Chris H
master of boobies
Ocotber 2004. Soneji needed rid of a 1.4 3 door phase 1 19. I said yes despite not having seen the car. It had failed its MOT on a multitude of things, like dashboard (I don't know why either), rear brakes, front brakes, wipers and so on, but not a thing in regards to corrosion.
So on the 9th of October I went through and collected the car. Before it could move I had some work to do.
The strut on the offside had 1 bolt in the manual rack holes and 1 in the power steering holes, soon had that sorted. I also had to work on the back brakes so they actually worked.
It was then that I saw the car had money spent on it. Soneji (George) had got the car for free as the previous owner to him had spent £2k trying to get the car to pass an MOT. New stuff included new front discs and pads, new rear shoes, service items and a new clutch.
Anyway the car was then fit for the drive back to Glasgow from Edinburgh. Managed 110 mph out of it eventually on the secret underground private motorway that links these two great cities.
I could tell the timing was way to retarded, it started fine but didn't like to rev, pull and it stalled when floored. So the carb also needed looked at.
The 10th, some pics I took.
The engine bay, note Georges ingenious IK fitment!



Base spec interior, ahh not seen one of these in a long time! Note no central air vents and the gear lever surround.

grey carpet as well. One major benefit of the seats is the fact it weighs less than half the weight of a 16V seats!

The back of the car, also before the slabs for the driveway were laid

The outside, unadulterated car loveliness, note kink in door, a transit van attack!

fo sho!

It was then onto the work.
First job was to sort the leaking and non adjusting rear brakes.

shoes etc all off

nice new shoes courtesy of a previous owner

shoes cleaned up, novelty kitchen roll shines a little light into the dark world for me...

the self adjusting mechanism and again new springs all cleaned up ready to go

assembled ready to go on the car

all shiny and neewwwww! like a virgin - wheel cylinder, bled for the very first tiimmme!

all back together, rear nearside brake as new!

[BREAK]
14th October 2004
Notice anything? No? Look again? Compare to above, there you go, yep 16V rear clusters

Wheel trims that came with the car fitted, these are gen Ren Megane trims, its amazing the difference a set of trims can make to a car.

Note cable tie hanging under the bumper, that stayed on the car for AGES, it used to annoy Amber which is pertly why I left it on truth be told.

Next day it was time to get the interior started.

note base spec gearknob and rubber gaiter!

The drivers door dropped a good inch or so when opened so new hinge pins were needed
Door off

closer shot

new hinge pin and door refitted

old worn pins compared to new pins

Next day again, time to 16V the rest of the interior, for some reason the pics are in a funny order
rear seats and door cards in

front door card


nearside not much sound deadening from the factory

offside loads of standard sound deadening

grey carpet out

16V black carpet fitted


16V front seat and gear lever surround fitted, note alarm loom hanging out from under the heater controls, promptly binned.

nice

The speedo cable jumped about, I had a look and it was missing the black and white bit, so spare ones fitted, jumping cured as well.

Also found this, broken vacuum feed.

it was repaired but never really made a difference to the cars running, there was still plenty wrong with it.
[BREAK]
A few days later, time to get into the running, valve gaps

inside the valve cover, not to bad tbh, I have seen then thick with gunge

the valve train - a piece of precision engineering and utmost accuracy, hmm

The bottom crank pulley was damaged, it had obviously been off before, you can just make out the ding

straightened out

heres a short very blurry vid of the engine running after the valves were adjusted, without the valve cover on
right click save as 218k
http://www.renault-turbo.com/chris/red 3 door/RED 3 door valve vid.mp4
[BREAK]
I had 16V alloys lying around spare so thought I'd stick em on. 13 inch steelies

ph1 16V alloys


The 13's went back on and stayed on until very recently.
The car as I said earlier wasn't running to clever, this was a few minutes running


I then jetwashed the engine as it was generally grubby and oily to go with it, poor pic but its a lot cleaner

then it was time to clean the cooling system up

heater matrix hoses removed from the pump

top rad hose off

the thermostat is in the top radiator hose on the C type engines

stat out

corroded stubs

wire brushed

new one fitted

[BREAK]
1st December 2004
I was really taking my time with this, I did however have other cars to repair and this car wasn't needed as my mum was using project Onion.
Anyway it was time to remove and strip the carb to get the accel pump working.
The engine bay, note the airbox had been refitted long ago as Soneji wanted his IK back

Airbox off

carb off, the pipes you see are for the carb base heating, theres a small thermostat that stops flow over 50 degrees, also note heat shield

carb off

heat shield off and view of the combined cast inlet and exhaust manifold, Note bolt in breather pipe as the breather stub was broken

nice oily heat shield

heat shield cleaned, super bling

heat shield fitted back on manifold

draining the carb of fuel, note fuel can, Ambers in case you can't tell, she's very embarrassed about her name on it

fibre spacer block gasket thingy

So the carb stripdown

manky



stripdown, the throttle body, you can see where the coolant pipes go

tb - main body gasket

throttle bracket

tb cleaned and going back together

main body without the TB

top removed from the main body

stripping down


carb top, the spike part, thats for the accel pump, it was blocked solid, I cleared it out of course



back together, much cleaner!




fitted back onto the car

as I had the cooling system stripped out I cleaned the header tank and rad

After that the car started and ran much better you could throttle it and it actually revved up instead of stalling.
So it was ready for the MOT. So took it round the block, coming back towards the house, I changed from 3rd into 4th, a nice smooth change, let the clutch out and bang.
Clutch had died! The car had only done about 200 miles at most since the clutch was changed by the previous owner.
I found out later whoever fitted the clutch had put the clutch plate in backwards thus it had fatigued it and it broke.
[BREAK]
2nd December 2004
the day after the clutch disaster. Time to strip the beast
offside shaft out

strut out, why? I don't know...

me underneath the car, note new front discs

bits

box selector cover and the bellhousing cover

speedo cable pulled out of the box

removed the alarm siren as well, you can see the 2 holes where it was screwed in

nearside driveshaft pulled

the front engine mount was broken

box out old clutch on flywheel

box

clutch removed

box again

I had noticed the brake pipe was flaking, removed the loose paint

cleaned it up

and Amber had some nail polish that was an exact match

The new clutch

fitting the clutch

ta-da!

new release bearing on the fork

poor pic but its of the starter heatshield on the C-type engine, solid metal


the old clutch

hard to see but in the spindle there was a groove worn in it!

you can see its not healthy

loads of life in the friction material

cover was worn as the old bearing had seized, not done many miles but was in the car for a while

Car drove fine after the clutch was replaced.
[BREAK]
So the car drove once again. However the alt light wouldn't go out.
Alternator wasn't putting out enough voltage, so alt off

easy job to remove it

back of the alt, rectifier bolts removed

cleaned the brushes up and 1 was jammed, freed it up and it sorted it out

Back to the interior. The rear lap belt was still the original grey one, not to good

black one fitted

grey non 16V parcel shelf support

black 16V one

the boot seal was also damaged as the pic shows, I replaced it, no pic of the new one though

[BREAK]
When doing the clutch I noted that whoever had done it before had lost the front stud so I had to fit another

screwing in a new stud

stud fitted

all sorted

The lower pinch bolt on the nearside had also broken so another was needed

replacement bolt

where it goes

fitted


The car then sat for about 3 weeks so needed another battery stuck in

[BREAK]
It was now the new year, January 2005.
The wiring to the coil needed some repair and it gave me a chance to clean the bulkhead as well. So off it all came

loom where it was repaired and taped back up


clean, its not orange in reality


As the car just sat for ages as it wasn't used the seat got some mould on it, lovely

the age old 2 dial display, rare to see these days

As I said earlier I fitted a new rad fan switch, heres a pic to prove it worked

[BREAK]
Anyway time to spec up!
The car as it came the basic of basic only had 2 speakers, both in the top of the dash. better rectify that.
So off with the passenger side trim to fit a gen ren rear speaker loom

As the interior was out I thought I'd pop out the window to clean it up

window seal which was cleaned up to as new condition

Door seal removed as well


after good clean



window refitted

door frame cleaned

shiny

Drivers sill was still to be done, quite a contrast though.

I then set about the drivers side loom, first out with the rear light

not good enough, better clean it up

this poor pic actually shows the car no having a boot light

the drivers side loom is quite involved as it does the rear lights, fuel tank sender handbrake light etc etc
this is where I left it that night, still had to fit the loom to the tank

this is the tank wiring, it leads from the hole in the boot floor to a hole under the rear seat the tanks also right against the floor so its very tight.

got it all fitted and heres the old basic loom out

I cleaned out the mud from the arch liner, there is a tech guide on this

The dash for the previous owner played up a lot, also one of the fail items on the mot. It was fine with me then it started to play up. So time to remove it





heater control panel removal


Anyway old dash out and new one in, no pics of the actual change but you can see the dash is a much better one

now with central vents


glovebox light, high rollers now

the dash needed a new aerial lead



support for the rear of the radio

fitted

radio fitted

rear speaker wires adapted to reach 6x9's that were lying around

[BREAK]
As you can see the front mount was dead

new (old) mount to go on

removing old mount

new one on

old mount

the car was missing the selector cover

no cover on

cover fitted

as the car hadn't driven under load the plugs were sooty so were cleaned up.

timing mark highlighted so I could sort the timing

could I find the timing light etc? nope so that was left to another day.
It needed a new balljoint as the other had a perished gaiter, no play as it was nearly seized solid!



well done


Then on to the oil change, who knew when the oil and filter was last changed
old filter

yes the filter was rusty!

new filter fitted

Then it was ready for the MOT.
[BREAK]
1st Feb 2005
Took it for its MOT test
I was in the car, this is a pic out of the car from up on the ramp whilst the tester was underneath it

out the other side

So did it pass? No. Yes I was even more disgusted than you. It failed on the nearside steering rack gaiter, each time the wheel turned it split more!
I had a new rack out the back on the sky blue 1.4's subframe so I just took the gaiter from that


the split gaiter


old gaiter off

rack was dry


lubed up


gaiter on

Went back down at 2pm and the car passed its MOT.
[BREAK]
So that was the beast MOT'd. The car was still not being used as it wasn't needed.
So there was plenty time to sort things out on it.
The 16V door cards had door speaker holes, the car had no door speakers.
However I had clio RT door speakers kicking about so I used them.
passenger side finished

drivers side
the hole

speaker fitted, note pikey wire set up, it was only meant to be temporary

I then turned to the engine to make it run better. Now I had not adjusted the timing as I never had a light, I should have just done it by ear/feel as I was going to, had to do it that way in the end to get it running perfect.
This was the points gap being adjusted

the dwell/tacho meter.

After I sorted out the timing the car was transformed, with the service, new plugs carb rebuild and timing adjustment it felt like there was another 20bhp available.
There was a funny noise after a test drive, a ping, I knew it would be a spring and I was right

[BREAK]
End of March 2005.
The car never came with the lower front arch liners, so I had to fit some.
First I had to remove what was left of the old liners securing srews, bits like these

no liner note previous owners damage to bottom of the bumper

the liner

inner securing bolt

fitted, much better!

the other side

before

after

I had already replaced the front mount but I got my hands on a better one

new one

subframe, bit flaky but solid

fitted, you can see despite it being a year or so old it was already cracking, still better than what was there.

[BREAK]
24th May 2005
Heater matrix hose pops

not impressed. go to the boot and the hinge pins snap!


not very impressed

So after a 2 day wait I get the pins from renault

had to punch out the remains of the broken pin

new pin fitted



the tailgate struts ball joints, I lubed em up to prevent squeaks

back on

To finish the job I fitted a retro sticker

Then it was on to fixing the heater hose, B&Q for some copper parts


on the car

Sorted.
[BREAK]
13th June 2005
The car was now being pressed into daily service as the Orion had sold.
New wheel bearing on the nearside

the wishbone bushes had some play in them and the balljoint had suffered badly for some reason


much better, note no ARB, it was never fitted to this model!

The car was then taken on a shake down run, covered nearly 400 miles in 1 day, went from Glasgow to Fort William, this pic was taken near Ben Nevis

Then over to Inverness and back via the Trossachs

Car behaved impeccably and was then pushed into daily service.
[BREAK]
27 July 2005
The drivers seat was missing the trim on the outer edge. The subframe was also iffy, it had been welded before at some point as well

broken subframe


trim on, still missing 1 bit though

Need to get a new subframe on there...
[BREAK]
19th August 2005
The car over the last week or so had started to randomly cut out and be difficult to start.
I poked about and it was the points and condenser, so new ones were bought

old points and condenser

you can see the wire was corroded

The fuel tank also started to leak if it was at half full.

old tank off

replacement tank from my 206k energy car

So that was the running sorted again and the fuel leak stopped, however this isn't that last we shall hear about fuel tank leaks...
[BREAK]
The standard 16V radio had been fitted for a while and my mum was using the car and she liked the stereo remote so it was fitted



differences between the remote and non remote stalk holder

remote

all back together

Time to fit the central locking
loom and locking mechanism

the pikey wire and standard blanking plug grommets

crude but it worked fine

door loom fitted

central locking mech and standard one on the right

central locking button fitted to dash

loom and clips in the door

dodgy rotten clio speaker

drivers door done

The car had been broken into at some point, there was glass in it when I changed the carpet and this convincing bulge on the window seal led the detective team to the fact thsi is where it happened.

corroded seal

the bulge

this was all cleaned up

dent sorted

new seal fitted

all back on

I then fitted the boot loom and the locking motor

the central locking relay

Then it was time to convert the mirrors to electric ones.
manual part removed

loom fitted

mirror platform fitted

all done

I also had a passenger side window regulator, so this was fitted

The cable was broken, so I used the manual windows cable on the leccy one

fitted to the door

16V speaker door pocket fitted

[BREAK]
1st November 2005
Fuel tank sprang a new leak, it was sorted with re-positioning the hose and tightening it up

The rear dampers were original and probably done, I had 16V ones to go on so fitted them

not to healthy

the top mount

16V top and 1.4 old one bottom

16V damper fitted

drivers side put up a fight

had to get stuck in

dirvers side old and new ones

Popped the cover on the torsion bar to see how bad the were, not to bad, another case of we shall see more of this later!

drivers side

Car as expected handled better with the 16V rear shocks.
[BREAK]
21st November 2005
The car never had a rev counter, in fact it never had any gauges apart from fuel and speedo. I swapped the display as you say earlier which allowed it to show engine temp, well after I put a new bit of loom on the engine it did. Time for a tacho though!
new one at the back

the wiring plugs

After I put in a bit of wiring to the coil the tacho worked

idle, a wee bit low

the black wire leaving the coil went to the brown dash loom plug

The carb and breather was missing this T piece for a while, eventually got one from renault

how it was running


new T piece fitted


I also got a drivers side leccy window reg from Wicked Neo

time to fit it

window reg fitted

all fitted

need to fit the glass

Also the heater matrix decided to leak so had to get a new one

[BREAK]
14th December 2005
Time to do the matrix. So the dash came off again!

the heater box removed


the bonnet release handle was broken when I had the trim off before so I changed it

filled an alarm cable hole with silicone


new matrix hose stubs

So the matrix was sorted, as was the bonnet cable and all was well.
[BREAK]
For some reason the car must have been perfect from December to the end of March 2006
30th March 2006
I got colour coded red wing mirrors with the Black Executive, so I fitted these, really smartened up the outside

The car then took a trip down south to help out Doc
The trip finished off the backbox!
It was very loud coming home with it. Also the trip had removed some of the black pinstripe on the car, so it was removed fully on both sides.
This is with the stripe

stripe off

Whilst in England - somewhere we got an exhaust repair, it never lasted

gone at the backbox as well

big hole, the support bracket used to be here

after a wire brushing at the backbox

so I chopped a bit of metal from an old cat heatshield up

tried to clean the pipe up without making more holes

patch welded on, lol

terrible, but it done the job

slap a load of paste on just to be sure


So the exhaust was fitted and working again. But not for long.
2 weeks later and about 400 miles on the exhaust broke, so it was papped in the boot

short vid of how it sounded with no backbox
right click save as 2.6mb
http://www.renault-turbo.com/chris/red 3 door/red 3 door no back box.MOV
The 1.2 Clio was sorted out so that was pressed into service and this car was left to be sorted by me.
[BREAK]
A few ideas were in the works, I first planned to turbo the 1.4 engine as it was basically a GTT engine.
Then something happened so I bought a new backbox and stuck it on along with a spare wheel carrier.
9/6/06
note cable ties, these were replaced with the rubbers a day later when they came in.

Then things changed again and I was back to turbo idea. I then obtained an RSI engine in exchange for some work I done.
In the end I took neither of these routes.
I will do another report on the turbo and RSI adventures.
11th July 2006
The exec has just been stropped and the two people that wanted the engine pulled out for different reasons (pyscho ex and money) so I was left with a 16V engine.
The RSI engine had its loom repaired by me, but to make it fit in the 19 as I wanted it I needed to buy stuff, that was going to blow my budget of zero right out the water.
So I sorted out the problems the exec engine had
The oil leak from the top end was caused by someone before using the wrong size cam seal!
sealant used to try and bridge the gap
oil pump pulley removed
crank pulley
tensioner and idler
I bet it took longer to put this sealant on that ordering the right bits.
seals and sealant out
old seals.
clean the hole
fit the right seal, job done!
Put that back together after it was cleaned, much cleaner!

The dodgy wire I fitted to the exec for the oil light had done its job but it was time to fix properly

so new wire was let in to all the damaged areas.
[BREAK]
27th July 2006
So it was time to prepare the car for the conversion.
I first popped the 16V backbox on just to see what it looked like, great is the answer, I love it, 80's chrome dustbin look!


I pulled the front bumper off as well to free up the subframe bolts, they got a good soak in penetrating fluid

I swapped the black 16V belts and the exec door cards over into the car

I had to sort out the wiring as the carbed engine never had a fuel pump feed to the back etc.
I had a 16V rear loom, could I find where I put it? No, I did of course find it the day after! Typical.
So I had to make it, using this old dash loom I got the best and thickest wires to do my fuel pump wiring

The fuel pump plug just happened to be the same size as the ph1 dash looms sidelight dim dip resistors. It also had nice thick wiring on it as well, so was good enough for the pump.

the white wire is the starter solenoid feed wire from the dash (thick) the black wire is the main dash earth wire.

the wire fitted into the standard plug as standard

run in the clips

wire runs through the channel then to the tank wires grommet, the earth runs to the rear panel earth as standard.

[BREAK]
It needed the EFI tank so it could have the fuel pump, again from the black exec

fuel pump sock, cleaner than expected

hard to see in this pic, but pinhole leaks, no option have to use it

16V efi fuel lines and charcoal canister

my fuel pump power feed wire on the right

Tank was fitted as well the lines etc.
Had to leave the car and fix others for a few days.
3rd August 2006
Time to get cracking.
Steering column pinch bolt needed removed

manual rack column removed

the front subframe was removed from the exec. Why? Well the subframe is stronger than the 1.4's. it was in better condition, it also had everything bolted to it, the 16V wishbones are longer giving the 16V's a wider track

I then had to drop the red cars subframe and engine etc out


the pikey way I had to use to get the car up high enough so I could pull the frame and engine out - all by myself no less!

the manual and power steering columns side by side, the manual one if the lower longer one

this is the clutch cable where it goes into the bulkhead to the pedal, as you can see the grommet was split, so I stuck another cable in

a pic looking up from inside the bay

the column gaiter fitted to the bulkhead

the rear subframe mounting point, I cleaned this up

the cleaned as new efi fuel lines where they enter the engine bay

I needed to fit the fuel filter and bracket, I had a nice new filter for the job.



the proper bracket fitted

the front subframe was mounted and it now had nice 16V brakes instead of its crappy original bendix calipers

charcoal canister fitted

PS oil cooler etc fitted

[BREAK]
8th August 2006
The plan was to make the car acceptable to me, which meant making it factory, that involved moving the master cyl reservoir etc
this pic shows the servo vacuum pipe and plastic brackets, all 16V now, the 1.4 just had a rubber hose

old reservoir removed and 16V pipe adaptors fitted

all sorted, apart from the reservoirs bracket.

The air inlet was originally on the nearside inner wing

for the 16V I only had the ph2 rad surround so that meant slam panel air inlet instead of the ph1's rad surround air inlet, I also had to fit the captive screw things

screwed in, just need to wait for the airhose and airbox

I then bolted all the stuff up to make sure it would all go, looking good

the nearside calliper got a new hose as well

The next day was the planned engine install day
[BREAK=16V running]
9th August 2006 (next day)
right click save as 2.7meg (bit tappy as it hadn't been run in well over a month)
http://www.renault-turbo.com/chris/red 3 door/red 16V running 01.MOV
right click save as 1.4 meg
http://www.renault-turbo.com/chris/red 3 door/red 16V running 02.MOV
engine bay pics


no airbox on yet


10th August 2006
So I had a small problem




It had newish mounts, new clutch, new points, ran sweet, had everything, good engine only done 90k! tried to sell it, then tried to give it away. Eventually I just fitted it to the exec!
Anyway airbox fitted to the car
right click save as 2.7meg
http://www.renault-turbo.com/chris/red 3 door/red 16V running airbox.MOV
The engine bay with the airbox. The airbox wasn't easy to fit, due to the fact the 16V headlights are different the box and bracket actually touch the headlight! It fits but its tight!

I had to sort out the brake reservoir bracket. I wanted the stock look and thats what I got. I drilled holes in the bulkhead and put bolts in from the back, totally standard to look at.



And heres what it looked like

[BREAK]
11th August 2006
Some more pics of it, just to prove I really did do it!






The clio had been sold so it was now and still is my mums primary mode of transport.
19th August 2006
The car decided it would make its aux water pump work, wouldn't go off though, took the relay out and this is why

cleaned it up seemed to work for a bit and has now gone back to not working. Oh well.
My mum bought a buffing machine, so I decided to try it out as the car is quite faded, right half buffed left not

buffed part

non buffed half!

i finished the bonnet off and got bored, so left it! lol
I then fitted the ph1 wheels with Toyo's from my chamade to the car, much better than the ph2's that were on it.

I also got my NEW front drivers seat subframe so fitted that

lovely! I have to thank Doc for getting me it, I forgot about it on ebay, but he got it for me, top man!

[BREAK]
20th August 2006
My mum put a tenner in the tank and this happened

the leak had got a lot worse

So we all went out in the car for a nice wee run to Loch Lubnaig and the surrounding area, car behaved perfectly of course

need to get a tank though.
24th August 2006
I lowered the back end a tad to get it sitting better.


theres more pics and a vid in the lowering tech article.
The only problem with the car was I used a straight through midsection and it rubbed slightly and was very annoying, I also had a normal mid section so I put that on instead and the heatshields

I also added chemical metal to the tank, it helped a lot. It considerably cut down the smell of petrol

[BREAK]
19th September 2006
I done a compression test on the engine

perfect across the engine. Well happy, I knew it was a good 16V lump, only slight problem is its slightly tappety if left for a few days.
Another engine bay shot, cos I like it

I also got around finally to fitting the leather, exec leather, lovely



Bling! Pure pimping gangsta.
26th September 2006
I bought 4 new tyres to fit to the car as I wanted my toyos back on the chammy and 1 of the toyos keeps going down due to a rim leak. Last thing I wanted was my mum driving ona flat tyre and ruining the tyre or worse yet smashing the car!
Top Performer, from mytyres.net, £100 for the 4 delivered, bargain! I would have gone for the toyos but was skint.


My best condition alloys for the tyres

tyres fitted and on the car

Now that the tyres have been on and driven on they are slightly noisier than the Toyos but are very, very good for the money. The toyos are better but these are a lot better than I expected.
[BREAK]
9th October 2006
Finally the exec's dash was to be fitted.
Old dash out


gotta love the leather

ph2 door handles, speaker grilles and window switches now


the dash in


oil pressure gauge works now


Interiors great, darker than darth vaders helmet.
12th October 2006
I won a nice new shiny tank on Ebay, including delivery it was £52, bargain!

sender and pump fitted

old tank

some rust inside

holes

new tank fitted

[BREAK]
Car had been working perfectly up until last week, it had been tricky to start apparently then on Friday about 2 mins before I had to leave for the airport to go to Ireland it refused to start.
I came home last night and checked it today.
CTS had failed resulting in no fuel being injected, stuck another CTS on it and all seems well now.
20th January 2007
I finally bought and fitted a new CTS to replace the used one I had fitted as a temp measure back in December.
Idling after start up is more stable as its no longer saying its warm causing the lambda to be read and at the other end of the scale when in heavy traffic the car no longer has an occasional stutter.
The car also passed its MOT with flying colours last weekend (13th January), emissions were a pleasing 0% CO, HC 35ppm and Lambda 1.01. An exceptional figure you'll agree.
[BREAK]
April 2007
Chet sent me a non sunroof plip console, turns out it uses another headlining, anyway its a gap about a 5th of the size of the sunroof consoles, good enough really.

Cars fine apart from the air inlet temp sender, currently its unplugged (defaults to 25deg) and its running much better, got another sensor on its way.
[BREAK]
Wednesday 2nd May 2007
Well my mum killed the engine.
170 mile journey with frequent bursts of fierce acceleration and sustained high load driving (illegal speeds) and the AIT sensor being disconnected (defaults to 25 degrees) whilst the actual air temp was about half that lead to it running lean and basically it melted.
So that was a fun 170 miles tow home by my sisters laguna.
[BREAK]
Sunday 20th May 2007
Dougal (u33db) was down and brought me some goodies, like a new steering wheel for the red car.
The wheel on it was 16V but the leather grips were gone as I removed them as they were hanging off. So it looked like this

and now this one has mint leather grips, although the paints peeling, will sort that later

[BREAK]
Monday the 21st May 2007
I decided to start the strip down to remove the engine tonight. All thats left is nearside shaft, mountings, ps pump and the gear link rod. So the lump will be pulled out tomorrow.
I removed the downpipe and cat, I was expecting some evidence of the lean running and I got some!
Heres the best pics of the downpipe to manifold flange



As you can see its ran very lean as we all knew.
That should all be black and sooty in a normally running car, as you can see its white and pretty much all carbon has gone due to the lean and very hot exhaust gasses. The back part of the cat is also now spotless :lol:
[BREAK]
Tuesday 22nd May 2007 A.D. and T-minus 2 days till my birthday :lol:
Today I whipped out the engine, nothing exciting but got some pics anyway.
Look at how high its sitting with no engine in it, also pretty clean for not being washed in about 2 months, the other side has been attacked badly by bird crap though, note sexy ph1 alloys.

I can't put my finger on it but theres something missing in there...

Engine bay needs a good clean

Old destroyed shaft yields its cv joint so I can move the car without worrying about the bearing breaking up. The wishbones only been on about 2 months and the discs not looking to healthy either.

Anyway hopefully next week it will be running again, as hopefully this Saturday I will be getting my engine
[BREAK]
26th May 2007
My mum, Steve101 and myself hire a van and head down to Catterick.
It seems an 03 plate semi hi cab transits upper limit is 105mph.
We got there mid afternoon and it was time to extract the engine. Andrew had drained the fluids aside from the coolant and done the exhaust etc.
So we just had to lift it out and disconnect the shafts etc.
Andrew in action doing the nearside shaft

me looking for the meaning of life in the engine bay

its a classy car...

me doing a camp hand movement, note facial hair, a sign of manhood

Wee Steve about to stomp that ground

Andrew thinking wtf do I do now? :lol:


this point I was talking Andrew into going under to undo the mount bolts

me holding the spanner form the top

Engine then came out, went for food and headed home.
[BREAK]
28th May 2007
Righty today was the day that I started to sort out the engine ready to be swapped into the car.
For those that don't know this engine used to be mine until I sold it to Doc a few years back, it was in an old ph1 hatch I had, good engine when I sold it, needed a bit of TLC when I got it back though!
As you can see it was a bit rough now!

the lifting eye snapped off

I sold this engine to Andrew with that filter on it, its at its youngest 5 years old!

Everything stripped off in readiness for a blasting clean

Water pump was fecked so off it came

yep, every core plug was holed, you can also make out the cracked box casing where the rear mount bolts to

holed core plug

after a quick rinse

clutch off

much cleaner

other water pump fitted, not new but as new

this is the box out of the red car, the ph2 box, that little chap is the release fork pivot bush. You can't see it easily here but its almost worn right through, the box that was in Doc's car the bush WAS worn right through. Oil in there was from a rocker gasket leak where it had run down the side of the head in the bellhousing

new bush

I also managed top get a big and I mean BIG oil filter. As you all know they used to have big filters (80mm) then they reduced them all to the 50mm ones, this bad boys a 100mm job!

I then decided I want the engine back in. I knew I could try to pikey it. I knocked the plugs out of both engines, the shiny ones are from the exec engine and the rotten ones are off this new (yet my old lol) engine

This is the nearside core plug hole on the exec engine. Yes thats a load of rusty shite, that was in the radiator until the high speed running shifted it to the lowest flow area, i.e. the rear of the coolant jacket

this is the worst bit on the new engine, all flushed out now of course

Anyway I knew they'd leak, I said to myself and anyone within ear shot they'll fecking leak. I tried as best I could and stretched them back out and smeared sealant on them.
Slapped the lump back in as I really didn't want it out overnight again as the weathers bad. Put it in connected it all back up and started it, first time it fired up and ran nicely, the oil pressure built quick and the tappets went quiet in a few seconds. The gauge doesn't work though (its the sender). Anyway I chucked water in and sure enough a little dribble, so I revved it and they popped. I knew it'd happen so wasn't to bothered about it really.
The new core plugs will arrive tomorrow at renault so will fit them at some point. I can safely say due to dicking about I will not be getting 5 months tax back on the chammy!
[BREAK]
31st May 2007
This morning I walked down here via Renault (nice 6/7 mile stroll) and collected the core plugs

After the rain finally stopped it was time to get into action. I jacked the beast up to pull the offside shaft out, there lying on the subframe was one of the core plugs :lol:
So then instead of removing the engine I removed the shaft, starter, and exhaust manifold and downpipe.
I then had a clear view to do the job.
The plug on the left is new the one in the middle was just about to be replaced

All 3 core plugs fitted and the oil pressure sender swapped over from the ph2 lump.

Everything seems to be sorted now. We went out for a drive down the motorway, everything is solid and smooth etc. Oil pressure is right up there, new engine stuff, the joy of the big oil filter.
I took a short vid showing the great pressure, this was after about 45 mins of running
right click save as 5.8 meg
http://www.renault-turbo.com/chris/red 3 door/red ph1 engine.MOV
[break]
2008
Well the car is still perfect and needs to be MOT'd so will get that done asap.
Took a pic of the beast the other day which turned out well, here it is in its unreduced glory.
Note ding on wing from window cleaner - prick and same on my chammy rear 1/4!
Looks good for not being washed in about 6 months!

[break]
23rd February 2008
Passed the MOT today. Got two advisories on it,
Handbrake effort 26% needs to be 25% to pass
offside front brake low effort (but passed)
I knew the handbrake was an issue as it was fine then about a month ago it came right up as the adjuster wound itself off, so easy fix.
The front calliper will get worked back and forth as its just sticky, then again thats what happens when cars sit around un-used.
Anyway apart from that it sailed through of course. Its still down at the work as I want to bend the exhaust as the ph2 bumpers exhaust outlet is slightly over and as such the ph2 exhaust isn't in the middle of the ph1's cut out, so will sort that and clean the underside and polish it.
[break]
Well as of the 9th of May the car has gone to a new home.
The car was sold to Chet for a fair price. So its now registered in Ireland and Chets using it.
I trust he'll look after it and will have many years of faithful service from it.
So on the 9th of October I went through and collected the car. Before it could move I had some work to do.
The strut on the offside had 1 bolt in the manual rack holes and 1 in the power steering holes, soon had that sorted. I also had to work on the back brakes so they actually worked.
It was then that I saw the car had money spent on it. Soneji (George) had got the car for free as the previous owner to him had spent £2k trying to get the car to pass an MOT. New stuff included new front discs and pads, new rear shoes, service items and a new clutch.
Anyway the car was then fit for the drive back to Glasgow from Edinburgh. Managed 110 mph out of it eventually on the secret underground private motorway that links these two great cities.
I could tell the timing was way to retarded, it started fine but didn't like to rev, pull and it stalled when floored. So the carb also needed looked at.
The 10th, some pics I took.
The engine bay, note Georges ingenious IK fitment!



Base spec interior, ahh not seen one of these in a long time! Note no central air vents and the gear lever surround.

grey carpet as well. One major benefit of the seats is the fact it weighs less than half the weight of a 16V seats!

The back of the car, also before the slabs for the driveway were laid

The outside, unadulterated car loveliness, note kink in door, a transit van attack!

fo sho!

It was then onto the work.
First job was to sort the leaking and non adjusting rear brakes.

shoes etc all off

nice new shoes courtesy of a previous owner

shoes cleaned up, novelty kitchen roll shines a little light into the dark world for me...

the self adjusting mechanism and again new springs all cleaned up ready to go

assembled ready to go on the car

all shiny and neewwwww! like a virgin - wheel cylinder, bled for the very first tiimmme!

all back together, rear nearside brake as new!

[BREAK]
14th October 2004
Notice anything? No? Look again? Compare to above, there you go, yep 16V rear clusters

Wheel trims that came with the car fitted, these are gen Ren Megane trims, its amazing the difference a set of trims can make to a car.

Note cable tie hanging under the bumper, that stayed on the car for AGES, it used to annoy Amber which is pertly why I left it on truth be told.

Next day it was time to get the interior started.

note base spec gearknob and rubber gaiter!

The drivers door dropped a good inch or so when opened so new hinge pins were needed
Door off

closer shot

new hinge pin and door refitted

old worn pins compared to new pins

Next day again, time to 16V the rest of the interior, for some reason the pics are in a funny order
rear seats and door cards in

front door card


nearside not much sound deadening from the factory

offside loads of standard sound deadening

grey carpet out

16V black carpet fitted


16V front seat and gear lever surround fitted, note alarm loom hanging out from under the heater controls, promptly binned.

nice

The speedo cable jumped about, I had a look and it was missing the black and white bit, so spare ones fitted, jumping cured as well.

Also found this, broken vacuum feed.

it was repaired but never really made a difference to the cars running, there was still plenty wrong with it.
[BREAK]
A few days later, time to get into the running, valve gaps

inside the valve cover, not to bad tbh, I have seen then thick with gunge

the valve train - a piece of precision engineering and utmost accuracy, hmm

The bottom crank pulley was damaged, it had obviously been off before, you can just make out the ding

straightened out

heres a short very blurry vid of the engine running after the valves were adjusted, without the valve cover on
right click save as 218k
http://www.renault-turbo.com/chris/red 3 door/RED 3 door valve vid.mp4
[BREAK]
I had 16V alloys lying around spare so thought I'd stick em on. 13 inch steelies

ph1 16V alloys


The 13's went back on and stayed on until very recently.
The car as I said earlier wasn't running to clever, this was a few minutes running


I then jetwashed the engine as it was generally grubby and oily to go with it, poor pic but its a lot cleaner

then it was time to clean the cooling system up

heater matrix hoses removed from the pump

top rad hose off

the thermostat is in the top radiator hose on the C type engines

stat out

corroded stubs

wire brushed

new one fitted

[BREAK]
1st December 2004
I was really taking my time with this, I did however have other cars to repair and this car wasn't needed as my mum was using project Onion.
Anyway it was time to remove and strip the carb to get the accel pump working.
The engine bay, note the airbox had been refitted long ago as Soneji wanted his IK back

Airbox off

carb off, the pipes you see are for the carb base heating, theres a small thermostat that stops flow over 50 degrees, also note heat shield

carb off

heat shield off and view of the combined cast inlet and exhaust manifold, Note bolt in breather pipe as the breather stub was broken

nice oily heat shield

heat shield cleaned, super bling

heat shield fitted back on manifold

draining the carb of fuel, note fuel can, Ambers in case you can't tell, she's very embarrassed about her name on it

fibre spacer block gasket thingy

So the carb stripdown

manky



stripdown, the throttle body, you can see where the coolant pipes go

tb - main body gasket

throttle bracket

tb cleaned and going back together

main body without the TB

top removed from the main body

stripping down


carb top, the spike part, thats for the accel pump, it was blocked solid, I cleared it out of course



back together, much cleaner!




fitted back onto the car

as I had the cooling system stripped out I cleaned the header tank and rad

After that the car started and ran much better you could throttle it and it actually revved up instead of stalling.
So it was ready for the MOT. So took it round the block, coming back towards the house, I changed from 3rd into 4th, a nice smooth change, let the clutch out and bang.
Clutch had died! The car had only done about 200 miles at most since the clutch was changed by the previous owner.
I found out later whoever fitted the clutch had put the clutch plate in backwards thus it had fatigued it and it broke.
[BREAK]
2nd December 2004
the day after the clutch disaster. Time to strip the beast
offside shaft out

strut out, why? I don't know...

me underneath the car, note new front discs

bits

box selector cover and the bellhousing cover

speedo cable pulled out of the box

removed the alarm siren as well, you can see the 2 holes where it was screwed in

nearside driveshaft pulled

the front engine mount was broken

box out old clutch on flywheel

box

clutch removed

box again

I had noticed the brake pipe was flaking, removed the loose paint

cleaned it up

and Amber had some nail polish that was an exact match

The new clutch

fitting the clutch

ta-da!

new release bearing on the fork

poor pic but its of the starter heatshield on the C-type engine, solid metal


the old clutch

hard to see but in the spindle there was a groove worn in it!

you can see its not healthy

loads of life in the friction material

cover was worn as the old bearing had seized, not done many miles but was in the car for a while

Car drove fine after the clutch was replaced.
[BREAK]
So the car drove once again. However the alt light wouldn't go out.
Alternator wasn't putting out enough voltage, so alt off

easy job to remove it

back of the alt, rectifier bolts removed

cleaned the brushes up and 1 was jammed, freed it up and it sorted it out

Back to the interior. The rear lap belt was still the original grey one, not to good

black one fitted

grey non 16V parcel shelf support

black 16V one

the boot seal was also damaged as the pic shows, I replaced it, no pic of the new one though

[BREAK]
When doing the clutch I noted that whoever had done it before had lost the front stud so I had to fit another

screwing in a new stud

stud fitted

all sorted

The lower pinch bolt on the nearside had also broken so another was needed

replacement bolt

where it goes

fitted


The car then sat for about 3 weeks so needed another battery stuck in

[BREAK]
It was now the new year, January 2005.
The wiring to the coil needed some repair and it gave me a chance to clean the bulkhead as well. So off it all came

loom where it was repaired and taped back up


clean, its not orange in reality


As the car just sat for ages as it wasn't used the seat got some mould on it, lovely

the age old 2 dial display, rare to see these days

As I said earlier I fitted a new rad fan switch, heres a pic to prove it worked

[BREAK]
Anyway time to spec up!
The car as it came the basic of basic only had 2 speakers, both in the top of the dash. better rectify that.
So off with the passenger side trim to fit a gen ren rear speaker loom

As the interior was out I thought I'd pop out the window to clean it up

window seal which was cleaned up to as new condition

Door seal removed as well


after good clean



window refitted

door frame cleaned

shiny

Drivers sill was still to be done, quite a contrast though.

I then set about the drivers side loom, first out with the rear light

not good enough, better clean it up

this poor pic actually shows the car no having a boot light

the drivers side loom is quite involved as it does the rear lights, fuel tank sender handbrake light etc etc
this is where I left it that night, still had to fit the loom to the tank

this is the tank wiring, it leads from the hole in the boot floor to a hole under the rear seat the tanks also right against the floor so its very tight.

got it all fitted and heres the old basic loom out

I cleaned out the mud from the arch liner, there is a tech guide on this

The dash for the previous owner played up a lot, also one of the fail items on the mot. It was fine with me then it started to play up. So time to remove it





heater control panel removal


Anyway old dash out and new one in, no pics of the actual change but you can see the dash is a much better one

now with central vents


glovebox light, high rollers now

the dash needed a new aerial lead



support for the rear of the radio

fitted

radio fitted

rear speaker wires adapted to reach 6x9's that were lying around

[BREAK]
As you can see the front mount was dead

new (old) mount to go on

removing old mount

new one on

old mount

the car was missing the selector cover

no cover on

cover fitted

as the car hadn't driven under load the plugs were sooty so were cleaned up.

timing mark highlighted so I could sort the timing

could I find the timing light etc? nope so that was left to another day.
It needed a new balljoint as the other had a perished gaiter, no play as it was nearly seized solid!



well done


Then on to the oil change, who knew when the oil and filter was last changed
old filter

yes the filter was rusty!

new filter fitted

Then it was ready for the MOT.
[BREAK]
1st Feb 2005
Took it for its MOT test
I was in the car, this is a pic out of the car from up on the ramp whilst the tester was underneath it

out the other side

So did it pass? No. Yes I was even more disgusted than you. It failed on the nearside steering rack gaiter, each time the wheel turned it split more!
I had a new rack out the back on the sky blue 1.4's subframe so I just took the gaiter from that


the split gaiter


old gaiter off

rack was dry


lubed up


gaiter on

Went back down at 2pm and the car passed its MOT.
[BREAK]
So that was the beast MOT'd. The car was still not being used as it wasn't needed.
So there was plenty time to sort things out on it.
The 16V door cards had door speaker holes, the car had no door speakers.
However I had clio RT door speakers kicking about so I used them.
passenger side finished

drivers side
the hole

speaker fitted, note pikey wire set up, it was only meant to be temporary

I then turned to the engine to make it run better. Now I had not adjusted the timing as I never had a light, I should have just done it by ear/feel as I was going to, had to do it that way in the end to get it running perfect.
This was the points gap being adjusted

the dwell/tacho meter.

After I sorted out the timing the car was transformed, with the service, new plugs carb rebuild and timing adjustment it felt like there was another 20bhp available.
There was a funny noise after a test drive, a ping, I knew it would be a spring and I was right

[BREAK]
End of March 2005.
The car never came with the lower front arch liners, so I had to fit some.
First I had to remove what was left of the old liners securing srews, bits like these

no liner note previous owners damage to bottom of the bumper

the liner

inner securing bolt

fitted, much better!

the other side

before

after

I had already replaced the front mount but I got my hands on a better one

new one

subframe, bit flaky but solid

fitted, you can see despite it being a year or so old it was already cracking, still better than what was there.

[BREAK]
24th May 2005
Heater matrix hose pops

not impressed. go to the boot and the hinge pins snap!


not very impressed

So after a 2 day wait I get the pins from renault

had to punch out the remains of the broken pin

new pin fitted



the tailgate struts ball joints, I lubed em up to prevent squeaks

back on

To finish the job I fitted a retro sticker

Then it was on to fixing the heater hose, B&Q for some copper parts


on the car

Sorted.
[BREAK]
13th June 2005
The car was now being pressed into daily service as the Orion had sold.
New wheel bearing on the nearside

the wishbone bushes had some play in them and the balljoint had suffered badly for some reason


much better, note no ARB, it was never fitted to this model!

The car was then taken on a shake down run, covered nearly 400 miles in 1 day, went from Glasgow to Fort William, this pic was taken near Ben Nevis

Then over to Inverness and back via the Trossachs

Car behaved impeccably and was then pushed into daily service.
[BREAK]
27 July 2005
The drivers seat was missing the trim on the outer edge. The subframe was also iffy, it had been welded before at some point as well

broken subframe


trim on, still missing 1 bit though

Need to get a new subframe on there...
[BREAK]
19th August 2005
The car over the last week or so had started to randomly cut out and be difficult to start.
I poked about and it was the points and condenser, so new ones were bought

old points and condenser

you can see the wire was corroded

The fuel tank also started to leak if it was at half full.

old tank off

replacement tank from my 206k energy car

So that was the running sorted again and the fuel leak stopped, however this isn't that last we shall hear about fuel tank leaks...
[BREAK]
The standard 16V radio had been fitted for a while and my mum was using the car and she liked the stereo remote so it was fitted



differences between the remote and non remote stalk holder

remote

all back together

Time to fit the central locking
loom and locking mechanism

the pikey wire and standard blanking plug grommets

crude but it worked fine

door loom fitted

central locking mech and standard one on the right

central locking button fitted to dash

loom and clips in the door

dodgy rotten clio speaker

drivers door done

The car had been broken into at some point, there was glass in it when I changed the carpet and this convincing bulge on the window seal led the detective team to the fact thsi is where it happened.

corroded seal

the bulge

this was all cleaned up

dent sorted

new seal fitted

all back on

I then fitted the boot loom and the locking motor

the central locking relay

Then it was time to convert the mirrors to electric ones.
manual part removed

loom fitted

mirror platform fitted

all done

I also had a passenger side window regulator, so this was fitted

The cable was broken, so I used the manual windows cable on the leccy one

fitted to the door

16V speaker door pocket fitted

[BREAK]
1st November 2005
Fuel tank sprang a new leak, it was sorted with re-positioning the hose and tightening it up

The rear dampers were original and probably done, I had 16V ones to go on so fitted them

not to healthy

the top mount

16V top and 1.4 old one bottom

16V damper fitted

drivers side put up a fight

had to get stuck in

dirvers side old and new ones

Popped the cover on the torsion bar to see how bad the were, not to bad, another case of we shall see more of this later!

drivers side

Car as expected handled better with the 16V rear shocks.
[BREAK]
21st November 2005
The car never had a rev counter, in fact it never had any gauges apart from fuel and speedo. I swapped the display as you say earlier which allowed it to show engine temp, well after I put a new bit of loom on the engine it did. Time for a tacho though!
new one at the back

the wiring plugs

After I put in a bit of wiring to the coil the tacho worked

idle, a wee bit low

the black wire leaving the coil went to the brown dash loom plug

The carb and breather was missing this T piece for a while, eventually got one from renault

how it was running


new T piece fitted


I also got a drivers side leccy window reg from Wicked Neo

time to fit it

window reg fitted

all fitted

need to fit the glass

Also the heater matrix decided to leak so had to get a new one

[BREAK]
14th December 2005
Time to do the matrix. So the dash came off again!

the heater box removed


the bonnet release handle was broken when I had the trim off before so I changed it

filled an alarm cable hole with silicone


new matrix hose stubs

So the matrix was sorted, as was the bonnet cable and all was well.
[BREAK]
For some reason the car must have been perfect from December to the end of March 2006
30th March 2006
I got colour coded red wing mirrors with the Black Executive, so I fitted these, really smartened up the outside

The car then took a trip down south to help out Doc
The trip finished off the backbox!
It was very loud coming home with it. Also the trip had removed some of the black pinstripe on the car, so it was removed fully on both sides.
This is with the stripe

stripe off

Whilst in England - somewhere we got an exhaust repair, it never lasted

gone at the backbox as well

big hole, the support bracket used to be here

after a wire brushing at the backbox

so I chopped a bit of metal from an old cat heatshield up

tried to clean the pipe up without making more holes

patch welded on, lol

terrible, but it done the job

slap a load of paste on just to be sure


So the exhaust was fitted and working again. But not for long.
2 weeks later and about 400 miles on the exhaust broke, so it was papped in the boot

short vid of how it sounded with no backbox
right click save as 2.6mb
http://www.renault-turbo.com/chris/red 3 door/red 3 door no back box.MOV
The 1.2 Clio was sorted out so that was pressed into service and this car was left to be sorted by me.
[BREAK]
A few ideas were in the works, I first planned to turbo the 1.4 engine as it was basically a GTT engine.
Then something happened so I bought a new backbox and stuck it on along with a spare wheel carrier.
9/6/06
note cable ties, these were replaced with the rubbers a day later when they came in.

Then things changed again and I was back to turbo idea. I then obtained an RSI engine in exchange for some work I done.
In the end I took neither of these routes.
I will do another report on the turbo and RSI adventures.
11th July 2006
The exec has just been stropped and the two people that wanted the engine pulled out for different reasons (pyscho ex and money) so I was left with a 16V engine.
The RSI engine had its loom repaired by me, but to make it fit in the 19 as I wanted it I needed to buy stuff, that was going to blow my budget of zero right out the water.
So I sorted out the problems the exec engine had
The oil leak from the top end was caused by someone before using the wrong size cam seal!


sealant used to try and bridge the gap

oil pump pulley removed

crank pulley

tensioner and idler

I bet it took longer to put this sealant on that ordering the right bits.

seals and sealant out

old seals.

clean the hole

fit the right seal, job done!

Put that back together after it was cleaned, much cleaner!

The dodgy wire I fitted to the exec for the oil light had done its job but it was time to fix properly

so new wire was let in to all the damaged areas.
[BREAK]
27th July 2006
So it was time to prepare the car for the conversion.
I first popped the 16V backbox on just to see what it looked like, great is the answer, I love it, 80's chrome dustbin look!


I pulled the front bumper off as well to free up the subframe bolts, they got a good soak in penetrating fluid

I swapped the black 16V belts and the exec door cards over into the car

I had to sort out the wiring as the carbed engine never had a fuel pump feed to the back etc.
I had a 16V rear loom, could I find where I put it? No, I did of course find it the day after! Typical.
So I had to make it, using this old dash loom I got the best and thickest wires to do my fuel pump wiring

The fuel pump plug just happened to be the same size as the ph1 dash looms sidelight dim dip resistors. It also had nice thick wiring on it as well, so was good enough for the pump.

the white wire is the starter solenoid feed wire from the dash (thick) the black wire is the main dash earth wire.

the wire fitted into the standard plug as standard

run in the clips

wire runs through the channel then to the tank wires grommet, the earth runs to the rear panel earth as standard.

[BREAK]
It needed the EFI tank so it could have the fuel pump, again from the black exec

fuel pump sock, cleaner than expected

hard to see in this pic, but pinhole leaks, no option have to use it

16V efi fuel lines and charcoal canister

my fuel pump power feed wire on the right

Tank was fitted as well the lines etc.
Had to leave the car and fix others for a few days.
3rd August 2006
Time to get cracking.
Steering column pinch bolt needed removed

manual rack column removed

the front subframe was removed from the exec. Why? Well the subframe is stronger than the 1.4's. it was in better condition, it also had everything bolted to it, the 16V wishbones are longer giving the 16V's a wider track

I then had to drop the red cars subframe and engine etc out


the pikey way I had to use to get the car up high enough so I could pull the frame and engine out - all by myself no less!

the manual and power steering columns side by side, the manual one if the lower longer one

this is the clutch cable where it goes into the bulkhead to the pedal, as you can see the grommet was split, so I stuck another cable in

a pic looking up from inside the bay

the column gaiter fitted to the bulkhead

the rear subframe mounting point, I cleaned this up

the cleaned as new efi fuel lines where they enter the engine bay

I needed to fit the fuel filter and bracket, I had a nice new filter for the job.



the proper bracket fitted

the front subframe was mounted and it now had nice 16V brakes instead of its crappy original bendix calipers

charcoal canister fitted

PS oil cooler etc fitted

[BREAK]
8th August 2006
The plan was to make the car acceptable to me, which meant making it factory, that involved moving the master cyl reservoir etc
this pic shows the servo vacuum pipe and plastic brackets, all 16V now, the 1.4 just had a rubber hose

old reservoir removed and 16V pipe adaptors fitted

all sorted, apart from the reservoirs bracket.

The air inlet was originally on the nearside inner wing

for the 16V I only had the ph2 rad surround so that meant slam panel air inlet instead of the ph1's rad surround air inlet, I also had to fit the captive screw things

screwed in, just need to wait for the airhose and airbox

I then bolted all the stuff up to make sure it would all go, looking good

the nearside calliper got a new hose as well

The next day was the planned engine install day
[BREAK=16V running]
9th August 2006 (next day)
right click save as 2.7meg (bit tappy as it hadn't been run in well over a month)
http://www.renault-turbo.com/chris/red 3 door/red 16V running 01.MOV
right click save as 1.4 meg
http://www.renault-turbo.com/chris/red 3 door/red 16V running 02.MOV
engine bay pics


no airbox on yet


10th August 2006
So I had a small problem




It had newish mounts, new clutch, new points, ran sweet, had everything, good engine only done 90k! tried to sell it, then tried to give it away. Eventually I just fitted it to the exec!
Anyway airbox fitted to the car
right click save as 2.7meg
http://www.renault-turbo.com/chris/red 3 door/red 16V running airbox.MOV
The engine bay with the airbox. The airbox wasn't easy to fit, due to the fact the 16V headlights are different the box and bracket actually touch the headlight! It fits but its tight!

I had to sort out the brake reservoir bracket. I wanted the stock look and thats what I got. I drilled holes in the bulkhead and put bolts in from the back, totally standard to look at.



And heres what it looked like

[BREAK]
11th August 2006
Some more pics of it, just to prove I really did do it!






The clio had been sold so it was now and still is my mums primary mode of transport.
19th August 2006
The car decided it would make its aux water pump work, wouldn't go off though, took the relay out and this is why

cleaned it up seemed to work for a bit and has now gone back to not working. Oh well.
My mum bought a buffing machine, so I decided to try it out as the car is quite faded, right half buffed left not

buffed part

non buffed half!

i finished the bonnet off and got bored, so left it! lol
I then fitted the ph1 wheels with Toyo's from my chamade to the car, much better than the ph2's that were on it.

I also got my NEW front drivers seat subframe so fitted that

lovely! I have to thank Doc for getting me it, I forgot about it on ebay, but he got it for me, top man!

[BREAK]
20th August 2006
My mum put a tenner in the tank and this happened

the leak had got a lot worse

So we all went out in the car for a nice wee run to Loch Lubnaig and the surrounding area, car behaved perfectly of course

need to get a tank though.
24th August 2006
I lowered the back end a tad to get it sitting better.


theres more pics and a vid in the lowering tech article.
The only problem with the car was I used a straight through midsection and it rubbed slightly and was very annoying, I also had a normal mid section so I put that on instead and the heatshields

I also added chemical metal to the tank, it helped a lot. It considerably cut down the smell of petrol

[BREAK]
19th September 2006
I done a compression test on the engine

perfect across the engine. Well happy, I knew it was a good 16V lump, only slight problem is its slightly tappety if left for a few days.
Another engine bay shot, cos I like it

I also got around finally to fitting the leather, exec leather, lovely



Bling! Pure pimping gangsta.
26th September 2006
I bought 4 new tyres to fit to the car as I wanted my toyos back on the chammy and 1 of the toyos keeps going down due to a rim leak. Last thing I wanted was my mum driving ona flat tyre and ruining the tyre or worse yet smashing the car!
Top Performer, from mytyres.net, £100 for the 4 delivered, bargain! I would have gone for the toyos but was skint.


My best condition alloys for the tyres

tyres fitted and on the car

Now that the tyres have been on and driven on they are slightly noisier than the Toyos but are very, very good for the money. The toyos are better but these are a lot better than I expected.
[BREAK]
9th October 2006
Finally the exec's dash was to be fitted.
Old dash out


gotta love the leather

ph2 door handles, speaker grilles and window switches now


the dash in


oil pressure gauge works now


Interiors great, darker than darth vaders helmet.
12th October 2006
I won a nice new shiny tank on Ebay, including delivery it was £52, bargain!

sender and pump fitted

old tank

some rust inside

holes

new tank fitted

[BREAK]
Car had been working perfectly up until last week, it had been tricky to start apparently then on Friday about 2 mins before I had to leave for the airport to go to Ireland it refused to start.
I came home last night and checked it today.
CTS had failed resulting in no fuel being injected, stuck another CTS on it and all seems well now.
20th January 2007
I finally bought and fitted a new CTS to replace the used one I had fitted as a temp measure back in December.
Idling after start up is more stable as its no longer saying its warm causing the lambda to be read and at the other end of the scale when in heavy traffic the car no longer has an occasional stutter.
The car also passed its MOT with flying colours last weekend (13th January), emissions were a pleasing 0% CO, HC 35ppm and Lambda 1.01. An exceptional figure you'll agree.
[BREAK]
April 2007
Chet sent me a non sunroof plip console, turns out it uses another headlining, anyway its a gap about a 5th of the size of the sunroof consoles, good enough really.

Cars fine apart from the air inlet temp sender, currently its unplugged (defaults to 25deg) and its running much better, got another sensor on its way.
[BREAK]
Wednesday 2nd May 2007
Well my mum killed the engine.
170 mile journey with frequent bursts of fierce acceleration and sustained high load driving (illegal speeds) and the AIT sensor being disconnected (defaults to 25 degrees) whilst the actual air temp was about half that lead to it running lean and basically it melted.
So that was a fun 170 miles tow home by my sisters laguna.
[BREAK]
Sunday 20th May 2007
Dougal (u33db) was down and brought me some goodies, like a new steering wheel for the red car.
The wheel on it was 16V but the leather grips were gone as I removed them as they were hanging off. So it looked like this

and now this one has mint leather grips, although the paints peeling, will sort that later

[BREAK]
Monday the 21st May 2007
I decided to start the strip down to remove the engine tonight. All thats left is nearside shaft, mountings, ps pump and the gear link rod. So the lump will be pulled out tomorrow.
I removed the downpipe and cat, I was expecting some evidence of the lean running and I got some!
Heres the best pics of the downpipe to manifold flange



As you can see its ran very lean as we all knew.
That should all be black and sooty in a normally running car, as you can see its white and pretty much all carbon has gone due to the lean and very hot exhaust gasses. The back part of the cat is also now spotless :lol:
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Tuesday 22nd May 2007 A.D. and T-minus 2 days till my birthday :lol:
Today I whipped out the engine, nothing exciting but got some pics anyway.
Look at how high its sitting with no engine in it, also pretty clean for not being washed in about 2 months, the other side has been attacked badly by bird crap though, note sexy ph1 alloys.

I can't put my finger on it but theres something missing in there...

Engine bay needs a good clean

Old destroyed shaft yields its cv joint so I can move the car without worrying about the bearing breaking up. The wishbones only been on about 2 months and the discs not looking to healthy either.

Anyway hopefully next week it will be running again, as hopefully this Saturday I will be getting my engine
[BREAK]
26th May 2007
My mum, Steve101 and myself hire a van and head down to Catterick.
It seems an 03 plate semi hi cab transits upper limit is 105mph.
We got there mid afternoon and it was time to extract the engine. Andrew had drained the fluids aside from the coolant and done the exhaust etc.
So we just had to lift it out and disconnect the shafts etc.
Andrew in action doing the nearside shaft

me looking for the meaning of life in the engine bay

its a classy car...

me doing a camp hand movement, note facial hair, a sign of manhood

Wee Steve about to stomp that ground

Andrew thinking wtf do I do now? :lol:


this point I was talking Andrew into going under to undo the mount bolts

me holding the spanner form the top

Engine then came out, went for food and headed home.
[BREAK]
28th May 2007
Righty today was the day that I started to sort out the engine ready to be swapped into the car.
For those that don't know this engine used to be mine until I sold it to Doc a few years back, it was in an old ph1 hatch I had, good engine when I sold it, needed a bit of TLC when I got it back though!
As you can see it was a bit rough now!

the lifting eye snapped off

I sold this engine to Andrew with that filter on it, its at its youngest 5 years old!

Everything stripped off in readiness for a blasting clean

Water pump was fecked so off it came

yep, every core plug was holed, you can also make out the cracked box casing where the rear mount bolts to

holed core plug

after a quick rinse

clutch off

much cleaner

other water pump fitted, not new but as new

this is the box out of the red car, the ph2 box, that little chap is the release fork pivot bush. You can't see it easily here but its almost worn right through, the box that was in Doc's car the bush WAS worn right through. Oil in there was from a rocker gasket leak where it had run down the side of the head in the bellhousing

new bush

I also managed top get a big and I mean BIG oil filter. As you all know they used to have big filters (80mm) then they reduced them all to the 50mm ones, this bad boys a 100mm job!

I then decided I want the engine back in. I knew I could try to pikey it. I knocked the plugs out of both engines, the shiny ones are from the exec engine and the rotten ones are off this new (yet my old lol) engine

This is the nearside core plug hole on the exec engine. Yes thats a load of rusty shite, that was in the radiator until the high speed running shifted it to the lowest flow area, i.e. the rear of the coolant jacket

this is the worst bit on the new engine, all flushed out now of course

Anyway I knew they'd leak, I said to myself and anyone within ear shot they'll fecking leak. I tried as best I could and stretched them back out and smeared sealant on them.
Slapped the lump back in as I really didn't want it out overnight again as the weathers bad. Put it in connected it all back up and started it, first time it fired up and ran nicely, the oil pressure built quick and the tappets went quiet in a few seconds. The gauge doesn't work though (its the sender). Anyway I chucked water in and sure enough a little dribble, so I revved it and they popped. I knew it'd happen so wasn't to bothered about it really.
The new core plugs will arrive tomorrow at renault so will fit them at some point. I can safely say due to dicking about I will not be getting 5 months tax back on the chammy!
[BREAK]
31st May 2007
This morning I walked down here via Renault (nice 6/7 mile stroll) and collected the core plugs

After the rain finally stopped it was time to get into action. I jacked the beast up to pull the offside shaft out, there lying on the subframe was one of the core plugs :lol:
So then instead of removing the engine I removed the shaft, starter, and exhaust manifold and downpipe.
I then had a clear view to do the job.
The plug on the left is new the one in the middle was just about to be replaced

All 3 core plugs fitted and the oil pressure sender swapped over from the ph2 lump.

Everything seems to be sorted now. We went out for a drive down the motorway, everything is solid and smooth etc. Oil pressure is right up there, new engine stuff, the joy of the big oil filter.
I took a short vid showing the great pressure, this was after about 45 mins of running
right click save as 5.8 meg
http://www.renault-turbo.com/chris/red 3 door/red ph1 engine.MOV
[break]
2008
Well the car is still perfect and needs to be MOT'd so will get that done asap.
Took a pic of the beast the other day which turned out well, here it is in its unreduced glory.
Note ding on wing from window cleaner - prick and same on my chammy rear 1/4!
Looks good for not being washed in about 6 months!

[break]
23rd February 2008
Passed the MOT today. Got two advisories on it,
Handbrake effort 26% needs to be 25% to pass
offside front brake low effort (but passed)
I knew the handbrake was an issue as it was fine then about a month ago it came right up as the adjuster wound itself off, so easy fix.
The front calliper will get worked back and forth as its just sticky, then again thats what happens when cars sit around un-used.
Anyway apart from that it sailed through of course. Its still down at the work as I want to bend the exhaust as the ph2 bumpers exhaust outlet is slightly over and as such the ph2 exhaust isn't in the middle of the ph1's cut out, so will sort that and clean the underside and polish it.
[break]
Well as of the 9th of May the car has gone to a new home.
The car was sold to Chet for a fair price. So its now registered in Ireland and Chets using it.
I trust he'll look after it and will have many years of faithful service from it.
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