[Car_Overhaul] Laser Green 205 1.6 Gti

[eddie bullit 37]

Great stuff! I bet you can't wait to take it for a spin.

[Tom Fenton 1,542]

Well tonight was the maiden voyage! Headed out into Derbyshire, called in to see Calvin then to Buxton for a pub dinner.

 

First impressions are, it's great and I love it! You have to rev them harder than I remember for maximum go, 5000rpm seems to be the point that it really picks it's feet up and goes. But it revs happily round to 6500+ without any hesitation. The handling is also magic, the steering is light but then weights up lovely when you start to lean on it, the new tyres have made a big improvement and it seems to have plenty of grip. The brakes are getting better and better as the miles go on.

All in all I'm dead chuffed!

[acox99 74 1 Cars]

Is if non PAS?

[calvinhorse 870]

Good to see you Lisa and the car!

 

The car is absolutely stunning, I could stand and look at it all day, an absolute credit to you Tom

[m@ttc 30]

Love it, great work tom.

[Tom Fenton 1,542]

Is if non PAS?

 

Yes it is manual steering, as it came from the factory. I do like PAS on 205's but didn't want to really start modifying this one. I think the only deviations from standard spec are Bilstein B4 front legs, and a K&N replacement element in the air filter box.

[large 33]

Well done Tom the car is mint, If ever you want to sell it let me know. I don't have the money but I would be prepared to do some f***ed up sh1t to own it.

 

If I was to be critical and I mean really picky. I would look at changing the head lights or a man of your talents could recondition the reflectors. It could just be the angle of the photos though.

[Tom Fenton 1,542]

The headlights are fair comment and I've been thinking about what to do.

The thing is that I want it to retain some of it's character. If the shell was freshly painted and then fitted with all new bits then it would become "just" another restored 205 that anyone could own or do or have done. Maybe a bit of a strange take on it but certainly for now it's keeping it's original "Marchall" headlights. I was only discussing it with my mate last night outside the pub. One of the indicators has a tiny crack in it, I have bought a pair of new Valeo ones but not fitted as they will be very bright and clear and will make the headlights stand out even more. Jury is out really, I haven't decided what to do yet for definite.

[Jon_Bmw 13]

Tom,

 

Just spent a while reading this in the sun on holiday, quite excellent.

 

Great story.

 

Jon

[Tom Fenton 1,542]

So a good day today. First off got up early and got on with fitting the proper rear valance. The one on the car was a quick and rough job to allow me to get it to an MOT. The proper one was away with Paul Fletcher who got it painted properly for me through his work. From a distance there are no obvious differences, but close up it's a professional job versus my quick effort full of prep marks and dust in the lacquer.

Untitled by Tom Fenton, on Flickr

Whilst I was there I also fitted a pair of my rear valance stays, I hadn't done them before as it was only a temporary valance.

Untitled by Tom Fenton, on Flickr

 

Next up was a visit to see Ruth, the last but one owner of the car. She had been in touch with me some time ago as her grandsons had heard about the car and asked if I might call round in it for them to see. Took it to see her grandsons aged 10 and 15, and it's fair to say they loved it. Ben who is 15 had been in the car with his gran when he was a baby whereas now he is a grown man. Something I found both interesting and amusing, Josh who is 10 had a sit in, was looking round and then asked where the button for the electric windows was? He'd never been in a car that had wind up windows before, which I guess these days is probably very common, but definitely amused me! I took the lads for a spin round the block which they both loved!

Ruth had a couple of goes at offering me a swap for her 206GT, but I had to decline that for obvious reasons! We got talking about the cars she owned before the 205, both were large cars for the family, a Sierra estate then a Granada, she said that she put her foot down to her husband and told him rather than the family wagon she wanted a car for HER!

 

A quick picture with her 206, much the same as those earlier in this thread from 2011

Untitled by Tom Fenton, on Flickr

 

Then a picture with Ruth, Ben and Josh

 

Untitled by Tom Fenton, on Flickr

 

All great history of the car and something that makes it very special to me.

[ATK 142 1 Cars]

Incredibly impressive work Tom. Do you reckon this one will be your 'keeper' that you'll never get rid of?

[Edp 67 3 Cars]

Incredibly impressive work Tom. Do you reckon this one will be your 'keeper' that you'll never get rid of?

 

I should hope so, its lovely!

[Tom Fenton 1,542]

Who knows, I've 4 205's in total one of which I'm definitely more attached to than this one. BUT, I know I'll never find another that I know the history of like I do with this one.

 

No great announcements to make about it any more, just a few odds of jobs here and there to do. One of which was to fit a lovely polished cam cover done for me by our very own Bim.

 

Untitled by Tom Fenton, on Flickr

 

I also have to report the first breakdown, well kind of! I'd jetwashed the engine bay yesterday, with it running and left it running for half an hour which is usually sufficient to evaporate off any water. Set off to the Yorks meet last night and was fine for about 1 mile, then all of a sudden dropped onto 2/3 cylinders with obviously no power. Managed to limp it to a nearby Halfords where a tin of WD40 and a dry of the ht leads soon had normal service resumed. However on pulling no 3 HT lead off the met terminal stayed put on the spark plug. Luckily I wedged the lead back on and it worked well enough to get me to the meet and home again, but obviously the leads are well past it, they look like they could be the originals to be honest. Anyway a new set of Bougicord leads are on order which hopefully will be here before the trip to Pugfest.

[acox99 74 1 Cars]

Where did you order the Bougicord leads from? Are they main dealer only or are there other suppliers? What sort of money are oe leads of of curiosity, I have after market leads that where on the car when I bought it. Nothing wrong with them but they aren't quite right.

[Tom Fenton 1,542]

I've ordered them from Mister Auto, they were a shade under £30 including the delivery which I thought wasn't at all bad. I will comment further once they have arrived.

[Tom Fenton 1,542]

So the leads arrived today, and whilst I was in the process of fitting them I decided to also have a look at the SAD. The car when cold will cut out when stopping at junctions etc, when warmed up it was 100%.

The SAD looked well gunged up so gave it a really good clean out. With it all back together from a cold start it would idle on it's own which usually it would not do. Let it warm up and the idle dropped a little lower than usual indicating the SAD had closed as it should so gave it 1/4 of a turn on the bypass to bring it back to around 900rpm.

The leads fitted well as you would expect, only difference from the originals was that the plug boots are black as opposed to the beige colour, but personally I can live with that!

 

Next job for this afternoon is to fit a new windscreen. The one in the car is in mostly good condition, however there are four annoying scratches right in the drivers vision, caused I think by someone rubbing the screen with the back of their hand with a ring on to clear condensation. Anyway Paul Fletcher managed to source me a brand new one with the correct bronze tint via his work for a good price.

[Mad Scientist 106]

This needs moving into a projects section by someone!

 

Great work Tom. Now starts the process of keeping it all clean!

[Tom Fenton 1,542]

So a few weeks later and there's not really much to do! The new screen went in a treat, and it's one of the best things I've bought for a 205, so muh better than the old scratched things, especially a night.

However one job on my list was the spare wheel cage. The one on the car was black, chatting to Ruth the spare wheel was pinched some years ago by cropping the cage with bolt cutters, hence it having a black replacement.

Anyway I had a spare so rather than struggle trying to do a good job cleaning it up, I took it to the powdercoaters. 10 groats later and he'd blasted it for me then powdercoated it grey zinc undercoat.

So started with this

Untitled by Tom Fenton, on Flickr

 

First up a quick scotch off then some acid etch for a good bond onto the base

Untitled by Tom Fenton, on Flickr

 

Next up some base coat laser green then finally to finish out with the air fed mask and on with some proper 2k lacquer.

 

Finished item, once it has fully hardened off over a day or two I'll swap it onto the car.

 

Untitled by Tom Fenton, on Flickr

 

Next job is the reverse light not working, I had a mess the other day and fitted a second hand switch, however the reverse light worked a couple of times then packed up, so I've ordered a brand new switch which I'll fit when it arrives.

[eddie bullit 37]

Great attention to detail. Any pictures of your fleet Tom?

Edited July 22, 2014 by eddie bullit

[Tom Fenton 1,542]

Any pictures of your fleet Tom?

Ha ha, the only one of the 205 fleet worthy of a picture is the subject of this thread!

 

The white one used to look like this

Untitled by Tom Fenton, on Flickr

But the day after that photo was taken at Curborough my mate drove it at the wall at Donington Park so it now looks like this

Untitled by Tom Fenton, on Flickr

And the new shell to repair it looks like this

Untitled by Tom Fenton, on Flickr

 

Red car looked like this when I first got it on the road

Untitled by Tom Fenton, on Flickr

Then it got turbocharged so looks like this currently but is awaiting a new turbo and valve guides.

Untitled by Tom Fenton, on Flickr

And my all time fave pic of it

Untitled by Tom Fenton, on Flickr

Blue one was an impulse buy because it was cheap and will supply a rebuilt Mi engine for the white car. Depending on how good or bad it is body wise when it comes to bits will decide what happens to it, but I've been collecting bits to put it back to being a std 1.9 GTI. Only crap picture I have of it is this one

 

Untitled by Tom Fenton, on Flickr

[Tom Fenton 1,542]

Anyway back to the car in question, 2 important jobs tonight.

First one was to fit the reverse light switch that arrived today. Annoyingly I'd already had this all to bits once but the second hand switch I dug out of an old gearbox was also faulty. New switch in and all working correctly.

 

Untitled by Tom Fenton, on Flickr

 

The 2nd important job was to take the car to see John who was the previous owner. He hadn't seen it since 2011 but had asked my mate about it a couple of times in the interim period.

He was pleased to see it and I think more than anything very pleased to see I hadn't modified it! Had a good chat with him, he still is driving his 106 GTI and told me tales of going up to 100mph, not bad for 82 years old! He was impressed with the repair to the seats in particular.

[eddie bullit 37]

Nice set you've got Tom.

Nowhere near finished mine but I already want another. Quite fancy a CTI or GTI6 track missile. Just struggle to store it.

[Tom Fenton 1,542]

Well blimey, just happened to look at this and its 12 months since any update. So from last year I used the car until the end of September, then put her away for the winter away from the poor weather and salt etc. Fast forward to 2015 and I was not planning to get the car out until June, the was due to me getting married at the end of May so had plenty on my plate as it was. However there was a bit of a last minute panic, I was due to be using my Dads Audi Quattro to go to the wedding in with my best man, but it was booked in for some paint and looked like it may not be ready in time. So as a backup I got the 205 out in early May just in case. The battery in the car was the one it came with, but it had never been much good, as I suspect John the previous owner had always kept it on charge. So the first thing I did was treat it to a new battery.

Here she is back at home in May for the first time since September 2014.

Untitled by Tom Fenton, on Flickr

 

And the aforementioned Quattro, this has been my Dads for over 25 years, lots of memories of going places in it as a kid, one of the first things by best man said when I told him I was getting married was that we needed to go in the Quatt.

 

Untitled by Tom Fenton, on Flickr

 

Back to the 205, its MOT was due in June so I took it back to my usual place, as expected it went straight through, but also pretty much by chance it had done bang on 1000 miles since its first test in my ownership following its major overhaul.

 

Once MOT'd I got it in the garage and had all 4 wheels off to give the underside a good clean. I had not really used it in the wet but it had got a little grubby over the 1000 miles, a quick clean soon had it looking good again, my neighbour called in while I was doing it, I think he thought I had gone a little crazy!

Untitled by Tom Fenton, on Flickr

 

Next on the agenda was the Hope Motor Show, this is always a popular event and in the past Team Yorkshire Bastards had attempted to display our cars but had not managed to secure a place. However our H is obviously a smooth talker and had managed to arrange us a stand this time.

Met up beforehand with Henry in the Peak FM, Speno in the Dimma and Steve in the Goodwood.

 

Untitled by Tom Fenton, on Flickr

 

And at the show with our Peugeot Sport Club banner and flags etc.

 

Untitled by Tom Fenton, on Flickr

[Tom Fenton 1,542]

After the Hope Show the car was filthy unfortunately, the weather turned whilst we were there, and then we had to drive over a muddy field to get out of the show

 

So it was up in the air again and wheels off to get her clean again. Heres a gratuitous shot of the underside and beam etc!

 

Untitled by Tom Fenton, on Flickr

 

After that I decided to sort out the exhaust in particular the back box. The car when I bought it came with a very recently fitted full exhaust system, however it was not a good fitment to the car in particular the tailpipe of the back box. So I bought a reasonable quality pattern backbox (Bosal) and fitted, much better fitment wise and slightly quieter than the previous box as well.

 

The next major trip really was Pugfest. A good weekend away as usual, I was talked into entering the show and shine and came away with Show and Shine standard class 3rd place, quite happy with that really as the paintwork and engine bay are in the same condition as when I bought the car.

 

Untitled by Tom Fenton, on Flickr

 

Untitled by Tom Fenton, on Flickr

 

Only other plans at present are to investigate a very slight hesitation at higher revs, I am suspecting perhaps the fuel pump is a bit tired and its fuel pressure dropping off, but I need to rig up a gauge to affirm my guess.

[ciarandeery1 22]

have to say i love this thread, car looks amazing.