[car_restoration] 1989 205 Gl

[VND 1]

I like those 14s tbh.

They dont look TOO modern.

[ktm_kate 11]

Finished off re trimming the rear seats yesterday. I rushed it a bit in places and some faults are noticable close up, but I have been paying a lot of attention to the finish on the leather of cars at work since startiing this project, and I can find small faults in most cars despite some of them costing over £90k. That makes me feel a lot better about the blemishes on my DIY pug.

 

 

Seat cover off.

 

 

 

Outbord end panel pieces and the alcantara version with original zip installed.

 

 

 

New cover refitted.

 

 

 

Full set of back seats now done. Next job is stripping the fronts.

 

 

 

 

The dog decided that they made a good bed.. This gave me an idea of what to do with a couple of my spare seats, so he will soon have a comfy new garage bed.

 

[SurGie 54]

Ahh look how cute he is Labradors are a great breed of dog ant they ? I lost my dog early this year and should be getting a working bitch Labrador in a few months time.

 

Oh and the seats look good BTW

[ktm_kate 11]

Ahh look how cute he is Labradors are a great breed of dog ant they ? I lost my dog early this year and should be getting a working bitch Labrador in a few months time.

 

Oh and the seats look good BTW

 

 

Sorry to hear about your dog. Labs are great, one of the guys from Retropower (where the body work was done) liked mine so much that when he heard my dog's parents were having another litter he bought one of them

[Flozman 4]

Its important to be critical of your own work, but a good deal of the time other people dont even notice the odd boo boo... I get really paranoid eveytime someone looks at my car and im always quick to point out any flaws in the paintwork and the fact the seats are not strickly the correct color or material for that matter.

[ktm_kate 11]

Seat upholstry update:

 

One Front seat done. Its a little rough in places where the alcantara is a bit inflexable, but its not bad enough to start ripping the covers off and re-doing the stitching so I'm hoping over time it and the foam will yeald enough to smoth some of the ripples out.

 

Both seats together. Both centres are exactly the same fabric, its just the one on the left has been washed. Its grim how much dirt comes out of each cover when I wash them...

 

 

Up close I think the alcantara, being almost the same colour as the old tweed, is subtle but really modernises the feel of the seats.

 

 

This might be one of the best mods the car has had. No more maps getting stuck under my feet or bleaching away on the parcel shalf! Horay!!

Onn small issue is the second set of seats have a slightly darker back. In hindsight I should have transplanted the whole darker center panel and used the lighter one to make the pocket, but too late now so I'll do the same for the other one.

 

And the 14" Ouragan/Nimrods are back from being blasted, de-curbed and painted.

 

 

Centre caps are aprox 50mm, all the 80's early 90's ones i've found are 65mm same as 1.9 GTi so its the modern lion unless somone has some 50mm retro-lion centre caps hanging about.

[allye 530 3 Cars]

I simply can't wait to see this go together! The seats are stunning, fancy doing mine in half suede half leather!?

 

Need more photos!

[ktm_kate 11]

I simply can't wait to see this go together! The seats are stunning, fancy doing mine in half suede half leather!?

 

Need more photos!

 

 

I'm quite enjoying the seat trimming at the moment and I might think about taking on some work for other people some day, but I'd need an industrial machine as my current chinese one is struggling with the alcantara and it wouldn't manage to stitch leather at all.

 

If I do decide to offer my services then I'm sure I'll be asking for brave customers from the forum.

[allye 530 3 Cars]

I don't think you would have any trouble selling plenty of seat covers! Your handy work looks to a very high standard.

[ktm_kate 11]

Thanks Ali, with a bit of luck the car will be ready for some outings this summer so people might get to see the finish up close.

 

 

All this seat trimming seems to be getting me well trained on the machine; so last night, at about 8:30 having spent a few hours ripping apart the donor car, I decided to think about making a gear stick gaiter to match the seats. Around an hour later I had this..

 

 

 

A few months ago that would have taken me all day.

 

A nice little job done and one less thing standing between me and a finished project.

[Tesstuff 222]

That gaiter is excellent , well done you

 

I am local to you and would love one of those (creep creep)

[gerry 5]

Coming along nicely

[ktm_kate 11]

Time for an update. Its slow going but some work has been getting done.

 

I had a collection of knackered underlay from both cars. My best option was to use the base model stuff in the back, and use the rear section of the GT stuff to cut and shut the front.

 

 

 

 

Then I cleaned the carpet before fitting.

 

 

I've also been looking at the steering wheel. I got a tatty phase one leather one off ebay to recover. First I tried using the thin-ish bonded nylon that i've been stitching the seats with, but its not strong enough so I had to get some 1mm cord instead.

 

 

 

 

I've also fitted the rad and the front brakes. (blue pad carriers look very bright in the pics but there actually more like navy blue so not so rude-boy)

 

 

 

 

I'm back on a roll now so more updates should come soon.

[dave_gti 0]

Wow , now that is a excellent restoration so far, Polly is one spoilt little pug.

 

Excellent job and nice to see your enjoying it, keep up the good work.

[Pugs in Pieces 0]

very impressive with the interior trimming, what did you wash the carpet with?

[ktm_kate 11]

very impressive with the interior trimming, what did you wash the carpet with?

 

I went with Persil small but mighty! It worked well but it took ages to wash all the suds out. Then I took it in the house and hung it up couple of weeks to make sure it was 100% dry before I fitted it.

[TheHawk 0]

Wow great project im currently giving a GR 5 door a bit of TLC! Are you planning on altering the ride height at all?

[ktm_kate 11]

Wow great project im currently giving a GR 5 door a bit of TLC! Are you planning on altering the ride height at all?

 

Thanks.

 

I've fitted the rear beam and front springs, rollbar etc. from the GT donor car, which are all far better then the spec it came with, and I think a bit lower too.

[ktm_kate 11]

Update time.

 

Work on the car has been in fits and starts lately with work and bikes taking much of my time.

 

Good news is it's looking much more like a car.

 

Font and rear bumpers fitted..

 

 

More interior in..

 

 

I've always been a little unhappy with the 12v socket in the 205, I guess it was only designed to be power for the fag lighter but in todays gadgety world its use has changed. So, since I now have a little cubby box in the centre console (thank you again donor car) I thought it would be an ideal place to put a second 12v socket. I used my spare ashtry/lighter and cut the connector and a foot of wiring out of my spare loom and fabricated the set up below (please ignore the rusty self tappers). I don't think the lid will shut all the way with anything plugged in but I think its still a better set up then having wires danging in front of the stereo.

The extra socket is feed off the other 12v spur using a 'y' peice that plugs in between it and the main loom so the stock wiring hasn't been messed with. You can also see my new window switch position. Its not the most elegant solution but If I decide to put in propper switches one day I can just get a new coin tray and its good as new. The switches used to sit in the gap under the stereo so they had to be moved.

 

 

 

 

But, the bad news is that I summoned the courage to put power to the loom, and all is not well. I put a half dead battery on as I thought that would be safer, and the first thing that made its self clear is that the indicators are not happy. Left hand indicators and right hand indicator dash light are always on, even with ignition off, switching either of the indicators on did nothing, switching the hazards on made the dash light brighter and I think made the LH indicator dash light come on too (its hard to tell because the clocks are floating about and daylight gets in behind them).

I had fitted an aftermarket remote locking kit and wired that in to flash the indicators on lock/unlock and my first suspicion directed at that. So I unplugged all the wires from the control unit so that the only thing connected to the loom is the wires that go from the indicator switch (wires 37 and 38 I think) up to a pair of diodes and the join together (they then plug into the C/L control unit but are currently un plugged). I'd think that that rules the C/L kit out as the culprit?

I also tried un-plugging all the relays in the fuse box one at a time but none of them switched the LH indicators off..

I've also swapped the indicator stalk over and that didn't change anything.

The whole loom is from the donor car and worked fine before being swapped over, the only thing that's different are the clocks so I've put the 'matching' clocks on but the half dead battery was fully dead by this point so I called it a day. I'll also try swapping the flasher realy but I'm not holding out much hope.

 

Anyone else had this sort of issue? I'd love some input as electrics/electronics is not my thing, in fact I sometimes think it's a branch of witchcraft sent to infuriate the more mechanically minded. :'(

[ktm_kate 11]

Electrical issue fixed!

 

Short story:

I connected something up wrong.

 

Long story:

I unplugged the switchgear, hazard switch, central locking power feed and flasher relay but the lights were still on. So I went on an earth checking mission, cleaning up all the earths I could find on the lighting loom starting at the front. I even unbolted the multi earths and tapped out the threads to get all the paint out.. lights still on. It wasn't till I was sorting out the rear lamps when I found an issue. The LHR lamp earth/body connector was fine (like all the others) but I thought I'd follow it back to the lamp to look for any other connectors and found that the earth wire wasn't plugged into the lamp at all. Not great, but shouldn't be causing my issue, so I went to connect it anyway but couldn't find a connector on the lamp for it. A bit more head scratching and I realised that there was already 4 connectors on the plug including a single one like the earth but I remembered there only being 4 total, this was backed up by my label of the earth connector which read 'LHR lamp 4/4' so I looked with suspicion at the singe connector that was already connected to the lamp.. its label read 'nothing'. Issue solved!

I still don't know what the 'nothing' wire is there for, but what ever it is it gets a permanent 12v feed and causes confusion when you plug it into the earth of your tail lights.

 

Peugeot seem very keen on 'poky-oke' connectors and I must have found the only thing on the whole loom that could be plugged in the wrong hole and then did just that.. despite comprehensive labelling! The lesson; always read the label.

 

 

A few pictures of progress.

 

Rear bumper

 

More dash bits fitted

 

Old face vent to duct sealing foam was all mushy and knackered so I put some nice fresh stuff in.

 

Clocks cleaned and 'adjusted'

 

That's it for now.

[allye 530 3 Cars]

Looking amazing! you have to bring this to pugfest next year would love to see it.

[ktm_kate 11]

Thanks Allye, I'm sure it'll make it to a few shows next year as long as I can get it done in time..

 

 

Nice little job done now, graphite grey perforated Alcantara for the headlining.

I got the holey stuff because there was a guy selling it cheap on ebay, but now its done I'm really happy with it. It reminds me of the perforated vinyl headliners on some 80's cars, I think my gran's '88 Nova had that style. Any way, Pics:

 

 

 

 

 

I think I'll use this on the B pillars, and I'm having thoughts about sun visors too..

[ktm_kate 11]

I finally finished stitching the steering wheel. It took two attempts but I'm pleased with the results.

 

 

 

 

[Para 82 2 Cars]

Perfect ! You just save yourself 210 pounds ! ( if bought new ! ) If this will help , this is how the brand new phase 1 steering wheel looked like. You did a very good job with yours.

 

[muddatrucker 125]

Wow this all looks brill so far (found this thread off the back of the 3/5 door wheel base thread) - loving your stitching skills that steering wheel looks perfect!