Why do we do it to ourselves?

[spudmurphy]

Advance warning, I'm in a sulk and feeling sorry for myself so probably best to leave now, or simply respond with MTFU

I finally got the girlfriends clio project running again and mapped on Tuesday night, she insured it thursday for a reasonable amount after lots of shopping around and bought the tax on saturday, everything was looking rosy for some throttle bodied terrorism of the local area. We took it out for a drive on sunday and I noticed a bit of smoke from under the bonnet, popped it had a look and it looked to be the heatwrap on the manifold, so wrote it off as that just curing. Bit later on though it still hadn't stopped and more investigation found oil residue all over the place, most notably though around the top of the dipstick tube and it also look like it's seeped from where the dipstick tube goes into the block. Suspecting it may be breathing a bit heavily I did a compression check and got 195-190-170-195, so one cylinder noticably down on the the others, feck.

So having finally got the thing running after years of stumbling blocks I'm now back to having to get the engine out to either sort piston rings, on a 14 year old Renault I'm doubting this is economical, or go for a block swap for one from a 1.6 megane, which will bolt straight in but means a whole load more messing about on a car that I thought was finally finished.

In all it feels like a nice step forward with jazz hands and everything, only to be met by a kick in the bollocks, so now I'm sulking. Whydidn't I just buy her a new car with warranty, poxy french surrender monkey just fails to accept it should be working.

Thanks for reading my whinge,

Spud

[kieran07]

That sucks, my commiserations. I hate when that sort of thing happens, it a real high to low experience.

[Renrut]

MTFU!

And then run it until it dies - its clearly fecked anyway you may as well bum rape it before ripping it out.

[owelly]

I'd do a bit of diagnosis firs. Bung a bit of oil in the bores and repeat the comp test to verify it's the rings/bores that are fecked.
Or just 'manage' the heavy breathing with a catch tank!

[hillbillyracer]

I dont know that the compression readings are that much to worry about, 3 are very close at 190 & 195 so 170 seems low in comparison but it's still 87% of what the best one is so I'd think that's not too bad. I dont know how much the rule holds true on modern engines but I was told that as long as the worst was 75% of the best it was considered to be ok (or at least fairly evenly knackered!)
Worth a check through breather pipes etc to make sure all is well?

[hillbillyracer]

Just suumat else I've thought of that I've seen on a couple of Renno 16v 1.4 & 1.6 engines recently, they seem to be prone to the oil leaking from around the bolt heads on the cam cover, nothing serious but it makes a mess. Bolts taken out & the refitted one at a time with a dab of sealer under the head fixed them. Dunno what engine yours is & how it compares to those but worth a look?

[spudmurphy]

Cheers for the MTFU Renrut, although the fact your post combines bum rape and MTFU is a little worrying in a Freudian fashion!

Hillbilly, no oil leaks on this one, it's been reassembled with love not normally associated with anything French, and so is uncharacteristically drip free but I'll take the bit of knowledge on the 16v lumps though as it'll no doubt come in handy at some point!

As per Owelly's suggestion I did a second test after dropping some oil in the affected bore and the compression was noticably better so I've gone with the consensus of opinion and added another breather to the block, a bit of a pain in the ass but it doesn't seem to be chumping it out round the dipstick now. I'll keep an eye on the compression for the one affected cylinder, and also look out for a 1.6 bottom end on everyone's favourite online auction site. When I spot one cheap I'll get it, upgrade the displacement and solve the compression leak whilst I'm at it.

Cheers all, having given it some stick on the 'Quiet Lanes' in the Trough of Bowland area I can confirm throttle bodies have a grin inducing effect, I'll try and get something recorded and shared in the near future.

Spud

[Renrut]

Cheers for the MTFU Renrut, although the fact your post combines bum rape and MTFU is a little worrying in a Freudian fashion!

I'm 'filling in' for IB until he returns

[owelly]

, a bit of a pain in the ass but it doesn't seem to be chumping it out round the dipstick

Fnarf fnarf...

[woody68]

Cheers all, having given it some stick on the 'Quiet Lanes' in the Trough of Bowland area I can confirm throttle bodies have a grin inducing effect, I'll try and get something recorded and shared in the near future.

Spud

Having given the Trough of Bowland some stick myself several years ago I can imagine your grin induced face

Hope you get it sorted for as little hassle as possible