Watch me make a stupid mistake - Peugeot 504 Break L

[green200b]

On 10/08/2024 at 20:23, meowmeow said:

was busy trying to remove the O/S front caliper when I heard something on the roof:

a creature visits

 

I don't know why but this picture amuses me.

Good effort with the work you've done on this car, I can imagine that most people wouldn't have bothered but I like the way you're making it a daily, and especially that you've chosen it partly for ULEZ reasons!

I think I used to see one of these getting around in Australia when I was growing up. But even there they would be thin on the ground.

[meowmeow]

2 hours ago, green200b said:

I don't know why but this picture amuses me.

Good effort with the work you've done on this car, I can imagine that most people wouldn't have bothered but I like the way you're making it a daily, and especially that you've chosen it partly for ULEZ reasons!

I think I used to see one of these getting around in Australia when I was growing up. But even there they would be thin on the ground.

Cheers, at this rate by the time i get it on the road the Golf will probably be ULEZ exempt anyway, but i'm not really one to leave things unfinished (even if they end up absorbing my entire life)

Also I kinda felt sorry for it, nobody was going to be stupid enough to throw the time and money required at the poor thing since it was a base model. Even the guy I bought it off of had planned to use it as a donor body for his even rustier family estate.

Then again I've got form - Golf looked like this when I got it back from being nicked:

  

Was a £150 car, just couldn't bear to scrap it seeing as it had come back to me after an 800 mile-round trip, so here we are 9 ish years and 60k miles later

[Matty]

28 minutes ago, meowmeow said:

Cheers, at this rate by the time i get it on the road the Golf will probably be ULEZ exempt anyway, but i'm not really one to leave things unfinished (even if they end up absorbing my entire life)

Also I kinda felt sorry for it, nobody was going to be stupid enough to throw the time and money required at the poor thing since it was a base model. Even the guy I bought it off of had planned to use it as a donor body for his even rustier family estate.

Then again I've got form - Golf looked like this when I got it back from being nicked:

  

Was a £150 car, just couldn't bear to scrap it seeing as it had come back to me after an 800 mile-round trip, so here we are 9 ish years and 60k miles later

Some cars get under your skin. They shouldn't, mind, but yet they do.

[meowmeow]

14 minutes ago, Matty said:

Some cars get under your skin. They shouldn't, mind, but yet they do.

Well it's that or I'm just not very good at throwing things away...

[meowmeow]

some more progress

time to tackle the n/s sill

for context:

Removed the door but the bolts for the stay were having none of it, so off with their heads

Some poking away revealed some of the work to do

First step drill out all the welds for the trim strip 'ledge'

Trying not to bend it too much as i'll need to put it back once everything's done

Cutting away the first bit of the outer sill reveals more work, as expected

New piece roughed out - not getting fussy as nobody's gonna see it:

Not the neatest but it'll do the job ok

Then removed the rest of the outer sill and made a few more small patches

Replacement sill had some weird return on it which needed flattening out

no idea why it says "o/s" on it

And zipped up - will finish the bottom when everything else is done and I feel happier to jack the car up

The replacement sill edge isn't folded like the original, so will have to peen it over

Next bit

Unfortunately I had covid the weekend I planned to make the end cap panel, and so cocked up the shape of it. Luckily it'll never be seen as the wing covers it

Bows inwards too much. Tried to knock it out from the inside but there wasn't enough space to get my hands in there, so it'll have to just stay like this

Added the end cap and joined the two parts of the sill together (repair panel is from a saloon so was too short, had to cut in half and extend).

The join was a bit wonky in the pic, so had to hammer back one side to straighten it out.

Reused the old end of the wheel arch piece, and drilled the hole in the end of the sill for the bung:

Then cut out what was left of the rubbish

The lower door hinge looked like I'd just fished it out of the sea

Also once it fell off I realised I hadn't measured its position on the A pillar, so that'll be fun when I come to weld it back on

Unfortunately couldn't find any replacements for sale anywhere, so would have to repair this one

Drilled out the old hinge pin (with much difficulty)

And drilled out and re-tapped the bolt holes:

 

Chopped up some more sill repair panel scraps I had left, used the bottom of the B piller section to make part of the A pillar repair

 

Then poked somewhere I shouldn't have and created more work for myself...

 

There's still a fair amount to do - the n/s dogleg has rust, there are a few small holes in the passenger footwell, then the same repair as on the other side at the bottom of the rear wing, and of course the boot floor...

[Rustybullethole]

That bottom of A pillar/sill end/hinge bit scares me!

Am in awe of the skills and perseverance here. Cracking stuff.

[EML]

I'm in awe of your dedication and skill set whilst working in such a small garage. A bloody great read and has kept me entirely hooked and on the edge of my bed whilst in recovery from a procedure. 

Keep up the great work 

 

[meowmeow]

still going....

filled in the missing bits of the bottom corner:

Then kind of eyeballed the position of the bottom hinge and tacked it loosely in place so that I can fine-tune it later.

Bit of a difficult panel next, required templating

  

Eh, close enough, can see i didn't leave quite enough metal for the edge of the piece, but weather stripping will cover it so nobody will see my shoddy work !

the aperture for the hinge is a bit big but will make sure to put some kind of mastic around it to make sure no water gets in. From the factory it's just a hole, so no surprises that it's a pretty common rust trap.

 

Hinge fitted, time to test fit the door:

Exact science applied for the panel gaps as usual

Whacked the bottom hinge a bit, but like the driver's side needed a helping hand in the form of a spacer:

Yeah that'll do

Now quickly weld the bugger in place so it doesn't move!

Few more small holes patched up

Again doesn't have to be the neatest as there's plastic trim that covers all of this

 

On to the bottom of the windscreen, which of course required removing the door that I'd just spent ages lining up...

Rough patch for the inner piece:

Part 2

And finally

Think we're doing alright bearing in mind before I bought this thing I'd never touched a welding set...

 

Then spent another hour faffing with door to get it to sit properly

And that concludes all the rust on the n/s front of the car

Actually I lie there's still a few small holes in the footwell but....

[Sportshatch]

Quote

 

Great work👍

[junkyarddog]

Excellent stuff!!👍

[cort1977]

5 hours ago, meowmeow said:

 

 

Think we're doing alright bearing in mind before I bought this thing I'd never touched a welding set.

Sincerely, that's incredibly impressive. Well done, wish I had a fraction of your skill and perseverance.

[comfortablynumb]

Bit late to the party, but one thing I learned from experience, and have seen on other restoration videos, is always start with a piece of steel that's considerably too big for the repair you're trying to achieve, on the basis that chopping bits off is easier than sticking them back on!

Although looking at what you're achieving the last thing you need is advice from a hammerchewer like me.

Great work 👍

[meowmeow]

1 hour ago, comfortablynumb said:

Bit late to the party, but one thing I learned from experience, and have seen on other restoration videos, is always start with a piece of steel that's considerably too big for the repair you're trying to achieve, on the basis that chopping bits off is easier than sticking them back on!

Although looking at what you're achieving the last thing you need is advice from a hammerchewer like me.

Great work 👍

Cheers, yep definitely made that mistake a few times - still getting my head around forming more complex panel shapes where there's a lot of stretching involved

[Bmwdumptruck]

Definitely one of the top threads on here atm.  Loving the progress, really looking forward to seeing it up n running.  Keep on keeping on👍

[MrBig]

Just mainlined this entire thread. Amazing stuff. The skills and resourcefulness of some folks never ceases to amaze me.

[meowmeow]

took some time off work to make some progress on this - would like it all wrapped up by April 2026 but not sure that's gonna happen

Have already moved the 'deadline' twice...

Dogleg rust:

 

Seen somewhere that you can use tape to make a template - layer it up enough and it'll match the profile when you peel it off - so decided to give it a go:

Bit of tapping and we had this:

Trimmed and welded into place, not too bad

Time to fill the gaps:

Again not the neatest but will be covered by running board trim anyway

And finally a few small patches to complete this section

 

Next moved on to reattaching the rail for the chrome strip.

Had suffered a bit from my clumsy attempt to remove it from the sill in the first place, so needed straightening out first

  

 

Few self-tappers to hold in place, then welded back onto the car:

The gap will get a bead of mastic, as it was originally. Will do that when i get around to filler/primer/paint stage.

 

The belts arrived for the stereo, so got them fitted:

Ran it off the bench power supply, behaved itself for about a minute before the cassette motor decided to start running at warp speed

Some examination revealed that some of the capacitors have started to disintegrate - they are almost 50 years old as it is...

   

Made a list of all the sad looking ones, will get around to ordering these in at some point.

 

Back to the rust

Decided that the best way to tackle this was going to be cut off the outer panel and try to repair it off the car, sort the rust underneath then reattach.

Don't really have much choice as no repair panels available for this part, and there's no way I want to be trying to fab the fluted part

Not very clear in this picture but there's also a big (albeit shallow) dent in this panel which needed popping out.

More work revealed, as expected, not as bad as the other side though

Also cutting out this piece allowed the dent to more or less pop itself out, which was nice.

Stripped the paint and set aside to repair separately:

Finally cut out everything rotten, ready to make new panels. 

There's a hole in the back side of this section behind the fuel tank bracket (can just about see it through the cutout in the reinforcing piece), might be a bit fun to repair that without taking the bracket off but we'll see

Actually getting pretty close now - once I've sorted this bit it's only really the boot floor and a few small holes left (i think??). Which is good as I'm really getting sick of welding haha

 

[Rustybullethole]

Good going the finish line is in sight.

[meowmeow]

about time i updated this

 

not a huge amount of progress as I got side-tracked driving all the way to King's Lynn to collect the biggest microwave I have ever seen (remote for scale, and also because it looks a bit like a telly):

Lady said her mum bought it new in 1982 and used it regularly until about 6 months ago, so should be reliable enough.

it's got a really cool adjustable grill element that is so powerful it blew the electrics in the house when i tried to use it and now the smoke alarms don't work

Anyway

 

Continuing on the bum of the 504, started making repair panels:

 

The fuel tank bracket acts as a very useful trap for all kinds of mud and dirt, so naturally the inner panel had rusted out:

Cut out the rust, drilled out the welds on the bracket ready to reuse

then forgot to take a picture of the thing actually welded back in but oh well...

 

Next repair panel:

and again...

 

Then on to repairing the outer skin that I had salvaged previously. 

Cut off everything for the bin, leaving this:

Starting to run out of material, so nabbed a bit from the remains of the old driver's door

 

Welded together we had this:

then attached to the car:

And with the missing piece filled in:

 

Last rusty bits in this area are in the trailing edge of the wheel tub.

Don't look too bad initially but of course poking reveals all as usual

   

 

And repair panels welded in:

All the filler/primer/paint for the N/S I am leaving for now as it's probably a bit too cold for painting. 

 

Next time will be onto the boot floor,

a reminder of what it looks like (can't take a photo now as the car is completely full of shit which I'll need to find a home for before starting this...)

It's very thin where it was left sitting with water leaking in from the tailgate, so I'm having to replace at least half of it.

Making the replacement piece will be fun though.

I don't have a bead roller, and even if I did it's a very big panel, so am leaning more towards making a 'mould' of sorts out of wood, clamping the sheet metal down and beating and chiseling it into the mould to form the pattern.

Unless anyone has a better idea? 

 

[goosey]

Could you make a Discovery 1 boot floor repair panel work?

[jim89]

There was someone somewhere making ripple repair panels for early 2cvs at home... But typically cant recall where I watched that...

I did see this tho

 

About 22 mins in he moves onto to a complicated firewall build but the way the beads are formed might be of interest.. presumably for your boot floor it's largely straight runs?

[comfortablynumb]

With regards to forming over a mould, I saw a video recently where the restorer had welded an old ball pein hammer head to an air chisel, and used that instead of repeated smacking.

Obvs depends on whether you've got a compressor that'll run an air chisel for long enough, and how much you want to piss off your neighbours!

Did strike (!) me as a smart idea though, and probably more controlled 

[comfortablynumb]

Or:

How big is your pressbrake?

 

[Asimo]

See page 8...

[meowmeow]

56 minutes ago, comfortablynumb said:

 and how much you want to piss off your neighbours!

think I've long surpassed this point - 6 months straight of angle grinder almost every weekend will do that

23 minutes ago, comfortablynumb said:

Or:

How big is your pressbrake?

 

Thanks yeah I watched this one, it's pretty good - problem is i don't have a brake. Seeing as the 'channels' are quite shallow might be able to get away without one? Would just take longer i guess

All I've got is a small vise and set of hammer and dollies. No air compressor either!

17 minutes ago, Asimo said:

See page 8...

In a similar vein also saw this video, at about 11mins he does something similar but with an open-ended former and air tools:

Would have to make a much bigger former though as the channels are much wider on the 504 floor

[MorrisItalSLX]

3 hours ago, meowmeow said:

not a huge amount of progress as I got side-tracked driving all the way to King's Lynn to collect the biggest microwave I have ever seen (remote for scale, and also because it looks a bit like a telly):

Lady said her mum bought it new in 1982 and used it regularly until about 6 months ago, so should be reliable enough.

it's got a really cool adjustable grill element that is so powerful it blew the electrics in the house when i tried to use it and now the smoke alarms don't work

My Grandmother has one very similar that she bought in the early 80s, it has cards with magnetic strips that contain cooking programs and a meat probe that plugs in inside on the ceiling of the cooking chamber.

Picture from the internet, but imagine that exact microwave in a dark woodgrain kitchen with yellow bench tops for the full experience.

[green200b]

We had an enormous microwave like that growing up, although I don't have a photo. We had it for years, then I ended up giving it to a friend, and last time I checked he was still using it.

It's good to see you're still going with this. I happened to find photos I took of a 504 estate I saw in Australia, in March 2019. I've done a search and the car is still on the road now. Hopefully here's some motivation for you, not that you appear to need it 👍

[meowmeow]

1 hour ago, MorrisItalSLX said:

My Grandmother has one very similar that she bought in the early 80s, it has cards with magnetic strips that contain cooking programs and a meat probe that plugs in inside on the ceiling of the cooking chamber.

Picture from the internet, but imagine that exact microwave in a dark woodgrain kitchen with yellow bench tops for the full experience.

ok this one's much cooler than mine. a card reader?!

They made another model similar to what I've got but with all manual controls, 

for some reason there's a 17 min video on youtube about it which i found whilst trying to work out where the light bulb lives

 

[MorrisItalSLX]

On 22/12/2025 at 09:08, meowmeow said:

ok this one's much cooler than mine. a card reader?!

They made another model similar to what I've got but with all manual controls, 

for some reason there's a 17 min video on youtube about it which i found whilst trying to work out where the light bulb lives

 

Christmas up with the family means I could get up close and personal with my Grandmothers kitchen.

With it’s accessories box, note the meat probe on the left.

And the programming cards, note the magnetic strip that contains the data.

(Sorry for the thread derailing)

[comfortablynumb]

If you were in kings Lynn @meowmeow, you were about 20 miles from me, the least you could have done was dropped in and practiced your welding on RRC 's and cortinas... 🤣

[jim89]

21 minutes ago, MorrisItalSLX said:

Christmas up with the family means I could get up close and personal with my Grandmothers kitchen.

 

Any unexplained 'warming sensations' in the vicinity of it?