Albi R27 452/500 (UPDATE 09.01.2013)

[INZ 18]

I've thought about them in the past, but I think why do I want to keep them completely un touched for the next owner to enjoy? I've spent a lot of money on them so I may aswell get the value outta them.

Could say the same with bothering to look after the cars body and paint with waxing/polishing the paint for the next owner.

I guess its all down to the urge to keep things as good as possible!

 

[jmaxphotography]

Update 06.07.2014

As I was writing my last update I was interrupted by the door bell and I was greeted by a delivery driver with a selection of parcels for me.

Obviously I had a fair idea what was in them, but I still couldn’t wait to get them open. (Yes it was like Christmas arriving yet again)

A pair of dimpled and grooved discs from MTEC Brakes.

The smaller package was a set of Mintex Racing pads to compliment the discs.

I felt that when I was replacing the fronts it would be rude not to replace the rears at the same time, as the pads had never been done on the car. So a set of Mintex MDB1377 were also purchased.

Unfortunately yet more money had to be spent, this time in the form of a pair of axel stands from Halfords.

Yesterday saw me getting around to fitting the discs and pads to the car.

As you can see, the standard discs in place for the last time.

Found a good jacking point on the car that would give the best chance of getting the axel stands in place.

Cars hopefully not going to move anywhere now.

Wheel removed and just a quick check to make sure I know what I need to do.

Trying to punch the brake pins out. They were extremely hard to get moving and were by far the most time consuming part of the job.

Onto removing the calipers.

Cable tied out of the way, so they and the brake line don’t get damaged.

Now onto removing the disc. With the screws out it did take several good hits with a mallet to get them off.

Now for a wee clean up with a wire brush.

New discs in place.

Calipers now also back in place.

Pins and pads finally removed, thanks to giving the penetrating oil some time to work its magic.

Copper grease added to the new pads.

Everything now fixed firmly back in place.

The front pads had definitely seen better days. One of them even fell apart when being removed from the car.

And in typical Northern Irish fashion, when I had one side done it decided to rain on us and halt play for a bit.

The above process was then repeated for the driver side of the car, before moving onto the rear pads.

These definitely hadn’t seen the light of day since being put in place in the factory.

Copper grease added to the hub, to make removing the wheel a bit easier in future.

Everything now back in place and hopefully will give me better stopping power than what was in the car before.

The rear pads really had no life left in them, I’m just glad I chose to replace them when doing the fronts.

Now its just a matter of taking my time to run the discs and pads in, before seeing how good they really are lol.

I noticed last night that the thread on my gear know is starting to fray a bit, might have to look into a replacement.

Happy to see this figure appearing on the computer, it’ll be interesting to see what it truly works out at when I come to refill the car.

As always, I look forward to hearing your comments.

John

 

[jmaxphotography]

Update 07.07.2014

So after it being pointed out to me that I had a made a rookie mistake (god knows how I did this but I’m going to put it down to being distracted by the brake pins) I was up and at it early this morning to swap the discs round.

All good to go now.

I’m surprised more people didn’t pick up on it.

John

 

[jmaxphotography]

Update 09.07.2014

With sending a bit more time on the car over the past couple of weeks I’ve decided to get a bit more anal with my cleaning, so I decided to focus a bit more on the door shuts.

Also I noticed a bit of polish had got trapped in against the edge of the kick plates.

So off it came.

And yes, I’ve been on eBay again lol.


First up is a footrest pedal, as I had purchased one of these for the 200, I felt why not do the same for the R27 (yes I know, better late than never).

Next up is some replacement brake pad pins as I managed to damage the ones currently in the car when changing the discs and pads. Hopefully get a chance to fit these toward the weekend.

I also got fed up with trying to line the wheels up, so I bumped into this wee tool and thought I’d treat myself.

Seeing as it was a pretty straightforward job I decided to fit the footrest pedal last night.

As always, comments are welcome.

John

 

[Knuckles]

I thought the disks were on backwards but didn't want to say anything lol. Who told you?

 

[jmaxphotography]

I thought the disks were on backwards but didn't want to say anything lol. Who told you?

One of the guys over on clio197.net. Apparently it doesn't really matter what way their on though as the Megane 250 has same disc for different sides so the slots are different side to side.

 

[jmaxphotography]

Update 10.07.2014

So the OCD levels are continuing to soar, this time it was onto the pedal. Having put my new footrest in place it made me realize how dirty the pedals of the car were, and how they always seem to get over looked.

First off I decided to give the pedals a scrub with some soapy water and a stiff brush.

As you can see the difference straight away is great.

Next stage was to polish the pedals up a bit with some good old-fashioned Autosol. As you can see below I think it made a massive difference.

Now that I was happy with how the pedals were looking, the next stage of my OCD switched to the front grills.

With the grills now removed I thought I would let them soak in some soapy water to try and break down the dressing that had been applied to them over the years.

The soapy water didn’t seem to be having much effect, so my next idea was to apply some alcohol to them, and it seemed to help a bit.

My attention then turned to tidying up the front of the car, where the grills normally are. I simply did this with some warm water with some Wolfs White Satin Shampoo in it.

As good as new.

This is how the grills are currently sitting. I might treat them again with some alcohol and try to get rid of the last remains of the dressing.

Now that I have the grills at this level, I’m just wondering should I attempt painting them or just redress them and put them back in the car…

As always, any help and comments are welcome.

John

 

[JonC219]

In my opinion it would be better to treat them with a nano coating such as Gtechniq C4

 

[jmaxphotography]

In my opinion it would be better to treat them with a nano coating such as Gtechniq C4

Think I'm going to do the mirrors with Gtechniq C4, but have decided just to paint the grills.

 

[jmaxphotography]

Update 11.07.2014

The air freshener in the car was due to be changed and it just so happened that Auto Express were doing reviews on different products.

I haven’t been happy with the California Scents for quite some time now as I don’t think they last even half of the 60 days that they talk about so I decided to follow Auto Expresses review and go for the Refresh In Your Car Gel.

I’ll let you all know how it works out compared to the California Scents.

Now onto the more important part of the update.

My first act of the day was to get the grills ready to be painted black.

I had some Halfords Plastic Primer in a drawer from some previous painting I’d done many moons ago.

So I got stuck into painting the grills.

While I was waiting for the primer to dry I took a trip to my nearest Halfords store to get some matt black paint.

While I was there I also purchased some Ambersil Auto Groom. I’ll use this at a later date, and all will become clear as to why I bought it.

Oh and for those who are loving the high MPG figures I’ve been getting recently, try this one on for size lol.

Now that I was home and the primer was still drying on the grills I thought it would be the perfect time to change the brake pins over. SO I placed the car onto axel stands and set to work.

As you can see the calipers took a bit of a battering when trying to get the pins out when I was changing the pads.

Thankfully the pins came out a bit easier this time around.

It was now time to clean the calipers up so I could really access the damage.

With the damage accessed it was time to start the touching in, first the passenger side.

Then the driver side.

I’m sure you’ll agree their already looking a lot better.

Now that the primer had time to dry I had a quick look around for any blemishes or runs in the paint. Unfortunately I found a couple so I decided to lightly sand them down.

My trusty touchup paint for the Brembos, ready for another coat.

With the second coat applied I decided that they were really looking as good as they were going to get, so it was time to move onto fitting the new brake pins.

Old pins

New pins

A little bit of grease applied to the pins, to hopefully make them a bit easier to remove in the future.

And in place, looking even better than the originals.

Time to try out on of my purchases from earlier in the week, my alloy wheel fitting alignment tool.

It meant I didn’t have to get as low to make sure the wheel was lined up, so I guess it worked.

Wheels back in place and good to go again.

As you can see it was a lovely warm day to be spending outside working on the car.

Now that the grills have had a bit of time to dry and are ready for the matt black paint to be applied, it was time to get to work.

First coat applied.

How it’s looking after the first coat had at least an hour to dry.

Close ups show that a second coat will definitely be needed.

I then applied the second coat.

At this point I then decided to leave it for the night and see how they look in the morning, at which point I’ll apply at least one more coat to them.

As always, comments are welcome.

John

 

[H444YDN]

Love all the work your doing. Stupid question, I haven't had my 197 for long but how do you get the clock in the centre to say "renault".

Thanks

 

[jmaxphotography]

Love all the work your doing. Stupid question, I haven't had my 197 for long but how do you get the clock in the centre to say "renault".

Thanks

Thanks very much H444YDN, I'm nearly sure it came up with the Renault on the display as a result of changing the head unit.

 

[H444YDN]

Thanks very much H444YDN, I'm nearly sure it came up with the Renault on the display as a result of changing the head unit.

Changed mine in the past but it's never done that. I have seen a few like this before but never knew how haha.

Bit OCD with the cleaning like me

 

[Matt e]

satin black will be better than matt black

 

[jmaxphotography]

Update 12. 07.2014

I couldn’t wait to see how the grills were looking this morning, so even before I had my breakfast I went out to check on the.

As you can see from the close ups there was still the odd light patch showing through, so a third coat was definitely going to be needed.

Before setting into the painting of the grills, another matter needed my attention. Northern Ireland being Northern Ireland, sees a lot of bonfires on the night of the 11[SUP]th[/SUP] July, so I was greeted by a car covered in ash this morning.

Thanks to the car being wet before the ash had fallen, all I had to do was simply hose it off.


Now back to the painting of the grills.


To try and make it easier to reach the spots I’d previous been unable to paint, I wedged a small piece of wood under the grill so it was at a slight angle.

With the third coat now I applied I just had to leave the grills to dry and keep my fingers crossed that they would turn out how I had hoped.

As you can see from the pictures below, everything is looking good so far.

The car really doesn’t need to go anywhere over the next couple of days, so I can give the grills plenty of time to dry out before refitting them to the car.

As always, comments are welcome.

John

 

[jmaxphotography]

Update 14.07.2014

Yesterday was the day a lot of my recent work had been building towards, finally getting the front grills back into the car.

Before I could put the grills back in the car I wanted to give it a quick wash. However I was greeted by the usual problems with the stickers when I went out to move the car.

I don’t think the spots are caused by polish or anything else we do to the cars; I think it’s caused by something in the atmosphere/rain. As the car has been perfectly fine up until now, I think its possibly something that has entered the atmosphere and comes down in the rain.

Two buckets, with Wolfs White Satin Shampoo in one of them and warm water in the other.

A quick hose down.

And my Bilt Hamber Auto Mitt, which I’m loving.

Car now washed and dried.

Time to fit the grills. I was really cautious when doing this, because although I know the grills had come out of the car it really didn’t seem like they wanted to go back in. You need to have a bit of faith that nothing will go wrong and be quite firm with them to get them back into place.

Now that their fitted I’m sure you’ll agree they look great.

A sneaky shot in Belfast last night.

As it rained last night I thought I’d get a few shots of them this morning to show how the water sits on them.

I’m over the moon with how they’ve turned out; I think they still look quite stock. I just need to get the lower grill painted now to match them.

As always, comments are welcome.

John

 

[jmaxphotography]

Update 26.07.2014

Over the past couple of weeks the weather has been excellent and allowed me to get a bit more done to the car.

First on the list was to tackle the grubby seatbelts.

I really didn’t want to go down the route of putting the seatbelts into a bucket of soapy water, so instead I decided to give the Ambersil Auto Groom a go on them.

Its good to know kettlebells have more than one use.

With the seatbelts cable tied to the kettlebells it was a lot easier to stretch them out and keep them in place.

Bucket of clean water, nail brush and clean cloth to help remove the Auto Groom and dirt from the seatbelts.

As you can see the belts are looking better, fair enough their not perfect but I’ll give them a couple more applications when the weather allows me to and hopefully they’ll improve a bit more.

Some of the dirt that was removed.

It was then onto the fabric in the door cards.

The door cards came up as good as new, and for the same of an extra 5mins was time well spent.

I then moved onto giving the seats a coat of Fabric Guard Water Repellent, as they hadn’t been done in a while and the new driver side bas hadn’t been done at all.

First job was to cover as much of the surrounding plastics as possible.

Yes I know , it looks soooo dodgy when applied to the seats, but when dried its supposed to make them slightly water repellent.

Last job of the week was to get my wheels rebalanced, so I took the car into Simon at Lurgan Tyre Centre.

Just a few more jobs need done on the car, but they’ll come over time, when money allows. Other than that I’m over the moon with how the cars looking.

As always, comments are welcome.

John

 

[jmaxphotography]

Update 17.09.2014

It’s been a while since my last update so this will be a bit of a long one, so I apologize in advance.

At the start of August I decided to treat myself to what can only be described as a scuba tank lol. Its actually for water filtration, so its good bye water spots.

Moving on a couple of weeks my steering wheel was continuing to get worse with melting and peeling as you can see below.

So I decided it had to come off and be either retrimmed.

First on the must do list was disconnecting the battery as I didn’t want to risk the airbag going off when I was working at releasing the wheel. (make sure the steering wheel is already in an upside down position before you disconnect the battery).

Next I located this small hole on the back other steering wheel. This is where you insert the screw driver to release the airbag.

When you’ve turned the wheel upside down and have inserted a screwdriver to dry and release the airbag, this is the small bar your aiming to press down.

It can be pretty frustrating trying to get it off, but if you take your time you will get there.

Then simply pull the airbag down and out away from the steering wheel. I say simply but it might take a wee bit of persuasion.

Be careful not to pull too far though as there are clips in either side of the airbag.

To release these simply pull the yellow tabs outwards.

Then it was pretty straight forward from here, I just unbolted and removed the wheel.

Thankfully this parcel has already arrived the morning I was removing the wheel.

My newly trimmed wheel supplied by Jack at Royal Steering Wheels. I had ordered the steering wheel with as close to an oem look as I could. It took about a week for Jack to trim the wheel (which he already had in stock) and get it sent over to me on their exchange option. This means they send the new re-covered steering wheel first and you have 10 days to swap the steering wheels over and send your same type steering wheel back to them, to minimize the time you car is off the road.

As you can see on the pictures below Jacks work is outstanding and of a better quality than the standard wheel.

New vs. Old

It was time to get the new wheel fitted.

I think you’ll agree the wheel looks right at home. The wheel is slightly thicker to hold than the original wheel and the leather is of a far higher quality. Lets just hope it doesn’t suffer the same way the original wheels do, but I guess time will tell.

When speaking to Jack about returning the original wheel to him I had asked if I could also send him my gear knob and gaiter to be retrimmed to match the steering wheel.

So first it was off with the knob.

Then the gaiter.

With the knob and gaiter now off I knew it would be about a week before they would be back with me.

Unfortunately about an hour after I had posted them I received an email from Jack informing me that he would be away on two weeks holiday, so my wheel without the knob was now looking more like a month.

This didn’t stop me giving the car its usual tlc.

I know this is a bit of a long shot, but does anyone know if these stickers at the front of the engine bay can be reordered from Renault? As mine are slowly starting to peel off.

The noise maker lol.

With the great spell of good weather we’ve been having I decided it was the perfect time to clear out my scuttle drains, as I hadn’t done them since I got the car.

Everything now back the way it should be.

With the scuttle drains now cleaned I moved the car over to the garage to do my next bit of work.

Another of my spare of the moment purchases, some yellow lamin-x. I don’t know why but I had recently gotten a real notion do change my fog lights to yellow.

Thankfully I didn’t have to remove the bumper to apply it.

I think it looks great, and I suppose the bonus is that if I get bored of it I can simply peel it off.

I’ve been playing about with the car recently over a few nice stretches of road to see how high I can get the average mpg.

Yea that’s right it reads 46.2mpg. I did actually have it showing 51mpg but I was unable to photograph it before it started dropping, but if you watch this space I’m sure I’ll be back there soon enough.

Yea I know, I shouldn’t be trying to get a high mpg in a car like the Clio, but it keeps me entertained.

Then yesterday morning my gear knob and gaiter finally arrived back from Royal Steering Wheels.

Upon first inspection the gear knob was trimmed perfectly, again like the steering wheel its slightly thicker than the standard one. I guess this is because he trims over the original material instead of removing it.

The gaiter I was less happy with as I had requested that it be fixed back into the silver surround the way the original one had. However Jack had tried to glue it back in place, but this didn’t work so he the tried to staple it in place using staples that weren’t up to the job.

Thankfully I had staples that I knew were bit longer in the legs, so they would hopefully be able to fit in where the original ones had been removed. So after about an hour trying to get everything back in place I was able to try and place the gaiter back into the car.

At this point I met another problem, Jack hadn’t let a large enough hole at the top of the gaiter to fit back over the plastic shaft. This was easily solved however and I simply picked away the first couple of stitched to make the hole large enough.

With everything now back in place I think it looks better than ever.

And time for enough quick clean.

As always, comments are welcome.

John

 

[Kitson93]

You know how to look after a car. That's mint!

 

[Chi]

Lovely car, nice mods

 

[Stefan.]

Awesome work!

Car is seriously looked after

Nice update - myself though i am really not a fan of royal steering wheels work.

 

[thedjse]

Just read full thread brilliant work really good rear serious CLEAN!!! lol

 

[jmaxphotography]

Update 09.03.2015

I know it’s been quite a while since my last update, so I’ll apologize in advance for this being such a long one.

I decided to treat the car to a sprint booster.

I’m glad I did as even though I always run it in the green mode I feel it’s made the pedal a lot sharper.

Next up was the cars yearly service.

Run on the best

Some new shoes for the winter.

Goodyear Eagle F1’s

And two more to take home until te next time it needs a change.

Next up was the MOT

Which I’m happy to say it passed with flying colours.

Home for a wee clean.

First real freeze of the winter.

Which gave me the chance to get some lovely ice pictures.

Spotless again…

The next big purchase was from Eddie who was selling his K-Tec Pro Performance Exhaust as he’d upgraded to a Akrapovic.

Of course the OCD in me had to start cleaning it, even though I know no one will see it when its hidden away on the car.

There were also quite a lot of tar spots on the exhaust which surprised me a bit, but these were easily taken care of.

Its slowly starting to take shape.

Next up was to polish the exhaust tips.

Looking a lot better now, but still not perfect.

 

[jmaxphotography]

Finished, ready to be fitted.

Unfortunately fitting the exhaust got delayed due to the damn snow.

Packed and ready to go.

Still freezing hard outside, on the plus side the car does love the cold air.

The exhaust that came off the car.

The difference in weight was shocking.

Another purchase, this time Wheel Woolies to help with the cleaning.

I think they are the best wheel brush I’ve had to date as they have no problems reaching all the way to the back of the rims. The only issue I find is they can’t squeeze between the brake caliper and the rim. It’ll also be very interesting to see how long they last.

Yet more bloody snow and another drop in temperature to go with it.

Even though its still cold out, I decided to give the interior and engine bay a bit of attention as they’d had a hard winter.

Has anyone else’s K-Tec Induction kit done this?

Next up was my latest mod, a remap at Torquetronix.

Can’t wait to see how the car feels after it. I know there wont be massive power gains due to the lack of a turbo, but hopefully it’ll help iron out the flat spot caused by the exhaust and make the car a bit better all round.

Not a bad return pre map. Davy was very impressed; his exact words were “she’s a fit wee b1tch” which made me smile.

Now onto the business end of things and make gains.

I’m over the moon with how the car is going now, I would have love the car to have made 202bhp to fit in with the number plate but at least the car can finally be called a proper Clio 197.

Stopped off for a wee top up of super on my way home.

And one final note, when I was bored over the winter I managed to get the car showing this…

Yes I know what your thinking… (Damn he must have been bored)

As always, comments are welcome.

John

 

[jmaxphotography]

Update 11.03.2015

After having noticed the jubilee clip which held the air filter in place was broken, I took it upon myself to find a more sturdy replacement to deal with the movement in the engine.

The first thing I had to do was remove the broken parts.

What was left of the jubilee clip fixed around the hose.

This was a fit awkward to get out, but lucky enough I was able to get enough of a grip on it with a small pair of vice grips.

What looks like such a weak joint that snapped so easily, in my opinion this is a bad design and clearly wasn’t up to the job it was intended to do.

The hose needs a bit of a clean.

Now with a hole drilled through the old jubilee clip and a larger bolt and washers in place, all I need to do is put everything back where it should be.

Thankfully I had a bendy screwdriver to help reach the back of the jubilee clip.

A lot better looking now, I’ll keep an eye on it though to make sure its not wearing through the hose.

Having a look around the car for other things that need tidied up, I spotted that the paint on the front grills is starting to chip/flake. This will be a job for a later date.

As will jobs like this. One of the brackets in the engine bay that needs some serious attention.

I’ll have to bring the ocd cleaning in here too, I’m not happy with the dirt.

I’ve also noticed that the top of the seatbelt adjuster is rattling again, so having found some sticky foam I thought it was time to replace the thinner double sided tape in a hope that it solves the problem.

Time to get this off…

Cut and ready to be fitted.

Seems to be a lot better now, but I guess like every mod only time will tell if its been a success or not.

As always, comments are welcome.

John

 

[jmaxphotography]

Update 19.04.2015

I recently took a trip over to Orchard Autocare to see Rollo and purchase some more of his products.

My existing Glitz was running low, so it was the first thing on my must get list.

Also having run out of Hydrophobe I was wanting to purchase some more of it, however Ronnie gave me this small bottle of what he called an extreme hydrophobe. He's promised me that the bottle may be small but it packs a lot of punch in that you don't have to use a lot and it can last for several months.

Having read several positive reviews about Ronnies Cotton Candy Snow Foam, I felt it only right that I purchase some and give it a try. I guess I have to try and get the foam lance and power wash working correctly now.

With the end of the bad weather clearly in sight I'm thinking about claying and possibly machine polishing the car, however to complete the first part of this I needed to buy some clay lube and Ronnie offered me this...

The last item purchased from Ronnie was some of his new Shampoo. Its that new the labels haven't even been printed for sale yet, so I'm really looking forward to trying it once my existing Bilt Hamber Auto Wash is finished.

The last purchase this week was some powder free black nitrile gloves courtesy of eBay. I find these great for keeping my hands clean while detailing the car.

Reviews of all items coming as soon as I've used them.

I've also treated myself to the purchase of http://www.clior27.co.uk where I'm posting everything about my Clio, from the moment I got it.

As always, comments are welcome.

John

 

[jmaxphotography]

Update 21.04.2015

Next on the to do list was to have a tidy up under the bonnet.

First up was to repaint some of the rusting brackets as shown below:





So it was off with them...





And then out with the wire brushes to get rid of as much of the flaky paint as possible, before respraying.













This is what I had chosen to repaint them with, just for the reason that it should hopefully be a lot more durable than normal paint.



First coat...







Now to leave them for 24 hours..

Second coat...





I'm quite happy with this bracket only having the two coats.



However the others needed a third coat of the body seal after being left for another 24 hours.









Now I had to add some padding to this bracket, so it wouldn't rub the plastic below it when back in place.







Time to reinstall the brackets.











From this point on updates will be posted a day or two earlier on my website blog www.clior27.co.uk.

As always, comments are welcome.

John

 

[jmaxphotography]

Update 22.04.2015

Taken from Clio R27.co.uk

With the grills having seen better days and the paint chipping off them, it was time they got a bit of attention, so I set to it.

Out of the car they come...







With the grills out of the car it was time for a quick tidy up and then to recover them in all surface primer.



24 hours later it was time to start adding the coats of paint.



First coat...



Unfortunately the paint got damaged while drying, so it set me back a bit.





But not to worry, I just repainted the damaged areas and left them well out of reach for another 24 hours.



Now it was time to add a second coat to all of the grills.



After being left for a further 24 hours I think you'll agree their looking a lot better.



Although if you look closely you can see the edges from where the paint had peeled on the previous job.



When I get a bit of time again, I think I'll finely sand the grill and repaint it, as I'm not 100% happy with how it looks.

As always, comments are welcome.

John

 

[jmaxphotography]

Update 24.04.2015

Taken from ClioR27.co.uk

With the recent spell of good weather I thought it was the perfect opportunity to strip back the pervious coats of polish etc that I had added to the glass on the car and add my recently purchased Orchard Autocare Extreme Hydrophobe.

Time to add a bit of water into the mix, before claying all the glass.



Clay time...



Nicely clayed...



Time for the Hydrophobe.







If left too long the Hydrophobe can be quite stubborn to remove.



However I did find breathing on the glass and adding a slight mist did help a lot.





I know I'll regret saying this but I can't wait for it to rain so I can see how the water sheds from the glass now.

I also took this opportunity to put my freshly painted grills back in place.







As always, comments are welcome.

John

 

[jmaxphotography]

Update 03.05.2015

Taken from ClioR27.co.uk

For quite some time now I've been thinking about getting the wheels of the R27 refurbished. So with the weather starting to improve I thought now was as good a time as any to get it done.

I set about researching the various options of where I could get it done. Checking out the different places that offer wheel refurbishment within a 30mile radius of where I live I was getting quoted prices from £256 to £408 for all 4 rims. After a bit more research and for handiness I ended up going with A27 Engineering, who are located on the outskirts of Portadown. They quoted me a price of £312 including vat, which was pretty much in the middle of the range I'd been quoted by everyone.

I paid them a visit to discuss exactly what I wanted to make sure there was no confusion.

A week later I left the car with them to have the work carried out.

Before



























I phoned A27 on Thursday as they had asked me to do, to check when would suit for my car to be picked up only to be told that they wouldn't be ready for another day.

However due to other commitments it didn't suit me to pick it up at the next time, when I explained this to A27 they gave me several excuses and basically told me I had a 3 hour window to pick my car up or I would have to do without it for a further 4 days. Of course this has left me with such a bad feeling toward them.

Having cancelled my previous plans I made the trip over to A27 to pick up the car...

After





























I'm happy with how they've turned out, their definitely an improvement over the original condition of the wheels. But I can't help but think a bit negatively over the who experience of how I was treated by A27. Its almost like they don't value a personal customer anymore.

As always, comments are welcome.

John

 

[jmaxphotography]

Update 08.05.2015

Taken from ClioR27.co.uk

While the wheels were away getting refurbished I decided I should take the opportunity to freshen up the locknuts which were starting to show little bits of rust.



First action was to give them a quick cleanup and get rid of any loose paint using a wire brush.



Best place I could find to place them ready for the next stage.



Just one coat of Diall All Surface Primer was applied













Give around 24 hours to dry...











Now it was time for the first coat of black paint.











This is how they looked after the black paint had been given 24 hours to dry.



I was happy with them after the first coat, however I decided to add a second just to be sure I'd got everything.









All complete and now for fitting.

As always, comments are welcome.

John

 

[jmaxphotography]

Update 10.05.2015

Taken from ClioR27.co.uk

While the car was a way having the wheels done I had done a bit of research into wheel sealants, and decided to purchase some Poorboys Wheel Sealant so that I could give my wheels a bit of protection from break dust and dirt.



Now that I'd got my freshly painted wheels home it was time to apply the sealant.

First job was to take the wheels off and give them a quick clean.



It looks like I'm going to have to give the arches a clean at some point, but for now I'm just concentrating on getting the wheels right.







Wheels now cleaned and dried and ready for the next stage.




Of course being so careful not to make the fresh paint, the wheels were placed on a well padded mat.



Nice and pink, smells pretty nice too.



First coat...





First coat applied and buffed off the rear of the wheels it was now onto the front.











Now it was time to buff the fronts of the wheels and remove the excess sealant.



Of course the centre caps had to be done too...





Time for the second coat to be applied.





Wheel complete and looking great.









Centre cap back in its place.



The same process was carried out for the other three wheels and took the most of the afternoon to complete.

Now to get them all back onto the car.



I'm just left undecided about what to do with the wheel nuts. Do I buy black wheel nuts to match the lock nuts, paint the existing nuts or do I risk putting the caps back on?



I'm sure you'll agree the car is starting to look great.



With this being the first time I've used wheel sealant, it'll be interesting to see if I feel it makes any difference.

As always, comments are welcome.

John

 

[Clio172Powell]

lovely car! well looked after

 

[jmaxphotography]

lovely car! well looked after

Thanks very much

 

[jmaxphotography]

Update 11.05.2015

Taken from ClioR27.co.uk

While looking for subtle mods to do the Clio I bumped into this one. Replacing the standard rear view mirror with the auto-dimming mirror from a Renault Laguna.

Of course my next stop was eBay to see if I could find one, and I just happened to stumble upon this...



The standard mirror in the car.



Trying to figure out the wiring for the new mirror and which of the four wires are the positive and negative.



After a bit of research it turns out the Black is earth White is Live

Before trying to wire up the mirror I decided I would try a text fit, to see how it looked in the car, This is where things went a bit pear shaped...



I think as I was removing the mirror I must have twisted it slightly, resulting in the windscreen of the car shattering.



Fitting of the new mirror is going to have to wait...

Size comparison.



As always, comments are welcome.

John

 

[jmaxphotography]

Update 19.05.2015

Taken from ClioR27.co.uk

I've been buying even more goodies for the clio, or more specifically the wheels.

First up is an alloy wheel socket set with a nylon protector on the outside to prevent damage to the freshly painted alloy wheels.





Next up is something which I may or may not keep on the car depending on how I think they look once fitted, some French flag dust covers.



While waiting for the windscreen to be replaced so I could finish installing the auto dim mirror, I decided to crack on and sort the wiring out for it.

First up was to sort out what I felt I would need for the job.









Next up was feeding the wires that would get the power down to the mirror behind the roof lining. This was done with the help of a trusty wire coat hanger.



Black tape added to stop the wires coming loose when being pulled through.



Wires now successfully in place.



Now to sort out the ends of the wires ready for the addition of connections and solder where needed.





Connections added so that the wires can be linked up with the mirror.





Now to solder the other end of the wires onto the interior light.



The yellow wire is the positive and the blue the earth.



Now onto sorting the wiring of the actual mirror itself.



White positive and black earth.



All back in place just waiting for the power to be connected.



Roll on the windscreen getting replaced, can't wait to try this out and I've heard great reports about it.

As always, comments are welcome.

John

 

[botfch]

Looking good pal, shame about the windscreen.

 

[*JimmyJ*]

Like this keep it up

 

[Smiffyboy1990]

Followed this thread since day one, really liking the attention to detail and the important maintenance side off things.

 

[Stefan.]

Nice work bud