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Thread: TAO

  1. #1
    Forum User Hoppo1979's Avatar
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    TAO

    For sale on EBay, wants back arches doing but looks a good project for someone, nice Megane RS in the background. £1500 not overly excessive or make offer!


    http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1995-RENAU...item4611df7b5e

  2. #2
    Forum User Chris197F1's Avatar
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    That car is proper getting around

  3. #3
    Forum User Hoppo1979's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Chris197F1 View Post
    That car is proper getting around
    Is it a bad penny mate? I've pointed it out to a colleague at work!

  4. #4
    Forum User Chris197F1's Avatar
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    It was advertised on here at a good price and the guy who bought it then advertised it a few weeks later for a rather increased price. Was on ebay for a while at various prices and he must have finally sold it as thats a different seller now. What annoys me is I got outbid on that car when he sent it to auction, it was then relisted the following week so its obvious he got a friend to outbid as I would have won it for £750.

    If its the same car that is, im pretty sure though tbh

  5. #5
    Forum User Chris197F1's Avatar
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    Oh yeah he also doesnt mention in that advert about the gearbox being difficult to select reverse

  6. #6
    Forum User p4cks's Avatar
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    Yeah, I was interested in this initially. It's a shame that the trader got there first as if I'd have bought it it would have been restored and put back up for sale. And of course those awful tints would have been removed.

    The car is tainted now. It's been through more owners than Portsmouth FC

  7. #7
    Forum User Chris197F1's Avatar
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    lol p4cks

    It is a shame really whats happened to it. Maybe it needs a true enthusiast to get hold of it next and turn it around

  8. #8
    I ended up buying it (yes, I did read this first - didn't put me off!), and bringing it down to Cambridge. The plan is to use it in the chelmsford/East anglia Targa rally championship. I've had quite a bit of success in the last two years in an extremely beaten-up (but much loved) standard 1.4 clio Mk1, and think it's time to upgrade!

    This one seems ideal for me so far - I've been after one with scruffy bodywork, but mechanically solid and not had the suspension/engine tinkered with (i.e. ruined) as seems to be so common - I've had it up on my ramp today and am quite pleased that everything seems perfect - Original OEM suspension (albeit with polybushes, but that's got to be an improvement) in good condition, original F7R engine (Can't see any reason not to believe the 103K miles, and my other clio has done 220K!), and the JC5-014 gearbox is absolutely perfect (Compared to every other renault clio gearbox I've had, and I've gone through a lot...). The seller claimed to have "fixed" the engaging reverse problem mentioned earlier (linkage fouling the exhaust) - which seems to have been done by ingeniously crimping and bending the gear linkage rather than realigning the exhaust, but no harm done!

    Those Godawful window tints have been removed (What on earth were they thinking - might as well have put a neon sign on the roof saying "Police, please stop me, I have a boot full of drugs and no insurance"), so slightly less embarassing to drive about in. And the locking wheel nuts with a missing key have been replaced with standard ones.

    The alloy wheels and T1R's are rather nice - seems a shame to go rallying in them; I've got a set of scruffier 14" wheels with 888's on (Higher profile, so same overall ride height as the original 15's) that I can use for rallying, and keep the originals for road use.

    One day I'll get around to tidying up the sills and wheel arches properly (I did this on t'other clio, so should be easier second time around, right?), but for the time being I've just slapped underseal and waxoyl all over the underneath, which has suffered from a complete lack of any oil leaks from the engine or gearbox, and hence started to go a little rusty.

  9. #9
    So the first targa rally for this french beast is in two weeks time - I've been driving it around as much as possible just to check everything is reliable, and have but another 2000 miles on it since the last post with no problems whatsoever, and have rather grown to love driving it about.
    Anyhow, I entered it into an autosolo today just to give it a thorough shakedown and get a feel for it's handling at speed. The first two test runs went fantastically well, with only a WRX imprezza and BMW 328 setting faster times. I then screwed up the finish of the third test, had to reverse to get the right side of a cone - dropped the clutch in reverse and clonk - the nearside driveshaft snapped. - I guess that was the point of a shakedown!
    Fortunately I had a spare standard driveshaft from a 1.4 clio which was enough to get me home - and very easy to swap over. It snapped just at the hub end where the CV joint meets the splined shaft. I've broken clio driveshafts a few times before, but always at the gearbox end. So I'm hoping some geniuses here will be able to give me some advise:
    1. Are driveshaft failures at the hub end common, or has this CV joint just been replaced with a cheap after-market jobby at some point?
    2. What are the options for getting the strongest, most indestructable driveshafts ever, and does anybody have any such item they're willing to sell? Presumably stengthening at the hub end will mean uprated hubs, but I don't want to go so far as to uprate the brakes or struts. What do the Group N cars do for driveshafts?
    3. Although the engine mounts appear to be OK, has anybody found weak engine mounts to be the cause of drive shaft failures? - I could imagine all that torque in reverse would stress those mounts in unexpected ways resulting in odd driveshaft angles and more likely to break?

  10. #10
    Hmmm. Surprised there are dozens of techie gurus with plenty of advice here on this one. Looking closely at the broken joint, I'm pretty certain that it was just a cheap dodgy CV joint, but after a bit of research I've decided to try the conversion to beefier 172 shafts with 172 hubs, 280mm brakes and 172 wishbones - with slightly wider track. I've put together all the bits I need and I'll let you know how I get on...


 

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