406oc.co.uk

OK guys as promised I've washed the car and taken a few Pic's to start my blog. As you will see there is quite alot of progress to be made I will try to update regularly and take pic's of what I fix as I go along. Hope you's enjoy

1995 Peugeot 405 1.9 Turbo-D



















The Bad bits















Arty..ish shots Feat. My dads 2.7 HDi V6 407 Coupe

not abad 405 for its age

that screw in the Mirror looks abit of a Bodge, who ever put that in there mustnt of thought of apearance,

lozz wrote:not abad 405 for its age

that screw in the Mirror looks abit of a Bodge, who ever put that in there mustnt of thought of apearance,

Cheers lozz, cosmetically its a bit of a mess. I spent a good few hrs cleaning, t-cutting, waxing, hoovering, washing upholstery etc. to get it into a half presentable state to take pics It doesn't owe me much however and the guy who does bodywork for me from time to time has given me a decent quote to get 99% of the body and paint sorted. Thankfully its in top nick mechanically with only the 3rd gear syncromesh making a bit of noise if you try to rush it.

The screw in the mirror is ridiculous, a previous owner obviously didn't give a sh't about it. What i also found on further investigation is that the mirrors on the car aren't designed to take covers as there's no slots to clip the covers into like there should be, so this car has lost both its mirrors at some point

iused to have one simalar to yours but it was a Bronzey colour,
that had some bits on id never seen on a 405 before, headlights had Masks on looked pretty good,

if iwas you iwouid just take your time on it, work on 1 pannel at atime,
take off all that paint someones tried covering the scars up with, rubbing compound or G3 farclea most probs get that off,

get the right paint made for it and touch it up properly,
gets me why people bother using them touch up brushes looks abloody mess

Looks as good as you're going to get for the age and pretty good to be honest. The interior looks very tidy - I bet the seats are still comfy. It is rare to find a 405 now so you have to take the rough with the smooth I suppose.

I had a 405 1.9 petrol GR on a G plate and that thing flew

The handling was far superior to the 406, much tighter around the bends.

lozz wrote:iused to have one simalar to yours but it was a Bronzey colour,
that had some bits on id never seen on a 405 before, headlights had Masks on looked pretty good,

if iwas you iwouid just take your time on it, work on 1 pannel at atime,
take off all that paint someones tried covering the scars up with, rubbing compound or G3 farclea most probs get that off,

get the right paint made for it and touch it up properly,
gets me why people bother using them touch up brushes looks abloody mess

This doesn't really have any extra's bar the 306 cyclone alloys and a very complicated Kenwood headunit, tho i downloaded the manual off t'internet and its a really good unit now I know how it works I really am just going to take one bit at a time, have started off with the mechanics, want to make it a really awesome 405 again. I've already replaced the knackered anti roll bar bushes, aligned the steering, free'd up the rear brake adjusters and handbrake cable which were seized. Has made a BIG difference to the everyday experience Will have a go at the paint when everything else is spot on

Welly wrote:Looks as good as you're going to get for the age and pretty good to be honest. The interior looks very tidy - I bet the seats are still comfy. It is rare to find a 405 now so you have to take the rough with the smooth I suppose.

I had a 405 1.9 petrol GR on a G plate and that thing flew

The handling was far superior to the 406, much tighter around the bends.

Thanks Welly, they don't come up for sale very often here, especially with a relatively low 125k on the clock so I think I've done well. The seats are immense and the interior came up really well after a good clean out with rags and a hoover. The only bit that I think is missing is some trim around the back window, looks like it was replaced at a time and the wee radio cover isn't spring loaded anymore I'll agree with you on the handling having owned both, the 406 is a good handling car but the 405 is far sharper. I really do enjoy driving it

Right guys time for a little update on what I've accomplished so far, I really have been working at the car every spare evening I've had to get her back into shape

My first task was to get rid of the knocking coming from the front suspension which I discovered was the anti roll bar bushes. After my local motor factors had tried three of their agents and couldn't get hold of any I used ebay and found good OEM ones after a long search.



The old ones just fell out when I loosened the clamp holding them to the anti roll bar, could even have been the originals...?



When I had that done I had a go at aligning my steering a bit better as the steering wheel was pointing about 30 degrees to the left when the car was going straight so I got it adjusted and its now only about 2 degrees to the left, will go back the next time the wheels are off and hopefully get it bang on Didn't bother with any pics here as it isn't an exciting process

Next I had a go at my rear brakes, the handbrake was virtually non-existant and the rear brakes were doing very little overall. So I whipped off the rear drums and found that the adjusters had seized up, a little grease and 10 minutes later I had them completely free and now have a wicked set of brakes as the front discs and rear shoes were nearly new. I found then that the handbrake cable had seized aswell, some spray grease and 10 minutes of pulling the cable at both ends had it sorted, although the cable has inevitably stretched after being seized and pulled for so long, so I'll get a new cable at some point.

I then replaced and drivers side door pins as they were knackered and took the rear light clusters out as I discovered the drains were blocked and water was coming in through the rear lights and leaving a puddle in my boot every time it rained

Next up was the thermostat, I noticed on my test drive that the car was only getting up to 65 degrees and never got any warmer, I took a punt on it being the thermostat and luckily I was correct, so out it came and in went a new one, car now sits around 80 degrees and it gave me a chance to check the fan which works aswell





Finally the fun part, new door speakers The ones in it were the 1995 originals and the cones had just fell apart inside the door, a real mess. So I took a run into halfrauds and picked up a banging set of FLi Audio 16.5cm 3-way jobbies and what an immense difference they've made. The car has a real quality sound system now with the Kenwood headunit having good speakers to work with When I put them in I pulled out the foam that covered the inside of the grill so now you can see them through the grill which is quite cool I think





So that's my update done, as you can see I've been busy getting her back into shape and making her nice to drive again.

Next up: Lower ball joint on passenger side, purchasing a mirror cap for the passenger side, oil and filter change, pulling apart the front fogs....it's a long list of stuff but I'm really enjoying it so far and really getting a good feel for the car now, hope you all enjoy following my progress

Love following restoration threads like this

excellent,

nice to see someone, looking after an old skool car,

Time for another quick weekly update guys This week has seen the next few items on my list tackled.

These were: sticking rear door locks, knackered front fogs and taxing it

Rear Door Locks
As for the rear door locks, well basically you can always open the rear doors easily from the outside, but when pulling the handle from the inside they always stick and require a good shoulder blow to open (child locks are not on before anyone says! lol) I took the interior panel off the door to gain access but unfortunately the rear window winders just wouldn't come off, book says you just give them a good pull, but I would have broke them if I'd pulled any harder. Anyhow, I got the door card pulled back enough to see in and to my surprise the interior handles were connected to the locks fine. Unfortunately its impossible to see the lock mechanism itself as its buried in the corner of the door with no observation hole in the metal panel, I really didn't want to remove the lock for a closer look as I have no idea how I'd get it back in a connected up. Plan B then: I screwed the door card back on and lashed lots of spray grease in round the lock, result: well the locks are still sticking but not just as badly. As I never really have anyone in the back they aren't a major issue right now so this is to be continued...

Front Fogs

Although the glass was still intact the front fogs did not work so I set about removing them to see if I could fix them. As soon as I removed them from their cowling they literally fell apart in my hands, after I removed the dirt and remnants of reflective chrome I was left with this.



Now the more eagle eyed viewer will have spotted a nice shiny new driving lamp beside it. After consulting ebay and the local breakers yard I decided that finding a good condition working original lamp would be near impossible as they all leaked in dirt and moisture. Plan B: I picked up two new driving lamps from the local motor factors, they're about twice the size and direct the light so they should be wicked. They're slightly too big to fit into the original bumper slots but I knew this would be the case, there's a good mounting point for the brackets here thought so I'll adapt the original cowling and the rear of the new lamps will nestle into the bumper nicely and definitely give the 405 a more purposeful look

Sorry for lack of picks in this update but there wasn't anything too interesting to take pics of

A couple of other items arrived however, including a new passenger side mirror cap and my 1:24 scale Paris/Dakar T16 405

lozz wrote:excellent,

nice to see someone, looking after an old skool car,

jonsowman wrote:Love following restoration threads like this

Cheers guys, there's plenty to do, definitely the biggest car project I've undertaken to date. Hopefully we'll have a quality example of a 405 at the end of it

Here's a wee pic of my old one (ironically it was newer), this is the sort of standard I'm aiming for



Next: Oil and filter change, new set off mudflaps, saving for bodywork repairs...

I think there was a screw under a plastic cap holding the window winders in place....

maxxymilian wrote:I think there was a screw under a plastic cap holding the window winders in place....

Had another go at the rear doors this morning, the winders do pop off, they were just on extremely tight. It turns out the problem with the rear locks was that over time the part of the interior handle were the lock link rod was attached had worn away, so that when you pulled the handle it wasn't pulling the link rod far enough forward and hence not releasing the latch to let you out. I was able to fill the worn bit in with some rubber insulation which I had lying about and now both rear doors can be opened from the inside again. Another free fix

Right guys, got another little update for you. Haven't been up to much with the car lately, just been working and saving Anyway I've changed my mind on fitting the big driving lamps I bought, partly because I wasn't fancying how far they were going to sit out from the bumper and partly because I realised I'd never use them as when on they would blind anyone within a mile radius So a quick trip onto ebay this morning and at last someone had a good condition original up for sale for £10, I snatched it up Now both fogs that came with the car kind of fell apart when I withdrew them from their surround, but with a wire brush and some silicon I have managed to get the best one back together and sealed, after a good scrape and wire brush of the bulb holder I managed to bring the unit back to life and fit a new spade connector to the wiring at the car end





As I'm going to wait on the other lamp arriving before I fit them into the bumper I decided it was the best time to smarten up the plastic surrounds with some gloss black, intending to do the sills and all other black trim shortly Took this pic on the second pass with the spray can, applied another 4/5 coats to make it nice and even.



Also thought I'd throw up a pic of my £4 air filter which was won off ebay



So my 405 continues to make progress and I'm loving it

some good work going on there

Well another week or so has past since my last update and progress continues

The replacement fog light arrived in the post and was promptly fitted into the cowling and screwed back into the bumper, the 405 now has working front fogs for probably the first time in years at some stage I'll replace the other one as it gives off a poor light, found out that I can get OE replacements from an ebay shop in Latvia




Before I installed the fog lights I decided that it was the easiest time to spray the lower front bumper, went for gloss back to give it some shine. Really Pleased with the results





After I had the lower front bumper sprayed up I decided it was a good time to tackle along the sills, so I got another can of gloss black and applied about 6 coats, car looks so much better for it.





This incoming week I plan to do the lower back bumper, the upper bumpers and bump strips.

Today I've also decided to tackle the removal of the go faster stripes up the sides, they're stubborn little b*stards but they've probably been there for 17yrs so I can't be too cross



Anyway guys, keep tuning in over the summer months as I plan to focus my money and time on the cosmetic side of things and power on with the rest of this restoration

omega wrote:some good work going on there

Cheers, appreciate it. Sometimes it seems like there's a real mountain to climb with this car but every little bit I complete makes it worth it