[car_overhaul] My 205 Gti Road Car

[humanz 3]

Well, let me say first and foremost, this car was intended to be a rally project. But along the way.....well, as a friend says, "there's many a slip between the cup and the lip." Also, there arent too many pictures to include, as 1.) I dont have a digital camera 2.) I never expected things to take this long, so documentation really didnt occur to me.

 

About 3 years ago, I fell in love with a friend's white 1987 1.6 205 GTi. I was looking for the perfect project to use in local rallies here in Barbados. The car was starting, just in need of a new clutch, a head gasket and some minor bodywork.

 

A little history: the 8v engine is supposedly a 1.9 instead of a 1.6, and the car was previously turbocharged with a full exhaust system.

 

Paid WAAY too much for the car, but I really wanted it. Well, I paid for the car, and my mechanic promised to start work on the car the following week. Well, the following week became several months and still no work was done. But in that time, I got to know some of the local Peugeot fans, including Bally, discovered this website and formulated a list of performance parts for my rally car project. I also stripped out the car a bit, and discovered it had ... a bit more rust than I had first thought.

 

Eventually, I got fed up waiting for my mechanic to start on the car, Bally put me onto a good bodywork guy that came to inspect the car, only to discover even more rust. He agreed to work on it, but as his main job would permit.

 

Well, the car was partially stripped and towed over to the bodywork guy, only to sit at his workshop for another few months. I've learnt quite a bit of patience with this project I must say...

[humanz 3]

Here is a pic of the car relaxing near my bodywork guy's workshop. That black stuff all over the paintjob is droppings from a mango tree that was outside my mechanic's workshop.

 

Yes, the car was parked outside, and not under covers. I wasnt too worried about the paintjob. As I said, this was meant to be a rally car. I figured I would've been able to satisfactorily taken care of the gooey stuff.

[humanz 3]

When the bodywork was finally started, I got the dreaded call. After doing much work on the floor, front footwells, and trunk floor, bodywork was still to be done on the doors, tailgate and the roof. But at least the firewall was pretty much ok.

 

Some pics of the rust spots. Dont ask why I didnt open the doors and take these pictures. At the time, I was just thinking about taking a couple pics for myself.

 

 

The bodywork guy felt that the shell was too far gone, and I would at least need a replacement roof. After doing some searching here, I found a local motorsport team that had a roof selling for about £50. The same day, I found out an acquaintance had a stripped out 205 XS shell selling for the same £50, as well as a tailgate in good condition for £30.

 

The shell was coming with no engine or front suspension (not a problem since I could use my GTi suspension and engine). My bodywork guy took a look at it and felt that while it needed a bit of work (the previous owner had started some amateur bodywork on it, and was driving around with a big hole directly behind the front passenger chair), it was pretty much a good buy for reshelling my GTi.

 

I towed the old GTi shell back to my mechanic and I swapped over the front GTi subframe and suspension to get the XS shell rolling and got the shell over to the bodywork guy. The swap was pretty straightforward. After another few weeks of waiting, the bodywork guy finally started repairs on the shell. Work progressed smoothly enough with a short break of a few weeks in between (he landed a contract at another bodywork shop, and my work was put on a hold).

[humanz 3]

I should say here that while I was again waiting, a potential problem arose.

 

I knew I (my bodywork guy really) would need to cut the rear arches to accomodate the arches and wheels from the GTI.

 

An Aside: Yes, those are 15" Speedlines you can see in the first picture. I'm one of the few people here who have those Speedlines. Before my work started, I got more offers for those rims than the shell. Interest has been so great that I've had to keep the rims in separate places ever since my rebuild has started. As of now, 13" XS rims are on the rear of the car and the remaining Speedlines are in a secret location To make matters worse, now I've got people approaching me for my GTI trim and mouldings. Some original parts are pretty hard to get a hold of here, unlike over there. But more on that later.

 

I hadn't considered it before bodywork started but in reading thru a few posts on this website, I realised the top engine mount on the XS and the GTI might be different. Fortunately, my XS shell carried the correct top mount, although it is pretty much knackered.

 

Here is a pic of the top mount on the XS shell.

 

Here is a pic of the top mount on the donor car.

 

In this pic u can see some of the amateur wiring attempts made by previous owners, as well as some bits of grass from a weedwhacker that tackled some weeds growing near the resting place of the donor car.

[humanz 3]

Shortly after the bodywork was completed, I got the car over to the painter who made quick work of it. Of course, I had to wait two weeks before I could get the car over to the painter because he was in great demand.

 

Got the car back and towed it back to my mechanic, who still hadn't looked at the GTI engine which has been sitting on his lot all this time. My hopes for a quick marriage between the refurbished shell and engine were quickly dashed.

 

More pics and backstory to follow.

[cybernck 402 1 Cars]

that's an interesting story, can't wait to read the sequels .

 

are you keeping the A/C (which you didn't have on the GTI it seems)?

 

p.s. now you've got a topic going, i'm sure you'll be more active on taking pics .

[GLPoomobile 958]

Why is rust such an issue in Barbados? Forgive me if I'm naive, but I assumed you generally had a dry, sunny, hot climate, although I appreciate you must get the odd tropical storm now and then.

[humanz 3]

that's an interesting story, can't wait to read the sequels .

 

are you keeping the A/C (which you didn't have on the GTI it seems)?

 

p.s. now you've got a topic going, i'm sure you'll be more active on taking pics .

 

The A/C I'm keeping. The donor shell didnt have any A/C. My big question right now is how I will control the A/C. You'll understand shortly.

 

Well, I still dont have a digital camera. I'll have to borrow one from a friend. But the problem is, i've gotten pretty far in this project right now, i just dont have many pics to show the little steps in between. I'll probably just continue the updates until I get a camera and take pictures of how the car looks now, since I've hit a small roadblock anyways (more on that later).

 

Why is rust such an issue in Barbados? Forgive me if I'm naive, but I assumed you generally had a dry, sunny, hot climate, although I appreciate you must get the odd tropical storm now and then.

 

Well, it rains almost every day here for at least two thirds of the year, regardless of any tropical storms. This time of the year is generally considered the Dry Season (the other season being the Wet Season ) but it's been raining about every other day. Some days the rains have been pretty heavy too, though not as heavy as during the Wet Season.

 

Another factor with the rust, the island is pretty small, so no matter where u are, you're kinda close to the sea, which doesn't help at all.

Edited April 9, 2008 by humanz

[Roman 0]

The A/C I'm keeping. The donor shell didnt have any A/C. My big question right now is how I will control the A/C. You'll understand shortly.

 

Well, I still dont have a digital camera. I'll have to borrow one from a friend. But the problem is, i've gotten pretty far in this project right now, i just dont have many pics to show the little steps in between. I'll probably just continue the updates until I get a camera and take pictures of how the car looks now, since I've hit a small roadblock anyways (more on that later).

Well, it rains almost every day here for at least two thirds of the year, regardless of any tropical storms. This time of the year is generally considered the Dry Season (the other season being the Wet Season ) but it's been raining about every other day. Some days the rains have been pretty heavy too, though not as heavy as during the Wet Season.

 

Another factor with the rust, the island is pretty small, so no matter where u are, you're kinda close to the sea, which doesn't help at all.

if you tune engine too much... Barbados is small island so you risk to fly and finnish in sea

[humanz 3]

if you tune engine too much... Barbados is small island so you risk to fly and finnish in sea

 

That's funny! It's not that small mind u, but....

[humanz 3]

Wanted to say more, but I had a workshop to attend. I'm a teacher. I teach 9 to 10 year olds right now, so most of the work I've done has been on weekends, or during my vacations, like this vacation.

 

While the car was being bodyworked and painted, I bought a few of the parts I knew I needed. First, I bought a fuel tank cover (with lock) and two window switches from my local peugeot dealership. They charged me about £120, £60 of which went towards the fuel tank cover. And I had to wait for the parts to be brought in. Sadly, I decided to do some cleaning up around the house and I accidentally threw those pars away. Dumb, I know but in the time that had passed since buying them, I had clean forgotten what I had kept them in. I ended up buying those parts again from Autofive at a much cheaper price and faster delivery time. So next time you think your dealership is having a good one on you, remember it might be worse for someone else.

 

I also bought all the door, window and trunk seals. The ones on the donor car were no good, and the XS came with none. Those seals were the first things to go back on. Then I worked my way from the hatch forward, installing the rear wiper reservoir, running the hose for the wiper fluid, installing rear seats, rear seat belts and the carpet.

 

Had some problems with the rear safety belts. The donor didnt come with any, and I found a pair of uprights from a hit blue 205 gti that belonged to an acquaintance. The lap belts came from the XS. It seemed the lap belts were Phase 2 belts, while the uprights were Phase 1. So the belts didnt actually come together. I recently acquired two Phase 1 lap belts from a friend scrapping a 309 GTI. Tomorrow I'll show a picture of the differences between the two belts. I didnt even know there would be a difference until I tried to buckle them.

 

Interesting story behind the blue 205 GTI: when I was purchasing a 205 GTI, it had come down to either that same blue GTI or the white one I eventually bought. An acquaintance bought the blue 205 GTI. He's also the previous owner of the XS I'm using to rebuild my 205 GTI. After a few weeks he decided to challenge a roundabout. Of course the roundabout won, and the blue 205 GT got a good set of damage. It could've been repaired, but he decided to scrap it and find another one.

[humanz 3]

The XS shell had no rivets along the doors, so I had to either find another way to attach the door mouldings or purchase some rivets and attach the mouldings the original way. Well, the thought of breaking up the lovely paint job with rivets didnt appeal to me, so I decided to use 3M double sided tape top and bottom along with a healthy helping of polyurethane sealant. The red strips are stuck on to the trim using the same sealant. So there shouldn't be much rattling now, right?

 

Anyways, the front fenders between the XS and the GTI are different so I used back the GTI front fenders to make life a bit easier. The mouldings on the front fenders are stuck on using plastic clips, along with double sided tape and sealant again. I'm not really impressed with the plastic clips and washers used above the front wheels. I'm not sure if those are what the GTI mouldings originally came with. I'll take some pics tomorrow and maybe some1 on here could shed some light for me. A suggestion on a better way to attach the part of the moulding just above the wheels would also be nice. Right now, the plastic clips pop out of the rubber washers quite easily.

 

On the tailgate, I used a smooth tailgate along with chrome Peugeot and GTI badges. The piece is attached as all the other mouldings: double-sided tape and some sealant. I think it creates a nice look, along with the phase 2 lights from the donor GTI car. The previous owner had done the rear light conversion.

 

Now onto performance parts . As I said, this car is to be a track day car, and I'd love to enter it in any local dexterity competitions as well, just for fun.

Suspension:

So far, I've fitted solid rear mounts, replacing the worn rear sandwich mounts with some quality mounts from Baker Bushes. I plan on fitting an uprated fast road top engine mount from there as well, along with fast road top mount rubbers for the front shock absorbers. The car is already fitted with an upper strut brace.

 

Engine:

I'm keeping the 8V engine that came with the donor GTI. Perhaps in a few years I'll replace it with a 16v, but for now...The car is fitted with an MSD blaster coil. The engine was already fitted with a Pipercross induction air filter, but it'll need replacing.

 

Transmission:

The donor car was fitted with rose-jointed gear rods. I'll check the condition of these as I plan on re-using them. They should be fine except.....The long gear rod between the gearstick and the subframe (i think) is bent. After I had removed the front subframe from the donor car, my mechanic decided to do some tidying up around his workshop. He had a Bobcat shift the shell to another place in his yard. The Bobcat was there levelling another area of his property as he is in the process of expanding his workshop. Little did he know that I had not removed any other parts from the car, including the gear rod, which was now resting on the ground. So as the shell was pushed along the yard, the rod became bent.

 

Other plans:

Group N head gasket

Uprated oil pump spring

And any other small internal engine parts that make sense. The engine is going to be overhauled, so now's a good time to make small upgrades where possible. Any suggestions you guys can make would be appreciated. I dont want to step up to an uprated cam yet.

[humanz 3]

Now, I've just reached the front half of the interior.

 

When I started this conversion, I thought the only difference between a Phase 1 GTI and a Phase 2 XS besides the wheel arches would have been the dashboard. I figured since I was re-using my wiring and dashboard it would not be a problem.

 

However, along the way, I found out:

The engine mounts may be different.

 

The connections between the brake lines running to the rear of the car and the rear beam were different. The GTI used a single line split into two (don't know if this is the case with all GTIs) while the XS had two independent rear brake lines. I ended up having to use back the splitter since the brake lines couldn't be plumbed directly into the steel braided lines at the 1.6's brake drums. I'll have to block off the unused brake line at the master cylinder. I hope it works.

 

The floor plan is different. The Phase 1 GTI had a narrow ridge between the two front seats where the handbrake sits. So to install the seats, a bracket was needed. The Phase 2 XS had a much wider ridge with holes already provided in the ridge for the seats to bolt into. I didn't realize this at first. I still had the bracket attached to one of the seats (the one I tried installing first). Imagine my surprise when I couldn't get the seat to sit level on the floor.

 

The steering column is different. The XS's Phase 2 steering column was wider than the phase 1 GTI's, so I couldn't get the plastic pieces to fit around it when I was trial fitting the wiper and light stalks, which also didn't quite fit. So I had to remove the column from the donor, clean it up and hopefully install it this coming Saturday.

 

Then the crowning problem: as I'm no expert, I couldn't get out the Phase1 dashboard harnesses out of the donor when I first tried, so I left them until another day. Then I forgot to go back for them So when I was ready for them, I couldn't find them and as a last ditch attempt I checked the old shell. Sine the wires had been left exposed to the elements, the connections have become very brittle or have completely fallen apart. So I managed to get a Phase 2 harness from a friend, along with a Phase 2 glove box and heater matrix. Of course, it's been impossible to find the actual dashboard or the plastic shroud for the dials that goes with it.

So, I ended up using my Phase 1 heater matrix and controls and tried to trace out the connections for the heater matrix controls, which uses different plugs between Phase 1 and Phase 2. I swapped the wires in the Phase 2 wiring into connections from the Phase 1 wiring. Here, I thought I had solved my problem, but as it turned out there was another problem. My friend believes the connections for the rectangular switches at the bottom of the Phase 1 dashboard are different to those round switches used in Phase 2 dashboards. I'm inclined to agree with him as I spent days looking for the right connections on the phase2 wiring.

 

So here's where I'm stuck:

I dont have a complete dashboard.

 

I either:

a.) have Phase 2 wiring, glove box and heater matrix. But no main dashboard, facia, shroud, or control knobs.

Or

b.) have a complete Phase 1 dashboard (no cracks), but no Phase 1 wiring.

 

I see that there's a heater matrix loom for sale on Ebay, but I don't know if this is what I need. I know the dashboard loom consists of wiring for the clocks, and wiring for the heater controls and matrix. Is my friend correct? Will the plugs on the Phase 2 wiring work for those four buttons at the bottom of the Phase 1 dashboard? Or will I need phase 1 wiring to complete the job?

 

What is making all this a problem is how hard it is to get these things here. Right now, it doesn't matter which dashboard I use, Phase 1 or Phase 2. I just need it complete and wired.

 

Any suggestions?

 

PS I couldn't get the camera today, so I'll see if i can get it tomorrow and take some pics.

Edited April 10, 2008 by humanz

[humanz 3]

Well, I've finally finished this overhaul. Here's a pic of the car a three weeks ago (been a bit lazy). Guess I've been having too much fun driving to do all the other things I'm supposed to do.

 

 

That was before a wash and sprucing up. I'm going to have another go with the camera later this week, once I find a beautiful location here to go with the beautiful car. Perhaps a beach or two for you folks?

 

Still a long list of things to sort out.

Exhaust...it doesn't sit quite right below the shell, so I'm hitting it when selecting some gears. I'll get it bent slightly and a new hangar attached (it's missing the one in front of the fuel tank. It's also a bit loud. Not sure what to do about that right now....

 

Gearbox...sigh...fourth gear is crunching so I haven't been selecting that gear. Trying to get a new synchro....

 

A/C.....still need to figure out the passenger side wiring for the ph1 A/C button. I've got the wire codes and I've sorted all but one wire (17 or 17?). A friend has promised to give me his sump with the A/C compressor mounting points. Next oil change that'll go on.

 

Oil temperature...Apparently, the oil temp space in my sump has been blanked off. Hopefully, the sump I'm getting has one, or I'll have to order one off the net (my dealership here doesn't stock many parts).

 

Oil pressure sender...will change next oil change. I've already located a suitable replacement. As it is right now, I can't rely on my gauge. But the pressure seems to be ok.

 

Cooling fan...one of mine has stopped working. I'm trying to currently source a motor or a complete fan, so if u've got one pls let me know. I've got fan blades to fit both types of motors.

 

Radiator flush...when I've sorted out the non-working cooling fan.

 

Engine mounts...a new bush for the lower fork and a firmer lower engine mount.

 

Rear shocks...install the Spax adjustables I've got for the back (I'm afraid to go too close to my beam).

 

Rear seats...I've got a set of half-leathers for the rear to drop in...will do that this coming weekend. I'm looking for a matching set for the front..

 

Sticker for the rear glass...I saw a sticker in the Haynes book 'Improve & Modify Your 205' that I really liked. I've searched all over and I couldn't find the company that created it, so I copied it. I made a slight error with the top piece so I've got to get the sticker printed again. But you can see a piece of the sticker (minus the error) in the shot below.

 

Collect my spare beam and start saving up for a beam rebuild, a set of rose jointed gear rods from Miles, and a set of springs and shocks for the front.

 

 

But the long and short of it is, I love this car.