[Car_Restoration] Scruffy But Original 1.9 Gti - Restoration

[Plumbob 66 1 Cars]

Hi there, I've been a member of this forum for while now since buying a 1.9 GTI a few months back. I wanted something interesting to get my teeth into and still had fond memories of my Red (orange in places) F reg 1.9 that I sold approx. 8 years ago.... After looking in the usual places I came across one advertised for £850 with 3 weeks MOT and only 10 miles from my house, registered in 1992 with 107,000 miles.

 

I went round to see it, took it for a spin, noted the large amounts of blue smoke from the exhaust, totally solid drivers side rear suspension, vague gear stick, fairly naff brakes and thought to myself "this is PERFECT" :-) An hour later after parting with £750 I had it parked on my drive!

 

During the test drive I was shown the immobiliser which seemed to immobilise the car even when you didn't want it to, so my first mission was to rip it out... Turns out it was a Sigma unit fitted approx 1993 that was screwed into the floor in the passenger side footwell, had an alarm too with a bonnet switch etc and within a couple of hours the whole lot was in a heap on the garage floor (best place for it). Thankfully my wiring repairs must have been good because she started straight away once I'd finished.. no more "ignition on, press the fob, fingers crossed the LED would go out after 10 seconds" nonsense...

 

Whilst I've been on the forum I've enjoyed seeing everyone's photo's of their restorations and thought it about time I posted my own shots of a stripped out engine bay, and wheel arches with scraped off underseal...so here we go!!

 

So far I've got the engine out, and stripped back the underseal from the passenger side arches and the sill. Rust wise it seems really good, there's none underneath at all that I've seen so far, just the usual places in the engine bay (under the jack) where there's a small hole. There was some surface rust down the legs that run down the behind the headlights but it came off with a wire brush on an angle grinder so I gave it a quick coat of primer to stop it coming back... the primer in the arches isn't permanent, it's just to stop it rusting over xmas when I probably won't have any time to continue for a few weeks. I plan to use the epoxy mastic two part stuff that gets mentioned on this site occasionally. I've recently taken off the rear bumper and am now thinking about dropping the tank out. Then I can go all over the underside to the same standard... rear beam needs taking out too. Later on I intend to get the car re-sprayed professionally as the lacquer is peeling pretty badly in places (boot lid and wings)

 

On the list of jobs done so far.......... in no particular order....

 

Discover that the master cylinder is pumping more fluid out the back than front, filling the servo with brake fluid and running down the pedal. I've now bought a new servo as I was concerned what state it would be in after being half filled with brake fluid, and a new master cylinder from a 406 so that I can use the GTI-6 callipers that I bought on ebay.

 

Got some seal kits so I can rebuild the front and rear calipers.

 

Replaced the heater matrix as it was leaking and making the (original Clarion) radio go rusty!

 

Removed the engine, found that in the past some loon has snapped one of the bolts attaching it to the gearbox! Great!

 

Found the gear linkage ball joint on the subframe to be TOTALLY loose.

 

Inspected the shocks and found all four to be original Peugeot items with 1991 stamped on them!

 

Bought new shocks and springs... Bilstein / Eibach combo that most people seem to go for.

 

As mentioned above, started removing the underseal to make sure all is well underneath...

 

Got a PTS stripe for the grille... no idea why I got it so early on, I'm sure it'll be ready for fitting sometime next year!

 

Pulled all wiring back into the footwells and given the engine bay a scrub.

 

That's about all for my intro, I promise to make regular updates as and when I have the time to work on the car. Future posts won't be so photo heavy, just wanted to get up to date..

 

Thanks for reading...

 

Jon

Edited December 18, 2013 by Plumbob

[Davy 18 1 Cars]

Excellent work there so far, well done! It looks like you've started off with a very solid and complete one too (well, except for missing 1/2 a gear box bolt!). Once the beam and fuel tank are out, then it'll be time to test your patience with cleaning the underside! Good luck.

[Plumbob 66 1 Cars]

Hello again, not managed to do a great deal to the car since my last update but I have been getting some parts together for when I get a free weekend to continue. I've been keeping my eye out for a rear beam and am now the proud owner of the beam below courtesy of Alex Crosse... Its a 205 beam with ZX arms, solid mounts, 24mm torsion bars, 23mm anti roll bar, 306 brakes.. Should be an improvement on my current one which is seized solid on one side and doesn't look like its ever been off the car.

 

Also picked up a tired looking strut brace from another Alex on here (AlexRS2782) which needs some TLC but will be fine once it's tidied up.

 

That's all for the time being, hopefully i'll get a chance to get under the car this weekend.

[omri617 18]

Looks fantastic already :0

[Miles 331 1 Cars]

Another Local owner, About time we had a few around here.

 

Keep up the good work

[Plumbob 66 1 Cars]

So... been busy on the underside of the car..

 

I dropped the old rear beam off, which came undone pretty easily and also dropped the fuel tank out. Can't say it was so much fun as it was a third full and I quickly ran out of containers to put it in. Got it all emptied eventually with a "jiggle tube" and its now safely tucked away in the shed. I then removed all the old brake and fuel lines and set about scrubbing the rust / underseal off. I thought the wheel arches were a crappy job, but this really is a chore! I was pleased to see nothing other than a very light amount of surface rust above where the tank had been.

 

Whilst this has been going on I also popped in to my local Peugeot dealer and got some new antiroll bar bushes for the front end, some new fuel lines and some diff seals... I've since had a proper think and have got a very long list of things I still need..

 

Once the rust is all exposed and rubbed down i'll treat it with some fe123, then cover it all up again with some Epoxy Mastic 121 (both of which came today). According to what I've read they are both pretty good products. I'm sure some of you reading this will have heard of it..

 

With a bit of luck i'll have this done in the next few weeks then I can work my way along under the car... mmmm can't wait!

 

[Edp 67 3 Cars]

Looking good

[Plumbob 66 1 Cars]

Done some more cleaning of the underside, boot floor is looking pretty good now, need to go around the edges and then work forward to the panel above the fuel tank... Also had a go at sorting out some GTI-6 calliper's I acquired a few months back. I had to get a bit creative with a bike valve that I chopped out of an inner tube and a bike pump to pop the piston out! They came up looking fine though, just need a splash of paint then i'll rebuild them (already have the seal kit ready to go)

 

Also got my newly acquired 2nd hand Strut Brace back from the powder coating company. Got a new sticker from eBay and it's good as new!

[speno 239 2 Cars]

Looking good

what engine ya putting in it

[Roon 29 1 Cars]

Only up the road from me good stuff really doing it properly.

 

What sort of direction are your going with it then?

[Plumbob 66 1 Cars]

Thanks for the comments lads. I'm going in the "GTI-6 engine and upgraded suspension" route. I'm not going to do anything like a roll cage that would be harder to reverse. I'm keeping all the standard bits that I've removed so that I can put it back to standard if I want to. Once all the underside is done I'll get it out to a body shop and get it resprayed. That should give me the chance to tidy up the gearbox, brakes etc. The seats need a retrim bit I'm not sure if I should go for a 100% original look or just get an "all leather" retrim. I'm mulling it over.

[Plumbob 66 1 Cars]

Spent most of Sunday laying down under the car again!

 

Only found one patch so far on the boot floor where its into tiny little holes. I'll have to cut it out and weld some fresh metal in there I think! Also dug out the seam sealant above the drivers side rear window which also had a tiny amount of bubbling under the paint. I then treated it with some FE123 so hopefully it'll stay away!

 

Also (with the use of a heat gun and scraper) I managed to get rid of a load of left over sound deadening material that was stuck to the inside of the boot floor, then finished stripping most of the interior and external plastic. Just the door cards to do.

 

Finally I took the bulb and holder from the choke light and moved it to the engine warning lamp position in preparation for what should be coming a bit later!

 

Oh yeah I also installed a lightweight racing stool on the passenger side too!

 

[Plumbob 66 1 Cars]

Had a pretty successful afternoon! I called a local scrapyard to ask if they had any 205's, they said they had one 1992 3 door in stock so I thought "what the hell" and went to have a look. I was thinking it would be good to be able to get some trim clips which I've broken along the way and perhaps some more dashboard bits...either way it was worth a look.

 

I turned up and was absolutely chuffed to find it was not only in pretty decent condition but it was also an Automatic! Woohoo! I needed a bonnet as mine is rusty and dented and i've been looking on this forum and eBay for some time for one. The interior had already been pretty well hacked about already so not much worth taking from there.

 

I also noticed the door/window seals were in much better shape than mine so I took them too. Lastly I got the rear window weather seal out totally undamaged which is more than I can say for the one on my actual car, which came out in about 1000 parts due to it being well and truly glued in.

 

I got the whole lot, bonnet and seals etc for £60 so I'm chuffed to bits with that.

 

Had a trial fit of the bonnet and it looks fine, can anyone tell me if its normal for it to be painted dark grey on the inside? I'm wondering if it's genuine or not. Its been there some time as it's faded exactly the same as the rest of the car so I think it could be? Also there's no sound deadening material on the inside of it? should there be? If it's genuine or not I'm still a happy man.

 

 

 

 

[credowan 15 1 Cars]

Harris's by any chance ?

 

Project looks great by the way well done

Gary

[Plumbob 66 1 Cars]

You got it! To anyone else who's local, just google GR Harris and you'll find it. The engine is pretty much all there, it's got solid rear side windows (non popout) which someone might find useful.

[cybernck 402 1 Cars]

Nice find . I also picked up a cheap Auto bonnet yesterday.

[Roon 29 1 Cars]

I pop to Harris quite a lot they always always have at least one 205. Good find and a good price.

[Plumbob 66 1 Cars]

Not a huge amount to report as I've been away all week, but I did take advantage of being up the country and picked up this bay boy! It came from a 309 so hopefully the two brown plugs (one white, one brown actually) will be pretty much ok, i'll compare them to my existing Ph2 loom nearer to the time. The 309 was fully working when it was removed, I think I've spotted the rev counter adaptor in the loom already so that's one less thing to think about!

 

[Plumbob 66 1 Cars]

Probably would also be polite to mention that I got the engine from Spencer (speno). He's a top bloke, loves his Peugeot's and I had a good day with him taking this out of his Goodwood. It was a slight voyage of discovery as neither of us had worked on a 309 or on a GTI-6 engine but it wasn't very troublesome in the end.

[speno 239 2 Cars]

For sale one broken goodwood now ;0)

It wasn't too bad but cripes they weigh a fair but those engines doo

Always a pleasure never a chore

[Slo 283 1 Cars]

Yes very heavy if its the iron boat anchor block. Took 3 of us to drag mine under the car and prise it up to be able to get a nut on the gearbox mount. Only good thing about all that weight is it cures a fair amount of wheelspin

[Plumbob 66 1 Cars]

It's taken me a few weeks to summon up the energy to continue with the underseal removal so I've been doing a few other jobs. Bloody garage is tiny (I know I'm "lucky" to have one) but I've been tidying up and using various family members sheds etc and now I finally have some space to work in.

 

I thought I'd take a look at the wiring loom that came with the aforementioned GTI-6 engine and see what state it was in. Turns out it wasn't that good (as far as I'm concerned). All the unused wires were just cut and not covered so I fixed that! Whilst checking all the unused wires back to the ECU plug I came across the K light so hooked that up to the 6 way brown plug, there's already a Wire 74 going up to the instruments... pukka :-) Also had to swap the shell of the 6 way under-dash plug as it was a white 8 way (from a 309).. I got one from a scrappy a few weeks ago so no problem there.

 

The final spare wire turned out to be the +ve feed for the Lambda sensor? it's a four wire lambda and the other three were connected properly, but for some reason whoever did the loom conversion never connected the +12v to it? any ideas why they'd do that? I'm guessing this may have contributed to the engine not being 100% perfect when in "speno's" Goodwood. (he didn't do the original conversion by the way so don't blame him!). Anyway.. I've connected it to Wire 2 on the 6 way brown plug with an inline fuse so I'm hoping that'll be better when I eventually fire it up.

 

I'd like to say a big thanks to all the people who have contributed to the "GTI-6 engine loom guide" topic.. there's a really good colour diagram I found for the Marelli ECU too and it was excellent.

 

Other bits I've done recently....

 

Taken the cam covers off and given them a spruce up (still need sealing back up)

 

Got back to work on the wheel arches.. just a bit more to do on the rear one then i'll move along the car.

 

Drilled all the rivets out that were holding the sunroof in and also removed the headlining.. Both jobs I was ABSOLUTELY dreading..

 

Took the dash out to remove the original engine loom.

 

Here's some pics....

 

 

[Slo 283 1 Cars]

+12volt on the lambda sensor is for the internal heater, should have a 20 amp fuse

[Plumbob 66 1 Cars]

Cheers for that.. I read somewhere that the 306 had a 30 amp but perhaps that was doing other things too... I couldn't see how the lambda sensor would use 30A so was planning on putting a 15A in and seeing what happens.. if you reckon 20A is the way to go that's what i'll do.

 

Thanks again.

[Slo 283 1 Cars]

Well.... the original turbo one uses a yellow 20 amp fuse which is what i have but if it pops its no bother to put in a larger one