A Tale of Three Renaults

Forum Moderator Joined: 02 Mar 2004 Posts: 19978

also blowtorch is handy

FCS Event Manager Joined: 04 Jan 2005 Posts: 3680

Chris H wrote:

no dust covers on the dampers? Up here they would be pissing out oil in a week.

Wish my wheel studs broke there! They will be piss easy to get out mate.

Also drilling them? Its not going to happen and its wasting your time as well. The only wheel bolts I have ever been able to drill or have any machine shop drill are locking wheel nuts, the renaults ones will blunt anything.

Disc off (fit it correctly its 90 degrees out the now), drift (socket extension) big hammer belt it quite hard a few times. Mole grips it will unscrew.

I sort em all the time.

aye, thats the plan to get the disc off . . . which i had a go at when i first got the road wheel off, bolts that hold the caliper on are also tighter than a nuns nasty, gonna take some effort freeing those off so while down halfrauds tomorrow gonna find some sort of extension bar so i can get leverage onto the ratchet, also hoping that they will have some suitable bolts to use on the bottom of the strut to hub carrier as i really dont want to reuse the ones i took off today, the 2nd bolt took 15 minutes to undo . .

as for dust covers on the dampers, i had 4 struts, all of the boge efforts and all 4 of them dont have the dust covers.
there is no sign of leakage on any of the 3 i have left.
the 4th one went missing out of my front garden, lol, left it there whilst getting some tools from the shed and it was gone by the time i came back.
amazing what ppl will steal yet i had my mobile phone on the drivers seat of the car and that was still there, i was gone all of a minute hehe.

FCS Event Manager Joined: 04 Jan 2005 Posts: 3680

well, the strut is back on the car today after swapping the spring and top mount, but the 2 fecked wheel bolts are still in the hub, could not free off the caliper bolts . .

gonna try them again tomorrow with a breaker bar and see if i can get the bastards to free off. just worried that i'm gonna round them off and then i'm not too sure on how to proced after that.

Forum Moderator Joined: 18 Feb 2004 Posts: 7432

if you round them off... it's imperial socket + hammer time Very Happy

FCS Event Manager Joined: 04 Jan 2005 Posts: 3680

ahhh N E A L, i keep getting notification of u sending me a PM, tried replying to it but it wont send for some reason Question

is ur message box full ?

Forum Moderator Joined: 18 Feb 2004 Posts: 7432

dunno, i didnt think you got it, it just sits there in my outbox

FCS Event Manager Joined: 04 Jan 2005 Posts: 3680

lol had the same PM from you about 4 times, was during the server interupptions thou so maybe that caused a problem Question

anyway, the idea was never for you to be out of pocket mate, i had the impression that it was a mutual swap, no worries thou.

i'll sort something out, if u can find out how much postage money u need

FCS Event Manager Joined: 04 Jan 2005 Posts: 3680

well today i managed to get the caliper bolts freed off and got the brake disc off, managed to get out one of the two sheared wheel bolts but the other is stuck fast.
no amount of hammering, blow torching, swearing, gripping etc would free the bastard.
well at least it has three wheel bolts holding on the wheel for the mo, got an SDS at work so gonna try drilling out the last wheel bolt with that later.

FCS Event Manager Joined: 04 Jan 2005 Posts: 3680

Right update on Mick's uprated chips.

Mick sent me the latest version of his chip and i installed it today . . and WOW, the immobliser problem with my type of ECU has been sorted and i noticed a defo improvement in the car, acceleration is a lot better!
in fact it took off so quick i almost hit a fiesta that was pulling out of a junction 50 yards away lol.
Mid range power was better too, it pulled much better when dropping from 5th to 3rd to overtake, not tested top speed yet as its daytime and the test track is a tad busy.
I will be testing 0-60mph - 0-100mph and top speed later.

I believe the chip has now been tested succesfully on 7 types of ECU.

just waiting on Chris H's ECU to arrive so i can fit his chip and he can test his.

Site Subscriber Joined: 10 Jun 2004 Posts: 2317

You still wanting people to test em? Got me chammy last week, can check the ECU number later..

Forum Moderator Joined: 02 Mar 2004 Posts: 19978

I sent the ECU on saturday I think mate

post office = monkey spunks

FCS Event Manager Joined: 04 Jan 2005 Posts: 3680

well only 2 weeks after i did the drivers side top mount and spring, the spring on the passenger side cracks, wonderful!

So i bought a new set of springs, Spax lowering jobbies for Â£60.
original equipment ones were Â£70! so may as well get the spax efforts for Â£10 less.

These springs are meant to lower the car by 35mm, personally i don't care if they do or they don't, just wanted new springs and they are like i said Â£10 cheaper than original springs.

The drivers side went very easily as it had only been off 2 weeks ago and took about 45 minutes to do, from getting the strut off the car, taking it to bits, putting the new spring on and getting it back onto the car.

Passenger side was a completly different story lol

first of all the wheel bolts, Tighter than a gnats chuff, thought i was gonna shear them off like what happened the first time with the drivers side.
Gave them a mighty tug with a breaker bar and 2 bolts came free, the other 2 stuck fast so what i did was get out the trusty renault jack, with the wheel firmly on the ground, put on the socket and breaker bar as close to the ground as possible and using the jack, jacked up the bar, doing it slowly with the jack freed them both off, yay, no sheared bolts.
So the wheel is off, the two strut to hub bolts undid very easily as did the two 13mm nuts in the engine bay.
strut off.
compressed springs and went to undo the nut, does not budge . . bollocks . . good job i was doing this at work . . . take strut into the worshop and grip it in the vice, hot air gun onto the nut, heated it up til it was glowing lol, then 22mm deep socket held with mole grips and allen key in the hex head of the strut, got my mate to hold the allen key and i snapped the mole grips up, YES, the nut came free.
took the strut apart, gave it a good clean and put new spring on.

put the strut back onto the car Smile

jobs a goodun as they say.

Forum Moderator Joined: 18 Feb 2004 Posts: 7432

looks good. does it look much lower now then? got a pic with it back on the wheels?

FCS Event Manager Joined: 04 Jan 2005 Posts: 3680

well i got it all back together just as it was getting dark and starting to rain lol so not got a pic of it back on the wheels at the mo.
will take pics of it tomorrow.

at first the diffrence was not noticeable cos the suspension had not settled, but after driving it to kfc and back gave it a chance to settle and yeah it does look lower at the front now Smile

FCS Event Manager Joined: 04 Jan 2005 Posts: 3680

Right, here we are, pics of the car after the suspension was done Smile

Forum Moderator Joined: 18 Feb 2004 Posts: 7432

hmmm, still higher at the front than mine is. Looks about right. Dunno what springs i must have then, some crazy -60mm ones or something Sad

Might have to pick up a set of -35s off ebay then.

FCS Event Manager Joined: 04 Jan 2005 Posts: 3680

well i have been ignoring the poor old ph1 for the last few weeks since the circlip went on it again, got a good 2nd hand gearbox from Neal (thanks mate) and need to fit it.

It's been left on the road outside the house and tax ran out on it saturday just gone, so 2 reasons to get it sorted.

The problem: somewhere to store it whilst i do the work on it
The solution: The front garden

The front garden was an overrun forest, grass was about 3 feet high, so i've spent today cutting it all down, removed the front fence panel and took the mirrors off the phase 1 to get it in.
With the mirrors on it would not have got past the concreted in posts lol.

right garden all cut back, 4 paving slabs stuck down and get the car in, also had to construct a ramp to get it over the bottom concrete runner, took FIVE of us to push it off the road and into the garden.

here it is in its new home.

now its there, time to get it sorted lol

to be continued . . .

Site Subscriber Joined: 13 Oct 2004 Posts: 4722

gonna get some funny looks from people with that

thinking.."how did he doo that?"

hehe

FCS Event Manager Joined: 04 Jan 2005 Posts: 3680

just to illustrate how tight a gap it is, i took this pic from upstairs of the house lol

FCS Event Manager Joined: 04 Jan 2005 Posts: 3680

quick update as i've not posted anything about my cars for ages.

The ph2 is still running sweet as a nut (jinxed myself now i reckon)

the ph1 is slowly being stripped for a complete overhaul, engine and box out, seats coming out and dashboard coming out.
gonna get a nice set of leather seats for it and gonna do something along the lines of mick & leeann's r19.
F7R engine and JC5 gearbox conversion with complete loom and megane dash, love how it looks on leeann's car.
i figure that as the ph1 is half ph1, half ph2 why not continue and make it part megane too lol.

just looking for a suitable donar megane now which means the engine and dashboard from the ph1 are now up for sale (see parts for sale section).

Forum Moderator Joined: 02 Mar 2004 Posts: 19978

you have obviously never spent time in a megane, the dash is horrible the layout is terrible. I can't easily get to most of the switches.

Amber struggles having to thread her arm through the steering wheel etc.

Whoever designed it never had any arms, do the loom etc but leave the dash as a 19 effort.

The laguna dash is better set up but like the megane theres things you turn on before getting in then either get a passenger to turn off or turn off when you get out the car.

It really is that bad I hate the fecking thing, I can't open the window when driving fior example.