Bringing you up to date.

Before I go on to show the cars current position I thought it worth picking up some previous progress I have made. These are taken from the now defunct mi16.com forum.  I did not manage to get the complete record before the data was removed when the website was closed.  I have 5 pages though.  I'll post these in chronical order.

Post May 31 2007, 11:37 PM

Thought I would share my project with you all.

I have a 1992 Phase 1 405 SRi. I had this car for several years as a daily driver whilst I was at university but it has now been off the road stuck in my Grans driveway for 6 years!

When I took it off the road it burned 1 litre of oil a week. I have since been tinkering away with it on and off with varied success.

Presently I have got the engine running again with a refurbished cylinder head (£70 from ebay!!!). It still has a fault code on it though so I will need to find out which one and rectify it.

As you would expect all the brakes were seized so I have purchased calliper overhaul kits for every corner. I have bead blasted the callipers and painted using black Hammerite. Still got this lot to finish off.

I have had some good results so far and as it is off the road I can spend time getting it back to a reasonable condition.

Anyway, here are some pics. I will post more as I go but its slow progress due to work commitments.

Some lovely green moss growing there!! 

Some before and after of calliper bits.

Thought it was starting to look reasonable here again.

I may choose to replace the springs, shocks and some bushes etc. at the front depending how they look.

Also toying with the idea of getting the wishbones painted up too.

Will keep you all posted. Having fun doing this though!

Post Jun 2 2007, 01:05 AM

Today I managed to sort the fault code. Turned out I had not plugged the temperature sensor back in, Doh ! The engine is still rough though, will rev of but idle is pretty dire.

Got the front drivers side calliper on today too. Looks great! Should have done this when the car was on the road. Also got the rear drivers side one finished and ready to go back on the car. Sorry for the poor quality pics. Never had my camera today so I had to use the phone.

 Caliper ready to go back on.

 Caliper back on the car. Looks great! Shame about the rusty spring.

Rear Caliper ready for fitting on my next free day.

Next I have to remove the calipers on the passenger side to get them refurbished. Also got a bottom ball joint to do and the rear hubs to replace. Have to do the hubs as the axle was replaced about 11 months before it went off the road. The new axle did not have ABS hubs and so the car failed its last MOT on the ABS not working. £46 each from GSF, Ouch.

 I have lost pages 2, 3 & 4.  I will try to reconstruct from memory.
 

New Blog - Old Car

Welcome to my Blog detailing the restoration of my Peugeot 405. 

Car history

The car was purchased in 1999 (iirc) for £1000.  It was bought for me by my Grandad Jim McShane and I used it to travel to university.  The car was a 1992 Peugeot 405 SRi fitted with the 1.9 litre petrol 8v engine (XU9J2).  I graduated in 2001 but sadly by Grandad died on my final day of university.  This car therefore is very special to me.

Picture of the car from the original advert

By the time I finished uni the car was a little rough round the edges.  It used about 1 litre of oil per week!!  This was due to worn valve guides.  I had just gained my first job with British Energy and needed a car to get me reliably to work.  I purchased a Nissan Primera and laid the 405 up on my Nanas driveway.  We gave the car a last camping trip up the highlands (subject of a future blog perhaps).  My ultimate aim for the car was to tinker with it in my own time, do it up and learn some skills relevant to car mechanics than I may one day apply to an older car restoration.

 The car in 2001 having just been taken off the road.

Note the Nissan Primera peeking out in the background. 

So if the car was taken off the road for repairs in 2001, why are you writing this in 2015?
 - I hear you say.

I poked around with the car on and off with the last period of work finishing around 2008.  There are a number of reasons it has taken so long to do this but the main ones are available time and lack of adequate facilities.  The car was in a driveway at a house 30 miles from my own hence my ability to do an hour or so on the car was very limited.  The car became to subject of ridicule with my pals believing that one day I will get round to scrapping it :)  The car means too much to me to scrap, especially after all this time.  Plus the chorus of 'I told you so' from many people would be unbearable.  

My original reasoning for wanting to keep it still applies.  I wish to learn how to do up a car so that I can do something a bit older with some skills I learn on this one.  I now however have the advantage of having a double garage available for my work at my new house.  I have the challenge of getting the car up here.  It presently sits with no rear axle and will be a real pain to move like this.  I therefore have the first task of refurbishing and installing a rear axle in order to move the car.  For once I have a deadline as my brother (who now owns the house where the car lives - my Nana having died in 2010) is moving home an need the car moved so he can sell the house.  I have about 4 weeks.  If I don't get it moved it really will be scrapped as home buyers don't tend to like old cars sitting in their new driveways!

Car as it sits presently

Before we get into that however I should bring you up to date with what I have done so far..............