Frayz’s Inferno orange 182 - Back in the old flame

[frayz]

So when i first got the car back last June, i quickly popped off the rear door cards to have a look at the extent of any possible corrosion back there, and if i needed to act urgently on anything. Fortunately it all looked okay and i just dumped a load of Waxoyl on it and left it for another day.

Well this morning i revisited the rear sills to have a proper look.
I cleaned down the Waxoil with some thinners and cloths and was very pleased to find the NS absolutely spotless with barely a blemish to remark upon. The OS had some very slight pitting of the paint layer.
So i chose to clean this back with a small wire wheel which very quickly revealed bright silver metalwork with no signs of any rust.

I've coated both sides in Bilt Hamber Hydrate 80 for good measure, and will let this cure overnight. Tomorrow i'll paint with Bilt Hamber Electrox, then some satin black and will finish with a good coat of Bilt Hamber Dynax UB.

Nobody will hopefully ever see in these areas but its nice to know I've protected it as best i can.

 

[frayz]

Added some Electrox 24 hours later.

 

[frayz]

Got the inners sills in satin black and then lots and lots of Dynax UB.
These come with a longer tube nozzle which means you can get it right around the arches and hard to reach areas.
I also Dynax’d from the door moldings down, so if moisture does indeed come in those areas then it’s all protected.

 

[Hughie]

A second excellent example in a day of the care and attention being lavished on these wonderful little cars to preserve them in fine fettle for a long time to come.

As an enthusiastic owner it is so satisfying to know that even the ‘out of sight areas’ are being tended to and preserved to the same level as the visible areas. Deep sense of satisfaction!

Your’re taking the attention to detail to new levels.

Great write up and pictures as usual to inspire us all! Well done.

 

[frayz]

A second excellent example in a day of the care and attention being lavished on these wonderful little cars to preserve them in fine fettle for a long time to come.

As an enthusiastic owner it is so satisfying to know that even the ‘out of sight areas’ are being tended to and preserved to the same level as the visible areas. Deep sense of satisfaction!

Your’re taking the attention to detail to new levels.

Great write up and pictures as usual to inspire us all! Well done.

Thanks mate, just a shame mines not a proper Trophy

 

[Hughie]

Credit where credit is due!

With all the work and improvements you have made to your car it stands out in its own right and is probably from a performance handling perspective as good as a Trophy.

 

[frayz]

So as of last Monday I’ve been removed from furlough and sent back to work. This means I could finally get some wheel time and enjoy driving the little Clio again.

Thursday night as I pulled off the drive, and heard what I thought was a knock from the OS front. Bugger!!!
First look I could get at the car was Friday morning, and I found my issue at the first thing I suspected, the lower ball joint. Double bugger!

The bottom ball joint had a good 0.5 / 1mm of vertical play in it. These bearings were brand new from McGill Motorsport when I fitted the roll centre correction hubs only a few weeks back. Unable to get access to a press at work during the lockdown, they were pressed in by a local machine shop. Knowing they’re an interference fit i assumed, although unlikely, that the play was the ball in the outer race and had worn prematurely.

I sent McGill an email with a video and details of my issue of which they responded right away and got me a replacement bearing sent out FOC. Excellent.

They also asked me to return the faulty item which I was happy to once removed so they could inspect it and discuss with their supplier as to why it may have failed in less than 200 road miles.

I also didn’t want to rule out the bearing carrier having a possible tolerance issue or being out of round. So called Alan at Bridgecraft Motorsport who machined the parts originally, and bought a new bearing and carrier. I asked him to send it on a next day delivery so I could be sure to get the car fixed today. Again, excellent customer service from them.

So this morning I removed the faulty bearing and carrier. The bearing bore is a slight interference fit on the hub extender so used a small two legged puller to remove it. Happy to see it came off without issue. No reason for it not to be, but also pleased to see the hub extender was mint with no material pick up from the bearing.

My OCD was having issues with the new bearing carrier being a yellow zinc finish and my other parts are a silver zinc, but i coped admirably and fitted you the new carrier, torqued up and am delighted to say the knocking as gone.

On inspection I couldn’t see any obvious issue with the previous bearing or carrier but removed the circlip in preparation to press the faulty bearing out on Monday.
To my amazement the bearing slid straight out with very little hand pressure. Then to my amazement and annoyance, I saw the old bearing had what appear to be sanding marks on the outside of the outer race. It would appear these have been linished down to fit in the housings rather than pressed in as they should have been. FFS!!

I haven’t gone back to the machine shop as frankly I can’t be bothered with the conversation over a bearing.

So, great that the knocking has gone, and pleased there is no play in the NS bearing. But I’ll be calling McGill first thing Monday morning to explain my embarrassment in what I found, and pay for the replacement item they sent me FOC. Clearly this is not a issue with their part.

I had also rubbed down and painted my original door bullets in Moondust silver and clear coated. They’re okay considering I’m not a painter but I’m too fussy and wasn’t happy to refit them. I enquired about a new set from Renault but at £180 a pair, that wasn’t a route I was prepared to go down. So set about finding the mintest pair of original bullets I could. Now they’re fitted, the colour coded ones had grown on me and if they had been a good colour match, I may have kept them.

So with that done, I gave the old girl a wash as it’s been driven to work in the Essex rain all week and was looking filthy.

 

[Cue]

Door bullets look better than new - good job!

 

[glenn]

Another great job done

 

[frayz]

Door bullets look better than new - good job!

They’re the best genuine set i could find. I wasn’t happy with the pair I painted.

 

[Hughie]

Interesting and informative write-up as always with great pics!

As frustrating as this episode was I think it is always worthwhile sharing the ‘error’ with the machine shop who caused you the problem. Linishing or modifying a standard bearing in any way is a no no!

Feedback, as I am sure you know, is the only way these businesses can assess their quality performance and take any necessary steps to avoid such issues arising in the future and improve.

Just a couple of other points of interest.

Firstly, on your photo of the hub extender there is a circumferential witness mark on the cone just before the bearing spigot. Is that maybe caused by contact with the circlip?

Secondly, what is the marker paint/pen that you use to confirm when the torque tightening has been performed? Would you recommend it?

And lastly, the Speedline Corsa wheels and Toyo tyre combination look awesome. Do they have to be fitted using studs and nuts rather than bolts? If so why is this and what is the advantage?

Keep up the excellent work!

 

[frayz]

Firstly, on your photo of the hub extender there is a circumferential witness mark on the cone just before the bearing spigot. Is that maybe caused by contact with the circlip?

Yes I believe that was the case in its previous ownership. I think it was just touching on full droop. My ASTs limit the droop so this cannot happen in my application.

Secondly, what is the marker paint/pen that you use to confirm when the torque tightening has been performed? Would you recommend it?

Just a standard paint marker. Just a habit of mine when tightening any significant external fasteners I always mark them. Just allows me to see at a glance if anything has moved or relaxed in future. It’s also a mental note to self that that fastener has been torqued fully.

And lastly, the Speedline Corsa wheels and Toyo tyre combination look awesome. Do they have to be fitted using studs and nuts rather than bolts? If so why is this and what is the advantage?

Keep up the excellent work!

This wheel and tyre combo are perfectly fine with standard bolts. However I run the stud/nut kit for 2 reasons.

Firstly the front has a 16mm hubcentric spacer and this requires a longer than standard fastener. I use a 75mm stud up front and a 68mm stud on the rear as these are the closest sizes in need for my applications. They also allow me to easily play with different size spacers on different wheels.

Secondly as I’m always dropping my wheels on and off, studs are so much nicer to use as they locate the wheel without you faffing about trying to align a wheel bolt each time.

The other obvious advantage is it takes away the wear of the wheel bolts going repeatedly in and out of the hub threads and if I damage a stud, it’s easy to replace.

 

[frayz]

Latest tinker has been giving the heat shields a jolly up.
Nothing fancy, just removed, scrubbed with degreaser, 2 coats of Zinc primer and then 2 coats of VHT silver. I made up some large load spreaders with some spare Nimbus sheet and refitted with new hardware. Far from show standard but a bit fresher than it was.
Cleaned the 3rd exhaust bracket and painted that in gloss black too. Again refitted with new hardware

Also added some large trim clips to the bumper corners as I no longer use those mounts running R888s with the wider track and low tide height.
Then had the idea of adding some 6mm trim clips to the rear bumper/arch liners. It always annoyed me that they flapped about but now they provide so much more structure to the rear bumper and look totally OEM.
Subaru spares coming in good use.

 

[frayz]

 

[Hughie]

Heat shields and fixings look the business! Reminds me of a display at a classic car show where the owner put mirrors under his vehicle to show how immaculate it was underneath as well as on top.

Bit excessive for us Trophy owners who prefer to use their cars!

Did the same as you with fixing the trailing edge of the wheel arch liner to the rear bumper. So much more satisfying not to feel it flapping around particularly when washing the car.

Great job as ever.

 

[glenn]

Just gets better and I feel worse about mine every time I look on this thread.

What did you underseal the bottom with as I'm looking into what to use when I eventually take everything off underneath to be powder coated

 

[frayz]

So this week not long after I’ve fixed the ball joint issue, I turn the steering on the drive and hear the weirdest of creeking noises. Only happened on right lock, not on left, wasn’t rotational and didn’t increase frequency with speed. It was just a weird creeking

A noise that didn’t really lend itself to any of the vehicles systems as I knew them.
It had me kinda puzzled and I decided I couldn’t be arsed to look just now, and as the weather was nice, I took the Cayman to work this week. Haven’t driven it since long before lockdown so it was nice to get back in it.

Anyway, tonight I set myself the task of finding and fixing this damn creek. Now apart from the ARB bushes (to be done soon). Every single Bush, bearing, mount and balljoint on the car is brand new since last July.
I had the car up and wheels both in compression and droop through all the ranges of motion yet couldn’t replicate the noise without the suspension loaded under the vehicles weight.

Then I had a random thought about the coilover covers and gave them a twist by hand. Just check out this noise of the damper cover creeking on the springs Powdercoating when the steering is applied. It was obviously caught up top by the topmount and the damper was rotating in the cover.

Covers off washed, dampers checked over and spanner checked. Coated in ACF50 and covers refitted. Back on the floor I’m a happy boy again as she’s silent.

Just gets better and I feel worse about mine every time I look on this thread.

What did you underseal the bottom with as I'm looking into what to use when I eventually take everything off underneath to be powder coated

I haven’t. It’s all factory underseal. Just cleaned and topped up in areas with some Dynax UB just to help any problems. Ideally it wants stripping back and doing properly, but then I’m getting into doing a restoration. It’s just my daily driver so as long as it’s clean and protected as best I can, that’ll do for now.

 

[OFORBES]

Wow.

I have just read your entire thread from start to finish whilst I have been on conference calls.

I think you are my new hero Frayz! What an incredible thread, your attention to detail and levels of OCD are immense! I hugely admire your work and I am envious of your (and others) abilities in undertaking so much of this work! I wish my mechanical knowledge and ability matched my levels of OCD around cleanliness, things matching, etc.

My two young car mad boys keep me well and truly on my toes whenever I am near any of my cars. I am never allowed in my garage without them next to me so I always have to keep one eye on them and the other in trying to get done what I want to which means I can never really find the time, and if I do, I rush jobs so that I can give them my undivided attention.

I guess, I can only wait for the day when they are a little older and I can do jobs like this on my cars!

Really, thoroughly enjoyed reading this entire thread! Thank you for so much detail!

Cheers

Forbes

 

[frayz]

Wow.

I have just read your entire thread from start to finish whilst I have been on conference calls.

I think you are my new hero Frayz! What an incredible thread, your attention to detail and levels of OCD are immense! I hugely admire your work and I am envious of your (and others) abilities in undertaking so much of this work! I wish my mechanical knowledge and ability matched my levels of OCD around cleanliness, things matching, etc.

My two young car mad boys keep me well and truly on my toes whenever I am near any of my cars. I am never allowed in my garage without them next to me so I always have to keep one eye on them and the other in trying to get done what I want to which means I can never really find the time, and if I do, I rush jobs so that I can give them my undivided attention.

I guess, I can only wait for the day when they are a little older and I can do jobs like this on my cars!

Really, thoroughly enjoyed reading this entire thread! Thank you for so much detail!

Cheers

Forbes

Thank you sir, very kind of you to say.
She's just my daily driver but i love it more all the time. As said before, its no show pony and plenty here far nicer than mine, however its getting ever closer to exactly how i want it.
I like to tinker if i get the time and the Clio allows me to scratch the tinkering itch lol

 

[OFORBES]

Thank you sir, very kind of you to say.
She's just my daily driver but i love it more all the time. As said before, its no show pony and plenty here far nicer than mine, however its getting ever closer to exactly how i want it.
I like to tinker if i get the time and the Clio allows me to scratch the tinkering itch lol

I love to tinker, but my abilities go as far as detailing my car! I would love to possess the abilities of your tinkering! As others have said, if you want to borrow my car at any time to tinker with it let me know!!

Im looking forward to the next instalment!