19. Nearing the finish!

Done a few bits since the last post.

•     Coolant tank and catch can.
•     Laguna uprights and PMS roll centre kit.
•     Windows and windscreen.
•     Temporary brake ducts.
•     Corner weight scale levelling pads.

 Went for a radium coolant tank and catch can. With a straight and 90 degree AN fitting the hose fittings were in the exact same place as the standard coolant tank so the existing coolant hoses were perfect. Catch can was connected to the inlet hose using a self sealing fitting. No real reason we picked these ones apart from they look great.

Next was a bit of a change in plan, decided to change to Laguna uprights as the lower part of the laguna upright is a much better/stronger design for attaching to the ball joint/roll centre pin. The only trouble is that you need to change the shocks to 65mm spacing.

Last person to change the wheel bearing had a shocker with getting the inner bearing race off the hub so decided to get new hubs since new bearings were going in too.

Some machining/grinding is required to give clearance to the shock mounting plates, did this with a combo of a die grinder and flap disc.

Then it was time to cut up a perfectly good set of AST5100s.

Was planning on getting the uprights zinc coated but basically was impatient so just spray painted the parts when it was baltic in the garage so got the heater out.

Whilst doing the uprights also sorted out new wheel speed sensors. Went for some universal Hall effect sensors. Got slightly caught out as these required a 12v supply but I had wired them to a 5v, so had to do a little rewrite behind the ADU.

With the standard ABS rings the wheel speed sensor were not working, from the data sheet the abs ring teeth were too close together so some more machining/grinding with the die grinder and ground down every other tooth and then they worked perfectly.

And then a job I was not looking forward to, the windows and windscreen.

Went for the plastic4performance polycarbonate window kit with a pro slider and a heated Ricky evans windscreen. Both of which all fitted perfectly and looked great so initial feedback is spot on.

Putting the adhesive off I did the doors first. Rivnuts along the top edge of the door, with two holes drilled into the window for bolts on the outside to hold the window up and the 3 rivnuts in the middle of the door to hold the window against the outer seal of the door.

Didn’t get any pictures during the install of the other windows, probably a combo of concentration and a small amount of panic about how they were going to turn out. For the rear quarters, cleaned the body seam/bond area with dinitrol 520 then painted with dinitrol 530. Then used a lot of sikaflex for the windows. Needed 1.5 tubes per rear quarter windows.

Top tip!! Make sure your doors can shut without touching the windows before the adhesive goes off. Luckily noticed and a quick push back of the window and were back in business.

Windscreen was a very similar procedure but also sealed the edge of the windscreen and painted the glass area to be bonded.

Regarding the heated screen wiring. The Clio mk2 screen has two separate heater elements. They recommend two 25 amps connections, so hooked it up to two 25amps PMU outputs. A really helpful guy at Ricky evans motorsport said they should draw between 15 and 16 amps each and sure enough it was drawing about 15 amps.

We aren’t sure what we will end up with brake wise. AP Racing 5000r kit? If so I plan to make a proper brake duct to fed a centre cooled disc. However the current brembo discs are fed from the outside so decided to use something quick and easy until we decide the way forward so used a pair of corvette brake ducts which happen to fit perfectly and even the existing bolt on the body lines up perfectly.

Last part of the post. We bought a set of Proform scales. Didn’t want to spend a fortune on a set so bought these from the USA, worked out to be £760. Went with the wired scales as the wireless ones seem to get a bad review.

Then didn’t want to spend a fortune on a set of levelling pads and turn plates so decided to have a go at making our own. No idea how well they will work yet but will update you with how we get on aligning the car.