idiot Kiltox’s eternally fucked 1992 Renault Clio 1.4 RT auto

[Kiltox]

Had this little honey delivered today from the Autoshite legend that is RobT who saved it from the crusher. 

Has a few issues - biggest of all is rough running / misfire at idle. Top suspect is the inlet manifold gasket which was kindly supplied. 

Needs a proper service since the previous giffer owner seems to have been ripped off by his local garage - the air filter is black as fuck and the spark plugs fitted are probably not the correct ones. 

OSF sidelight is inop - broken wire. Upon investigating I found some top class wiring repairs to the lighting harness:

Yes, twisted together wires covered in masking tape. Lovely. 

All in all it’s very clean and tidy though - 33k on the clock! 

[Fumbler]

Looks Skweeky Kleen. Looking forward to what happens next!

[Broadsword]

Lovely looking thing. Glad it got saved!

[ETCHY]

That looks great. That type of Clio has aged really well, nice clean shape.

[Iamgroot]

Wow that's really clean looking in the pics, nice to have a few little things to get stuck into aswell

[Split_Pin]

Yaaass! Looks a belter chap, love MK1 Clios, especially the dash.

[Kiltox]

Just now, Split_Pin said:

Yaaass! Looks a belter chap, love MK1 Clios, especially the dash.

The dash and it’s lighting is amazing. So much character compared with the mk4 that it’s sharing my unit with. 

[Kiltox]

Ordered some parts before it’d even arrived

Air filter

Oil filter

Fuel filter

Spark plugs 

Full set of wipers 

Just over £22 from CP4L/ECP.  Should be here in a couple of days. Guessing I’ll actually get the head set I need to fix my Rover instead ?. 

[Kiltox]

Anyone got a HBoL for one of these? Really need a fuse/relay diagram.  The fuse box has a pictorial representation of the fuses but not the relays. 

[Split_Pin]

Should get a PDF fuse diagram online chap, that's where I got one for mine.

[Split_Pin]

https://images.app.goo.gl/pjRr97djb6HPZUnf8

Any good?

[Kiltox]

Nah the box doesn’t look like that. There’s only a couple of fuses and relays under the bonnet, rest are in the passenger footwell. 

Googling for mk1 Clio stuff doesn’t seem too fruitful - lots of people think a ph1 mk2 Clio is a mk1 ?

[brownnova]

Well saved, looks lovely. Important that cars like this are saved as it would be easy to lose them from our roads. 

[Kiltox]

Couldn’t tell you the last time I saw a mk1 Clio on the road, pretty rare sight. I think they’re quite good at rusting, not this one though!

[Angrydicky]

Aren't these autoboxes the ones that Renault claimed were sealed for life, but actually require an ATF change every seven years or they start fucking up big time? Hence lots of tidy low mileage autos stuck in second gear etc.

[Kiltox]

I would’ve thought that it was a bit old for those shenanigans, newer Renaults definitely had that affliction though. 

[Marm Toastsmith]

Lovely. Saw one of these locally and had major want.

[Wingz123]

Doesnt even look to have any lacquer peel either?

[Kiltox]

3 minutes ago, Wingz123 said:

Doesnt even look to have any lacquer peel either?

Nah the paint looks pretty damn fine. It has a tiny tiny amount of rust along the leading edge of the drivers door where the paint has obviously been damaged at some point and some scratches / chips where one of those door edge protector things has been ?

Some chips around the boot lock where I’m guessing some misguided application of the key has happened ? - if everything goes well I might see if I can get a smart repair done on that  

Needs a good polish and wax but it is in fine shape. 

[BorniteIdentity]

46 minutes ago, Kiltox said:

I would’ve thought that it was a bit old for those shenanigans, newer Renaults definitely had that affliction though. 

Ask @barrett how he feels about the longevity and idiosyncrasies of this particular autobox.

I’d probably do all I could to prevent disaster. 

[barrett]

The gearbox fault on ours turned out to be an ECU problem, and a replacement ECU solved it, but then it turned out the car was dangerously slow and totally joyless to drive even with all three gears. Then something exploded in the fuel/oil/gearbox oil system and I never even opened the bonnet to check what it was, just called the scrap man. Hateful little cars. A shame, because they're pretty, comfortable and seem to be quite good quality. No rust whatsoever on ours, either. I bet a manual version is a very satisfying way of travelling.

[Kiltox]

It doesn’t seem that slow to me when it runs on enough cylinders to actually transmit some power to the gearbag. Time will tell  

[RobT]

I hammered it home along the M25 with Audis impeding my progress, so I'd say there's enough poke (it runs fine at motorway speeds, but the rough running really becomes an issue around town).  This one is a 1.4 though so perhaps the 1.1 married to an auto is the dismal affair.  The 'box also seemed fine to me, relatively speaking.  I've got used to the 11 with its harsh shift into third, it really does clunk and make you wince.  This is the second 1.4 auto I've tried and that was sprightly too, so I reckon yours was fucked from the off Scott!  Either that or my definition of fast is different...

[Wingz123]

The 1.4's were favourites for head gasket failure weren't they? I seem to recall being told that that was common on them...

Mind you if this has such low mileage and if you remember that red faded one Bramz was looking at with over 300k on.....this should go for years!

[Kiltox]

I so nearly bought that high miler too 

[somewhatfoolish]

All you need now is an Estelle Skornik lookylikey to drive it about being chic while you lounge in the garden wearing a crumpled linen suit and guzzling pastis.

[Skizzer]

I have been harbouring impure thoughts about this ever since Rob spotted it in distress.

That said, if I had an Estelle Skornik lookylikey I wouldn’t be on Autoshite very much at all.

[Tadhg Tiogar]

On 8/28/2019 at 10:56 AM, RobT said:

....I've got used to the 11 with its harsh shift into third,....

My understanding is that a harsh shift / thump in the back might be a symptom of low fluid levels.

[Fumbler]

16 minutes ago, Tadhg Tiogar said:

My understanding is that a harsh shift / thump in the back might be a symptom of low fluid levels.

Putting it into reverse would also prove that, however I don't know if that method applies to all autoboxes.

[RobT]

22 minutes ago, Tadhg Tiogar said:

My understanding is that a harsh shift / thump in the back might be a symptom of low fluid levels.

PhilA commented once that his is same, so I think it's a case of TADTS.  All the other gears are smooth-ish, and I've done two oil changes since last October with little difference.