[car_restoration] My Longwinded 1.9 Laser Project

[cRaig 273 1 Cars]

I know a lot of people on the forum are familiar with my car, but I thought I would go back to day one, and consolidate all my 205 highs and lows in one place, to show how far I’ve come, and more importantly how much more I’ve still got to do!

I bought the car (a 1991 1.9 Laser Green) in February 2008. It was a fairly random purchase- I dropped out of a uni for a bit of a break, as architecture is incredibly stressful, and wanted a project I could put my mark on, and more importantly at the age of 20 I felt it was time to buy myself a 'proper car' my parents 1.1 106 was alright, but I wanted something a little different.

A 205 seemed the obvious choice; I’ve been surrounded by Peugeots my whole life, 405, 406, 106, 407, so I wanted something familiar but a bit better than the average. Obviously signing up on here and quietly reading a lot of projects and history helped to seal the deal.

 

Finally spotted a local car, so off I went to have a look. And I'll be honest.. I bought the first 205 I ever looked over in the flesh. (perhaps not a wise move ) but it was very straight, I couldn’t see any accident damage or rust at all, came with a fairly good condition set of green check half leathers and about 8 1.9 alloys.

I had a quick drive of it and I was hooked! It was like nothing Id driven before, so sharp and focused, so I overlooked the few rough edges and handed over the cash.

 

The main issues when I bought it were, missing driving lights, front valance held on with cable ties, shocking faux bucket seats, a few signs that she'd had the dealer body kit at some point, some bonding glued to the paint in places, and a cracked rear reflector plate. The paint was a bit suspect in places too- the drivers door was a different shade, and the boot looked like it had been rattle canned. Generally I was happy with it, and 'the plan' was smarten it up a bit, buy a few bits like driving lights and a standard airbox and then put it on the road.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well.. things rarely go to plan

 

From Feb till about May I was quietly amassing bits for a bit of a tart up before putting it on the road

 

 

 

Then the thought dawned on me that I could sort out all the niggles and paint issues in one go, by doing a full stripdown and respray over the summer, as it would be a great opportunity before uni started, and I had a fair bit of cash burning a hole in my pocket.

Edited July 12, 2017 by cRaig

[cRaig 273 1 Cars]

Come June, I started stripping her down for the respray. Had her booked into the local accident repair place who are the approved BMW repairer, so their work is second to none around here anyway.

Cost of the respray was £1800, and that was me rolling in a pretty much bare shell for them, expensive but I was hopeful the stanards would be good enough.. I certainly wasnt disappointed.

 

 

 

 

Our first experience of getting a windscreen out.. it didn't go well!

 

 

A friends 2 poster lift certainly made life a lot easier.

 

 

Rust in the usual places for a ph2 shell

 

 

 

 

So off she went to the bodyshop, towed by our trusty 407.

 

 

Edited October 8, 2018 by cRaig

[cRaig 273 1 Cars]

Picked up a few other shiney bits while she was in the bodyshop, including some refurbished speedlines from a chap off here, Tony205 if I remember.

 

 

 

 

Also acquired some aircon parts.. a plan was forming lol

 

 

 

Edited July 12, 2017 by cRaig

[cRaig 273 1 Cars]

Had it back for about the first week in August, I think. They really had done a stunning job, I can't describe how much better in the flesh it looked compared to the photos.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was over the moon with it

Edited August 18 by cRaig
Broken photo links

[cRaig 273 1 Cars]

All the plastic trim on the car was prepped and sprayed with the halfords bumper spray (before the latest craze for the dye took off )

Including masking up and painting of the quarter panel badges. Took a while but was worth it!

 

 

 

 

Badges were siliconed onto the car ,and all the arches and trim were fixed on using a full new pug trim kit.

Edited August 18 by cRaig

[cRaig 273 1 Cars]

Soon made a start putting her back together

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Edited August 18 by cRaig
Broken photo links

[cRaig 273 1 Cars]

Managed to get her finished, taxed and insured for the 1st of September. A good day

 

 

 

 

Spent the first weekend driving up to the lake district with my mates who helped me put it back together. Was an awesome drive, even if there were a few issues

like sticking starter solenoid, so it required rocking in every car park before it would start lol.

 

Edited August 18 by cRaig
Broken photo links

[cRaig 273 1 Cars]

Was a fairly uneventful month or so, took her back down to Uni, so had the 205 as a weekend runabout, then the first bad bit of luck hit (which in all honesty was our own fault) The head gasket failed pretty spectacularly, due to the fact we had done all the belts and gaskets while the engine was out of the car, but failed to observe the part in the Haynes manual which mentions the head bolts are stretch bolts!

 

The head gasket failed between 2 & 3 pretty comprehensively, it wouldn't run at all, and 2 cylinders were full of water.

Went back up north to be fixed- head was skimmed and refurbed, and new head bolts were used this time (the old ones had stretched by about 1.5mm was the average I think!)

 

Still.. lesson learnt and I had my pug back again

 

 

My mates MG TF was in the workshop as well at the time.. 1.6K series lump being replaced with a 2.0 turbo T Series engine

Edited August 18 by cRaig

[cRaig 273 1 Cars]

Well, that brings us up to the new year, and while I was enjoying the 205 experience, I was finding it a bit loud and tiring to drive the 3hours up the M5 and M6 back home, so I wanted to make it a bit more civilised for long journeys- Invested in a full Second Skin kit from CarAudioDirect- both the insulated foil, and the sound deadening sludge.

 

Started in the rear quarters, particularly the rear arches, as I found the noise of water splashing up into the rear arches particularly distracting.

1 layer of foil, coated with at least 2 coats of sludge painted on with a cut down brush.

 

Amazingly effective, I would strongly recommend its worth the extra weight, the doors are much more solid, and motorway noise is reduced quite a lot, although it does make other rattles and dodgy seals more obvious!

 

At this point spent a couple of days working on all the interior trim- everything was removed, all the clips were replaced with new from a 106 and Saxo from the scrappy, and all the trim that could be was stuck in using clear silicone.

A much more solid interior

 

 

 

A layer of adhesive foil covered with 2 coats of sludge.

 

 

Arches packed with two layers of sound matting from a 106.

 

 

Also stuck in a new carpet, and put new sound matting underneath it from a 106- very little cutting required! mine had obviously got quite wet a some point, had mostly disintegrated.

 

Edited August 18 by cRaig
Broken photo links

[cRaig 273 1 Cars]

In February I had the chance to take my 205 along to a photoshoot with a Mk1 Golf GTi for Classics Monthly magazine, a great opportunity but unfortunately took place during that horrific week of snow in early Feb that caused most of the country (particularly London to grind to a halt)

 

The 205 performed pretty well in the snow, and, In my opinion the old pug looked stunning in comparison to the Golf I guess its not exactly a fair comparison, the MK 1 Golf is quite a bit older than the my 205. Weather got considerably worse as the day went on, in fact we canceled lunch as we were worried we wouldn't get home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not the best conditions, but they wanted moving shots so I did my best to supply without having a horrible accident. Never has 20-30mph felt quite so fast lol.

 

 

 

I wont post up the whole article.. but I was quoted, and printed as saying "the 205 has a reputation of being a bit edgy on the limit, but Craig confirms you've got to be really stupid with it to get into any serious trouble"

 

How much do I regret saying that now..? 

Edited August 18 by cRaig
Broken photo links

[happygoron 2]

forgot how much effort had gone into this. Definately worth repairing now.

[cRaig 273 1 Cars]

After de-rattling most of the interior, including removing the whole dashboard (again) and this time being much more careful to replace every missing screw and clip, and siliconing edges etc, I wanted to

spend a bit of time on the seats.

I picked up a spare/better condition set of green check half leathers from ebay, and then set about taking them to bits

Never really tackled any upholstery before, and it was a steep learning curve involving many cuts, scratches and blisters, but ultimately rewarding, would certainly do it again, and at some point I plan

to recover my old seats with brand new leather, but that will have to wait..

 

First thing I did was acquire a undamaged drivers bolster from ebay.

 

Set about stripping down the seats

 

Even tho these seats were a lot better condition than mine, the bolster had still gone.

 

 

 

Cut off the ruined drivers bolster with a hacksaw

 

 

Bonded the new bolster in place.

 

Next crazy decision was to install the heated seat elements from a Volvo, no real reason as I dont have full leathers, but I thought it would be a nice touch, and might as well while the seats were apart.

 

Reliable electrics in a 205?! Never!?

 

 

 

Bolsters were reinforced and protected with copious amounts of duct tape.

 

 

Seats were slowly and carefully reassembled, the wires brought down to under the seats, looks like a fairly standard install I'd like to think!

 

 

 

 

Edited October 21, 2018 by cRaig

[cRaig 273 1 Cars]

Also took the opportunity to fit some rear headrests from my old spare interior.

 

 

 

The front bolsters are soo much more supportive and grippy now, really hug in the corners while maintaining the general Peugeot-y softness. I do love the standard seats, can't think of a car that I've been in with better seats really! (maybe I just need to go in more cars.. )

 

happygoron said:

forgot how much effort had gone into this. Definately worth repairing now.

 

Thanks:)

I don't know if people are bored with me banging on about my crappy pug, but I realised that all the stuff I've done and talking about was spread out over a few different threads, and plus writing this up beats doing uni work

Edited October 18, 2018 by cRaig

[welshpug 1,655]

how much did you manage to get your SL434's for?

[cRaig 273 1 Cars]

I went to the Speedline corse warehouse, as its fairly local to me http://www.speedlinecorse.co.uk/contact.htm

I think they gave me about 10-15% off, although Id have to check my big pile of recipts at home to get a fully accurate price lol.

[cRaig 273 1 Cars]

205 ownership was generally going well. Had a lot of awesome drives out in Somerset, and it made a really nice distraction from uni work. Trying to commute to Bristol in it was particularly stressful though, an hour of stop start driving in heavy traffic did really show up the cars weaknesses- heavy steering and clutch, it did make me fall out of love with her a fair bit.

 

Took her to Castle Coombe for one of the race days and had her on the avon PSOOC stand, rolling-roaded it at an impressively poor 65bhp. Unfortunately didn't get very far into resolving the issue-a compression test was fine, and the head had been serviced when the head gasket had gone, it certainly needed the dizzy set up properly and the ecu water sensor checking.

A job for next year.. although the engine is coming out first. My plan at the time was always to Mi16 the 205, so I managed to buy SuperJosh's 'old' engine when he upgraded to GTi6 power, so I have a lovely engine which has only done around 25,000 miles from new-it was a crate engine supplied from the Peugeot factory.

Also have the Maniflow 4-2-1 manifold, and Miles is currently refurbing an Mi16 box to go with it.

 

A fun summer all round tho

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mm.. low mileage Mi16-y goodness

 

Edited October 18, 2018 by cRaig

[cRaig 273 1 Cars]

Well.. this is the bit I never enjoy writing up. Was always kinda inevitable I guess. Cant really excuse it due to the car, or the conditions, I think it was an unfortunate mix of a beam that was on its way out, tyres that weren't great in the wet (Toyo Proxie 4's) and most of all, my own negligence and poor driving. I guess I wasn't really in the best mental state to drive, and I guess I was driving the 205 in a manner in which I attempted to provoke it. I guess I succeeded.

 

This brings us up to early June of this year. I was driving in a particularly nasty downpour one evening to collect my dad from the railway station as he was on his way back home a couple of days after my gran passed away when I lost the back end coming around a sweeping bend with a particularly poor surface, span it across the road into the hedge and fence on the other verge, then the rear passenger alloy dug into a cast iron fence stake, and it spun again ending up perpendicular to the road facing the hedge I hit. Still most importantly no one else was involved, and I walked away with only a bit of a sore neck, I was very lucky.

 

I was utterly gutted, the damage was extensive but not terminal.

 

 

 

 

 

The most obvious damage was to the rear beam, it was about 2 inches off central, the shock arm pad on the passenger side had been pulled about an inch and a half clear of the boot floor.

The passenger headlamp panel was creased, wing buckled and the rear quarter panel badly pushed in.

I dumped it into storage while I went back down to bath to carry on with my work placement and decide what to do with it.

Edited October 18, 2018 by cRaig

[cRaig 273 1 Cars]

Well, there was a lot of indecision, she nearly got scrapped a couple of times (I'll be honest, the scrappage scheme was looking mighty tempting) It nearly got re-shelled and I nearly gave up altogether, but after a month or so, Id finally decided that I wanted my car back, and was going to make it happen.

 

Started by stripping down the back end, removing the wrecked front wing, and generally removing all the broken and mangled light clusters and washing it off.

 

Dropped the wrecked beam off, and took the petrol tank off, as I wanted to treat a the surface rust under there, as it hadn't been done last time the car was painted.

A lot of wire brushing and prep work later, it looked alright.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not looking great.. but some progress..

 

Edited October 18, 2018 by cRaig

[cRaig 273 1 Cars]

As it was a pretty depressing time with my car, I figured some retail therapy would cheer me up, and there were a few things that Id been meaning to buy for the 205 before the accident, so I raided my (rapidly falling) savings and treated myself so a few shiney bits to keep me motivated.

 

I don't think these alloys need any introduction..

 

 

 

Some GTi6 calipers for the front

 

Had my first lot of powdercoating done, very impressed with the results

 

 

 

Also ebayed a cheap second hand beam (possibly my biggest mistake since the crash..)

It was in pretty poor shape, had obviously been siezed for a while, but I sent it off to a local engineering company to strip it down to its component parts, and then I took it all for powedercoating in its original colours.

The trailing arm shafts were horrifically rusted, and they had to use a lot of force to get the beam apart. But still, I thought no more of it, and ordered new dampers, bushes and bearings from pug to get it back to factory fresh

 

Was quite pleased with the results

 

Edited October 18, 2018 by cRaig

[miamichris 9]

chin up Craig, you'll get there in the end mate! everyone loves nice, new, shiny parts

[madspikes 41 1 Cars]

Glad to see its all starting to come together again and rebuilding it better than before! Just keep the faith.

 

Ps. Love the wheels!

 

Mad.

[cRaig 273 1 Cars]

Thanks chaps, the motivation is apprectiated

 

I kinda hoped to have her back and painted before christmas, but its too cold to do anything to it, so I guess its no bad thing lol. Am looking forward to next year..

[swordfish210 20]

Nice work there Craig. Keep it up and you'll be enjoying it again in no time

[cRaig 273 1 Cars]

how much did you manage to get your SL434's for?

 

Had a quick look over my (epic) file of reciepts over christmas lol, was just under £130ea. Not sure if thats a great price, but they do make lovely bedroom ornaments at the moment

[Guest RESTELL]

This is a great wrote up, im really gutted for you for the damage, admire your honesty in the write up though!

Keep up the good work mate, looking forward to seeing it back on the road!