Small update time again.
- Replaced broken horn
- Added front arch liners
- Replaced N/S rear light
- Replaced aerial with stubby one
- Replaced O/S rear calliper
- Adjusted handbrake
- Replaced bleed nipples with HEL stainless steel ones
- Added HEL O/S front braided brake line
- Replaced front brake disks with Brembo HC ones (new versions with painted centre and outer rim)
- Replaced front brake pads with Ferodo DS2500s
Basically some small bits I've been meaning to do for a while and some more prep for track etc. Also, there's only one way to fuel working on a french motor!
BG 182 by
Niall97, on Flickr
First up was my broken horn. It was becoming more and more dangerous not having a horn, the amount of fuckwits on the roads these days, especially of the lorry driving kind on the motorway changing lanes whenever the mood takes them was just an accident waiting to happen if I had no way of warning people, so I really wanted this sorting. Having diagnosed the horn itself after checking it was getting power with the multimeter, I went to the local scrap yard and found a Mk2 Clio they had in there and whipped the horns off myself, the price...£2. Bargain! See below the state of the old horns, then the second hand items from the scrap Clio.
Old ones:
BG 182 by
Niall97, on Flickr
New:
BG 182 by
Niall97, on Flickr
After these went in, I had some front arch liners I'd acquired from
@bloke, and so these went in. Been meaning to do this for a while because one, my old horns were almost certainly knackered by water and dirt as you can see in the pics, and two, I wasn't comfortable with my belts being exposed on the other side, so this was a relief to get hold of some finally. Eventually I may cut holes for brake cooling piping if I get more serious about track, but as yet my fog lights are still in there too anyway.
BG 182 by
Niall97, on Flickr
Another small job that I'd wanted to do for a while was replacing the N/S rear light lens. The old one looked darker than the O/S one, most noticeably the silver circle in the design of the light, looked more murky and not as bright and silver as the other one, on closer inspection it was full of dust making it dimmer and it would prove near impossible to get out properly. Also in attempting to clean the dust I'd managed to rub some of the silver coating from the inside off, so the red plastic showed through which looked horrific. So I came across some cheap great condition lights on eBay, and so just chucked the N/S of these in since my O/S was fine, so I suppose have a few spares now if ever needed. So it looks bang on now. The pic below doesn't show it as badly as it was in real life, but I figured I'd post anyway, the new one is attached to the car in this.
BG 182 by
Niall97, on Flickr
Next up, I wasn't terribly keen on the aerial that was on the car anyway even though it was a shorter aftermarket one, but then it started to randomly peel the black paint/coating off, I'm suspecting maybe a cat may had a little nibble at it causing it to start peeling off as they do love to do this, so I went on eBay and picked a stubby one up. Really happy with this one, looks totally OEM the way it meets the base perfectly, the material is the same shade, couldn't believe it. Even more amazing is that the radio works perfectly too (even though I never listen to the radio lol). Little touches like this are immensely satisfying if you're a monumental geek like most of us on here.
Old:
BG 182 by
Niall97, on Flickr
New:
BG 182 by
Niall97, on Flickr
Saturday arrives, and another day on the driveway with
@JamesBryan swearing profusely at things Renault thought were a great idea 13 years ago.
First up was replacing the O/S rear calliper. Last time when changing the fluid the bleed nipple snapped inside the calliper as is quite common, so I removed the one from the breaker Ph1 and cleaned it up, and got this fitted on the car.
BG 182 by
Niall97, on Flickr
In the process, with the handbrake cable being slack, it came off at the other end and so began an hour detour of getting underneath, getting the heat shield off, getting this back on, adjusting the handbrake (I'd wanted to do this anyway in fairness), snapping a bolt holding the heat shield on, drilling a new hole and putting a new bolt in. As I say though, hand brake had needed adjusting for ages because it was really weak, feels spot on now so I guess it was a happy accident in some ways!
BG 182 by
Niall97, on Flickr
As you may have seen in the calliper pic above, I also replaced the brake nipples with some HEL stainless steel ones. After the ball ache and previous ball aches with broken bleed nipples, and many people I know having these fail all the time, these will prove to be a good investment. They do feel like quality little things, milled from one piece etc.
Along side these, I purchased some (basically brand new) used DS2500's for an absolute steal that had only covered 200 road miles before the P/O purchased some 4 pots, and some Brembo HC's (new version with coated centre and rim) from
@George@RTR_Parts (great service as always from George).
BG 182 by
Niall97, on Flickr
Got these on after some slight filing of the pads to fit.
BG 182 by
Niall97, on Flickr
Last up was another of the bizarre things on this car, it had 3 (both rear and N/S front) HEL braided brake lines, so I contacted HEL directly and they were very helpful in sorting me out with a single front line. At this point of fitting, the 11mm nut attaching the standard line to the main brake line wasn't playing ball and was starting to round. Bugger. WD40 wasn't budging it, so we took a trip to Halfords and picked up some of the Shock And Unlock (see pic below), heard about this stuff before and WOW, sprayed it once and it wouldn't budge, sprayed it again and clunk, it was free with no issues at all! Couldn't recommend this stuff enough for stubborn/rusty nuts and bolts etc, this stuff is super cold and shocks (and presumably shrinks) the metal and frees things that WD40 could only dream of freeing, will be a vital part of my toolkit with this car from now on.
BG 182 by
Niall97, on Flickr
And the line fitted.
BG 182 by
Niall97, on Flickr
Last thing was just a quick bleed of the system after all the work, and then bedding in the pads with the new disks.
The next thing will be rear disks and pads, then it's the afternoon of track time at Oulton on the 29th! Got some bigger updates in the coming months, time for some coilovers!
