CHR customer car: 1997 1.4 Megane

A friend of Steve101's has a nice red 1.4 Megane. It failed its MOT, badly.

The garage quoted £800 to fix. Thats above the cars value in all honesty.

It had failed the mot on a plethora of items,

wipers,
earthing fault,
front pads,
n/s front wheel bearing,
o/s rear wheel bearing,
n/s track rod end,
brake hose,
rear wheel cylinder,
brake effort,
both rear tyres

So not too clever really, I came in with an extremely reasonable quote which was accepted and the car was dropped off this morning.

Before they arrived I got a phone call, the bonnet wouldn't latch, not too good at all then eh!

Anyway, they arrived and Steve set off to drop the guy off (Grant I think), I got to work.

First task was to sort the bonnet latch out.

This meant removing the front grille, I could then get access to the latch and remove it to free it off.

This is the grille off and the latch off, you can see the pull cable



This is the latch, the bit at the top with the hole is where the cable pulls, this had siezed in the open position so it wouldn't latch



after a few minutes I had it freed off and lubed. It was then all put back together and works like a charm, so that was 1 job down.

Since the front grille was off I had access to the slam panel earths



There is one on each side just inside of the headlight, both were cleaned up to ensure a good earthing connection. Another job done.

Then on to the windscreen wipers, the drivers side was ok but old, the passenger side had lost the rubber blade, as can be seen in the picture



So both new wipers fitted and that means a clearer safer view of the road.

I then fitted the new track rod end, the old one had a fair bit of play in it, not conductive to easy driving. This wasn't to bad, only took about 20 mins to un-seize it and fit the new one. New one, shiny, nice.



Then Steve came back and we set off to get new tyres for both rear wheels as the ones on it were bald, frankly a disgrace. 2 new tyres were fitted, new valves and balanced of course. So went back fitted those



Then off with the n/s pads as I needed to change this wheel bearing, as you can see they were well done. Also the disc was screwed as well



The lower slider was seized solid, this was fun as if you just go at it and try to turn it you shear it off, so I spent about an hour working on the slider alone to free it off. I of course got it free, cleaned up as new and re-greased.

Steve then took me down so I could press the old bearing out and the new one in, no pics as its not very exciting. The old bearing was well knackered. With the wheel off the groudn and rotated it made a hell of a noise. With the hub off you could spin the hub freely and feel the play in it. New bearing went in as expected and is very nice.

Steve phoned the guy and told him the story with the brake discs, there wasn't anywhere on the disc face that was true, it was all over the shop and below the minimum thickness. Of course the go ahead for new discs was given. So new discs were purchased, heres a comparision of the 2 discs side on.



I had also spotted the lower balljoint had a split rubber, it also had slight play in it, of course a new one was purchased and fitted, I have still to fit the other sides as it to is in a bad way.

This is the old balljoint



The nice new one fitted, again this will ensure stability and safety.



Hub re-fitted with the new disc before the caliper was re-fitted, looks nice eh!



It was then on to the offside. Here are the new and old pads, as you can see there were not only worn but seriously dangerous. Sadly there are millions of cars driving around like this.



Yep thats right at most 1.5mm of friction material left, scary eh!



Thats all the pictures I got. But I replaced the rear offside bearing and sorted the rear brakes and the brake hose.

So tomorrow its off for an MOT and before that I need to fit the other balljoint.

Then I get paid and hopefully another regular customer.