know the gear lever has a pull up to select reverse, well this is done by using a little wire cable and this is what has snapped
So of course i need to remove the old one
This part is not essential, you should only need to remove the gaitor but i thought why not, means i can give the centre console a good clean up and also clean the carpet underneath it, as you can see from the below pic, how much crap was under it !

To remove the gear lever is fairly easy, get the car jacked up, undo the bolts that hold on the exhaust heatsheild to the bottom of the car and slide it backwards, then you can access the 4 x 13mm bolts that hold the gear lever assembly in place, make sure you also disconnect the gear lever return spring, then at the gearbox end, remove the rubber boot that covers the bolt that connects the selector rod to the gearbox and then undo the bolt.
It then all just falls out from under the car, BUT i would suggest if your car is fitted with a catalytic converter, you remove that as space will be cramped, mines got a decat pipe so space to remove the assembly was not an issue.
Here is the cable that snapped


A decent 2nd hand gear lever assembly was sourced from Chris H and fitted and now all gears are working

[break]
the next lot of work on the car saw the fitting of a drivers side driveshaft and hub.
Why?
Well the wheel bearing on that side has been squeaking for about a month, progresivly getting louder and louder and starting to affect the steering and also because there is a tiny little cut in the CV gaitor at the gearbox end of the driveshaft.
To save myself the hassle of getting a wheel bearing pressed in, i'm using the driveshaft and hub from the chammy i'm breaking, no need to take out the driveshaft from the hub then.
So first thing to do is loosen the wheel nuts on the front drivers side wheel, then jack the car up and get an axle stand under.
Remove the wheel.
next job is to bang out the roll pin out of the driveshaft, i always seem to have a problem with these but today, it just pinged out first time

next its off with the brake caliper, supporting it with a bit of wire or string to the suspension strut and off with the brake disc.
Then removed the trackrod end from the hub and first snag, the damn thing sheared off so now i've got another job to do and replace that

i see no point in using the one from the chammy as a new one is not that expensive and will also save a future job, so got to wait until after bank holiday to get one.
Then i remove the two bolts that hold the hub to the suspension strut then undo the lower ball joint bolts and remove them, this is why you take the track rod end out first. because now with the hub free of that and the strut, you can swivel it to access the bolts on the ball joints better.
With it all free, pull the hub away from the car and with a couple of jerks the whole thing comes out.

Then i did exactly the same thing with the chammy and fitted its hub and shaft to the hatch.
Make sure before you slide the shaft onto the gearbox splines that you have the hole for the roll pin lined up, slide the shaft on, bolt up the lower ball joint, bolt up the hub to the suspension strut, refit the track rod end to the hub (except i cant do this at the mo lol), refit the brake disc and caliper, put wheel back on and lower the car to the ground, job done

All back together:

You can see the trail of grease from the CV joint down the exhaust downpipe caused by the split gaitor

And now the bonus work of replacing the track rod end

Old and new side by side, the OE Renault one is quite a bit more solid looking and feeling, i guess thats one of the reasons OE parts are more expensive, the replacement was obtained from Euro Car Parts at just under £11 incl VAT.

Off

On

and job done!
[break]
Well UCC has now developed a rather annoying PAS Fluid leak, which was discovered on my way home from Brighton, was about 5 miles from home, approching a roundabout, went to take the roundabout and the steering was heavy as hell!
Got it home and every corner took an effort to get it round.
Popped the bonnet and PAS fluid was all under the radiator cowling and along the subframe, wonderful!
My first thoughts was that the PAS pump had cracked, i topped up the resovoir with fresh fluid, started the car and sure enough a jet of fluid seemed to be coming from the pump, where the main pipe is connected to it.
No problem, i had a spare pump so went about the task of swapping it out.
First things first, radiator out. then the PAS fluid resovoir was removed, then loosen the Aux belt and out with the alt.
Next loosen off the main pipe feed and removed the PAS pump complete with its bracket.

Chammys pump on the left, UCCs on the right

popped a new seal onto the main pipe and fitted the chammys pump

then refit the alt and all its various brackets

Refit the PAS Fluid resovoir and top it up

refitted the radiator, bled the cooling system and fired it up . . only to find, it's still leaking :cry:
Because whilst fitting the new pump i cleaned up the pipe etc, at least now i can see where its leaking!

Right where the arrow is, the PAS fluid is spraying from under the collar
so next job is to obtain and a fit a new pipe and hope that stops the leak!
[break]
Power steering is now all fixed and i don't mind admitting that fitting the replacement pipe was a bit of a battle.
Basicly it's remove the radiator and rad shroud, to make life easier unbolt the aux water pump and remove the plastic liner that runs along the top of the subframe.
Undo the 4 captive nuts that hold the PAS pipe in place (2 along the front of the subframe, the 2nd being right next to the aux water pump, the third is also on the subframe right under the gearbox and the 4th is at the back of the subframe just above the mount for the PAS rack)
Unbolt the downpipe from the manifold and cat / decat (which ever you have fitted) and swing it to one side, this allows access to the pipe unions on the rack itself)
You have to unbolt and move out of the way the two smaller pipes to get access to the main feed pipe, undo this union and the union at the pas pump and thread the old pipe out from under the car.
Its also wise to have something under the car to catch the pas fluid that pours out of the pipes when you undo them

As haynes would say, refitting is a reversal of removal but they don't say it's a damn pain in the arse to thread the main feed pipe back into place along the rear of the subframe.
bolt everything back together and top up the PAS resovoir.
refit the rad shroud and rad and bleed the cooling system.
Job done, my PAS is now fully operational again and to celebrate i took the car for a 180 mile round trip to bracknell and back, car never missed a beat

[break]
Well todays work (sunday 7th Jan 2007) was not planned but end result was another fully working system on the car.
I was bored last night so decided to take the 19 for a blast, well that did not happen as when i got into the car, nothing, no power from the battery what so ever, which was weird as it had only been used a few hours before with no starting problems what so ever.
As i was sitting in the car, a drop of water fell on my hand which was resting on the gearstick . . hmmmmmmm i thought, looked up the roof console and lo and behold, there was a few more drops of water waiting to fall!
I removed the bulb cover and found it full of water!
Now it had been raining all day here yesterday so seems i had sprung a leak from somewhere and the amount of water that had got in, had shorted out the plip sensor and the alarm ultrasonics unit!
Well, nothing i could do about it last night so checked it out today.
1st thing was to remove the battery and get it on charge.
Next pop off the roof console and have a look to see if it was easy to tell where the water was getting in.
It was not obvious so i got a bucket of water and threw it over the roof of the car.
Now it was obvious where i had sprung a leak, yep, where the aerial is bolted to the roof, the seal had gone and thats where the water was getting in (i had thought it was either the aerial or the sunroof)
Next was to unbolt the aerial and remove it, cleaned up the area around the hole and varnished it to prevent rust.
i then put a layer of mastic around the hole and around the edges of the bottom of the aerial and refitted it.
now the plip sensor and ultrasonics circuit were waterlogged and must have been happening to a lesser extent for a while as the copper tracks had a lot of corrosion.
Not a problem as i have loads of these spare.
So grabbed the spares along with the matching ecu (plip is coded to the ecu) and fitted them, changed the sender in the key fob and refitted everything.
I now have a fully working remote central locking system

It had never worked on the remote since i owned the car but now i have fitted matching fob, reciever and ecu, it all works

Battery charged and back on, and now 24 hours later, i am gonna go for that blast lol
24th Feb 2007
Passenger side track rod end fitted today and tracking done
reason for the new track rod end is that when i took the car in to get the tracking done, the mechanic could not free off the pass side track rod end to adjust it, so i took it to euro car parts, got a new pass side track rod end, went home, fitted it and 30 minutes later back at the garage to get my tracking done.
Mechanic was like ' ermmm told ya mate, cant do ya tracking til u got a new track rod end on it'
Told him it was done and he was like 'fucking hell, u dont hang around do ya!'
hehe
[break]
Saturday March 10th 2007
Took the car up to Hill Power today with the Renault Sports Club and had it put on the rollers.
The car has been a tad sluggish of late so i wanted to know why the power was down
Got it on the rollers and Nick Hill gave it 3 power runs, best of these 3 was 102.6 bhp at the wheels.
Nick shut off the rollers and peered under the bonnet, telling me at the same time he could not get full throttle out of it,e played with the throttle inkage on the throttle body and gave it another 3 runs.
Still could not get full throttle out of it but managed to get it up to 107.2 bhp at the wheels (128bhp at the flywheel)
Nick also said its running very lean!
Not bad for a 120,000 mile engine only 9 bhp down on standard.
Nick gave some advice on how to get the lost ponies back
A: New Throttle Cable (mine has apparently stretched)
B: Lose the induction kit and use the original airbox with a performance filter
C: Get the injectors cleaned, properly cleaned!
D: Change the Fuel Pump, for a fuel pump thats done 120,000 miles worth of work in its life, he reckons its not putting enough fuel pressure through the system, another reason why its running lean
Also a ignition system change out would also help it loads, New Plugs, HT Leads, Dizzy Cap and Rotor Arm
He reckons it should be up to 140bhp by doing this.
so in my opinon it was well worth the trip up to Hill Power to get the 19 rolling roaded, i now know why its not running at its full potential and how to get it sorted

Thanks to Nick Hill of Hill Power and thanks to Mick from RSC for organising the day
Some Pics




[break]
Well this should sort out the cars lack of power

which is being donated from this

A ph1 megane coupe 2.0 16v which was bought from ebay for £100!

I'll do a seperate report for the rebuild of the F7R
[break]
Well since i had the Car MOTed 2 weeks ago and the clutch cable snapping during the MOT i have been having issues getting the car going into gear.
After much fiddling about and a suspected knackered clutch release fork, i decided to bite the bullet and renew all the clutch components.
This of course means the gearbox at least needs to come out but i've decided it will prolly be less of a headache to remove the engine and box as a complete unit.
So today saw the preperation of the removal of box and engine
First job, disconnect the battery

wheels off, brake calipers unbolted and tie wrapped to the suspension struts, track rod ends unbolted and removed, lower ball joints unbolted from the wishbones and hubs unbolted from the suspension struts.
Drivers side drive shaft roll pin removed and shaft complete with hub and brake disc removed.
Plastic carton under pass side and removed the 3 bolts that hold the rubber seal to the gearbox, pulled the seal back slowly and let the gearbox oil drain, then removed that driveshaft


Next job under the car and unplugged the lambda sensor, unbolted the down pipe from the decat pipe and unbolted the down pipe from the exhaust manifold.
Then removed all the wires to the starter motor.
Then disconnected the gear linkage.

then back on top and removed the air filter, the expansion tank, radiator, various coolant hoses, radiator shroud and front grille (makes life a whole lot easier to see where to disconnect the alt wiring)

Then i unplugged the ECU, injector loom, alternator, cold start injector, oil level, CTS, ICV, etc etc and pulled the loom through and to one side.
Then disconnected the throttle cable, clutch cable, rear earth strap and gearbox earth strap, king lead to dizzy and removed the strut brace.

Then a quick check round to make sure everything was disconnected (Have left fuel lines and PAS connected at the mo and will do those just before the engine is removed)
now its all ready to have the engine and box removed once i have picked up the engine hoist from Neal tomorrow.


[break]
Sunday 24th June 2007 - Weather conditions = pissing it down!
Engine hoist picked up from Neal yesterday after the RR Sunny South Meet

So to it, engine and gearbox out (btw i hate that stupid bracket that connects the box and the rear engine mount)


With the gearbox removed from the engine there are no real obvious signs as to why its not engaging into gear but ... the white plastic piece that sits in the gearbox upon which the clutch release fork pivots on was worn away and you can see metal behind it

and some strange markings on the cover plate

when the clutch was removed from the engine, the friction plate looked fine and the clutch release bearing also looked in perfect condition.
So new parts have arrived from Renault

Just waiting on the clutch kit itself to be delivered now then it can all go back together
[break]
Clutch kit arrived


new release fork, pivot bush and release bearing fitted

Dont forget the dummy bush into the flywheel!

engine and gearbox back together

and back in the bay

Thanks again go to Neal for use of his engine hoist

[break]
July 14th 2007 - FCS 2007 -1 day
Clean!!



And the car at FCS 2007


[break]
Quick update - October 6th 2007
Car now has new front brake discs and pads, new outer CV Gaitor on the passenger side fitted, reverse gear now fixed and working, exhaust rattle cured (was catching on the underside heat shield) and the odd grinding noise has been cured

[break="Bye Bye UCC"]
Stan came down today to pick it up, I will miss this car a lot, but funds from the sale are going towards the Maxi so its all good


I am sure Chet will start his own project thread with the continuing story of UCC
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