Welshname's Deep Black 197

[Pav]

haha worst flat spot??he has not seen mine then yet...how much was it mate??when did you book in??

 

[Kazumz]

185 is tidy for a 2.0l mate. I'd like 200 but then again, I quite like the low torque cam setup these have. If you push any more up top it'll be a bit of a pain in the arse on the road.

 

[welshname]

haha worst flat spot??he has not seen mine then yet...how much was it mate??when did you book in??

I posted about the group buy that TurboRenault were holding on here in the flatspot thread. It is usually £295 + VAT if your car hasn't been camm'd and it's just exhaust and filter. However with the group buy it was £100 off the price if you put your deposit in before the end of Feb and booked to do it in March.

Quick update

So I figured that after hearing a knocking from the exhaust towards the rear of the car on overrun I'd have a look today, seeing as I also wanted to set the exhaust clamps so they weren't hanging down and catching on speedbumps.


Car jacked up:

High Enough? by Rhys Bartley, on Flickr



Got under the car to be greeted by this:

Exhaust Knock Found by Rhys Bartley, on Flickr



Bit of forcing with the rear end of my ratchet resulted in this:

Exhaust Knock Fixed by Rhys Bartley, on Flickr



Rotated the clamps so they no longer stick down. They were pointing down by about an inch which meant they caught on everything!

No More Low Clamps by Rhys Bartley, on Flickr



Next on the agenda was to figure out what was causing my rear brake to bind. Span both wheels and the drivers rear spun freely, but the passenger one needed some force. So took it all apart. Turns out the piston was pretty much stuck and wouldn't go back in any further. So after a lot of force I finally got the piston to push back all the way and it seems to move freely in and out now, but I'll look to refurbing them when we have some slightly more consistent weather.

Rear Piston by Rhys Bartley, on Flickr



Then adjusted the handbrake also as it needed doing after I'd free'd the piston.


I think I mentioned this earlier in the thread but I was really unhappy with the quality of the gearknob I purchased. It looked like the insert had been wrapped in plastic whilst the gel was still wet, and I didn't really like the painted finish either. So I got in touch with the seller on eBay and they offered to send me a replacement with no painting.


Old one:

Old RenaultSpot Knob by Rhys Bartley, on Flickr



New one:

Shiny New RenaultSport Knob by Rhys Bartley, on Flickr



Then back down on all fours. Got it cleaned by the albanians yesterday, not too fussed as they use 2 buckets and proper wash mits. Also I haven't corrected the paint yet so it makes little to no difference.


****ty dark and attempted to fix it phone picture:

Clean 197 by Rhys Bartley, on Flickr



Really happy with the car at present. Just want to make it nice and tidy. Belts due in June so I'll be doing that along with a service.


Cheers.

 

[Foxspeed]

good read :thumbup:

 

[Pav]

good stuff..great when you can do things like that yourself..thanks for the info...

 

[welshname]

good stuff..great when you can do things like that yourself..thanks for the info...

It isn't difficult at all to do work on cars yourself. Just read up, and get stuck in, that's how I learnt.

 

[Pav]

in the same boat here..if i can do it myself,the money that would have gone to my mechanic,can be spent on mods

 

[welshname]

Nothing too interesting to report. MOT is due early in May and I need 2 new tyres, inner tie rods and MAYBE a windscreen, need to check if the crack is going to fail or not.


As the weather was hot recently I discovered that although my AC says it's working, it's not. It's got the common "cold loop" problem. I figured it would be the pressure switch originally so I set about changing it.


First off was removing the bumper. I don't know why everyone has said it's a nightmare on the Mk3 as it's really not. Probably easier than Mk2.

Bumper Off by Rhys Bartley, on Flickr




Bumper Off 2 by Rhys Bartley, on Flickr



Old one out



Old Pressure Switch by Rhys Bartley, on Flickr



And new one in. Stupidly easy job.



New Pressure Switch by Rhys Bartley, on Flickr



I also noticed the wiring to the compressor has been crimped and it was looking very corroded in there so I replaced the crimps and heat shrunk it.



Corroded Connectors by Rhys Bartley, on Flickr




Re crimped and heat shrunk by Rhys Bartley, on Flickr



Unfortunately to no avail. Turns out it's probably the connector on the compressor and Renault have a recall for it. Checked my blue sticker under the bonnet and looks like mine hasn't had it yet. Going to ring them and see what's what. Hopefully get it working again.


Thanks.

 

[welshname]

First off I was driving home and the "ESP Deactivated" warning came up. Thought nothing of it and assumed it was a dodgy sensor or ABS ring. Then I got "Brake Fault" followed shortly by "Steering Fault". All this time the car was driving fine aside from the loss of PAS. I then got home and was told it was more than likely the battery. Swapped that and brilliant, car was fine. For about 2 hours. This led me to believe and others that it was the alternator. I replaced that and it didn't help. I then left it running on the drive (as the car still ran at this point and fired up strong every time) and after about 20 minutes the warnings all went off and it was fine.


Drove to the GF's house and just round the corner I got "Low Battery". Great. Got to hers and on the way home it was fine until just round the corner from my house too it did the same thing. Next time I came to drive the car I had ALL the faults back on but the car still drove but when trying to turn it off it wouldn't and I had to stall it.


Plugged CLiP in it couldn't communicate with the ECU, UCH or any other computer.


Next day I got offered to have it looked at by an auto electrician. Car was dead so jumped it and drove it 20 odd miles there completely fine with all the warnings still on. Had to stall it there to turn it off again. After this the car hasn't started since.


Things we've done:

• Swapped ECU
• Swapped UCH
• Swapped UPC
• Swapped Steering Lock
• Swapped Card Reader
• Replaced Battery
• Replaced Alternator
• Replaced Clocks
• Checked for power to ECU/UPC/UCH all fine
• Checked all fuses

The fault lights no longer come on but putting the car onto ignition I have no message on the dash, no fault lights, the headlights are stuck on, the car icon in the middle of the dash shows all doors open (4 actually even though it's not a 4 door) and the radiator fan comes on full speed and the car will not start.


Absolutely no idea where to look next tbh so any help would be very much appreciated

This is where it all went wrong for me. It was not good.

Then I thought things got better:

So...to update.

First off the issue was actually corroded CAN wires down behind the back of the fuse box. These eventually broke and this is why the car wouldn't start again. All these were fixed on Thursday. So Thursday evening I collect the car. No issues and even my aircon had started to work again...result!

10 minutes later I get "LOW BATTERY" on the dash. Give the guy a message and he said it must be the alternator he gave me when I thought my alternator was at fault. This was explained because I did only get the low battery warning after swapping it.

Quick voltage check showed the battery was getting 13.6V. Not LOW but not the correct reading. The low battery warning was coming on because every now and again the voltage would dip to 12.3V. So today I went up and the alternator was swapped over for a 15k mile old R26R alternator. All bolted back on and perfect 14.5V.

So glad to have the car back on the road.

But they didn't

Car went in for its MOT today. It's failed on low handbrake force and rear passenger caliper binding along with seriously corroded inside of the same disc and inside pad down to metal.

So that's 2 new discs and pads for the rear, 4 new conti 5's plus fitting to add to my bill this month.

So far it's over £1000 the car has needed in the last 2 weeks. To say I'm unimpressed is an understatement.


And to add insult to injury my MOT runs out tomorrow (couldn't get it in the garage earlier as it's been off the road elsewhere for 2 weeks) so I'm having to leave it with them for discs and pads plus sorting the caliper.

Then I finally got it all back and decided to have another crack at removing the ****ty CD changer setup.

So good news for 197 owners with the s**t CD changer fitted that want to have an OEM stereo but get handsfree and music streaming without having to get a Parrot kit with a second screen.

Since I got the car it's been something that's annoyed me and I've tried it a few times but never managed it. However when I was getting the electrical fault fixed I noticed that the standard ISO plugs are actually hidden in the dash and the amp unit under the seat is fed on an extension from them. Bonus!



ISO Extension by Rhys Bartley, on Flickr


Then I went looking for the stalk control plugs which it turns out is completely un-used by the CD changer setup and is plugged into a plastic blank in the top of the dash behind the climate panel seen here.



Stalk Plug Blank by Rhys Bartley, on Flickr


So with that all I had to do was extend the aerial (badly) and wire everything in along with the xcarlink bluetooth handsfree adapter I purchased just before I bought the car.


Took the driver seat out and started to try and hide all the extra wiring as all that was now needed there was the airbag plug and the aerial. As you can see there are a LOT of extra cables now I've removed the CD changer setup, luckily they all fit under the carpet where they come up from as there's a large void there.



Extra wiring by Rhys Bartley, on Flickr


I ran the aerial extension under the carpet where the join is, along the centre console area and up into the dash and back out where the stereo is.


All back together again



Seat Back In by Rhys Bartley, on Flickr


So everything works and all you need is the non CD changer stereo and an xcarlink adapter. Stalk controls work and everything which I'm pretty impressed about. Only issue I've got is that I could do with sorting the connections properly as I've butchered them so far with adapter I've got from when I routed the sky aerial but they are too loose and I get a lot of crackling. I'll order them in the week and get those sorted, really simple job tbh.


So yeah this is it all finished



Non CD Changer Stereo Installed by Rhys Bartley, on Flickr


Cheers for reading.

 

[Kazumz]

Hard work, eh.

My aircon hasn't worked for 2 years! I think it just needs regassing though ☺

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