Peugeot 205 GTI Project

[wackary]

I really envy your project...Enjoy it!   

[alanw89]

Bought myself a nice Bahco socket set for working on the car, was £100 for 92 pieces and feels very good quality, nice and chunky, should last for years and years. 

At the weekend i was planning on putting the cambelt on and trying to get the car running but came across a problem. The car has a vernier pulley on it which doesnt have the timing holes that the original does, which lines up the camshaft to the right position for fitting the belt. Because of this i decided to do the boot floor instead. Well the night after i went back upto my flat and wouldnt be back to work on the car for another couple of weeks i came up with and idea to get it in the right position, so next time im back im going to build up a spare head that ive got which has the original pulley, I should then be able to line this one up correctly and use it as a reference to line up the one on the car. Lets hope its that simple in practice. 

[alanw89]

At home this weekend so made another attempt at getting the cambelt on, success, about 5 hours later amd with the backs of my hands covered in scratches the engine was turning nice and smoothly...... on the starter motor.

It wasnt really complicated to do but incredibly fiddly, with the engine out i could do it in 10 mins i reckon.

Unfortunately it seems ive stripped the one of the threads on the hub when i was putting the wheel back on

Plans for tomorrow are to connect the distributor and put the spark plugs in and see if it'll start, fingers crossed no other problems will pop up.


On a sidenote, why is it that when you spend money on a scoket set and then go to do your first job its seems like the only size socket you need is the one you dont have

[alanw89]

Well, bad news.

Today I put some new ignition leads on as the connection had come off one of the old ones, put some fresh fuel in, crossed my fingers and tried to start the car. It seemed to go very briefly and then stopped and wouldnt turn at all, when i turned the key all there was was a tapping noise. The cambelts come loose somehow so im assuming thats the engine pretty much done.

I'm not that bothered if it is tbh as i only really wanted to get it running to be able to move it around, the block had a crack somewhere anyway so its not like i could have run it for any length of time.

Assuming the engine is done it looks like i'll just get stuck in and take it apart just to learn from it really, I've always wanted to strip down an engine.

[MartinR]

Seems like a great project car! This is something I'd love to do myself, it'd be a great learning experience. Don't have any place (garage) to do anything like that anytime soon I think.

[ARMAN]

Oh that sux Alan, great news is that there are plenty of spareparts for few penny's lyeing around my buddy have 1,9disel engine from peugeot in his gti he bought it like that from the previous owner

[alanw89]

Bit of an update on this.

Havent been able to do much to the car the last couple of weeks due to lack of funds (seem to be spending all my spare cash at the dentist these days:grumpy:)

Did do a few things yesterday though with stuff i had lying around. Washed the car for the first time since i got it, seems a bit pointless as its not going anywhere anytime soon but it does look a bit better with some back to black on the trim.

Also had a few cans of paint that i hadnt used yet so decided to clean up a few parts. Rubbed down a cam cover and put a few coats of HT Paint on it to see how it would look, and it came up surprisingly well. The one I cleaned up was quite a bit mankier than the one its next to.



Decided to do the slam panel black as it was a bit battered and I was bored. Came up looking alright aswell I think.



More than likely these kind of small things are all im going to be able to do until summer when I go to sea and get the chance to save some money. One thing ive been wondering is what to do engine wise, I cant see me being able to get the car on the road till next summer realistically speaking. so im pondering whether or not to attempt to fit a 16V engine seeing as i wont be driving it for a while anyway.

Bit more done this morning, mainly taking stuff out of the engine bay and trying to label it all as best i can, now looks like this



Too scared to pull the loom out though, will do that once ive got the engine out and more room to see where all the connections go. looking forward to getting the bay emptied and the pressure washer on it and see whats what, looks like theres some rust just next to the battery tray but no holes that i can see.


Also painted the the metal piece that goes round the gearstick black.

[alanw89]

Had a reasonably productive couple of days, the engine and gearbox are now out of the car and the engine bay got a bit of a clean today.

I already had most things disconnected from the engine so the main thing left to do was remove the driveshafts which wasnt as easy as it could have been, the nuts on the hub side of the shaft look like theyve not been undone in the 20 years the cars been around and there was no way i was going to be able to get them off. Ended up disconnecting the wishbones etc. from the strut and swinging it out enough to get the shaft out of the gearbox. This went alright although did feel a bit rough on the car.

Then when it came to lifting out the engine i forgot that the drivers side shaft goes through part of the lower engine mount so when i lifted the engine the shaft ended up at quite an angle worried i might have damaged something but i removed the mount from the block while it was hanging and the engine came out. There was a few knocks and bangs along the way but I think it went ok for a first try. Although i do need new track rod ends because i ruined the thread on one by hitting it with a hammer

So now the engine bay looks like this (close up pics because I dont have a wide angle lense at the moment)





Now that the engines out i had a quick look to see if i could see the crack in it but couldnt see anything obvious. There is a few marks on top of the pistons though which worries me that the valves might be slightly bent.



Mark one the left of this one and a strange gouge, not sure what could have caused that?


same here




The liners seem alright






Same with the head





Hopefully I'll be able to get the block and gearbox cleaned before goign back to college as they're filthy at the moment.

One question I have is;

Is it possible to remove the complete suspension strut without anything to compress the spring, or will it go ping? I want to get the hubnuts undone and I was thinking I could just take the whole lot off and go to a garage and see if theyve got an impact wrench that would do it or something.

[brembo]

Nice to see someone getting down and dirty with a car...

On the suspension I would say you look at a ping if you dont compress the spring....

[danidmas]

Nice work you're doing there with the little Pug. I wish I was as commited as you are... but since I'm clumsy as hell, and I have no idea about mechanics, I prefer to send my car to a specialist instead of doing the work myself

[Phobo]

In your case I would buy a simple spring compressor like this:

Not very expensive I got mine for ~15euros

Or you do it the redneck style with a quality ratchet strap (watch out depending on your car the spring still can be highly compressed)

[alanw89]

Nice to see someone getting down and dirty with a car...

Nice work you're doing there with the little Pug. I wish I was as commited as you are... but since I'm clumsy as hell, and I have no idea about mechanics, I prefer to send my car to a specialist instead of doing the work myself

Thanks for the replies,

I'm no mechanic either but I figured i would never learn anything unless i just got something and got stuck in, and once you've gone this far theres no turning back really, kind of forcing myself to see it through. Things are also taking a really long time to do, due to not fully knowing what im doing, but already I know if i had to do any of it again it would be reasonably simple.

I just went out to try and cover up the engine incase it rains as its sitting outside, only after covering it with large plastic bags and taping it all round did i realise that because it was sitting in a wheelbarrow it would just fill with water anyway

In your case I would buy a simple spring compressor like this:

Looks like a couple of those will be going on the shopping list then. Will come in handy though as I'd like to put some lowered springs that came with the car on as the fronts sitting ridiculously high at the moment with no engine.