Since i was fed up with driving my 205 everyday (no interior, no stereo, door bars, 5 point harnesses and no windows) i decided to buy something else. This came up for sale on 205gtidrivers as an MOT failure on emissions but otherwise tidy and with a "please take it away now" price of £300. I couldnt resist, so i called a friend and we went to pick it up on his trailer.
It ran like a bag of crap when i got it but most of the other stuff worked so i checked it in to a friendly garage and they (after some time....a long time) found the problem to be: The exhaust gas recirculator valve was stuck open, coolant temperature sensor loom was badly corroded and mostly not working, the fuel pressure regulator was seized shut and one injector was leaking.
So all of these parts fitted and 4 new Flaken tyres later it had an MOT and yesterday i taxed and insured it. It still needs a few things doing to make it just about perfect but for now it'l do:

So the 405 needed some work doing to make it a nice runner. The first thing that needed attention were the brakes, the old discs and pads were shot and the pedal was quite spongy. I bought some new parts from APD (Brake Parts discs and Ferrodo Permier pads) So one lazy sunday i went to fit them all and a friend came round to help me bleed the brakes. The rear discs had had it but the pads wern't too bad, i replaced them nonetheless and i found that all of the calipers had at least one seized slider :x The rear calipers were also a mismatched pair, one Lucas and one Girling, this car was definetly a parts bin special.

New rear pads:





New rear disc compared to the old one. This disc was probably the best one i removed, the fronts were horribly pitted and grooved.



On to the front brakes, more stuck sliders and one stuck piston which my friend showed me how to quickly unseize. New front pads:





No pics of the discs though, i can see why people dont rate these 405 calipers as the pads are really small, and the piston isn't exactly huge, only 54mm.

Once they were all fitted Matt and i bled the brakes, we got the pedal a bit better but it was still spongy. I later found out that to bleed them properly the car needs to be on the ground not on axle stands as the rear compensator won't open like that so the air cannot go though (thanks Merion )

Over the course of that weekend the alternator had been failing and by sunday evening it was down to producing 11v at the battery so i put a new one of them on the parts list along with a new starter as it was intermitently working. So on Monday i bought a new starter, battery and alternator along with a cambelt kit and a new water pump. I decided to do the cambelt at the same time as it was due a change and you have to take the alternator off to get to it. To cut a long story short i wish i hadnt of bothered now as doing the belt and pump change was one of the most irritating jobs i have ever done on a car, there was no space to work at all, i practically had the engine out to manouver it around, i left all of the skin from my knuckles somewhere onder the bonnet of the car and after all of that (4 evenings of labour) the belt didnt even need changing. It was still in decent condtion and so was the water pump.

New pump in (whichever smartarse points out there are bolts missing is going to get a slap, i just hadnt put them in when i took the picture)



New tensoiners on and the new belt on:

New alternator compared to the old one. I had a problem with the new alternator though, if you look at the picture you can see a spacer bush in the bottom bracket, It's there to hold the nut in. Some proper nobend at the factory had made the bush 2mm too long, so lacking a lathe or acess to a lathe, i went to Dixons house to use his vice and i (badly) chopped 2mm off of the end so i cound fit the alternator:



and fitted with a new aux belt:



The old starter motor. Another problem occoured here, the old motor has the solenoid on the bottom so that it cleares the inlet manifold, well i got sold one (because it looked the same and it was in stock) with the solenoid on the top so it didnt fit. I then had to take it back and the guy spent ages looking up part numbers and looking at tiny picturers to find the right one from Valeo.



and the new one fitted:



and all back togeather with the new battery as well:



Whilst i had so much stuff out of the engine bay i tightened up a few pipes that were probably leaking air and causing the car to idle strangely, it now idles perfectly and the throttle response has improved greatly. I then gave the car a clean and polish and took a few pics:









It still needs a few things doing; right front wheel beraring needs changing, bit of undersealing is needed under the car, left hand driveshaft needs an overhaul, the interior needs a clean and a load of niggley jobs, but they'll all have to wait til i get back from holiday.

Nice one, you've been busy!

Interesting reading this as I'd been in it and driven it before.

Thanks, the pics and text don't do it justice really. More work to come though, i'm going to try and do the wheel bearing and CV boot change next week.

Yeah, i'm just trying to get it back to the way it should be.

Ok, i had decided to take the car on out annual Un road trip to the Isle Of Mull so it needed a bit of work doing. It started with replacing the off side wheel bearing that was grumbling. The old bearing was an absolute mare to get out and once it was all in and refitted it had only slightly cured the problem as i found that the other one was grumbling as well :x .

I then had to replace the wheel and tyre that had gotten damaged when i was forced from the road one night:





So i bought a new Flaken tyre from Camskill and i scabbed another wheel off of Dixon and i got Jason to swap they tyres over and i ended up with a new tyre, a decent spare but £60 out of pocket

I then took the car in to Uni and put it on the SuperTracker to find the tracking was about 6mm out, so after a lot of WD-40 to remove the seized TRE nuts i reset it to 1mm toe out. It handles a lot better now and the steering wheel is actually straight

I then turned my attention to the running problems that the car was having, basically it was chewing fuel, stalling randomly, bogging down at low RPM and had a huge flatspot between 3000-4000 rpm. I had an idea from Matt that the problem might be the pipe going from the inlet manifold to the MAP sensor in the ECU. I removed the pipe at the ECU end a blew down it to find a hole in the pipe :? I blocked up the hole and all was well It still has a bit of a flatspot but it is loads better on fuel and drives a lot better.

Next step was the audio. The drivers door speaker and the tweet in the dashboard had decided to blow at the same time so a trip to Halfords had me returning with some extra chavvy speakers to replace the crummy ones:







Sounds loads crisper now and i dont have an annoying vibration as soon as i turn them up past a barely audable level.

I then cured some other annoying noises, namely the auxilary belt squeeling and the exhaust knocking. One of the rubbers keeps falling off the exhaust so i've secured it with the wonder of the automotive world, a cable tie

I then had to replace the front struts. They looked like the original ones and the nearside one was leaking rather profusely. I bought a pair of Bilstein OE gas dampers from Euro Car Parts and some new rubbers and bearings. The old dampers really were knackered, they had no rebound whatsoever:





Stripped down:



and all back togeather:

Unfourtanatly the ride height had gone up about 2 inches due to the old dampers being so damn soft :x .
Once that was done i bought some new bulbs for the fog lights and some speed nuts to mount them and got them working:



I also bought a new passenger mirror from Peugeot with a temperature gauge in it to replace the base model mirror:



and i got a new fuel filter because the old one looked like it had been on there for some time:



I also dug out the wire for the oil temp sensor (some weirdo had cut the wire :? ) and put a new plug on it to get the gauge working:



I then had to sort the ride height as it was annoying the crap out of me. I couldnt afford the £120 for a pair of Eibach springs so the old springs got a bit of the choppy choppy:







Then it was down to changing the near side wheel bearing and the driveshaft (the boot was split and it was starting to knock after i had the accident) The wheel bearing on this side was a lot easier to remove and the new one (thanks to the freezer ) was a lot easier to fit:



New driveshaft compared to the old one:



The hubnut needs torquing up to 320nm so it required a man sized torque wrench:



Just need to ge the mirror covers sprayed now and it'l be tip-top

That old filter looks like the size fitted to the BX16v!

Should be a nicely sorted Mi now.

Really nice, respect!

It's going pretty nicely now, i just need to get some proper lowering springs as the pikie spec ones are only temporary til i have some money. I also need to get the mirror covers sprayed as the new one came with just a primered cover and the other one is properly skanked up.

Just noticed you have same shocks as my car, how much do they cost now? Mine are starting to leak after 7 years.

Good question, i can't remember. They were from Euro Car Parts in Swindon and i think it was circa £100 for the pair.