Project Domes shonky autos - Grand Cherokee departs, Kangoo titivation and 911 dug out.

[gm]

madness ! well done, sir !

 

[Mrcento]

Looks good. Insurance may be... interesting. It can be a pain with modified cars that have had engine swaps, but vans with engine swaps, given they usually need to go through specialised commercial vehicle brokers, not sure many will accept an engine swapped one. Someone will and it probably won't be too expensive  once you locate that someone, but could be a challenge,

My only experience looking into engine swapped vans came from looking at an Astravan that had been swapped with a 3.0 v6. The general consensus in the few places i tried was "hahahahaha.....oh, wait, you're serious?, erm...no".

Part of the reason my Cinq is still laid up and i'm weighing up the sale of it is just that. I can't be bothered anymore trying to get quotes. It invariably ends up having to go to specialist brokers and 90 minute phonecalls discussing all the mods in great detail, only to get an insane quote at the end, rinse and repeat for each quote.

[skattrd]

Is the Cherokee all good now then? 

Feel free to pm me when you want shot of it

[Supernaut]

When you said you wanted a clio 172/182 powered Kangoo next, I thought you were going to build it.

You're getting soft!

 

That looks fucking awesome though.

[The Moog]

Oooffffft

Knockhill must beckon

[Jim Bell]

Highly approved. 

[bigfella2]

Nice, does it need much doing to it?

[yes oui si]

A billionty / 10

Chunky steels and mismatched covers ftmfw. 

[hairnet]

so itll be able to show the s4 its rear doors then

[Liggle]

Loving the Kangoo. I always remember almost-finished engine swapped cars being bargains when I was in to that kind of thing, will be fun on trackdays! 

[big_al_granvia]

i remember a vw caddy racing in vw cup, guy rolled it at duffus... top chod sir

[cort16]

I remember you talking about building one of these this looks like a good shortcut even it does need some work. How are the drive shafts? ?

[dome]

So, I finally have time to write the report on this mission.

I'd spotted this for sale originally in September but the price was higher and I still fancied building one myself. I had the Octavia to get rid of first to free up space/funds

Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago and the Octavias gone so i start searching for a donor Clio 172. Turns out they've gone up quite a bit in value and I felt bad about breaking one. Then this Kangoo appeared again up in Aberdeen for sale. Built around 5 years ago and bought by the seller 2 years ago it's not been on the road in about 4-5 years according to the MOT history. 

The seller seemed decent and the spec sounded pretty good. A price was agreed and it as just a case of me getting there to view/collect. A pre booked MOT was considered but as it hadn't been on the road in 5 years and was in limp home mode for reasons unknown driving it back from Aberdeen might have been ambitious

Enter, stage left, the mighty Cherokee I have custody of. It's owner was happy for me to use it for this purpose so on Friday afternoon I headed first to Kirkcaldy to hire a trailer.

Firstly though I decided to make it look a bit more presentable

Concours prep like that costs extra here at Cowboy Motorsport

En route to Dundee to pick up our very own @Tickman who would provide navigation, chat and be my second pair of eyes for both Kangoo viewing and trailer manouevering. Did I mention the last time I towed a car trailer was 20 years ago and I was driving a 2.3D Sierra?

I stopped for a pee and a pic on the way

And off we went to Aberdeen with the Heep running very well. It towed both up and back at 60mph no bother at all. The temp gauge climbed a bit in traffic but it never overheated. 

With a minor detour to a row of cottages which involved unhitching the trailer so we could turn around (thanks to the sat nav) we found the destination and met with the chap who owned the unit it was stored in. The vans owner followed shortly after and I could get down to checking it over. 

It fired up with a jump and ran OK although in limp home mode. The bodywork seemed straight apart from some filler on the right rear arch-you can see this has been damaged in some of the pics. We got it up on the ramp and it's solid underneath with key points to note being a leak from the power steering(which I knew about) and a very rorty (but sadly catless, hence useless) side exit exhaust.

Cash was handed over, V5 filled in and we loaded up for the return journey.Stopped at Asda on the way home for LPG and Mcdonalds. @Tickman here checking it was still strapped down. or throwing up at my driving...

Sadly eating choices are limited as to where you can park this thing. Still, better than nothing.

@Tickman  also had to sweet talk the tanker driver delivering to Asda to let us use the coned off LPG pump. The sweet talking worked and the Jeep was fuelled up again. 

I left Tickman in Dunndee at some point inthe night, topped up the Jeep again(the LPG gauge is very vague so it seemed stupid not to fuel up when I could) and eventually got home around half 10. I dumped the thing in the school car park behind the house and went to bed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[dome]

After a fitful sleep I had to get cracking yesterday. I had to unload the Kangoo, get the trailer back to Kirkcaldy and then get myself to Carron Valley near Falkirk by 1030 as i'd arranged to go cycling. 

First view in daylight. Not too bad at all.

I rolled it off the trailer to avoid waking the neighbours but would it fire up? Would it fuck. I left it and decided to deal with that later. 

Back home after a successful dropping off of the trailer and making it to cycling ontime I had another crack.

It appeared the immobiliser had lost sync so after a bit of fucking about it fired up adn I drove it onto the drive.

And here she is, as found and not touched. 

 

I reckon it shold clean up quite well. I like the stance of it although it is very low. I'll get it on the road and see how it is but I may raise it a bit. 

I plugged in my code reader and read the codes-one for lambda (which has been replaced) and one for the throttle pedal(fly by wire on these) I'd already picked up a throttle pedal and throttle body so swapped the pedal first

 

3 nuts and it was off. Fitted the new one, cleared the codes and no change. Note the Clio 182 seats, to go with the clocks and steering wheel. It all bolts straight in. 

Under the bonnet and 4 bolts and a jubilee clip had the throttle body off. This was original by the looks of things. New one on, codes cleared and it was out of limp home mode. Yas! Who knows if it'll stay that way though...

Heres a vid of it running still in limp mode at this point. Did I mention it was loud?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdcV5NaAOyY

I chucked a couple of fresh gallons of petrol in it as fook knows how old the fuel was. And that's as far as I've got

First thing is to build an exhaust that will pass an MOT, then sort the rest of the MOT related things and get it in for a test. I'm waiting for insurance quotes to come back, hopefully won't be too bad as I'm old and live in a fairly decent area. Then inform the DVLA.

I can't wait to get it on the road!

 

 

[Jenson Velcro]

Oh good , another Dome project. Always enjoyable and informative. Looking forward to further instalments.

[Fabergé Greggs]

Oh Em Gee that’s amazing!! 

[Tickman]

It sounded ace when it started up with the jump start and when it went up on the lift (which has reinforced my NEED for one) and all I could see were a couple of moist dampers on the front there was nothing to make me say no, even if I was spending my money it would have been a yes!

That driveway turn around wasn't the easiest in the dark, 10/10 trailer dragging skills.

[Jim Bell]

You could make SLIGHTLY MORE THAN minimum wage doing Myhermes deliveries faster than any other bastard when it's all running great. 

[Crackers]

Good god! I need that in my life! 

[The Moog]

This is an ace thing.... Very excited to see the progress

[big_al_granvia]

Put a half cage in the front, get in touch with scott mcminn motorsport if you plan on any trackdays. Could be a fun wee beastie, plenty of clio tuners out there but cage, seats and harness 1st

[yes oui si]

Straight pipe back to a sports cat at the back. 

[yes oui si]

Then turbo it. 

[dome]

7 minutes ago, yes oui si said:

Straight pipe back to a sports cat at the back. 

This is my daily so subtle and quiet is the key!

6 minutes ago, yes oui si said:

Then turbo it. 

Worth doing, if only because this engine is called the F4R.

The turbocharged version, found in the Megane RS, is naturally called the F4RT

 

[spartacus]

Ace, love it. I had a Kangoo anges although it was a 1.9d it drove alright, this should be a proper laugh.

[bigfella2]

Regarding the power steering leak, my advice is to just bin it off and go epas instead.

[dome]

Ok, so here's the fail sheet I have to work on from 2016

Not too bad, mostly related to the exhaust.

A brief probe under tonight confirmed it's running a 182 manifold which is good, however it's different(longer) to a 172 one, also I think the flanges are different.

This means my original choice of a standard 172 system modified to fit isn't as straightforward. It wasn't straightforward anyway as the 172 exhaust exits on the opposite side to the Kangoo. However there's a big flat floor under there so who knows what can be made to fit.

I'm picking up a 182 cat tomorrow night and have access to a full 182 system to see if it will fit. 

I did want to keep it looking standard but if I can make the 182 system fit it'd look pretty fucking cool with the twin pipes poking out the bumper ?

Here's the system currently fitted. Cool but as useful as tits on a fish(copyright cms206)

[dome]

20 hours ago, bigfella2 said:

Regarding the power steering leak, my advice is to just bin it off and go epas instead.

This absolutely is the plan. Everyone I know with a Clio has had power steering leaks, I'm going down the EPAS column route with standalone controller for variable assistance and a looped return on the rack

[dome]

On 2/8/2020 at 2:08 PM, hairnet said:

so itll be able to show the s4 its rear doors then

Well if a Saab diesel did then clearly this van will, especially at 4.30 on a Friday night?

[dome]

On 2/8/2020 at 6:10 AM, skattrd said:

Is the Cherokee all good now then? 

Feel free to pm me when you want shot of it

I'll let you know if it's for sale. It's got a small coolant leak from the new stainless rad and there's something worn trans mount wise I think-it shudders a bit when you take up drive. I still prefer grand Cherokees but this thing was a cracking companion for this mission