Bargain Basement Motoring

[Rp0thejester]

How did you fit 50 5 foot boards in that!? Were they hanging out of the passenger side window!

[NewcastleFalcon]

This was small load of 10 6 ft boards, a little while ago, didn't take a pic of the 50, but just piled them up at that angle , and lengthwise no need to open the passenger window, and the hatchback shut.



Probably about 30 in here on another trip!



Neil

[bobins]

Now if you were down this way, I would have had all of that timber for kindling

[CitroJim]

Another gorgeously atmospheric picture Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

Another gorgeously atmospheric picture Neil

Thanks Jim. I appear to have lost the one where the 2.4 meter posts for the signal box structure were poking out of the passenger window and resting gently on the "wing" mirror . I think the BB Micra thrives on a bit of light haulage from time to time

Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

Never got round to engineering a summer MOT for the original 6 bottles of wine Clio so its end of February, always a decent bet for inclement weather.

SixbottlesofWine Clio on a grand day out

Bit of prep work needed before it goes in for a test, including an inopportune throwing up of misfiring and the emissions warning light just the other day. Of all the threads on all the car forums, those which have "misfire" in the title are the ones which more often than not, turn into sagas without the problem being "solved".

Well, after a bit of amateur investigation this 20 year old part was replaced with a brand new one and for now at least the previous misfiring problem showed no signs of recurring on a decent 10 miles of dual carriageway at speeds up to 70mph and round town stop start driving.

Coil Pack and Ignition Leads

The Clio is a very decent car, with fairly well known little foibles particularly on the electrics side. Would be nice to keep it going. Been in the Falcon fleet since December 2017 ( page 1 post 1 of the thread... viewtopic.php?p=559131#p559131 )

Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

In second place in typical threads without a resolution is element 2 of "6bottlesofwine" Clio's MOT prep.

Much trim removal, soggy underseat carpet to slice up, seats to free from their anchorage and pull up upholstery to expose seat side airbag wiring and its connector. The Clio is pretty notorious for poor underseat wiring connectors and resultant SRS light coming on. Wiring integrity proved so far from 50 pin multiplug at the SRS ECU to passenger side airbag, passenger pre-tensioner and passenger side impact sensor.

Not all items on this menu are present on the car. No passenger/driver seat occupancy sensor as far as I can tell.

Menu for the multimeter

Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

Not a triumphant success story yet on the "airbag" light on front.

Unfortunately, the wiring from the SRS ECU to the side impact sensors, air-bags, and pre-tensioners has proved to be sound.

The most likely culprit (s) now, just on general clio known behaviour, are the side impact sensors. If you have a sunroof in a Clio 2, it will leak, and the passenger footwell in particular will be a soggy carpet and soggy yellow under-carpet foam reservoir. The low down sensors mounted on the inner sill are prone to a bit of moisture laden existence.

Could be the ECU itself of course, both items are readily available on the used marketplace on the internet. The days a few years ago when one old-style scrapyard I visited had a row of 4 Clio 2's are gone, they are now a rarity so a couple of side-impact sensors for a tenner are unlikely to be easily found.

side impact srnsor
SRS ECU tin

Neil

[CitroJim]

Might be worth trying to dry out those items in a nice warm spot Neil...

[NewcastleFalcon]

Thanks Jim, not sure what is inside the side impact sensors or how they work or any idea of what the ECU checks from its "test" of them every time you switch on. Resistance? put a meter on the two pins on the sensor and its off the scales of the multimeter ohms. They do appear to be optimistically overpriced from some ebay sellers, too much to just throw one in see if it puts out the warning light.

Now if bringing them in and shoving them next to a radiator revives them your legendary status will grow!

Neil

[CitroJim]

Now if bringing them in and shoving them next to a radiator revives them your legendary status will grow!

Fingers crossed Neil and it's got to be worth a go, nothing to loose!

[bobins]

Im almost certainly wrong, but somewhere in my distant memory I seem to remember having to reset the airbag light with a diagnostics kit once it had lit up. This was on Mrs Bobins' Clio from a good few years ago so the memory is very hazy. I can't remember what the actual fault was that triggered the light, but I remember looking at the usual suspects.... and I think it had to go to a gagrage to be fixed in the end

[NewcastleFalcon]

Thanks, it is a usual suspects driven process on the Clio and 95% of the time it is due to poor wiring connections under the seats. Would have been nice if that had been the case, but the wiring I found to test out OK.

Paddling around on you tube, and taking its wisdom with a pinch of salt, one vid showed testing a two pin impact sensor across the pins for resistance, the "bad" sensor was off the scale, while the "good" sensor had a resistance of 500 ish Ohms. May be absolute rubbish of course.

The precise sensor is a BOSCH 007632 120503 (Renault Part Number 8200 239 994) Can't find any horses mouth details of resistance values of the sensor. I'm guessing this is what the ECU self-test will be measuring every time the ignition is switched on.

Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

These look remarkably similar, and may be more commonplace now, and maybe some use in testing. Indeed I have them in the Micra.

I expect the same sort of side-impact sensor was used across many vehicles within the Renault stable, and also across other manufacturers.

Absolute paucity of information and cross referencing though.

I think a scrapyard expedition may be on the cards.

Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

I think a scrapyard expedition may be on the cards.

The scrapyard expedition was in three parts.

Part 1 Securing what I thought was needed at a sort of reasonable price
On-line of course, so I have given this firm, B.G. Motors from Broadstairs Kent a bit of business.
2 Bosch side-impact sensors exact numbers on their way to chez Falcon.

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.37157 ... ?entry=ttu

Part 2 Telephone survey of some scrapyards
The one where I had a choice of about 4 Clio Mk 2's a few years ago, hadnt had one in for ages. Same response from the others,

Part 3 An actual visit on the back of "yes we have Clios in the yard just have a look round".
Don't think I saw a single vehicle older than 06 registration, and the Clios were all newer and incompatible.

Makes me pleased that I did part 1. It is a frustrating activity driving about discovering that indeed the Clio 2 has turned from being a regular scrapyard appear-er to an absolute rarity in the space of a few years.

Neil