Albi R27 452/500 (UPDATE - 19.02.2017 - The end)
- Thread starter Jmax
- Start date
lol thanks [MENTION=4553]shubz197[/MENTION], theres so much more I would love to clean in a lot finer detail on the car, it just finding the time and having the patience to do it all is the problem at the moment.
lol yea it sounds it, but then you just need to take a bit of time to yourself and get away from all of the above. It'll probably help to make you more productive at them at the same time.
Over the moon with it [MENTION=51111]jimmyd81[/MENTION], I was never over confident with the standard setup but with this I'm more than happy to stand hard on the brakes.
Honestly [MENTION=51111]jimmyd81[/MENTION], I would say its without doubt one of the best mods I've done to the car. You really wouldn't be disappointed and as you say that that expensive to do.
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.
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.
SaveSave
Last edited:
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.
Last edited:
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
Last edited:
Coming along great.
Message me with your original reg (guess your plate is cherish transfer) or chassis and I will find out in work about the stickers.
Thanks very much [MENTION=3002]-Eddie-[/MENTION] and you've got mail
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.
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.
Last edited:
Its slowly starting to take shape.
Next up was to polish the exhaust tips.
Looking a lot better now, but still not perfect.
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.
Last edited:
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
Last edited:
Thanks very much.
Yea their not cheep but in my opinion their worth the extra money. Can reach all the way to the back of the wheel with no effort, seem pretty robust.
I guess only time will tell if they last of not.
Similar Thread Suggestions
| Thread starter | Similar threads | Forum | Replies | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| R | My Albi R27 daily | Projects/Progress Threads | 2 | |
|
197: Spotted - Albi Blue R27 Stockport 01.08.17 | Spotted | 0 | |
|
Sold: Clio R27 Albi Blue, 2007, 74k, £3000 | Clios For Sale | 3 | |
|
My Albi blue r27 | Projects/Progress Threads | 63 | |
| J | Sold: Albi Blue Clio 197 F1 R27 (No. 452/500) | Clios For Sale | 23 |