Peugeot 406 - A Country Estate.

[JWG]

Hello, this is my first post here although I've read the forums there from time to time.

I'm not certain about what I'm going to do with this vehicle yet but without further ado;

This is a Peugeot 406 which has been, literally and figuratively, outstanding in its field.  It was a family car my dad bought well over ten years ago and used every day for an A/B road country commute into a the nearest large city almost fifty miles distant - he replaced his previous 405 with it, that having accrued over 200k miles. It lived a frugal and reliable life in Devon, went on holidays through France and Spain and was handed down to my mum for dog carrying and plant purchasing duties.

After the clutch started to slip (slightly) in about 2016 mum decided she didn't want to drive it anymore and it was dumped and handed down to me to get rid of.

I decided to pick it up as I remembered it's delightfully wafty comfort. I drove it around for a year after the mammoth DIY task of removing the gearbox and replacing the clutch, input bush thing, release bearing and driveshaft oil seals.

I replaced the strange multi link arms on the rear suspension and had a full four wheel alignment carried out, replacing the four tyres at the same time with all season Bridgestones. The 406s are famous for bad rear tyre wear on the inner edges and I was happy to have cured this and reset the handing to 'surprisingly good'.

After the year of anonymous silver estating, many tip runs with trailers full of rubbish, working on the house and picking up a huge hearthstone I parked the 406 up in a barn. I'd subsequently backed it into a rhododendron bush and a Dartmoor granite gatepost and my brother had handbrake turned it into a civic Vti in a rare moment of ill judged thuggery. In all honesty it looked rough and I was embarrassed to drive it. It shed it's modest private plate, returning to a Y registration and curled up in a concrete barn.

It's a long way from civilization here, and after the fields are cut and baled, mid to late summer, I get the jump leads out and transfuse some agricultural electrons from the tractor into it's vital veins. I scrape the dried latte owl dung from the windscreen and the 406 lives again on verdant grass highways as a field car.

It's rusted somewhat now, the rear subframe needs welding and all the calipers and discs most likely need replacing but the beating hdi heart is smooth.

Any rational person would weigh it in, bank the pounds and pence and move on, but I can't help thinking that it's not done just yet.

 

 

 

 

 

[loserone]

Phwaorrr.  In before somebody tags me, I want one that isn't rotten ?

 

Fix it!

[Wingz123]

Like back stories and history like that ? keep it plodding on

[JWG]

Thanks both, here's a quick walk around from earlier. Im liking the smoothness of the hdi compared to my current VW PD engine.

 

 

[RobT]

Welcome along, and lovely story.

If nothing else it should do you as a farm hack for a good while yet!

[TooManyPeopleMovers]

Gosh that does look nice! I hope you are able to get that welding done, and save it. 

I always seem to see these with inter-stellar mileage's - these, and mid-1990's Toyota Camry's - which I think says a lot about supposedly "poor" Peugeot Reliability*.

I'm in New Zealand though sadly - so these aren't very common. It has to be one of the nicest looking late 1990's estate cars! And I love the fact that these came with the option having two children's seats in the boot! So it is a people mover too, very delicious. 

Please do keep us updated on your progress!

Post Script: Out of interest, does it have cruise control? I've seen some 406's with cruise, and others without, seemingly randomly (Which shows that I just don't know the models well enough).

Craig 

[beko1987]

Very nice, I do regret scrapping mine tbh, it was a fab all rounder! 

[The Moog]

Is it a 90 or 110? If it is a 90 I might have an upgraded ECU to get it to 120

[sierraman]

I’d love a good 406. In fact a HDI Estate would be ideal for me at the moment. 

[Kiltox]

@loserone 

[loserone]

4 minutes ago, Kiltox said:

@loserone 

 

12 hours ago, loserone said:

Phwaorrr.  In before somebody tags me, I want one that isn't rotten ?

 

Fix it!

... ?

[Kiltox]

@loserone have you seen this? Perfect for you 

[stuboy]

needs more orange bail twine on it

[JWG]

Thanks all, it is the 110 hdi not the glacia chasing 90! ?

[JWG]

19 hours ago, TooManyPeopleMovers said:

Gosh that does look nice! I hope you are able to get that welding done, and save it. 

I always seem to see these with inter-stellar mileage's - these, and mid-1990's Toyota Camry's - which I think says a lot about supposedly "poor" Peugeot Reliability*.

I'm in New Zealand though sadly - so these aren't very common. It has to be one of the nicest looking late 1990's estate cars! And I love the fact that these came with the option having two children's seats in the boot! So it is a people mover too, very delicious. 

Please do keep us updated on your progress!

Post Script: Out of interest, does it have cruise control? I've seen some 406's with cruise, and others without, seemingly randomly (Which shows that I just don't know the models well enough).

Craig 

Thanks for that, will keep this up to date with some progress and hopefully this thread will help motivate me to do some work on it! I'm planning to drop the rear subframe and disassemble the rear suspension to tackle the grot and then to look into the brakes. The grot is mostly confined to the rear subframe I believe.

 

The rear brakes on these are a bit weird in that the handbrake operates a set of shoes inside the discs via cables whilst the regular calipers are used for the actual braking, this system goes wrong lots and most of it needs replacing by now. There's also a CV joint to sort.

No cruise on this one despite the extra column stalk which is there to adjust the radio settings.

 

As you say still a good looking car, I particularly like the front headlights/grille/bonnet area.

[JWG]

A quick pic from last summer - The suspension is superb even at 30mph across a bumpy field ?.

[TooManyPeopleMovers]

7 hours ago, JWG said:

Thanks for that, will keep this up to date with some progress and hopefully this thread will help motivate me to do some work on it! I'm planning to drop the rear subframe and disassemble the rear suspension to tackle the grot and then to look into the brakes. The grot is mostly confined to the rear subframe I believe.

 

The rear brakes on these are a bit weird in that the handbrake operates a set of shoes inside the discs via cables whilst the regular calipers are used for the actual braking, this system goes wrong lots and most of it needs replacing by now. There's also a CV joint to sort.

No cruise on this one despite the extra column stalk which is there to adjust the radio settings.

 

As you say still a good looking car, I particularly like the front headlights/grille/bonnet area.

Is the rear subframe particularly difficult to remove? 

I think I've heard of that hand braking system on other cars too! I'm fairly certain our Honda CR-V Mk2 has it....or at least, a couple of years ago our mechanic charged us for the repair of the handbrake drums after we drove out to the airport, and back, a journey of around 30 kilometres, with the handbrake on one "click"....and cooked the handbrake  I was not driving (Or in the car) at the time. The handbrake light was, and still is, functional.  

I did see that stalk! It's definitely an appealing feature - I can't think of many mid-late 1990's cars that had audio controls off the steering wheel - pretty advanced for its time. 

Looking forward to future updates and nice photographs!

Craig.

[loserone]

9 hours ago, JWG said:

A quick pic from last summer - The suspension is superb even at 30mph across a bumpy field ?.

Fiiiit

[Lord Sterling]

Looking great.  I really like these late 406s. Fatha_Sterling used to use some regularly from the car hire place he worked at briefly yeara ago so I remember these when they were new.

Subframe just looks like its got a load of surface rust which could be cleaned a sprayed over with some rust protection coating unless I'm not looking hard enough.

Yep, that 406 has quite a few years left in it I reckon.

[scdan4]

On 8/9/2019 at 9:58 AM, beko1987 said:

Very nice, I do regret scrapping mine tbh, it was a fab all rounder! 

Ah yes..........

 

you've still got my balljoint socket . 

Which may become relevant. Hold fire... ?

[scdan4]

22 hours ago, JWG said:

 

The rear brakes on these are a bit weird in that the handbrake operates a set of shoes inside the discs via cables whilst the regular calipers are used for the actual braking, this system goes wrong lots and most of it needs replacing by now.

 

As you say still a good looking car, I particularly like the front headlights/grille/bonnet area.

Having got a stained ripped 406 handbrake t-shirt somewhere, if your wallet is bigger than your stubbornness, buy new cables and mid cable adjusters before even bothering to look at what’s on there. It’ll all be fucked, this way saves hours, and hours, and hours of dashed optimism and frustration before ordering new stuff.

 

And yes, they look ace. So much better than the coupe that everyone gets excited about.

[beko1987]

13 minutes ago, scdan4 said:

Ah yes..........

 

you've still got my balljoint socket . 

Which may become relevant. Hold fire... ?

Ooooh my useless-ness might be handy here, send me the address it needs to go to!

[JWG]

On 8/10/2019 at 5:41 PM, scdan4 said:

Having got a stained ripped 406 handbrake t-shirt somewhere, if your wallet is bigger than your stubbornness, buy new cables and mid cable adjusters before even bothering to look at what’s on there. It’ll all be fucked, this way saves hours, and hours, and hours of dashed optimism and frustration before ordering new stuff.

 

And yes, they look ace. So much better than the coupe that everyone gets excited about.

Thanks for the tip, the brakes need serious work so new cables, adjusters etc are definitely a good idea.

Not much action on this at the moment although I've cleaned it and I'm starting the 'slow road to MOT!!!111' by getting a few jobs done - new battery ordered. 

Will hopefully be dropping the subframe to underseal the boot floor and deal which the crispy subframe, there's more grot than you can see.  This needs removal of the exhaust and fuel tank pipe. There's a lot that needs to come off the subframe to get it into painting/ blasting state (arms and springs etc) so this will take me a while.

Brakes will be dismantled for assessment as soon as I can make some space in the barn. 

[JWG]

Oh dear, more grot than I expected! ( Rear left sill in front of the suspension)

[JWG]

Would anyone interested in this as a fixer-upper, bearing in mind that it needs at least 4 calipers /discs/pads probably brake pipes subframe is very crusty and it needs a bunch of welding ? (Sales pitch of the year !)

[loserone]

I already have a Peugeot 40x estate project off the road for several years.  Sorry.

[JWG]

No worries! Presumably that needs welding too? ?

[loserone]

I hope not, just* a new engine