The RR/Targa 197

[RSRowe]

Everyone loves a new project right?

130k miles off fury. A questionable history, which shows that it’s had a belt in 2013, 4 front springs, and 2 attempts at fixing the exhaust manifold in 2017 and 18.
There’s a line on one receipt stating “coolant sealant“ and a recommendation to replace the radiator. So fingers crossed it isn’t the head gasket

The plan for this one is to stay relatively stock for now. I need to give a good once over, and once I’m happy with that I intend on doing some Road and Targa Rallying.





Ultimately I wanna try and get hold of some Laguna Silverstones, some more suited tyres, bucket seats, and the old half cage out of Crunchy.

 

[burrellbloke]

Was this the Clio for sale for £1,500 on FaceBook?

Who needs a service history when they have your skill set.

 

[RSRowe]

1800 it was up for. The guy said he’d had a lot of messages, but I guess no one was really interested in sending him a deposit.

Looking forward to getting a proper look at it over the weekend.
Always funny to see what ‘quirks’ and bodges they’ve had over the years.

 

[RSRowe]

Not really much of an update. Quickly switched over the angle eye headlights which were in it, with another set of standard projectors I have hoarded away.





Had it up on the ramp to see what needs doing, and spotted a few interesting points:
- Gear cables are resting on the manifold and partially melted
- Thermostat housing has a pin missing
- It’s definitely overheated at some point
- The rad support has been used as a tow point, bent, and broken the tabs off the bottom of the rad
- gearbox is quite moist
- rear main seal is damp
- N/S track rod inner







So in the grand scheme of things. There’s not a great deal which needs doing that urgently.
Suspension wise, it would be nice to refresh the springs, shocks, and top mounts. But that can wait for now.

For now, I’ll do the cambelt, get the rad and rad support sorted, and do a fluids service.

 

[Helpimonfire]

Good call on the headlights. The angel eye ones are horrible. Slap them on eBay, someone will buy them.

 

[LiamP]

Shame your not local as I have probably half those parts sitting in my shed.

 

[RSRowe]

typical

 

[RSRowe]

And so it begins….





Really begrudge paying for a ‘proper’ rad support. So I’m gonna cut the tab off and weld it back in the right place.

My mate kindly donated me his old Clio rad, having recently Meg converted.
Need to try and keep the above a secret from the missus, as I keep telling her I’m skint.
Will have to come up with a good excuse when the boxes keep arriving to the house.

 

[RSRowe]

So I had intended on taking loads of pics today, but the reality of it was I was just trying to crack on and get things sorted.

Word of advice kids, don’t use the rad support as a tow point….



Been a while since I’ve done any welding, so excuse the poor effort. But I relocated the bracket on the standard Clio rad support. Dead easy to do, and saves quite a bit of money.



My free radiator took a bit of fettling to get right too, as my ham fisted friend who gave it me had snapped the fan mounting clips off.
Found some mega glue stashed in the unit, and it seems to of done the trick.



I was hopeful that the condenser was still air tight, but it has also fallen victim to the towing incident.

I also fitted the new steering parts. Unfortunately the inners don’t come as a full kit, but fortunately I managed to get a set of universal ones from a local motorfactor.
I also chucked a set of old PS4 on which I had stashed away. They should be a bit better than the M+S tyres which were fitted (which are also banned on certain targa events).

The list of things is slowly getting shorter. For now all I need to do is fit the cambelt kit i bought, and source an AC condenser.
Thought it was sensible to sort the radiator out first to make sure the head gasket wasn’t dead on it.

 

[R20BTG]

Good work. Where can I get a pair of the safety crocs?


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[PITA]

Do you want to borrow my genuine cambelt tools?

 

[RSRowe]

Good work. Where can I get a pair of the safety crocs?

Limited edition mate. Sorry.

Do you want to borrow my genuine cambelt tools?

Nah it’s sound cheers bud. I’ve got a peasant kit, which means I don’t need take the pulleys off

 

[RSRowe]

Not really much of an update. But I’ve had very little motivation to sort this over winter.
I have however gone on a bit of a spending spree of recent.







I actually did a proper job and did both the timing and aux belt, including tensioners.



Scuttle drains done me dirty.



Previous owner or his mechanic had used bolts and nuts to attach the cross brace… not that useful given you can’t actually get a socket or spanner on them. Need to try and find the part number and order the proper replacement



Passenger shaft refuses to come out of the hub. I’m hopeful a soak in ATF with work some wonders until I next work on it. Had enough of it today, so will get back to it another weekend.
Really not looking forward to doing the swivels, cus they look very crusty and very original.

I had kind of forgot how much of a twat these cars can be when they aren’t maintained. Crunchy basically fell apart as it was generally in pieces most the time between trackdays.

 

[R20BTG]

I’m still not entirely sure why you sold crunchy and are now doing it all again in this blue one. Are you mental? [emoji23]


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[RSRowe]

Crunchy wouldn’t of met the regulations for the events I wanna do. I also still wanted to do trackdays

This cars gonna remain fairly stock in the grand scheme of things.

 

[Big Ben]

Jesus lad, them top turrets look scary. Big cajones tackling this crusty baguette. Hope it’s worth it

 

[l33th3tr33]

It's not just me with top mounts that bad then, good luck!

 

[RSRowe]

Jesus lad, them top turrets look scary. Big cajones tackling this crusty baguette. Hope it’s worth it

I’ll get there eventually.

 

[R20BTG]

Finished this yet?

 

[RSRowe]

haha..

Finished this yet?

It's still in exactly the same state of disrepair as is was 4 months ago.
Definitely the Meganes fault, and nothing to do with my laziness.