Watch me make a stupid mistake - Peugeot 504 Break L

[Asimo]

I think I would start by removing the engine and gearbox from the car.

And then cut / drill the cylinder out. Resist violence because that casting does look vulnerable.

Manual isn’t helpful.

 

[EyesWeldedShut]

9 hours ago, meowmeow said:

Does it look good? No. Is it passable? Maybe??

Bluntly? Dodgy as fuck imho

To get the slave out - cut ends off as advised with big, manly tool. Then reverse a hacksaw blade through the remaining ring, plumb into hacksaw and gently start cutting (like getting a fecked bush out). A decent reciprocating saw might also do but I've never had one of those.

[Six-cylinder]

I don't know how I missed this thread with the word "504" in the tittle.

Great job we need more 504s.

At Rustival yesterday there were two, a RHD 1.8 Auto Saloon and a LHD Diesel Estate.

I have a 504 convertible which while taken on as a project has not run properly in the 15 years I have had it. The accusation is that it is the Kugelfischer injection at fault and then there was the wheel falling off incident!

 

[meowmeow]

20 hours ago, junkyarddog said:

Be very careful with that cylinder,because if you twat it too hard with a hammer it's possible to break the casting it's housed in from the gearbox.

Ask me how I know........🤣

Yeah this was my main concern, not exaclty that easy getting a replacement casing if it cracks!

Only got a coping saw at the minute so either I go tool shopping at some point or this is going to take a while...

[meowmeow]

9 hours ago, Six-cylinder said:

Great job we need more 504s.

Maybe someone on here can bid on this equally rusty (albeit in different places) RHD coupe?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/305437635963

[fatharris]

I love 504s, never sat in one or anything but the look of them has always appealed to me.

Good luck with it?

[Six-cylinder]

48 minutes ago, meowmeow said:

Maybe someone on here can bid on this equally rusty (albeit in different places) RHD coupe?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/305437635963

Our convertible had been previously restored before we got it, but painted badly and the paint fell off allowing some rust. Worst was the rear deck panel where the water sat between the steel and the paint with the result of thousands of little perforations. I had to have a new panel hand made at vast cost. Since the wheel fell off it has reveals a bit of rust on a front inner arch/floor that needs repairing.

[Bmwdumptruck]

That coupe is so nice, even in the state its in. Seems very cheap with less than a day to go, wonder if it’ll rally at the end? 
I had a brief forray in the motor trade in the early 90’s, working at a cousins garage not far from Tiverton.  We had a disabled customer that had a 504 estate as his daily driver because the drivers door opened far and wide enough that he could pull his chair in and over himself into the passenger footwell.  One year it failed it’s mot with quite a long list, so he started looking for a suitable replacement. Nothing he tried allowed him to get his chair in once he was sat in the drivers seat.  So we had it for about a month and restored it. Loads of welding, a full respray and quite a lot of mechanical work.  He was so pleased when we got it back to him.  Seemed a right waste of money at the time, but he’d have spent more on a newer motor if he’d found anything suitable. I guess these days he’ll just have a converted Transporter on Motobility. 

[meowmeow]

ok followed everyone's advice and cut the clutch slave cylinder out of the gearbox casing with a hacksaw, which actually went quite smoothly

'New' part arrived but the rubber dust cap was cracked, so am waiting on a replacement for that now

Serves me right for buying stuff that's likely as old as the car is, just becasue it's cheap...

 

In the meantime sanded back the OS rear floor and painted just to protect it for now.

There are of course a few small holes which I'll sort out later,

And some pretty big ones as well:

 

More fussy shit to waste my time, unbolted the seatbelt, cleaned up and painted the bracket:

As you can see I've upgraded from wheelie bin workbench to wobbly mouldy old bathroom cabinet.

Seatbelt mech is jammed (of course) - looks like it was soaked in rat piss - but I don't have a 3-point screwdriver bit to get it apart, so will have to find one of those.

 

At least I got some of my money back, 22p

 

Then to investigate the rust in what's referenced to in the workshop manual as the 'buttress'

suitably unpleasant.

But removing all the mangled rubbish out of the way reveals it's not too bad underneath

Top piece has a return just under the lip where the bulkhead is, so doesn't go under the floor.

 

Might be interesting trying to support the car by the front subframe whilst cutting chunks out of a structural member...

Thought about moving the axle stands to behind the rusty bit,  but the workshop manual is pretty explicit about not doing this:

Tried it anyway because I'm stupid but it started making some pretty ugly noises so I stopped.

 

Anyway looks like the engine's gotta come out since I can't squeeze my hands and a welding torch down there

Think there's enough space to position an engine crane down the side of the car, not sure how I'll actually fit past it but we'll cross that bridge whenever.

Unfortunately can't put the crane at the front of the car as there'd be no way of closing the garage doors, and it'd probably just roll down the drive and away down the street....

 

Finally my excuse this time for slow progress is that I was putting up 50-year old wallpaper in a stanky bathroom:

 

Not sure if it actually looks much better, but definitely feels less grim

[Marina door handles]

That is proper time warp wall paper, although the illusion is some what shattered by the modern double glazed window!

[meowmeow]

8 hours ago, Marina door handles said:

That is proper time warp wall paper, although the illusion is some what shattered by the modern double glazed window!

Just wait till you see the tiles that are going up

amazing what weird tat you can find on fb marketplace that's been sitting  in someone's loft for years

[N Dentressangle]

Are you going to charge Alan, Phillip and Miss Jones more rent now you've decorated the lavvy? 😉

[Matty]

25 minutes ago, N Dentressangle said:

Are you going to charge Alan, Phillip and Miss Jones more rent now you've decorated the lavvy? 😉

That took me longer than what it shouldve 

[egg]

1 hour ago, meowmeow said:

Just wait till you see the tiles that are going up

Just posted that my parents had those tiles, but it must have been another house.

However, the last time my childhood home was sold last year it still had the original tiles from 1980...

[artdjones]

1 hour ago, meowmeow said:

Just wait till you see the tiles that are going up

amazing what weird tat you can find on fb marketplace that's been sitting  in someone's loft for years

Mum and dad put those in our bathroom back in 1967.

[N Dentressangle]

19 minutes ago, artdjones said:

Mum and dad put those in our bathroom back in 1967.

Mine had them too, but with blue marbling. Laid by my grandad sometime in the '70s I think

[High Jetter]

4 hours ago, meowmeow said:

Just wait till you see the tiles that are going up

Chick tiles...

[meowmeow]

loads of excuses this time i swear i'll get around to making some actual progress eventually

got the engine crane assembled:

and then the gearbox in the Golf promptly shat itself. Good stuff

Cue a very sketchy (and very noisy) trip to Chigwell to pick up a replacement gearbox of unknown functionality

actually looks worse than the one in the car, but it's what's on the inside that counts, right?

Couldn't fit it myself as there's a 504 in the garage, and didn't really fancy dropping the gearbox on the street (it's a busy road, and it's a hill, which just makes things awkward)

so chucked it in the boot and took it to the garage I usually use (I'm sure they absolutely love me as a customer - not the first time I've asked them to fit utter shit to this car).

Anyway turns out it's from an 1984 car which has a different clutch fork just for part of that year for some reason (you can't tell from the outside), so we had to wait for a different clutch kit to arrive..

Got the car back after about 3 days, with a cute note:

Ok I'm aware of the first two, it's literally been like that for over a year, but the third one is new to me

Whatever, drove back to work and left it parked in the street.

End of the day, I go to start the engine and it's just cranking. Hmm.

Pull the choke a bit more and it pulls out of the dash way too far - ok someone's been a bit rough with it at the garage and the cable's come off the carb.

Fine, open the bonnet, remove the air cleaner (it's dark now), re-attach the choke cable, go to put the air cleaner back on and drop one of the securing nuts down the carb throat. Fuck sake.

While I'm fishing for the nut, I hear a strange dripping noise... That's odd. Open the expansion tank, there's literally zero coolant. Ok.

Look under the car, it's all on the floor.

Run to Iceland to get a pack of water bottles and slowly make my way home, stopping about 3 times to refill.

What's the verdict?

Metal pipe that runs behind the engine is leaking from the gasket. I'm guessing because it hangs slightly over the gearbox, it got nudged by someone during the job and the seal failed.

Wouldn't exactly call it a "slight" coolant leak though, this was after 1 minute of running the engine:

New o-ring (not pictured because I forgot to order one first time and thought I'd get away with a paper gasket) and some barbeque sauce

and all reassembled:

Yes I am a heathen and after 8 years of owning this thing replaced the Pierburg with a Weber back in December. I am sorry.

Thing is you could rebuild it, and get it running perfectly for 6 months (autochoke and everything), and then for whatever reason one day you'd wake up and all your work would be undone.

Got sick of rebuilding the bugger every year, and then the last straw was a very weird running issue where all of a sudden it'd flood itself when going over speed bumps, and die going up-hill. Spent ages trying to work it out then just put it in a box and closed that stupid chapter of my life.

 

Of course now that the gearbox noise is gone I can hear what sounds like a dying front wheel bearing, the fun never stops does it.

Oh and the sting in the tail, few days later got this:

On the test drive the garage managed to go through a ULEZ camera

 

Why does all this matter though?

I still need a welder for the 504, and can't go and get one if I haven't got functioning transportation.

So in the meantime disconnected everything from the engine, which refreshingly was about 3 wires and the starter motor.

 

Does anyone know where I can find these hose clamps? Can find similar things online, but I find the mechanism on these really cool for some reason

 

Next went to remove the exhaust from the manifold.

Access is very good* of course

2 nuts off (miraculously), but the last one inevitably stripped.

So begins several days of my life wasted:

Tried to get some leverage through a pre-existing access hole:

Didn't work.

Ok steering rack out:

Disgusting. Though pretty serviceable at least (needs one track rod end and a boot)

chewy chewy. It's actually silver under there.

Not much better under here either...

Finally got the bastard off by dropping the exhaust manifold and drilling out the nut (not sure why it took me so long to work that out):

Two of the three studs are predictably fucked:

And the casting is an awkward shape so will have to see how to remove them, drilling out from the back might be a challenge. Would rather not fuck it up as it'll probably be a while before another exhaust manifold pops up on eBay.

 

Only thing left to unbolt now is the transmission

So at present we're waiting on me to find the will to investigate the noise with the Golf, or find a welder relatively local to me so I don't have to drive that far to get it.

 

Last thing is a side-note that I'm getting really pissed off with working on a non-sealed concrete surface.

Every time I sweep the rust out from under the 504, it comes with part of the floor as well:

 

[Mr Pastry]

46 minutes ago, meowmeow said:

And the casting is an awkward shape so will have to see how to remove them, drilling out from the back might be a challenge.

If you have to drill them out, cut them off flush first and drill from the front.

[Scruffy Bodger]

What he says ^ Centre punch them first, central as best as you can, then start off with a smallish drill and eye it for centre. You can make small adjustments one way or other with the bit to get it as central as you can, then go for it. Hold it level in a vice if you can.

Pierburgs were rubbish 25 years ago. I was throwing them in the bin and replacing them with Webers as a matter of course when buying different cars to prevent hassle.

[hairnet]

On 31/03/2024 at 12:33, meowmeow said:

 

in a stanky bathroom:

  

 

does he know and did he call the cops 

or are you paying for the whole thing @Stanky

[meowmeow]

smol quick update

cut and drilled out the exhaust studs with my very sophisticated setup consisting of 504 spare wheel and my right knee for stability

somehow managed to drill them all straight

 

Still trying to find a decent (and not expensive) welding set, so in the meantime cleaned and re-greased the steering rack:

Struggled for ages trying to get the circlip out before realising that I couldn't see the very helpful pokey hole because it was caked in grease,

after which it popped out in about 10 seconds

New n/s rack boot

and all done

will probably need new grease nipples for the ball joints at some point, but for now it'll do

 

cat

 

Of course the replacement gearbox I sourced for the Golf immediately started leaking from the driveshaft seals

also note the one of many bolts the garage that installed it did not tighten up at all

 

and finally chicken tile update:

   

made a conscious effort to stick them on the wall so they don't look like running chickens

imagine having them all staring at you whilst taking a shit

 

[bunglebus]

On 21/04/2024 at 16:22, meowmeow said:

On the test drive the garage managed to go through a ULEZ camera

I know you use this garage regularly, but I think that and the various loose fasteners/new coolant leak would be worth a polite word with them?

[meowmeow]

12 hours ago, bunglebus said:

I know you use this garage regularly, but I think that and the various loose fasteners/new coolant leak would be worth a polite word with them?

I mean this is a very fair point, my terrible logic is:

I'm a bit lazy, the garage is literally a 30 second walk from my place of work and the prices are very cheap (for a reason as evidenced) - tactic is to set my expectations really low in that they only have to do the bits of jobs that I don't have the space/equipment for, and if/when they cock it up a bit I'll be able to sort out the rest without a 2-post lift etc...  i.e. I'm not replacing a gearbox on a busy-ish main road, on a hill, in the rain, but I can tighten up the bolts, fix the new coolant leak and flip the suspension strut hub bolts that were put in the wrong way round so the pointy end was rubbing on the brake hose

Still the coolant leak thing did actually piss me off - they've not done something that bad before haha

[jim89]

3 minutes ago, meowmeow said:

I mean this is a very fair point, my terrible logic is:

I'm a bit lazy, the garage is literally a 30 second walk from my place of work and the prices are very cheap (for a reason as evidenced) - tactic is to set my expectations really low in that they only have to do the bits of jobs that I don't have the space/equipment for, and if/when they cock it up a bit I'll be able to sort out the rest without a 2-post lift etc...  i.e. I'm not replacing a gearbox on a busy-ish main road, on a hill, in the rain, but I can tighten up the bolts, fix the new coolant leak and flip the suspension strut hub bolts that were put in the wrong way round so the pointy end was rubbing on the brake hose

Still the coolant leak thing did actually piss me off - they've not done something that bad before haha

Reads like they're almost actively taking the piss & seeing how far they get? But then I'm a cynic 🙂

[meowmeow]

4 minutes ago, jim89 said:

Reads like they're almost actively taking the piss & seeing how far they get? But then I'm a cynic 🙂

yeah think I'm actually starting to realise that now after typing all that out  🤣

[jim89]

2 minutes ago, meowmeow said:

yeah think I'm actually starting to realise that now after typing all that out  🤣

Trouble is.. how do you remedy this apart from moving on to a new place & starting again 🤞🏻?

If you pick them up on it will it improve? Or get (even) worse?

[Noel Tidybeard]

click "dispute this charge" and state you were not driving the car as it was in the care of an garage

[meowmeow]

9 minutes ago, Noel Tidybeard said:

click "dispute this charge" and state you were not driving the car as it was in the care of an garage

Thanks good point will actually give this a go if I can find the receipt to prove I paid for the work after the time on the photo

[meowmeow]

tiny incremental update is overdue...

found a welding set in Norwich for £80 !! (technically not factoring fuel into the cost as I went to see a mate while I was there 👍)

but bit unweildy to lug it round the tiny slither of space down the side of the peugeot

so built a thing from old furniture - the supporting pieces have been reincarnated twice now; bed slats => rubbish shelf => rolly thing

    

ok, engine out time

7

that's the second attempt as first time the hoist kept sinking - for some reason it was shipped to me with the hydraulic ram half empty of fluid

Anyway, bell housing was completely full of mud, I have no idea how anything could've worked like that

post-brushing out and cleaning up the bearing shaft:

Cleaned up the rust hole, removed most of the shit and straighted the flange out

I'll revisit this later with a grinder to get rid of the spot weld remenants etc...

reminder on the right of what we were dealing with

   

sacrifice time

admittedly I am not great at welding

but luckily underseal will hide all sins...

 

also cat is angry because I managed to lock him in the garage