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By
Wobba
on
18th June 2008, 06:38 PM
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[BREAK]
‘Twas another cold winter sunrise over the house of Wobba that morning. The frost had left a pearlescent veil over the object of Wobba’s gaze, highlighted by a nimbus of sunlight that seemed to slowly slide, like treacle, through the early mist. ‘This is going to be a long, tough job,’ thought the novice mechanic, as he nervously clutched the 13mm ratchet spanner. He doubted his ability and knew there was much to learn, but with the aid of the Sages, all would be well. The central locking responded to the press of the key fob, allowing entry to the cabin of the car. The tungsten door swung open at the click of the handle. Wobba’s free hand reached down, under the dashboard. ‘Don’t worry, when you wake up, you’ll feel like a new car.’ Wobba gritted his teeth and smiled grimly to himself as the bonnet lid popped open. The work had begun… CHAPTER TWO Zen, and the Art of Head Gasket Failure: As a novice mechanic there is much to consider before undertaking a task such as a head gasket change…especially on a Renault. If you are a newbie mechanic, I cannot emphasise enough the need for someone considering a head gasket change, to think carefully about the following: The main practical challenges are as follows: a) Time b) Space c) Parts/Tools/Money d) Bad weather e) Giant Huge Bollocks f) Everyone you know and love (fellow members excluded) thinking you are clinically insane The above are the major issues I have had to face during the project so far. It needs to be noted there are several other factors, which are also important, and may be more relevant considerations before depending on your circumstances such as: a) Getting very dirty and covered in oil b) Your house getting very dirty and covered in oil c) Any pets you (or your neighbour) have, getting very dirty and covered in oil (excluding fish, who have far more sense than to jump all over you, or your filthy car and tramp though puddles of oil and coolant) d) Your girlfriend getting very dirty and covered in oil. This one, of course, may be something that you, your neighbour, everyone you know and love, or even your pet cat/dog, being used to already How you use the above information is up to you. Often, it is easier and cheaper to simply change the engine, and while it is out of the car to do the timing belt and gaskets (and several other tasks) prior to fitting it. This is because many sections of the engine and related components are extremely hard to get to with the engine still in the car. Anyway, that’s the advice bit over with. Most info you need is here on the hallowed pages, so if you do decide to go for it, all you really need is perseverance to make it work. Now onto the progress of K921 MCR. When I left off last there had been what appeared to be a head gasket failure, i.e. white smoke all over the show, lumpy idle etc. Classic symptoms. Having decided the quotes from garages to be somewhat ridiculous (mostly £800 to £1100, though Rentech quoted a more reasonable £700) I decided to tackle to job myself, relying on Haynes, and you, the readers, for backup. Most people seem to have their own driveway or garage to undertake a job like this. Sadly, this is not possible for me, as our garage had been converted into a bathroom. This conversion has been the focus of many a national tabloid and television crews, a news snippet from a well-known paper explains why: http://www.asrm48.dsl.pipex.com/parking/File0004.jpg Bureaucracy at it’s most sensible. After I did some research and discovered the entire parking regime in the city had incorrectly charged motorists millions of pounds over the last 10 years, they suddenly got very chummy and my fines magically disappeared…hmm. Rant over. Back to the project… So, without a driveway I had to park the sick car up outside my house, where it’s been sat for several weeks:  Having popped the lid I abruptly hit my first of many problems. In this case it was taking the seized securing bolt off the battery mount. It certainly was a sign of things to come, as it was as if the car itself was trying to stop me from opening up the engine from day one! The number of seized and rounded bolts was a joke that had me almost arrested by the Rozzers for my foul language during my time under the bonnet of K921. To get the battery mount off I had to wander down to Halfords (now a well trodden path) to get a 7mm socket, and even then I had to jury-rig the bugger to be able to use a spanner on it. A can of WD40, and three days later, it came off. Success! Line 1 of Haynes in cylinder head removal ticked off the list! Next was the Pipercross cone filter, which was easy. I saw the throttle body had a not so healthy coating in grime. I would later take the entire body off and give it a thorough cleaning with carb cleaner (very useful stuff) along with the ISCV. Easy jobs and well worth it, but bloody messy. Make sure you wear latex gloves with this job and don’t inhale too much or you’ll end up like seanofnp  Inside the Pipercross filter I noticed the bottom of it had somehow been coated in oil. I think this had just built up over years, either that or was from a spill during an oil refill by a previous owner. I made sure it had a good cleaning out during my time with this part of the project. I also noticed the adapter had splits in the rubber section. I will get another one or replace the entire filter with another during April when I have the money. Being on a bit of a role, I swiftly moved onto the coolant system. Something I have learned during the HG change is this: If an owner neglects a cars cooling system, it will end up going bang. Let this be a warning to any of you who have crapped up coolant! Removing the expansion bottle, even my novice eye could spot that the coolant (despite a partial refill not long ago) was seriously compromised; it was very rusty in colour. Further evidence of HG failure was found here, that is, oil in the water and it stank of petrol. Yuck! I needed to take the radiator and hoses off as part of the job, so this gave me a chance to really give the rad a good flushing out, and by Christ, it needed it. I got the bugger out, but not before hours of pain trying to get the lower radiator pipe off! I finally got it off, after jacking the car up and putting it on axle stands and using a cramp, which again, I had to wander down to Halfrauds for:  Draining the rad:  I did this many many times, hot and cold water. The best way of getting any large chunks of sediment out was to fill with water and shake the bugger, up and down/left and right to dislodge the crap from the walls of the radiator. Lots came out even after hours of flushing. I don’t think I need a new radiator just yet, I just think the coolant had been left too long. When it gets left too long the coolant itself becomes corrosive and eats the metal, as I will show you later… With work being limited to weekends, the going was slow, especially as the weather was often less than ideal. Despite rain and high wind, I usually did a few things before calling it a day. Note: If you do this in the street, be prepared to have passers by stop and chat about WTF you are up too, while the dog they are walking casually takes a piss on the brake disc you have to lie under later to get the Goddamn starter motor to exhaust manifold bracket off…one of the many joys of home-grown car mechanics! With the car on stilts, it was time to have a look at getting to the timing belt and exhaust manifold bolts. There’s quite a lot to be said for the peace and tranquillity one can find whilst lying under a car (other than the dog piss). It’s often dry, protected from the wind and a good place for someone wishing to remain anonymous. It’s also a great place if you happen to have a shoe fetish, watching the student birds clatter to Uni sporting one of their many pairs of high-heeled shoes. It’s also a superb place to get another angle on how the hell those stupid French engineers think you are supposed to work in an engine bay the size of a thimble on an engine normally found in the much bigger cars. I tell you, they must have used physics from the Tardis to get all that shiz in the engine bay. For someone who does not know the tricks to undo many of the screws and bolts it can be hard going to work out how you are ‘sposed to do it. In this case, that ‘someone’ was me. Hours were wasted, and lots of energy spent swearing at imaginary French people. Trying to get the starter motor/exhaust manifold bracket off was a bitch as the bolts had seized and were hard to reach. Even if Nicole, in all her French daintiness, had suddenly poked her head under the car begging me to give her a ride to the Ball, she’d have had her Gaelic mouth full of ratchet spanner. Bloody French. In the end, I got the bracket off, along with the exhaust to downpipe bolts off. These items use very large springs, to accommodate heat expansion and movement when the car is running. Taking the cam pulley cover off was quite tricky, as again, there was very little space. I used my trolley jack under the sump to move the engine up and make it easier to get to the five torx bolts that hold it on. Note, that at this stage I had already taken the main right hand engine mount off…make sure you do this with the engine jacked up! Also remember, that when you put the mount back on the bolts need to be done to the right torque with a torque wrench. continued overleaf [BREAK] |
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By
Wobba
on
18th June 2008, 06:39 PM
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Chapter 2 continued:
The cam pulley cover claimed another one of my tools, a torx key, which snapped the end off of it:  Finally got it off, after having to move the fuel hoses away to get space. One of the hoses spilt at the end, so I’ll have to sort that later:  The timing belt came off, no problem, which made a change. Whilst I was messing about with the fuel hoses, I noticed the so-called ‘shield’ they use to stop accidents like the aux pulley cutting into a fuel line…  The aux belt had, over the years, taken a chunk out of the shield. I will probably do away with it and use cable ties to keep the hoses away from the aux belt in future. Be warned: This could be happening to your car and is dangerous! I already knew the oil was totally contaminated with water, so it was time to start draining it while I did other things. I let it drain for about 34 hours. When I took the sump plug off, rather than oil coming out at first, it was just water! It ran down my arm   Valve cover off:  Although there was contaminated oil, the internals so far looked in good condition, which was later confirmed by the people that skimmed the head. It was around this time I found my nemesis, the reason for the car overheating and loosing all its coolant, and thus blowing the HG:  One of the pipes that come out of the thermostat housing had become so corroded with the neglected coolant; it had completely been eaten through. Finding this was pure chance, as the bad part was on the underside of the pipe and at the very edge of the housing and the end of the pipe, which made it extremely hard to spot. Also, in that area are several coolant pipes so the obvious leaking was hard to trace. I actually broke the pipe clean off when after slipping whilst undoing a very tight exhaust manifold bolt. I am pleased to say this whole unit has now been replaced with a very nice specimen from Mat Brown (thanks for the extra bolt Mat!), which I cleaned up and gave a minor sanding down. One of the sensor plugs had also corroded through as well, all of which have now been replaced. The old distributor and rotor arm were taken off and inspected:  If you cant see from the pic, trust me, they were in shit condition and both the arm and dizzy were replaced with new items. With the various parts I have replaced, I think the car should run well now. It wasn’t bad before really, but I think maybe a slightly more efficient car and a tiny bit more power will be evident later. The dizzy and rotor arm are cheap and easy items to replace, but remember to disconnect the battery first! With the weeks flying by, and very little time, I really wanted to get stuck in at every opportunity. The problem with winter is the fact you come home from work and it is dark! I needed to feel I was progressing in some way so converted the conservatory into a makeshift workroom. I got a lamp to work with during the night and lots of spray cans to renovate old and rusty parts of the car. Here are some bits:     I wanted to do more, and probably will do at some stage. I also sanded down the valve cover. It’s not as polished as some, but is good enough for now until I decide to have it powder coated:  There were some other paining and treatment odd jobs I needed to do as well. The drivers side had started to rust a little, and needed treatment. I scrubbed back the rust on a few bits and gave it a going over, along with some Hammerite Before:  And after treatment:  It looks a lot better now. There are a few bits to do, mainly the arches, but I think I’ll have them professionally done later. Time once again flew by, and having gotten a T55 torx bit for the head bolts, I knew it was time to crack on with taking the head off the engine. I removed all the small bits that needed to come off, trying in vain to keep track of all the nuts and bolts that seem to infest every nook and cranny of my house right now. I swear they breed when I am not looking… The weekend came and off I went to get the head off. The bolts were not that hard to get off, and soon I was in a position to life the head, with inlet and exhaust manifold attached, from the block. Now, I see in most project threads all these hugely muscled lads using engine cranes for lifting stuff. I am not one of them. If anything, I am a severely unfit, relatively short bloke with what would generally be considered to be a crap working area on the side of the street. No tables, no lifting harnesses, no power tools and no giant garage style toolboxes. I just have one thing: no sense at all for my own well-being. As such, I had no trouble at all lifting the head and manifolds off the block and carrying them away into my labyrinth. One week later, and one visit to the doctor for a bad back, I decided I would not attempt to put the head back on with the manifolds attached and promptly unbolted them from the cylinder head. I inspected the block, and even took pictures, which was hampered by the fact I was on crutches:  As you can see, there had been an obvious failure on piston 1, and on close inspection of the gasket you could see it had severely deteriorated in that corner. You can’t really see in the picture, but I very much doubt the HG had ever been changed in its 91K lifetime. I was very pleased with myself for having gotten this far without any direct help. I had, thus far, beaten the French at their own game. The imaginary French people I so often swore at had all but disappeared! I spent quite some time researching and inspecting any possible issues with the block and pistons, but all seemed in order, apart from the obvious mess. The valves on the head looked manky, and I wasn’t sure if I should do this myself or leave it to the skimming people who were coming to collect the head. I decided the latter, much to my financial expense.  So, head refurbishment people came and collected the head, which had three seized bolts in. One on the thermostat housing, and two on the exhaust manifold, quite common apparently. I asked the to do the valves, cam seals, seized bolts, pressure test and skim, along with new valve guides etc. I supplied the parts. Original quoted cost was £160 plus VAT…I didn’t know this didn’t include the seized bolts or valve cleaning..oops. With the head gone, I got bored and decided to clean the block and the bay as well. I got rid of all the old gasket remains from the block and gave the bolts holes a serious going over. Any fluid or crap in the holes can cause hydraulic pressure when you put new head bolts in and need to be cleaned out. It was rather telling to find a lot of gunk in most of the boltholes on mine. Now, they are clean as Nicole herself, that foxy little minx. Ever shagged a French bird? I have. She sucked as bad as their engineering skills. Anyway… Cleaned up.  Head came back the next day, at the whopping cost of £292! My poor bank balance L  It had passed the pressure testing, but I was told it did require skimming so had warped a little. Job done, and valves were sorted too. One interesting find, which could have happened during the skimming, was that one of the injectors was slightly screwed:  A quick shout to Mr Brown had that sorted though, and he sent me another one in good order. A major phase of the work was complete, and all that needed doing now was to start rebuilding the car, which had been sat on stilts for many weeks. Armed with more tools and know-how than ever before, along with brand new timing belt, gaskets and other assorted replacement parts, the next phase could begin…  THIS ENDS CHAPTER TWO IN PROJECT WOBBA Thank you for reading this mammoth post! Next instalment follows shortly, when the car gets rebuilt and fired up for the first time…I hope. |
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By
Wobba
on
18th June 2008, 06:47 PM
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Since beginning my project to fix my cars blown head gasket, and various other issues, I have been plagued with ghosts and visions. They generally come in the form of dwarves, or more precisely, French technician dwarves, for how else would a human being be able to get to the bolts and nuts in the engine bay of a 16valve Clio? It MUST have been designed by tiny French folk with tiny hands, able to get to places nigh on impossible for larger people. They crowded around me whilst I lay under the car laughing and cajoling my often-desperate attempts to get a stubborn bolt undone. Curse them! Passers-by would often give me strange looks as I swore my way through this project, insults not aimed at them, but my bizzare companions.
In this chapter I decided enough was enough. It was time to exorcise my demons… CHAPTER 3 2008: A Renault Odyssey The following would not have been possible without support from many of you that have kept me going, offered advice, parts and help. You know who you are! Now, onto the project. From the time of writing this and the start of my car problems several months have passed. So far the car has undergone refurbishment of many parts, but where I left off I was at a point of putting the engine back together after almost terminal head gasket failure. At this point, I needed to get the cylinder head back on the car after being sent back to me, pretty much completely refurbished and skimmed. Before I could do this, I needed to make sure the surface of the block, and pistons, were given a really good clean and free of any old gasket crap. I used carb cleaner on the surfaces along with a flat edged filler blade, along with cotton buds to clean out the very badly gunked up headbolt holes. The finished item was very clean, and so the time came to fit my new head gasket:  This is what it used to look like: A huge improvement I think! Cleaning the head is a simple but important task. Obviously, one does not often take the engine apart like this so it’s well worth making sure the job you do cleaning and ensuring a good surface for the gasket and clean bolt holes is a damn good one. As ever, the rain, wind and snow made for slow progress. While awaiting an opportune moment to get back out there and work on the car at weekends, I put plastic bags over exposed engine parts to ensure they did not get contaminated. I had the cylinder head sat in my house for almost a week, which gave me time to realise they had forgotten to give me back all the bolts for the inlet manifold! I got all but one back off the people who did my skimming for me, so off I went to Renault again for a new bolt, costing about £5. I am now on first name terms with the parts department there, and get the chance to see the new offerings from Renault, such as this carbon bonnet Megane:  Yummy. Back at base, it was finally time to put the head back on. With a few aches from my slightly sore back, I decided it prudent to fit the head back on without the manifolds…this was a mistake, as you will later see. Still, I carefully placed the head on the block, positioning it perfectly over the two guide lugs. You have to be careful here, as the lugs can damage the soft metal of the cylinder head if you don’t position it precisely. You’ve been warned! Luckily, I managed to do a good job getting it on straight away with a minimum of fuss, hurrah! My imaginary French engineers I so often swore at could almost be heard clapping in approval at my progress, and I felt I had taken a big step forwards to getting it all finished! Another major part of the process in rebuilding the engine is the headbolts. You should not use the old headbolts, as they stretch. New bolts are required. These are quite expensive and a serious piece of kit. They need to be, as they are what stop your engine blowing oil and water out between the block and head. When fitting these, you need to make sure they are fitted to manufacturer specs to ensure they can take the huge pressure they are put under when containing the mini explosions detonated within the engine itself. These use a T55 torx bit to be tightened up. It’s a large bit, and it needs to be, as the bolts have to be tightened securely, and in correct order. During this process one of the head bolts decided to be a bit of a pain to tighten, and I chewed through 2 T55 bits:   I had to get out a few broken shards of metal from in the head after these broke, but I got them all without any trouble. Fortunately I could see the angle where the bit broke as the end of them was stuck in the bolt, so I could still get a good idea of the angle at which I needed to tighten the bolt. Renault only allow a -/+ 3-degree variation with the bolts, and trust me, it’s hard to get it spot on as the bolts get VERY tight. It didn’t help that I only had a relatively short wrench! With the problem bolt tightened up, the others were not as hard to do. Why was one harder than the others? Who knows, it could simply be I didn’t use as much copper grease on the threads. Here is a nice photo of the head on the block, and the exhaust manifold fitted on securely:  And another:  As you can see, I had already put the newly polished cam cover back on along with a new gasket. The bolts to the cover need to be torqued up correctly, though they are no way as tight as the head bolts and don’t need to be done in any special order, just make sure the mating surfaces are clean of any old gasket. Mine needed to be cleaned off a fair bit. Around this time, I noticed some of my neighbours doing a lot of curtain twitching. The neighbours to my left and right are car nuts like me, and no trouble at all, but I think there are some who believe the work I am doing is in some way a negative thing to their interests…they were, I believe, the reason for a visit from the Council jobs-worths turning up later in the project. At this stage, I used some old but unused oil left over from my R5 days to flush out any remaining contaminated oil. I did this until the oil ran pure from the sump over a period of two days. I am quite certain this engine is now running only on pure clean oil. It’s little things like this that you can do yourself to make sure the job that’s done is a good’un! Of course, playing about in oil can be a messy job, but I think there must be some kind of unknown pheromone exuded from a man covered in oil to the female species, as I got more than one innuendo from some of the student girls that so often passed me by as I worked…home mechanics does have a few surprising perks it seems, probably similar to those of a plumber It was around this time I decided to get the cambelt and timing sorted out. This is another very important stage of a rebuild. If you get the timing out you could be looking at a set of damaged pistons and valves, which for this car would mean the scrap heap as I was in no mood for any major setbacks! Here we can see the exposed crankshaft sprocket. Normally it has a pulley for the aux belt over it, all protected by a plastic cover:  |
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By
Wobba
on
18th June 2008, 06:51 PM
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continued...
We can use this to crank the engine so it is at the TDC. I had already set this before putting the head back on, so it was simply a case of making sure the cam pulleys on the head were set correctly as well. The people who had done the headwork had set this as close as they could already, so it was a simple task of fitting the new cambelt and aligning the belt marks with the pulley marks. In this case, it was a lot easier than I thought it would be. To think garages charge a bomb for this kind of work! I will never pay someone to do this for me ever again!  My new cambelt  If you do a cambelt yourself, always crank the engine over by hand first. If there is any resistance or clonking noises it could be that the timing isn’t correct and the pistons are hitting the valves in the head/block. Crank the engine without any gears selected, or else it’s a lot harder Doing it by hand could save you a very big bill if you damage the engine through improper timing.With the cambelt on, I refitted the inlet manifold, plus new gasket and did up the bolts I could get too, which as all bar one. The nut that sits just over the PAS pump can be a real pain to get too and for some reason I just left it off not realising that later one it would be nigh on impossible to get too… With the work to be done a simple case of plugging everything in again and tightening it all up, I ignored the rain and cracked on, eager to start the car! After the inlet, I refitted the engine mount, which meant a bit of jiggery pokery with the hydraulic jack. I found I had to pull the engine forward to get it to seat itself properly, but it didn’t take long:  Looking good! As you can see, I put the injectors in, but what I should have done is fitted them to the fuel rail first, so out they came again. I think it is easy to try and push the injectors in too far if you don’t put them on the fuel rail first. You have to get them right, but they can be a bit hard to get in properly, so use some special silicone grease, on the head end, to help. Don’t use too much force when putting them in as they are easily damaged. I had to repair a faulty wire on one of the injectors as the pin had come clean out of the plug. It’s lucky I spotted it, as diagnosing problems after the rebuild can prove to be a bit of a pain in the arse! With pretty much all the electrics in place as they should be, I started plugging everything back in to make sure the loom was positioned correctly. The old loom tape was literally coming apart in my hands, so I just took it off where I could, with the intention of rebinding it all with some new stuff later:  Yucky loom! I was flying along that day. It is amazing how easy it is to put it all back together compared to taking it apart for the first time. You know where all those pesky hidden bolts are and you don’t have to worry about seized nuts anymore! My imaginary friends seemed somewhat downcast that their shit designs were no longer hampering me as much as they wanted. I managed to refit the exhaust to downpipe bolts and huge springs back on with a minimum of fuss. When I had taken them off months ago, it was a bitch of a job as one was firmly seized. I had learnt the best way to get to the bolts and doing them up was easy now. On went the ISCV, radiator, fan throttle body, thermostat housing, related pipe work, sensors and the expansion tank. I also refitted the spark plugs and new dizzy and rotor arm. The old ones I had were in a bad way and so got binned.  The next phase, the cooling system could now be filled up, but not before I flushed it through a few times for good measure! The pipe at the bottom of the radiator that I had had so much trouble taking off was a lot easier to put back on, but while lying under the car I noticed a Council van pulling up next to my car, on a Saturday. I popped back indoors to get some more tools and noticed the Council person inspecting my car whilst on a walkie-talkie mentioning something about criminals and he would call for backup if needed…he sounded like he was on some kind of Special Ops mission when in truth he was just here to harass me. I came out of the house, and asked if I could help him at all. He said that what I was doing was against the law, which is interesting to me, as I had never heard of such a law or anyone ever being prosecuted for such a thing. It occurred to me they might be just trying too piss me off as I had caused the Council so much trouble over my parking issue, and continue to do so to this day. I asked what law this was and why it was illegal, and what if my car has broken down, surely there are references I can look up? He stated he didn’t know where I could find the legislation and he didn’t know why it was illegal. As I had a lot of work to do, and just wanted to get rid of him I said the car would be off axle stands and in a presentable state by end of play tomorrow, a Sunday, at which point he got back on his Spec Ops walkie-talkie and reported the situation in and went on to inform me that his elite team of Navy Seals would be coming by in the Justice Wagon to check on me on Sunday evening. I was so scared…not. With the reek of petty bureaucracy receding as he drove away, I could get on with the work, but not before doing some simple Interweb research on the ‘Law’ he mentioned. It transpires it is an offence to undertake work on you car on a public highway, except under certain conditions. These conditions are: As long as you are not doing it for financial gain, i.e. running a business repairing cars without permission, and also when there is no justifiable and reasonable cause for annoyance to the immediate community. Even if they were annoyed they would have to prove they were being reasonable and have made me aware of their annoyance, which they had not. I win. On with the rebuild! I put the O/S wheel back on, and with the engine mount secure now I could finally lower the car down onto it’s own weight and get the hydraulic jack out from under the car. That should keep the neighbours happy for a while. It was the first time it had not been on axle stands for quite some time. Coolant in, system bled:  Heatshield on:  I will be looking to replace the old heatshield before long, as mine has taken a bit of a battering it seems, but hey! It’s better than nothing! Grill, air filter and battery in! SOOO CLOSE NOW!!!  Bonnet on:  As you will soon see, it was a little hasty of me to put everything back together when I could have tried turning the engine over a little sooner. Oh well, live and learn I guess. Power: ON!  IGNITION!!! MOV00371.flv - Video - Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting ARGGGHHH!!!!!!! Flat battery!!! Fortunately, I have my charger on standby and so can leave it to charge over night. The next day I was out early and soon had the charged battery in. Unfortunately, I forgot to get a recording of the car starting for the first time in months, but who cares because: IT STARTED FIRST TIME!!! WOOOHOOO!!! Brrrrum Brrrrrruuuum!!! There was a shedload of smoke out the exhaust as it blew out a load of crap that had built up while standing, heaps of smoke started to curl off the exhaust manifold and the Goddamn smell was intense as WD-40 and oil got boiled away. I was really happy, I didn’t care. There was however, one fly in my soup, as I soon noticed the idle was really high, about 2.4k revs. |
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By
Wobba
on
18th June 2008, 06:52 PM
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Continued...
Now, I’ve learnt a lot about idle problems with the Clio, but for me, diagnosing the problem would prove to be a frustrating and very time consuming effort. I can’t tell you how fucking annoying this was, the car was not driveable like this. I tested most things and replaced a few bits, such as a new TB body gasket, for which I took a fascinating couple of pics:  Old.  New. I cleaned the ISCV another two times, checked all the locations for air leaks and over a period of about 3 weeks tried to get the last remaining nut on the inlet manifold. This was a BITCH job. I tried everything from special tools to brute force. I lost two manifold nuts, a 10mm socket and flexible socket joint down the front of the engine bay, which I could not get back out for the life of me. Thanks go out to Mat Brown again for sending me two replacement nuts. These have special swivelling washers on and I didn’t want to use any other type just to be safe. Unfortunately, around this time I had started to get severe back problems probably caused by a mixture of stress and improper lifting techniques on things in the car and furniture moving at my grannies little home. At the same time I ended up getting an abscess with a severe infection. I ended up in hospital and could not do any work at all on the car for about 3 weeks, and even after that I couldn’t do anything like lift the bonnet off for some time after. Bah! I discovered I had damaged a disc in my back and it had trapped a bunch of nerves. Not much you can do about it except simple exercises to strengthen the back muscles and encourage the body to rebuild damaged tissue. Weeks passed by, the car looking sorry for itself out in the torrential rain and odd snow fall. I kept myself amused on the WC and 16v forums in the meantime, moaning and whining about the damn car, and contemplating quitting the project on more than one occasion! I ordered some bits for the car, including a PTFE TB gasket off hill_power_clio on the WC site, which as yet still hasn’t arrived, a mystery yet to be solved. I was pretty much despairing now. MickPM offered to come down and give me a hand, but both of us ended up being really busy and the weather destroyed any chance of that happening. Summeh also asked if I wanted a hand, but it was about this time I had decided I knew what the problem was, and actually had enough strength back to lift the bonnet off the car to investigate my suspicions! I rechecked all the sensors, no faults there I decided and crossed them off my list. I tested the ISCV with various methods. I was a little suspicious as the pipe from the ISCV to the air box seemed to have grown longer and was bent in the middle…I’ve seen this on some other cars as well, but I intend on chopping a bit off the end for a better fit when I finally get the PTFE gasket off hill_power_clio from WilliamsClio.co.uk. Finally I took the skuttle panel off to investigate the ECU box. Taking the box out and opening it up, my suspicions were confirmed:  It’s a bit of a crap pic, but you can easily see the scorch marks on the metal cover and the partly burned out motherboard. I realised it must have gotten wet after being out in the torrential rain for so long, and although covered over, water had managed to get in the box causing a short circuit. Stan sent me over a Ph2 valver ECU which I collected from work on a very fine beautiful day from works post office Now I would like to officially dispel a myth about Ph1 and Ph2 ECU’s. People often think a Ph1 ECU is the only one that will work in both car types. Wrong. A Ph2 WILL work in a Ph1 car. I was a victim of this myth as well, and was a little worried it would not work when I plugged it in:  Here is a Ph1 box, you can tell this by the last three digits, in this case ‘105’. The Ph2 box has a ‘103’ designation printed on it. The logic behind this numbering philosophy is clearly a French trademark… In goes the new ECU to test it works. A beautiful sunny day…to match what is becoming a beautiful engine bay:  Key in, Immobiliser off, power: ON. Turn the key… ‘COUGH SPUTTER BRMMMM BARP PARP PARP BAAAAAAUMMM!!!’ It revs high, and then suddenly drops to a perfect idle of 1k revs, soon calming down to about 900 rpm! WOOHOO!!!! IT WORKS!!!!! JOBS A GOOD’UN!!!! Praise the Lord. Finally, M921 MCR lives again, the engine purred like a kitten and exhaust note throbbed happily away, its note turning vicious as I dab the throttle. I was ecstatic! I allow the engine to run for a while with the coolant cap off, only needing a minor top up after being left standing for a while. I then switch off and refit the cap, switching the engine back on, holding the car at 1500 rpm for 10 minutes to get it up to temperature for the radiator fan to kick in, which it does faultlessly. So, the problem was nothing to do with the work I had done to the car. It was an unrelated part that had gone bang whilst it was left standing. Stuff like this can be hard to diagnose, but it is simply a matter of deduction in the end. With the car left to cool down I inspected my work. I did see a minor leak from the thermostat housing, a problem I have had since before the HG change despite having a new housing put on. I swatted away the lone French technician sat on the engine (laughing at me as usual) and tightened the sensor plugs as much as I could, but I suspect it is the actual housing itself leaking due to me not putting any sealant between the thermo housing and head. I will take this off soon and correct this when I flush the coolant again in the near future. Here is the bay, much improved over the condition got it in:  Getting there! I gave the car a short test drive and rechecked my work again. Always wise to go over what you have done, making sure there are no loose bolts or other leaks. There appeared to be nothing wrong other than the minor leak, so off I went to pump my tyres up which had fallen way below their recommended pressure after 4 months idle. During my drive I heard some rattles and then a loud clonking noise under hard acceleration. Looking out my rear view mirror on the dual carriageway I spot my flexible knuckle joint that I had lost in the engine bay bid a fond farewell to the underside of my car. Ah well  Bye bye knuckle joint. I could have sworn I saw a bunch of my tiny French technicians swarming around the still spinning tool clamouring and pointing at me as I sped away, but when I glimpsed back, they had vanished…HERE ENDS CHAPTER 3 OF PROJECT: WOBBA Thank you for reading! Chapter 4 will be coming within the week, as I explore other areas of the car I should have rejuvenated long ago had it not been for my engine problems. Stay tuned for the next instalment as I prepare the car for track day worthiness, with more than a little help from my friends!  |
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By
Wobba
on
18th June 2008, 11:28 PM
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Thanks guys
Loads more has been done since...should upload next chapter soon! Engine bay isn't as clean as some, but it has a new heat shield now and has had all the wires tidied with wire wrap stuff. Need to get the degreaser out before FCS! |
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Last edited by Wobba; 18th June 2008 at 11:30 PM.
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By
The T.I.B.
on
18th June 2008, 11:42 PM
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