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Sept 3, 2018 15:15:13 GMT
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Dorset_clive - entirely possible that you had a poorly made set of bushes, hours of sanding to make them fit doesn’t sound like fun... The braces you made make a marked improvement to handling as the strut towers are quite a long way from the bulkhead and making them more rigid is well worth the effort. There’s also a lower chassis brace that can be made for the underside, again picking up on existing mounting points and again making an improvement. Now you mention it, I recall about the lower brace, but I don't think we bothered as we had a big sump guard on there that picked up on the suspension points.
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Sept 3, 2018 12:36:22 GMT
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I got an Aldi/Lidi cheapy one a few years ago.
It was pretty poor as a soldering iron (I used to be an electronics eng, so know how to solder!). Still usable, but working on the car in the garage, it was worth getting the extension lead out and using my electric one.
The really good bit was the hot air nozzle. Really good for small heatshrink and great for big soldering jobs where my 50w electric didnt have enough grunt to warm up the workpiece, e.g. putting a solder ring on a battery cable, that sort of thing.
The other comment is mine never kept the gas in. Even after an hour of being unused I had to refuel it.
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Sept 3, 2018 10:12:00 GMT
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Oh- although the rear axle to trailing arm bushes aren’t exactly easy, they’re not that bad. There are plenty of ways to make a home brew tool to fit them- crutially the shells are tapered... forcing them in the wrong way would be a total nightmare. Cheers Interesting. It is ~15 years ago that I had my 240, so I cant recall if I knew the bushes were tapered on not. My very hazy memory is they had a shoulder one end, so would very obviously fit only one way, but I just cant recall. I do remember hours of sanding to fractionally reduce the diameter so they would fit. Ho hum. FWIW here's a couple of pics...on a rally day...it was a lot of fun, as no one expected a big old tank to have quite the performance it did...plus it was one of the few RWD competing against all the more modern FWD stuff. ISTR we were well down the table, but probably had the most fun with getting the back end out! In the second pic you can see the strut and bulkhead braces. Although home made, they picked up on the OEM fixing points - if you peel the sound deadening off the bulkhead, you'll see the mounting points. I think they improved handling!
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Aug 31, 2018 13:02:50 GMT
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The thing I remember from owning one many moons ago is the 'in arm' bush on the rear suspension is a right pig to change. Be very careful of cheap after market bushes as they have a steel 'case' and only 1/2mm oversize will jam solid - I started doing mine, it jammed and then bent a mates press before it would finally go in. Complete curse word!
On the up side, they stand a decent bit of lowering! And I know I'll get shot, but an intelligent spring chop is an easy way to taken them down a bit.
If you're inclined (and can get the spares from a breakers), it is very easy to double up the front and rear ARBs. For the front, basically you replace the existing mounting bolts with longer studs and screw on a second bar below the OEM one.
At the rear you can make a couple of 'drop plates' (iirc I used some 4-5mm steel plate I had laying around). You cut a piece about 200x75mm, drill two holes to line up with the OEM mounting holes, and two holes below and just bolt on a second rear ARB.
Not quite a five minute job, but front and rear certainly achievable in a day.
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Jul 26, 2018 13:51:42 GMT
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Oh and I ought to give my wife an honourable mention...she bought her Renault Clio about 20 years ago...and we've still got it in the garage...MOT'ed but not taxed at the moment. Took her to our wedding two years ago!
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Jul 26, 2018 13:43:46 GMT
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Longest (I think)...bought just after our son was born (cliched parents? Surely not!!). It was 4 yrs old and with about 80k on the clock and cost £10k. Sold it nine years later at 160k but only for £1000. (generic internet pic) Shortest were a series of totally unsuitable cars bought to do a rally. Generally owned for only a few weeks...long enough to do the rally prep, compete, strip and flog on again! Amongst the victims, were... (LHD image) (far to shiny for me!)
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Jul 23, 2018 17:22:57 GMT
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Oh and just remembered, ours was a six seater (possibly cos it was Ghia trim). Which actually worked out quite well cos you could have the two kids one behind the other and still get long things in the car without needing the roof rack.
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Jul 23, 2018 17:20:03 GMT
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I'm sure you've considered this, but having had a 52 plate Galaxy a few years ago, the engine access wasnt brilliant. I had the windscreen wipers seize up and what should have been a couple of hours to get the mechanism out, greased and back in turned into an all dayer plus needing gynaecologist-esq hands/arms to get to back of the engine bay.
If you're intending doing a lot of DIY, probably worth checking on the access first.
FWIW mine was a 115bhp auto so never really bothered about a remap. We had a few minor issues (aside from the wipers) - one was the MAF getting dirty and going in to limp-home mode - 9 times out of ten, it just needed the engine stopping and restarting to be ok. On the tenth, it needed was a wipe over with some solvent cleaner. Ran for 20k miles until it got to happening every few hundred miles so bought a replacement. The drop links to the front ARB seemed to made of chocolate, didnt matter if I got dealer OEM or eBay cheapest, they all lasted about 5k. Luckily only a few £s and easy to change - once you've done a couple you can actually change them without taking off the wheel if needs be.
The last thing, which was a right PITA and could have been quite serious is the spare wheel is underneath the boot floor and held on with a 'winch' type thing operated by a big nut just inside the boot lid. Ours was completely corroded to curse word and the steel wire rusted quite badly. Had I not checked, as best I wouldnt have been able to get the wheel off if we'd had a puncture, and at worse the wire might have broken and dropped the wheel on the road in front of someone following.
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Apr 29, 2018 15:40:47 GMT
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Not sure if it ticks the 'retro enough' box given your fleet, but Saab 9-3s are worth a look. I'm about to almost give away my 'vert as it has a few issues, but the prices out there are rock bottom for even decent cars.
From my 2.0l FPT (185 bhp turbo) I got about 30-35 mpg and that was on a mix of weeks of short drives to work (car barely warming up) and longer B-road blasts with a heavy right foot. On a long drive through France at M-way legal speeds iirc I was touching 40 mpg.
No real rust issues that I've seen. Engine sludging can be an issue, but is well known and easy maintenance (synth oil and/or a sump drop to clear out the curse word). Bulkhead cracking is also known (not sure if that is 'vert only) but can be check before purchase - a bit of a PITA but once you've looked online, it is pretty obvious what you're looking for. They come in convertible and hatch (Wikipedia says the estate was only from 2003 onwards, but I thought I'd seen some older ones). And of course, they have legendary tuning potential if that is your thing!
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Apr 25, 2018 21:31:27 GMT
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Without trying to muddy this too much, some batteries don't recover from being flattened or never being fully recharged (i.e, stay permanently sulphated) when compared to others. One example is the Bosch S5 battery. I've had 2 go within the warranty period as per the above "Replace Battery" guidelines, and friends have seen them die too if the car is not driven loads and/or the battery is maintained on a smart battery charger. This is a very timely thread...the battery on my wife's retro (1996 Clio) has apparently died (not holding a charge, showing fully charged after a night on the battery charger but not enough oommph to start the car)...anyway, the car wont be getting daily use (most likely, at best, occasional weekends), so any suggestions for the best sort of battery to get? Tempting fate, but SWMBO has declared that money is no object (within reason), so recommendations welcome!
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I've been following this thread almost from the start...it fascinates me "how the other half live" in motorsport terms...I've just upgraded the rally car from 1400 to 1800cc - still running a 48mm TB, but your pic of the 80mm intercooler port plus the vented rear discs just cracks me up!
As you say, it is going to be even more nippy this year!!
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Mar 11, 2018 17:37:28 GMT
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Yes please, any help appreciated.
It did occur to me that the MOT man is only interested in having functioning seatbelts, he isnt worried if they are OEM or not...so I could check the fitment and then just have a look around a breakers for something similar?
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Is it working now? Surely that little lot is crying out to be 'upcycled' in to something like this:
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Surely that little lot is crying out to be 'upcycled' in to something like this:
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Long story sideways, I need to find some replacement rear seat belts for my wife's 1996 Clio 5-door, but I have very little background knowledge of Renaults.
I'm about to start trawling eBay and Breakeryard, however, early Clio's arent now plentiful, so I wondered how much commonality there is across Renault models? Can I widen my search at all? Did Renault share components with any other makes?
Any help much appreciated.
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Hasnt Badrep got a spare Volvo engine from his RS200 project? He was going to use it then went back to an MR2 engine iirc.
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I've been following this from day 1...if only just to keep in touch with the Purbecks peeking out the side of the pics! But hats off to you for getting this far...I've got two car projects that are complete except for getting them to the MOT place...I havent even managed to find time to do that in the last four months, so goodness knows how you managed this, the Goddess and the Healey?
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Feb 21, 2018 20:13:21 GMT
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Jan 20, 2018 19:29:22 GMT
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I don't normally bother with 'like' posts, but that is just sex on a stick! Wow!!
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Jan 20, 2018 18:54:53 GMT
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My contribution to the project would be if you do decide to go with fence posts, sink them in pea gravel (about 5mm dia) not concrete.
As concrete sets as a solid lump in the earth, every time the wind blows and microscopically moves the post, the concrete compresses the earth until eventually the lump of concrete is loose in the ground. When you dig the post hole, put the post in, then pour in gravel, with some tamping, the gravel starts to 'interlock' and holds the post extremely firmly. If the posts move, even slightly, the gravel just interlocks even more firmly, holding the post ever more tightly.
The other upside is, if you dig the hole a 5-10cm deeper than you need and bed the post on some gravel, firstly you can adjust the height be adding or just squishing it down before you fill the sides, and added bonus, is once in place, the water will run off past the post and drain away, so the posts don't rot anywhere near as quickly as they do in concrete.
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