Impulse buy: Peugeot 205 GTi 16v

Impulse buy: Peugeot 205 GTi 16v

Author
Discussion

itcaptainslow

3,694 posts

135 months

Monday 28th March 2016
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Awesome car OP. Remember being taken out an a Mi16 converted GTI and being amazed how quick it was (and how good it sounded!).

t4thomas

394 posts

165 months

Monday 28th March 2016
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WEAPON!

CarlosV8

Original Poster:

765 posts

171 months

Friday 29th April 2016
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So after quite a few hours cleaning I finally got the engine bay looking a bit more respectable:


Certainly not perfect, but at least you can see the paintwork now!

Next I thought I better give the car a service. 5 litres of fully synthetic plus an oil filter was purchased from ECP for the princely sum of £18 and I thought it'd be a quick 20 minute job. Not quite! The radiator is mounted lower to allow air to flow straight into the throttle bodies, but this means the only way to get the filter out is to remove the front of the car:



Not the end of the world, just a handful of 10mm bolts and a little bit more time. So oil drained, filters swapped and started putting the oil in. 4.5 litres later and did the obligatory look under the car to check for leaks and to my surprise there's a stream of oil coming out. Oh dear. Sump plug ok, filter ok, oil filler pipe not OK! So more of the car was taken off to eventually get to this:



Luckily there was enough slack in the pipe just to cut the bottom off and reattach. It feels quite weak, but I'll source some new pipe to replace it at a later date.

Not quite as easy as I had thought but the oil change was done! I also had the opportunity to have a nose round the cooling system as I'd noticed a couple of drops of coolant on the garage floor after a run. Found one suspect pipe and some tell tell residue marks on the end tank of the radiator. Obviously needs to be addressed, so might take this opportunity to rethink the cooling system - maybe a shortened rad rather than the just lowering the standard one. Need to do some research!

Edited by CarlosV8 on Tuesday 25th July 20:06

S10GTA

12,645 posts

166 months

Saturday 30th April 2016
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Have missed this till now. Epic car. Bet it's fun in the Meon.

anonymous-user

53 months

Saturday 30th April 2016
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Random question about adjustable strut-braces - are you supposed to adjust them inwards (so they are shorter and effectively pulling) or outwards (so they are longer and pushing)? Or doesn't it matter?

CarlosV8

Original Poster:

765 posts

171 months

Saturday 30th April 2016
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I've always assumed they shouldn't be under any tension and then the strut top bolts keep it in the right place. There's one underneath too but there's no adjustability on that.

Washed and polished today ready to take to Goodwood in the morning smile





Edited by CarlosV8 on Tuesday 25th July 20:08

CarlosV8

Original Poster:

765 posts

171 months

Saturday 30th April 2016
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S10GTA said:
Have missed this till now. Epic car. Bet it's fun in the Meon.
It's fairly amusing scrabbling around for traction whilst making a lot of noise. Now I've finally got round to sorting a few of the odd jobs I need to take it on a proper drive out.

CarlosV8

Original Poster:

765 posts

171 months

Saturday 11th June 2016
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Had a great drive out to Goodwood after my last post, but the drive home highlighted a weakness I had feared... we don't like sitting in traffic! I nervously watched the temp gauge get higher and higher on the A27 past Chichester. Similar issues were seen on a drive through the New Forest a week or 2 later, so thought I better do something about it.

When you're on the move the temp is rock steady, so I decided the current rad is the right size, just needed some work on the slow speed/stationary cooling. So, the plan is to renew the rad as it's showing signs of leakage, give the cooling system a good checkover and also fit a second cooling fan. As I mentioned earlier the radiator as been lowered to allow the throttle bodies to breath, however the fan is still in it's standard position (as the cowling doubles as a slam panel and grille mount and cant be moved down) so it's only blowing over about 2/3 of the rad. Fortunately there's a space for a second fan, so I'm hoping this will help in the short term. In the long term I'd like to cut out the lower crossmember, remove the slam panel and make up a bespoke front end.

Finally found some time to get to work. With the slam panel, grille, fan and rad removed access to the engine is great improved!


You also can see the lowered radiator mounts. Nothing special, just some right angle aluminium bolted to the lower cross member - normally the rad would sit in mounts on the fan cowling, which you can see on my spare one below (right hand side):



My cowling has these cut off, as obviously they're not needed and would be in the way. I'll swap a fan over, to save butchering another cowling, and then it will be wired into a simple switch in the cabin so I can turn it on when required. I can do some data logging with the laptop connected to the ECU to check the impact of both fans on coolant temperature.

Elsewhere I thought I better check thermostat whilst everything was apart, and potentially look for a lower temp version to aid cooling. Well I won't be doing that, as it already has a 72 degree one in there. Some quick Googling reveals that this is what Skip Brown Cars recommend for this conversion, so I'll stick with that. Played with a new toy just to make sure it was working OK:


And it's all good, so no problem there.

Final thing to check was a leak somewhere at the bottom end of the cooling system, which had been causing a small puddle on the garage floor. I knew the rad was leaking, but also suspected one of the pipes coming off it. When I took it apart it became obvious why:



A pipe from the oil heat exchanger fitted on this little adapter. The pipe is 15mm and the adapter 10mm, so a short piece of 10mm pipe had been fitted to take up the slack. And this was weeping coolant. As the cooling system is not standard a ready made replacement pipe/adapter is not available, so after a bit of head scratching and Googling I came up with this:



Old version pictured for reference. Yes, it's a bit blingy, but it'll screw into the rad (M22x1.5 to AN10 adapter) and then give me something for the heat exchanger pipe to connect to directly (AN10 to 15mm barbed tail 90 degree pipe). Result!

Hopefully it'll all be back together this week, and I'll have a reliable cooling system for the rest of the summer!

Edited by CarlosV8 on Tuesday 25th July 20:12

CarlosV8

Original Poster:

765 posts

171 months

Wednesday 24th August 2016
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Well that took a bit longer than expected! The 205 is now back together with new rad, fresh coolant and 2nd fan.

You can see in the below photo the 2nd fan and how much the rad has been lowered:



The 2nd fan is crudely wired into a switch in the cabin for the time being. I'll monitor temperatures and eventually either wire it into the ECU or tidy up the wiring and put a hidden switch somewhere. For now it's there just in case.

Went for a nice long test drive tonight. Temperature is still steady during normal use. The original fan kicks in as it should (after cleaning up the connecting terminal) and the 2nd fan makes a noticeable difference when switched on. Exactly what I wanted. Cheeky pic on the test drive:


Edited by CarlosV8 on Tuesday 25th July 20:14

stichill99

1,040 posts

180 months

Thursday 1st September 2016
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That's a cracking photo. Car looks ace. It just looks so much more desirable than today's bunch of hatchbacks!

Krikkit

26,500 posts

180 months

Friday 2nd September 2016
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Fantastic work, looks really good and I bet it goes nicely with 200hp!

Leins

9,422 posts

147 months

Friday 2nd September 2016
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Lovely car OP, and bet it's proper little flier now

bungz

1,960 posts

119 months

Friday 2nd September 2016
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cloud9

Looks great, nice work in progress bringing it upto scratch.

CarlosV8

Original Poster:

765 posts

171 months

Saturday 3rd September 2016
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Cheers guys, she does go well and provides a unique driving experience. It's unlike any other 205 I've been in!

With the mechanicals now seemingly working well I want to start on the interior. There's an array of annoying rattles that get on my nerves so I'm going to try and fix the worse ones whilst doing a few other odd jobs whilst everything is apart. Wish me luck!

CarlosV8

Original Poster:

765 posts

171 months

Wednesday 26th October 2016
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I've been putting off the rattle hunt for a couple of months now, but after a long drive out to Silverstone a few weeks back and also using it every day this week (broken daily driver!) I've decided it needs to be sorted.

First of all, the loudest, most annoying rattle was coming from the drivers door. The plan was to remove all the trim and doorcard and refit with any necessary new clips/screws. But in the end I took the speaker cover off and there was the culprit:



A loose speaker screw (and 2 others missing). 4 new, slightly oversized screws and no more rattling. Result.

Next was the roof console trim and I suspected this would be a simple fix and it was - the 2 mounting screws just needed tightening. But this unit also houses the remote locking receiver so thought I might as well try and fix this too. The car was missing the plip so it's never worked, but I recalled from my BX 16v days that the receivers from many PSA cars of the time were interchangeable. So having acquired a cheap receiver and key from a 405 last year it was finally time to fit it. The case of the receiver is exactly the same, but the electronics are slightly different which means the spherical cover in the roof console doesn't fit. However a bit of time with a dremel and a glue gun and everything fits nicely. You can see the differences here:



My cover (the hat shaped thing) is now glued to the roof console instead of slotting into the receiver. And best of all, I now have remote locking!! rotate Just need to change all the locks over now so I have a single key to go with it!

And I should also say that last week I got one of these:


Very pleased about the lack of advisories.

And finally a couple of photos from an epic day out in the car. A faultless (and fun) drive to Silverstone:






Edited by CarlosV8 on Tuesday 25th July 20:17

Kitchski

6,514 posts

230 months

Thursday 27th October 2016
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Did you just drive to Silverstone, or did you drive round it too? hehe

CarlosV8

Original Poster:

765 posts

171 months

Thursday 27th October 2016
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Kitchski said:
Did you just drive to Silverstone, or did you drive round it too? hehe
Unfortunately it was just to Silverstone. But I would like to get it on a track at some point driving

japseye007

117 posts

98 months

Saturday 29th October 2016
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Lovely car OP. Have a soft spot for 205s since owning a MI16 conversion in my younger days.

Coming off the roundabout behind an almost new ~2005 STI onto the motorway and had to ease off,
even with 3 of us in the car.

Such fun cars to drive, great noise, great handling, had to get rid of it was too unreliable
as my daily driver. The thing wouldn't stop leaking oil.
Get some videos up if you manage to do a trackday.

CarlosV8

Original Poster:

765 posts

171 months

Saturday 29th October 2016
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The 205 is my only car that is fully working at the moment. It's not particularly well suited to being a daily driver but it's done its job this week and got me to work every day. And it's a much more pleasant place to be now with a couple of the rattles sorted. Squeaky seat to fix next!

They'll certainly be some video if I ever get round to a track day. I keep meaning to take a better one on the road too.

CarlosV8

Original Poster:

765 posts

171 months

Wednesday 25th January 2017
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Been fairly quiet on the 205 front recently. Had an enjoyable run out to Goodwood back in November.



Got lots of positive comments which is always nice to hear! November and December became quite busy so the 205 stayed tucked up in the garage. Decided to try and put some miles on her over Christmas though, but that wasn't to be as I discovered a nice big puddle of coolant under the car. 3 months after I'd (finally) finished over-hauling the cooling system...

The leak was quickly tracked down to the oil/coolant heat exchanger bolted to the block. Looks like the metal had fatigued and started weeping coolant - the combination of wiggling pipes whilst I had the rad out plus being used as a daily driver for a week probably finished it off. Didn't fancy paying the £300 from Peugeot, so I went for the £20 2nd hand option from a GTI6 with a £5 seal from Peugeot instead. Once again the front of the car was removed and the offending part removed:



All back together tonight - as you can see it also doubles up as the oil filter housing:


Just need a couple of new hose clips to button it all up and then back on the road this weekend hopefully.

In other news I finally got fed up with my a broken knob (well 3 of them actually):



Got myself a re-production gear knob for my birthday. They're not quite factory finish, but after breaking 3 original versions due to their brittle-ness I thought I'd give one a try. Pretty pleased with it considering it's reasonable price!

And finally, I've treated the car to a little spares package, in the shape of this bad ass little thing:



A 1993 205 Automatic. It's a bit rough round the edges, but most importantly it's got the raised bonnet bulge (needed for clearance on the Auto). This will provide some much needed clearance for my throttle bodies and will replace my slightly bent bonnet (after sitting on the aforementioned TBs for many years). The car will also provide a load of extra spares before being sent off to the scrapyard in the sky. But if anyone else wants something off the car please shout (or even the whole car!!).



Edited by CarlosV8 on Tuesday 25th July 20:24