Watch me make a stupid mistake - Peugeot 504 Break L

[rainagain]

On 12/03/2025 at 22:18, Supernaut said:

Why do strut tops need ground wires...?

I was wondering this too, is there something electrical mounted on the strut?

PS amazing work!

[meowmeow]

15 minutes ago, rainagain said:

I was wondering this too, is there something electrical mounted on the strut?

PS amazing work!

only thing electrical in that area is the brake level sensors in the pads - could be something to do with that?

to be honest they were there before and i had the wiring bits out so just popped new ones in

[jonathan_dyane]

It is indeed to provide an earth path for the brake pad sensors

[meowmeow]

23 hours ago, DodgeRover said:

If the crank pulley was changed between you viewing and getting it dropped off then someone must have had that nut undone,

Just realised I wasn't very clear about this - the nut spins but won't undo or do up - it's stuck on the crankshaft and won't bite on the threads to undo.

Not sure if I can lever the back of the pulley to push against the nut, and buzz it off with an impact, or if that'll mash the threads even more than they are already?

36mm nut splitter is silly money and I doubt it'd work on what I imagine is a hardened nut

 

I guess if the threads are totally destroyed I could drill out the middle of the crank, tap it and put a bolt in there, with a washer and spacer to hold the pulley in place? Or is that very stupid?

 

 

[DodgeRover]

Threads are probably pretty stuffed anyway, I would try a lever behind the pulley especially as it's been off recently anyway. 

Maybe try a ratchet rather than an impact to get it if as you will be able to feel what is going on a bit better.

[meowmeow]

small bits first - replacement handbrake warning switch as unfortunately the old one turned to dust so I couldn't fix it

 

Managed to source a fuel tank for £30 !!

To be fair has a small fibreglass repair on the seam, and there was a snail living in it, but it's a damn sight better than my completely rotten one

 

Time to see what's up with the crankshaft

As before the nut was just spinning, wouldn't back off and wouldn't tighten.

In the end had to get a bearing puller on the pulley as trying to lever it was causing me to put dents in the timing cover

eventually the nut started to back off...

Aftermath? Good news actually

Nut free with precisely zero threads in tact:

Looks horrid at first glance, but on closer inspection most of the threads are actually ok, just clogged up with all the material from the nut

Spent ages cleaning up the threads with a small file, came out alright

Replaced the woodruff key as well since it had a small nick in it

New gasket

And painted the pulley, tightened the new nut down - not to 126lb ft though - i'm a pussy - it's up to about 60lb ft with thread locker to help - we'll see how it goes, main thing is the pulley doesn't have any play in it now

 

Noticed when connecting the electrics up that I get no oil pressure light

Checked the bulb - all good

Ordered new sender

hmm something's missing off the old one?

Turns out the slide was proper jammed inside the oil filter housing

Spent ages trying to get it out, eventually had to drill a hole and drive a screw into it

then of course spend ages cleaning all the metal shavings out of the housing

all good though:

I like how for the 'L' spec dash they've just used the same oil can picture but shoved it in there sideways as it won't fit otherwise

On higher spec cars it's the correct orientation

Correct sized battery obtained:

Gave the starter a tickle with a screwdriver to coax it back into life, turned the engine over

Everything's sounding good

Left the oil pipe that connects to the head off for the first few revolutions to make sure oil was getting pumped around, and to purge any remaining old rubbish:

Then cleaned up and reconnected

Oil getting to the rocker shaft:

All this is good as it means my game of Russian roulette with oil filters has paid off and I've found one that actually works

 

Next, new eye socket welded in:

   

Managed to drill out and reuse the tabs for the wiring loom, then slapped on some 'good enough' paint and popped everything back in place

 

 

Painted the valve cover:

And more bits reassembled:

 

More importantly, found a £1 fridge to go with the £1 kitchen

Works ok, but was missing the freezer door, so made something very sketchy out of 2mm steel and grabbed some Fiat 500 paint from halfords to make it look halfway presentable:

 

Still need to somehow find/make a drip tray

Turns out there's one in the Science Museum - maybe they'll let me have it?

 

Next bits on the Peugeot - I'll reassemble the rest of the bits in the engine bay, then I guess it's just lots of fun fun welding

 

[Wibble]

Fantastic progress, as always👍

[N Dentressangle]

8 minutes ago, Wibble said:

Fantastic progress, as always👍

Especially the fridge.

Got to be time for some spam fritters, no?

[jonathan_dyane]

10/10

[meowmeow]

ite quick update

It runs!

 

Was missing the wire from the coil to the dizzy, and all of the associated washers, nuts etc...

Luckily there was something resembling a fibre washer in the bits of the old disintegrated ceiling light:

and correct sized nuts in the box of spare wiring loom that I robbed off the regulator.

another lesson in never throwing anything out there for me

 

Ran a new wire to the terminal on the distributor

Bit of easy start down the carb and off it went - actually surprised me how quickly it started

No video unfortunately because I don't have three hands

 

Got a weird issue where once the engine has fired I can't trigger the starter from the key anymore - it just clicks

Bridge the terminals with a screwdriver quickly and you can crank with the key no problem... will check the connections and see what's up there

 

But anyway that's some pretty good motivation to crack on with the horrible welding

 

[jim89]

On 25/05/2025 at 16:42, meowmeow said:

small bits first - replacement handbrake warning switch as unfortunately the old one turned to dust so I couldn't fix it

 

Managed to source a fuel tank for £30 !!

To be fair has a small fibreglass repair on the seam, and there was a snail living in it, but it's a damn sight better than my completely rotten one

 

Time to see what's up with the crankshaft

As before the nut was just spinning, wouldn't back off and wouldn't tighten.

In the end had to get a bearing puller on the pulley as trying to lever it was causing me to put dents in the timing cover

eventually the nut started to back off...

Aftermath? Good news actually

Nut free with precisely zero threads in tact:

Looks horrid at first glance, but on closer inspection most of the threads are actually ok, just clogged up with all the material from the nut

Spent ages cleaning up the threads with a small file, came out alright

Replaced the woodruff key as well since it had a small nick in it

New gasket

And painted the pulley, tightened the new nut down - not to 126lb ft though - i'm a pussy - it's up to about 60lb ft with thread locker to help - we'll see how it goes, main thing is the pulley doesn't have any play in it now

 

Noticed when connecting the electrics up that I get no oil pressure light

Checked the bulb - all good

Ordered new sender

hmm something's missing off the old one?

Turns out the slide was proper jammed inside the oil filter housing

Spent ages trying to get it out, eventually had to drill a hole and drive a screw into it

then of course spend ages cleaning all the metal shavings out of the housing

all good though:

I like how for the 'L' spec dash they've just used the same oil can picture but shoved it in there sideways as it won't fit otherwise

On higher spec cars it's the correct orientation

Correct sized battery obtained:

Gave the starter a tickle with a screwdriver to coax it back into life, turned the engine over

Everything's sounding good

Left the oil pipe that connects to the head off for the first few revolutions to make sure oil was getting pumped around, and to purge any remaining old rubbish:

Then cleaned up and reconnected

Oil getting to the rocker shaft:

All this is good as it means my game of Russian roulette with oil filters has paid off and I've found one that actually works

 

Next, new eye socket welded in:

   

Managed to drill out and reuse the tabs for the wiring loom, then slapped on some 'good enough' paint and popped everything back in place

 

 

Painted the valve cover:

And more bits reassembled:

 

More importantly, found a £1 fridge to go with the £1 kitchen

Works ok, but was missing the freezer door, so made something very sketchy out of 2mm steel and grabbed some Fiat 500 paint from halfords to make it look halfway presentable:

 

Still need to somehow find/make a drip tray

Turns out there's one in the Science Museum - maybe they'll let me have it?

 

Next bits on the Peugeot - I'll reassemble the rest of the bits in the engine bay, then I guess it's just lots of fun fun welding

 

They might* measure up the drip tray for you if you asked em?

[meowmeow]

1 hour ago, jim89 said:

They might* measure up the drip tray for you if you asked em?

Possibly, to be fair it's just a rectangular tray that rests on two wire rails, so I can probably just measure the gap and either search eBay for something similar-ish sized, or just bend a piece of steel into a rough 'tray' shape and weld some ends onto it

[meowmeow]

bit more progress

Other side of the front panel had ripped apart when the car was crashed, so drilled new holes, straightened it up a bit and plug welded back together:

 

Then because I am sad I spent £8 on a sticker

Ran the engine a bit longer and suffocated myself - photo is about 5 minutes after and you can still see the haze

i imagine the many animal nests in the exhaust are no longer

Ajusted the carb, replaced the spacer as the one I bought had a chip in it and was leaking a bit

Idle adjustment screw was seized, then snapped:

Soaked it for the rest of the week in penetrant, and eventually with some persuasion it backed out:

Replaced with a bolt so that it's easier to turn

Throttle is still a bit sticky, I'll go back and sort this at some point

 

Silly me cooked the battery - expensive way of finding out that the regulator isn't working

 

Either way we're getting there now I think - at least looks a bit better than when I bought it:

  

Alternator was letting things down a bit, and the bearings weren't in the best shape, so sent it off to get rebuilt.

 

Popped the car up on skates and pushed all the way over to one side of the garage - the door opens really wide and the only way to get to the hinge fixings is to fully open it

All to sort this initially small-looking hole

Which of course grew a fair amount

Also found some more issues under the running board trim

All welded up and resprayed- will drill the new hole for the bolt at the bottom of the wing when I test-fit everything

 

New door time

Much better than the original, but was still a bit crusty in places:

So more welding in order...

 

 

And new door installed. Also replaced the hinge pins.

Door is sagging a bit (as was the old one), so if I can't whack the bottom hinge a bit I'll look into making some shims to sort the panel gaps

 

Finally, took advantage of the hot weather to unroll and wash the driver's seatbelt

 

The driver's door card needs a new backing. I've got some suitable board laying around somewhere, but not sure how to attach the vinyl, as I think it's heat-pressed to the board at the factory

 

[Landy Mann]

Nice work as ever

[meowmeow]

got the reconditioned alternator back from the shop, and installed the rad to avoid me accidentally stepping on it in the pile of Peugeot bits I have in storage:

 

Found some appropriately sized plastic rivets and reinstalled the running board trim:

 

Guy who I bought the fuel tank from seemed to be having a clear-out of bits, so snagged this very useful repair panel

No idea what I'll do for the other side as nobody makes these anymore and the fluted bit will be a pain in the arse to make, but take your wins where you can i guess

Mission creep as always:

Cut away the rubbish, think there's about 5 different layered panels to make, will come back to this when the weather isn't so horrific for welding in

 

Stripped back all the paint on the driver's door to find that of course the bloody thing's full of filler

Spent the rest of the day trying to get it as flat as possible, then spraying some epoxy on and adding some of my own filler...

Painted the door - the finish is about as good as you'd expect in a dusty garage with no light to see what I'm doing

Not too fussed it's just to get it on the road until the day that I miraculously find £4k for a respray

Also the entire car has a shit repaint that looks as if it was applied with a paintbrush, so it'll probably blend in quite well

Popped all the door fittings back on

To be fair the welded repair looks pretty ok to me, though in hindsight should've probably filled the small screw holes from the old mirror

Pretty sure the new mirror will cover these anyway but hey

 

Made a very crude spacer to fix the door gaps, and adjusted the striker.

 

Must've been messed up for a while as it gave me a bloody massive metal splinter when I tried to brush the dust off with my finger

But much better now:

No door chrome as it's an L model - the chrome is still on the replacement rear door as it's the only thing holding the window frame in place! Completely rusted away at the corners...

 

Next sorted a new door card. Old one was pretty crunchy:

Cute message for the next person to take the vinyl off

The contact adhesive I used initially made the vinyl look like a wrinkled ballsack, which was concerning

But short session with the iron and putting loads of heavy stuff on it for 24hrs seems to have sorted things:

Still a bit wobbly at the bottom, but that was the most damaged part of the old door card anyway - so long as it doesn't flap around I'm happy

 

New regulator arrived from Italy, after quite a while of looking for something compatible, and trying to work out why there are so many different alternators listed in the parts catalogue:

 

 

Finally, the key had decided it didn't want to work in either of the door locks anymore

Lubricating the lock did nothing, nor did soaking in penetrant, so apart it came:

Ah yeah that's not gonna turn is it. Key didn't want to go in all the way whatever I did.

Luckily both replacement doors I bought still had the lock cylinders in them, so took them all apart, switched over the barrels and shuffled around the pegs to get a set that worked properly

All good and working now

Hopefully there'll be enough scraps left to fix the passenger lock too.

 

[meowmeow]

yet more proof that I need a bigger car (and probably some motivation to actually finish the Peugeot otherwise I'll be having to lift even more stupid rubbish onto the roof-rack)

1.5hr drive home down country lanes and gravel tracks to avoid the M25 was fun

 

Those dents were caused by my pissed ex-neighbour who managed to accidentally roll a big reel of telephone cable off his drive and into the side of the car, then lied to my face and say it was kids who did it

[junkyarddog]

You're doing it wrong.

Most rat-look Mk2 Golfs should have a pineapple on the roof-rack!🫣

 

[meowmeow]

20 minutes ago, junkyarddog said:

You're doing it wrong.

Most rat-look Mk2 Golfs should have a pineapple on the roof-rack!🫣

 

If only it was intentional - it's just been utterly ragged and used as a van for 9 years

Once I've finished the Peugeot they'll swap places and I'll finally sort it all out - should be quicker as it's nowhere near as rusty

Actually looked alright when I first did all the work to get it back on the road all those years ago...

Still have the plates somewhere I'll restore them somehow and put them back on - was never able to find the correct font to make new ones

[meowmeow]

small bits and pieces first

finally swapped in the original fuel pump that I rebuilt ages ago, and made a new gasket as the one supplied with the shitty replacement pump didn't fit properly

Put the new mirror on, and predictably have twatted it every time i squeezed down the side of the car

Door card reinstalled...

Then really tiny jobs

Replaced the hose clamps as they were pretty rusty and knackered

And painted the heat riser pipe with some truly awful halfords hi-temp paint

Luckily it'll never be seen as it's down the side of the engine anyway

  

 

Back to the welding I was putting off:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3...

Part 4....

And finally....

Filled and primed:

And then to match the colour with the beautiful existing paintwork...

On the one hand it's terrible, but then again also sort-of endearing

Remembering that what I'm going for is for the car to look like what it would've in 1985 about 30 seconds before somebody crashed it and took it off the road (but not rusty)

So made the executive (and cheap) decision to try and blend the repair with the existing paint and polish it up best I can

All i can say is that I'm very surprised how not shit this turned out

Taped off at the bottom of the thin pinstripe, sanded the original paint with 600 grit, then 1200 paper, then sprayed just enough paint to cover the repair

Then cleared over the whole section

Removed the tape, pretty decent colour match and the definitely intentional slighty shoddy finish blends in quite nicely i think

(haven't taken the dust off the top half as the paint was still wet, but you get the idea)

Bit closer:

Bearing in mind I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing (and have set the bar incredibly low) I think that'll do alright for now

[meowmeow]

still going, albeit quite slowly

Finished off the o/s sill, stonechipped it and painted

 

Then to sort out the o/s rear door - last bit of welding on this side (i hope...)

As mentioned previously the window frame was really only attached in spirit.

Removed the stainless trim to reveal much loveliness - only the fixed window, middle window channel and the rubber seals stopping it from folding in half

  

Braced up in preparation for splicey time

Rubbish removal - bit more than I would've liked as it was rustier than expected.

Splice source - old front door (luckily very solid on the top despite being fucked everywhere else).

Of course doing this is very convenient as the profile matches exactly what i needed. Welded in ok:

Very carefully removed the fixed window - was pretty difficult to dislodge from the rusty window channel

Added another brace and cut away the rest of the rubbish

Eh not too bad. About 4 different pieces as needed to rebuild some of the structure inside the door for the frame to weld to

Filled, primed and sanded:

Again blending the paint as I'm a cheapskate. This was a bit more difficult as the door is from another car that had been left outside under a tree for years.

  

The paint isn't original, but was unbelievably thick so was able to sand the whole door with 320 -> 1200 grit sandpaper without burning through anywhere!

Painted the frame, and a few bits that were still discoloured even after sanding, then cleared the whole door.

 

Ordered a new window mech as the pin was worn out on the old one, so had quite a bit of play in the handle. 

Unfortunately the guy sent me one for the passenger side instead. So guess I'll have to repair the original then...

Start with some gardening

Pin has been ovalled, so used the press to peen the edges back over in the hope it'll stop wobbling around.

 

Then back to reassembling the door:

Bloody halfords don't even have matt black paint, so had to use gloss black for the middle window channel, which is causing me great upset. Hopefully the quality of the paint is shit enough that it'll just go matt itself once I leave the car outside in the elements for some time. 

Will polish the clearcoat later when I do the rest of the car, also have no idea why the colour looks patchy in this photo as it looks ok in the previous photo, and in person it's fine...

 

Amazing news - found a pair of sills for sale not too far from me (have been looking for almost 1.5 years...) - and they're not genuine Peugeot so they include the end caps that I was dreading having to fab from scratch for the n/s sill!

They're for a saloon, so slightly too short, but making an extra fluted middle section shouldn't be a problem

Don't need the o/s one so will probably donate it to the guy who sold me the car in the first place, seeing as he has a fair few 504s that probably need sillls...

 

Also found out if you freeze those weird catfood sauce things you can make cat ice lollies

 

[dozeydustman]

I'm looking forward to seeing this old barge back on the road

[meowmeow]

36 minutes ago, dozeydustman said:

I'm looking forward to seeing this old barge back on the road

So am I, because I have a washing machine to move, but at this rate feel like I'm going to be a pensioner before it's finished 

Then again retirement age keeps increasing so I might be alright...

[jonathan_dyane]

This is currently my favourite thread on here, great work with the doors 

[fatmanblue]

1 hour ago, meowmeow said:

So am I, because I have a washing machine to move, 

I can't help thinking that there are easier ways to move a washing machine than labouring like Hercules and showing more dedication than Roy Castle in restoring a 504 break.

But, chapeau! What an incredible job you are doing and a fine example of a huge amount of stuff I could never do.  Seriously impressive.

[Dick Cheeseburger]

You are the new Mr Bollox. There must be some sort of award for the efforts going into restoring this old barge - I, like others, can't wait to the see photos of it when it finally emerges from the garage after so long in captivity. Just brilliant. 

[junkyarddog]

My favorite thread on here at the moment.

Love the methodical approach and patience, 

[Scruffy Bodger]

Like others I'm enjoying this. A bit worried for your window glass near all the work you are doing or are you planning to replace it all?

[meowmeow]

4 hours ago, Scruffy Bodger said:

Like others I'm enjoying this. A bit worried for your window glass near all the work you are doing or are you planning to replace it all?

Good point, only casualty so far has been the wing mirror glass because I forgot to cover it, but it looked too new anyway so a few speckles aren't too offensive, if anything actually just make it look pitted with age...

I wind the neighbouring windows down when grinding/welding, and try to cover the fixed windows with something (when I remember) - for the doors most of the time they're open when I'm working on them so quite far away from the glass

and of course try to angle grinder spark away from the car where i can - bit space-limited unfortunately

[Scruffy Bodger]

8 hours ago, meowmeow said:

Good point, only casualty so far has been the wing mirror glass because I forgot to cover it, but it looked too new anyway so a few speckles aren't too offensive, if anything actually just make it look pitted with age...

I made a mistake on my house, bit of weather and it got a lot worse, I fucked a few panes working out the back too close but not close, live and learn...

[Dobloseven]

Quite nostalgic for me,as I did a sort of rolling restoration on a 1979 504 Family estate,back in the early 90s.It was well rotten after about 11 years.Got it done eventually though and ran it for a few years,before selling it as a runner,for a good price.Replaced the rear valance,rear arches,bottoms of rear wings,sills,all four doors,a front wing......