1995 Ph1 Peugeot 106 XN
Discussion
As usual, I've sort of accidentally ended up with this. I was shopping for a Suzuki Jimny for the wife, as a "winter vehicle", she has a Ford StreetKa as a daily, and it's useless at the first sign of slush. Some decent advice quickly pointed out that a Jimny was a terrible idea for the intended use of the car, so I ditched that idea and went back to the drawing board.
As far as my car goes, I have a 2003 Saxo VTS that I've been tinkering with so it's of a decent "fast road" sort of fettle, as a result of the last 12 months tinkering I've got a fairly nice drivetrain, recently refreshed engine, bottom arms, driveshafts etc, however the shell isn't good at all, and I'd decided to take my parts and look out for a more suitable shell in future. I knew what I wanted a Ph1 106 shell, as in proper 'poverty spec' they weigh 760kg from the factory, against the VTS' 935kg. They're also really great fun to drive, I've no idea why they're better than Saxo's, I just love them.
So, along came this little gem. It's a 2 previous owner example, with 40K on the clock, and a load of old MOT's and paperwork to back it up. As well as the cleanest shell I've ever seen on one of these. Better still, it's an XN, meaning no frills. It has no sunroof which will be better if / when I sort a cage out down the line, and it's as light as a light thing.
The 954cc SPi engine is a peach, it's not rapid with 4 gears, but I drove it back from Manchester yesterday to north of Alnwick on £23 worth of unleaded
The plan is to get it undersealed next week, and then fit a set of winter tyres to it for use if it's gets hairy over the winter. I'm confident it'll get most places fine, and I've equipped the wife with a pair of wellies just in case. Then once winters been, I'll strip it down, and fit my 1.6 16v VTS running gear, 266mm brake setup, rear disc beam with 23mm torsion bars, and hopefully it should be tidy, and really good fun!
Only 2 terrible pics so far, but here's 'Betty' in need of a good polish.
As far as my car goes, I have a 2003 Saxo VTS that I've been tinkering with so it's of a decent "fast road" sort of fettle, as a result of the last 12 months tinkering I've got a fairly nice drivetrain, recently refreshed engine, bottom arms, driveshafts etc, however the shell isn't good at all, and I'd decided to take my parts and look out for a more suitable shell in future. I knew what I wanted a Ph1 106 shell, as in proper 'poverty spec' they weigh 760kg from the factory, against the VTS' 935kg. They're also really great fun to drive, I've no idea why they're better than Saxo's, I just love them.
So, along came this little gem. It's a 2 previous owner example, with 40K on the clock, and a load of old MOT's and paperwork to back it up. As well as the cleanest shell I've ever seen on one of these. Better still, it's an XN, meaning no frills. It has no sunroof which will be better if / when I sort a cage out down the line, and it's as light as a light thing.
The 954cc SPi engine is a peach, it's not rapid with 4 gears, but I drove it back from Manchester yesterday to north of Alnwick on £23 worth of unleaded
The plan is to get it undersealed next week, and then fit a set of winter tyres to it for use if it's gets hairy over the winter. I'm confident it'll get most places fine, and I've equipped the wife with a pair of wellies just in case. Then once winters been, I'll strip it down, and fit my 1.6 16v VTS running gear, 266mm brake setup, rear disc beam with 23mm torsion bars, and hopefully it should be tidy, and really good fun!
Only 2 terrible pics so far, but here's 'Betty' in need of a good polish.
mildmannered said:
So, you were shopping for the wife...
You then bought this for yourself???
You did read the whole of the OP's post, didn't you? The car was bought as a shell to drop in Saxo VTS running gear.You then bought this for yourself???
Looks very clean for an almost 20 year old car. Don't see many low spec 106s in black, most are in chick-friendly bright metallics. Almost seems a shame to butcher it.
excel monkey said:
mildmannered said:
So, you were shopping for the wife...
You then bought this for yourself???
You did read the whole of the OP's post, didn't you? The car was bought as a shell to drop in Saxo VTS running gear.You then bought this for yourself???
Max M4X WW said:
I'm confused, what happened to the Daimler's and Range Rover's? I thought you'd replaced them with something other than a Saxo?
Plans sound good though and the car looks like a good one!
I think I'm having some sort of reverse mid life crisis? I've done the old man cars, I'm working my way back over now? Plans sound good though and the car looks like a good one!
Jokes aside, I don't "want" one at the moment. For the first time in an age, I don't need a car to get to work, I cycle in most days happily, so I could quite happily stick the XJ12 I've always fancied on the drive, or get another big V8. Thing is though, these little french cars are just too damn fun. I don't think you'll really get it till you've spent time with one, but they're just fun. Even in standard form, this little 954cc thing is an absolute hoot. It's got a wheel on each corner, you can get it on 3 wheels, you can drive it flat out everywhere and not even touch the speed limit, it's great.
And for some real fun, after winter when I get some nice suspension sorted, fit some proper brakes and stick the VTS motor in it, it'll be a blast. They're cheap to get parts for, easy to work on, reliable, they just sort of get under your skin.
They must do, this is my 5th, I've had 2 954cc Ph1's, a Ph2 1.5d, a Ph1 Saxo VTR, and a Ph2 VTS. Usually I've ran them as daily drivers for a 2nd car, like when I had the Range Rover, so this is the first time I'll be having a 'proper' go at one.
Looking forward to it, I've got lots of plans, and loads of bits already!
RCBRG said:
S1 106s are incredible in the snow
mine didn't struggle once, unlike the stacks of other cars we overtook!
EDIT:she was immaculate when i sold her, just discovered she is no longer on the insurance database
You're brave! The roof doesn't appear to have folded in there? mine didn't struggle once, unlike the stacks of other cars we overtook!
EDIT:she was immaculate when i sold her, just discovered she is no longer on the insurance database
Excel Monkey, yeah, it is really clean, I've got some other photo's I'll stick up shortly, and over the weekend I'll get it cleaned and some proper ones taken. The colour is a nice little bonus tbh, it will be easy to tidy up the inside with a coat of gloss black without it looking daft, and the same with the engine bay.
I don't think I've ever seen a black Ph1 that wasn't a rallye, I'm sure they're out there though.
First of a little bit of an update here.
I decided to run the little 106 as a runabout until the tax ran out at the end of November while I stockpiled parts, at which point I SORN'd it and started the process of breaking the VTS I have, and sorting out the 106.
The pictures I've taken so far are mostly terrible iPhone shots in a dark garage and not particularly worthy of viewing, so this is a bit of a text heavy / pic light update I guess.
First off I salvaged anything worth having from the VTS. The main bonus was the engine, which is really strong and healthy, having had a pretty decent refresh 5,000 miles ago. I also removed the 283mm GTi-6 brake setup I had, and also I've kept the knackered rear beam so I can extract my Peugeot Sport 23mm torsion bars from it. I've also taken the 22mm VTS front ARB, I'm unsure if I'll use it or not yet, the upper and lower engine bay braces, the entire wiring loom, and basically whatever good spares I could use or sell on to offset the spend on the 106.
I've also been slowly acquiring new parts. I've gotten hold of an S2 Rallye gearbox which has slightly shorter ratios than the 106, some Rallye front struts with Bilstein B8 dampers, Bilstein B8 rear dampers, braided brake lines, a Peugeot Sport 2" Decat exhaust system, 4-2-1 Exhaust Manifold, I'm using a standard VTS airbox and uprated panel filter.
Where I'm at now is the VTS is broken and ready to be scrapped, and I'm in the process of stripping down the 106 and preparing it for the transplant.
The shell is remarkably clean, I've now removed the front end, wings etc and normally the inner wings on these go in a bad way. Water gets trapped under the ECU tray and by the washer bottle, and under the fuseboxes, and combined with the road spray they rot from both sides quickly, the 2003 VTS shell I'm scrapping has 7-8" of inner wing missing on both sides where it's crumbled away to nothing.
In contrast, the 106 is in really great condition and makes a great basis for a project car:
The water pump bearings on the old 106 engine had gone, so the orangey discolouration you can see around the bottom arm brackets and bay area is coolant spray and cleans off. I haven't cleaned the bay properly yet so I'll need to do that and get some better pictures, but there is only 1 area that will need some welding, and that's the passenger side inner wing panel where the fusebox sits. It's a little crumbly around a hole made for the loom, so I'll cut that out and repair it. Also the bumper bracket on that side has some surface rust, so I'll either clean that up, or replace it with a homemade mount and aerocatch the bumper on.
I'd obviously already removed the 954cc engine and box from the car, but yesterday I got a full day in on the car with my mate, so we made some decent progress on the interior. I've now fully stripped the interior of the car, it has no dash, heater matrix etc, and the wiring loom has been removed from the car.
The weight of the car is supposed to be 810kg from the factory. The 1.0 engine must be lighter than the 1.6 16v I'm fitting, but it's still a heavy old lump as I found moving it around the garage single handed, definitely not as light as I was expecting. That taken into account, I'm a little puzzled as to where the weight savings are in the 106. It's without a doubt a lighter car than the saxo, my saxo VTS was already partially stripped and lightened, and this is noticeably lighter to push around the garage. The VTS is 935kg from the factory, so there's a 125kg saving between the 2 cars.
I was therefore expecting far less in the way of "stuff" to be able to remove from the car. I imagined the VTS to have far more factory sound deadening and the like, bulking up the weight, as it was the range topping model.
The 106 however has exactly the same. Yesterday we removed 36.1KG of weight from the car which won't be returning. This included:
Obligatory "argh there's wires everywhere" mid-interior removal shot:
Using a heatgun to remove the tar from the floorpan:
And using some Tardis to clean off the remnants, this stuff is amazing, although probably stupidly toxic and hideous for your health. It sure smells funky!
And pretty much stripped:
So the next plan of attack is to get the bay cleaned up and sorted out, and fit the VTS pedal box, brake servo and throttle cable / clutch cable. Then I'll also fit the VTS engine mount cradle I removed, and get the bay tidied up and finished off.
Then it's a case of cleaning up and painting the interior fully gloss black, and starting to refit the VTS wiring loom to the car.
I've fitting a PAS steering rack converted to be Non-PAS as it's shorter lock to lock than the standard non-PAS rack, and I've also treat myself to a Colin Satchell Engineering gear linkage kit, so I'm looking forward to getting that fitted. I'm also binning the airbag and ABS systems off so there's more weight to be saved there. This obviously won't be weight saved from the 106 weight as it was never fitted originally, but it's extra weight saved from things moved from the VTS.
I'll try and get more pics next time, sorry for the essay!
I decided to run the little 106 as a runabout until the tax ran out at the end of November while I stockpiled parts, at which point I SORN'd it and started the process of breaking the VTS I have, and sorting out the 106.
The pictures I've taken so far are mostly terrible iPhone shots in a dark garage and not particularly worthy of viewing, so this is a bit of a text heavy / pic light update I guess.
First off I salvaged anything worth having from the VTS. The main bonus was the engine, which is really strong and healthy, having had a pretty decent refresh 5,000 miles ago. I also removed the 283mm GTi-6 brake setup I had, and also I've kept the knackered rear beam so I can extract my Peugeot Sport 23mm torsion bars from it. I've also taken the 22mm VTS front ARB, I'm unsure if I'll use it or not yet, the upper and lower engine bay braces, the entire wiring loom, and basically whatever good spares I could use or sell on to offset the spend on the 106.
I've also been slowly acquiring new parts. I've gotten hold of an S2 Rallye gearbox which has slightly shorter ratios than the 106, some Rallye front struts with Bilstein B8 dampers, Bilstein B8 rear dampers, braided brake lines, a Peugeot Sport 2" Decat exhaust system, 4-2-1 Exhaust Manifold, I'm using a standard VTS airbox and uprated panel filter.
Where I'm at now is the VTS is broken and ready to be scrapped, and I'm in the process of stripping down the 106 and preparing it for the transplant.
The shell is remarkably clean, I've now removed the front end, wings etc and normally the inner wings on these go in a bad way. Water gets trapped under the ECU tray and by the washer bottle, and under the fuseboxes, and combined with the road spray they rot from both sides quickly, the 2003 VTS shell I'm scrapping has 7-8" of inner wing missing on both sides where it's crumbled away to nothing.
In contrast, the 106 is in really great condition and makes a great basis for a project car:
The water pump bearings on the old 106 engine had gone, so the orangey discolouration you can see around the bottom arm brackets and bay area is coolant spray and cleans off. I haven't cleaned the bay properly yet so I'll need to do that and get some better pictures, but there is only 1 area that will need some welding, and that's the passenger side inner wing panel where the fusebox sits. It's a little crumbly around a hole made for the loom, so I'll cut that out and repair it. Also the bumper bracket on that side has some surface rust, so I'll either clean that up, or replace it with a homemade mount and aerocatch the bumper on.
I'd obviously already removed the 954cc engine and box from the car, but yesterday I got a full day in on the car with my mate, so we made some decent progress on the interior. I've now fully stripped the interior of the car, it has no dash, heater matrix etc, and the wiring loom has been removed from the car.
The weight of the car is supposed to be 810kg from the factory. The 1.0 engine must be lighter than the 1.6 16v I'm fitting, but it's still a heavy old lump as I found moving it around the garage single handed, definitely not as light as I was expecting. That taken into account, I'm a little puzzled as to where the weight savings are in the 106. It's without a doubt a lighter car than the saxo, my saxo VTS was already partially stripped and lightened, and this is noticeably lighter to push around the garage. The VTS is 935kg from the factory, so there's a 125kg saving between the 2 cars.
I was therefore expecting far less in the way of "stuff" to be able to remove from the car. I imagined the VTS to have far more factory sound deadening and the like, bulking up the weight, as it was the range topping model.
The 106 however has exactly the same. Yesterday we removed 36.1KG of weight from the car which won't be returning. This included:
- Headlining - 1.3KG
- Undercarpet / Rear Quarter / Rear Light pod foam padding - 2.4KG
- Sound deadening foam layer behind dashboard across bulkhead - 6.0KG
- Rear seat brackets and back of rear seat - 9.0KG (I forgot to weigh the seat base so haven't included this yet)
- A Pillar Trims, boot trim plastics, bizarrely heavy Oem radio - 3.2KG
- Rear Seat Belts, nuts and bolts - 3.6KG
- Rear Shelf - 2.2KG
- Weight Saving between standard exhaust and cat and 2" Stainless Peugeot Sport System - 2.7KG
- Rear Quarter Panel Doorcards - 1.9KG
- Carbon Canister and tubing - 0.8KG
- Tar from floorpan sound deadening - 3.0KG
Obligatory "argh there's wires everywhere" mid-interior removal shot:
Using a heatgun to remove the tar from the floorpan:
And using some Tardis to clean off the remnants, this stuff is amazing, although probably stupidly toxic and hideous for your health. It sure smells funky!
And pretty much stripped:
So the next plan of attack is to get the bay cleaned up and sorted out, and fit the VTS pedal box, brake servo and throttle cable / clutch cable. Then I'll also fit the VTS engine mount cradle I removed, and get the bay tidied up and finished off.
Then it's a case of cleaning up and painting the interior fully gloss black, and starting to refit the VTS wiring loom to the car.
I've fitting a PAS steering rack converted to be Non-PAS as it's shorter lock to lock than the standard non-PAS rack, and I've also treat myself to a Colin Satchell Engineering gear linkage kit, so I'm looking forward to getting that fitted. I'm also binning the airbag and ABS systems off so there's more weight to be saved there. This obviously won't be weight saved from the 106 weight as it was never fitted originally, but it's extra weight saved from things moved from the VTS.
I'll try and get more pics next time, sorry for the essay!
Good work, I'll keep an eye on that.
I'm running my missus' '99 VTR around, which I fitted a VTS engine to a few years back. Forgot how fun it is after a one year layup, and in that time I've basically returned it to standard VTS spec...normal suspension height, cat's back in, switching the GTi-6 brakes back to stock (eventually).
But I can see why you broke the Saxo....jesus these things have become bad for rust! I might do my own thread, but I basically had to rebuild half the back end. Normally we'd have just scrapped it, but she's had it so long (10years) she's become attached to it.
Keep up the good work, though I'd have done an AX myself....lighter
I'm running my missus' '99 VTR around, which I fitted a VTS engine to a few years back. Forgot how fun it is after a one year layup, and in that time I've basically returned it to standard VTS spec...normal suspension height, cat's back in, switching the GTi-6 brakes back to stock (eventually).
But I can see why you broke the Saxo....jesus these things have become bad for rust! I might do my own thread, but I basically had to rebuild half the back end. Normally we'd have just scrapped it, but she's had it so long (10years) she's become attached to it.
Keep up the good work, though I'd have done an AX myself....lighter
Kitchski said:
Good work, I'll keep an eye on that.
I'm running my missus' '99 VTR around, which I fitted a VTS engine to a few years back. Forgot how fun it is after a one year layup, and in that time I've basically returned it to standard VTS spec...normal suspension height, cat's back in, switching the GTi-6 brakes back to stock (eventually).
But I can see why you broke the Saxo....jesus these things have become bad for rust! I might do my own thread, but I basically had to rebuild half the back end. Normally we'd have just scrapped it, but she's had it so long (10years) she's become attached to it.
Keep up the good work, though I'd have done an AX myself....lighter
Haha, harder to find a decent shell though, and I like S1 106's for some mad reason. I'm running my missus' '99 VTR around, which I fitted a VTS engine to a few years back. Forgot how fun it is after a one year layup, and in that time I've basically returned it to standard VTS spec...normal suspension height, cat's back in, switching the GTi-6 brakes back to stock (eventually).
But I can see why you broke the Saxo....jesus these things have become bad for rust! I might do my own thread, but I basically had to rebuild half the back end. Normally we'd have just scrapped it, but she's had it so long (10years) she's become attached to it.
Keep up the good work, though I'd have done an AX myself....lighter
i currently have a 97 peugeot 106 and i keep thinking of getting a vts / vtr to do what your doing. my little pug is also in very good nick with no rust anywhere (that i can see anyway) as far as changing the drivetrain over would the car require chassis mods or just suspension and braking upgrades along with engine etc.
looks like your making progress (i assume you've done this before) where as it would be a first for me.
looks like your making progress (i assume you've done this before) where as it would be a first for me.
JamesD1 said:
i currently have a 97 peugeot 106 and i keep thinking of getting a vts / vtr to do what your doing. my little pug is also in very good nick with no rust anywhere (that i can see anyway) as far as changing the drivetrain over would the car require chassis mods or just suspension and braking upgrades along with engine etc.
looks like your making progress (i assume you've done this before) where as it would be a first for me.
You'd need to check your drivers side engine mount James, but that's likely the only part of the car that would require chassis mods if at all. Everything else you might choose to fit is pretty much bolt up.looks like your making progress (i assume you've done this before) where as it would be a first for me.
I have the earlier mount so I've cut the engine cradle out of a VTS and I'll be fitting that to use in conjunction with an uprated Vibra-Technics solid engine mount.
I'll get some pics to explain
Looking forward to seeing this finished, I had a ph1 106 xs with a cammed vts lump, 4-2-1 manifold, decat, pugsport exhaust, completely stripped interior (sound deadening and roof lining too) and tons of handling mods. Easily the best handling and most fun car I've ever owned, unfortunately also the most unreliable too
Rtig said:
Easily the best handling and most fun car I've ever owned, unfortunately also the most unreliable too
That's unfortunate! Touch wood my experience with them has been good so far, all in over the years I've had a VTS, VTS, 106 1.0 Escapade, 106 1.5D, Saxo 1.1 and now this. All have been pretty damn reliable 'get in and go' cheap runabouts.Of course now that I've pulled it apart I'm sure that will change!
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