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