1993 Peugeot 306 XLD "Liverpool Airport"

[Blake's Den]

8 hours ago, MJK 24 said:

The smell from Bilt Hamber is initially strong but you can’t smell it after a week so I think I’d use that.

Good luck with the rest!

Thanks, I'll give it a go 😃 

[Blake's Den]

How is your day going? Hopefully better then mine....

 

The above is the result of me investigating the rust on the 306. When I put my camera underneath I did spot a little bit of crustyness. I was not expecting this!

Basically, it looks like the car has been jacked from the wrong position on both sides. This has damaged the underseal which in turn has resulted in corrosion. There are two 'chassis rails' (yes, I know this is a monocque) which have the consistency of brie. These should be easy to replace. Then there are two big holes under each footwell. It is actually double skinned in this area so I can weld it without setting the interior on fire.

It is beyond econmic repair. But this is AS, phrases like that don't concern us!

What does concern me is that it is going to be quite fiddly to do; I'm going to have to spend a lot of type under the car grinding and cleaning. I think that it is savebale and I'm feeling more positive about this than I was this morning. But my plans to get this on the road by spring may have gone out the window.....

 

[Blake's Den]

After the discovery of the extensive rust I decided that there was no harm in cutting it out to see how bad it was. It actually wasn't that bad, essentially a pressed steel channel had completely rusted away. I came up with a cunning plan to cut it out and replace it with steel box section. This is no doubt much stronger than the original pressing and saved me an awful lot of fabrication time.

Last Friday I had a bit of a weldathon and cracked on with replacing the rot with steel. I'm really pleased with the result; I still have more work to do on the passenger side but this is realtively easy in comparision with only a few plates needed.

Obligatory click bait thumbnail for the video:

So, it is looking better than it did last week. That being said, the Peugeot has rewarded my efforts by dumping pretty much all of its brake fluid onto the garage floor. It looks like a union at the back has badly corroded and needes replacing. Also, it decided to leak diesel too! When I moved the pipes out of the way to do the welding the return line decided to start weaping. I've repalced this with a short section of rubber hose to get me by.

Onwards and upwards!

[Lord Sterling]

Good luck. I'm honestly so glad you can save this. I'm in a similar position with my Jag. I used to be able to arc weld a very long time ago. But I neither have the time, patience, equipment or facilities to do such a job. Plus its been over 20 years since I last used a welder.

[Blake's Den]

2 hours ago, Lord Sterling said:

Good luck. I'm honestly so glad you can save this. I'm in a similar position with my Jag. I used to be able to arc weld before a very long time ago. But I neither have the time, patience, equipment or facilities to do such a job. Plus its been over 20 years since I last used a welder.

Thanks 👍.

I have a lovely hate relationship with welding. Some days I can weld quite well, other days I just can't get it right at all no matter what I do. 

Welding up a crusty car whilst lying in your back is much harder than welding a bench 🙂

[N Dentressangle]

Just watched the video - never seen a 306 that rotten.

Sure it wasn't Liverpool Docks rather than the airport? 😉

[M'coli]

On 25/01/2026 at 15:01, Blake's Den said:

How is your day going? Hopefully better then mine....

 

The above is the result of me investigating the rust on the 306. When I put my camera underneath I did spot a little bit of crustyness. I was not expecting this!

Basically, it looks like the car has been jacked from the wrong position on both sides. This has damaged the underseal which in turn has resulted in corrosion. There are two 'chassis rails' (yes, I know this is a monocque) which have the consistency of brie. These should be easy to replace. Then there are two big holes under each footwell. It is actually double skinned in this area so I can weld it without setting the interior on fire.

It is beyond econmic repair. But this is AS, phrases like that don't concern us!

What does concern me is that it is going to be quite fiddly to do; I'm going to have to spend a lot of type under the car grinding and cleaning. I think that it is savebale and I'm feeling more positive about this than I was this morning. But my plans to get this on the road by spring may have gone out the window.....

 

It's the corrosion that's led to the jacking damage, if it's owt like my ZX, water runs down inside the leg but has no way to leak out...

[Blake's Den]

9 hours ago, M'coli said:

It's the corrosion that's led to the jacking damage, if it's owt like my ZX, water runs down inside the leg but has no way to leak out...

That reminds me, I was going to drill a hole in the channel for drainage and also for cavity wax application. I'll add it to my to do list.

[Blake's Den]

9 hours ago, N Dentressangle said:

Just watched the video - never seen a 306 that rotten.

Sure it wasn't Liverpool Docks rather than the airport? 😉

It is a bit crusty!
In all honesty where it has been living for the last 10+ years is right next to the Mersey estuary so there will have been plenty of salt in the air. Best to find the rot now instead of finding it on the MoT test ramp  

[N Dentressangle]

Yeah, Speke is a bit 'exposed' 🤣

[Blake's Den]

A bit more welding done on the 306, the end is in sight! If I have got it right then no more welding is required in the immediate future, it should be OK to pass an MoT.

The welding was not without incident. Somehow I managed to get a hot spark into my ear canal which was rather painful.  No damage done so I think that I got off quite luckily.

Also I have been having a nightmare with the windscreen wipers. You can not buy a new wiper motor for a RHD 306. You can get a LHD one but this doesn't fit. The thing to do is to get a wiper motor from another 306 which is being broken. I concluded that at somepoint the wiper motors will all run out! So I'm trying to get a wiper motor from a Peugeot Partner van to work instead. More on this later.....

Also, thanks to @RoverFolkUs I now have a period correct Haynes manual with a phase one on the cover. Fun fact - the Peugeot 306 manual was the first Haynes manual to go to a three column format (as opposed to two) and include a more realistic image on the cover rather than the wonderfully detailed cut away drawings by Terry Davey.

[RoverFolkUs]

22 minutes ago, Blake's Den said:

Also, thanks to @RoverFolkUs I now have a period correct Haynes manual with a phase one on the cover. Fun fact - the Peugeot 306 manual was the first Haynes manual to go to a three column format (as opposed to two) and include a more realistic image on the cover rather than the wonderfully detailed cut away drawings by Terry Davey.

I'm pleased to see it go to a good use/collection

[vaughant]

On 02/03/2026 at 22:32, Blake's Den said:

Somehow I managed to get a hot spark into my ear canal which was rather painful.  No damage done so I think that I got off quite luckily.

I did exactly the same welding up the Chevy Tacuma.

Got hit at first with it and it was quite liberating, the wax crackled and suddenly my hearing was actually better 🤣🤣🤣... No pain either.

Of course that wasn't lesson learned and I did again right at the end, that fucking hurt and I had bad hearing for a good week or 2 afterwards 😬😬

[Blake's Den]

4 hours ago, vaughant said:

I did exactly the same welding up the Chevy Tacuma.

Got hit at first with it and it was quite liberating, the wax crackled and suddenly my hearing was actually better 🤣🤣🤣... No pain either.

Of course that wasn't lesson learned and I did again right at the end, that fucking hurt and I had bad hearing for a good week or 2 afterwards 😬😬

Yes, it's not fun! I still have no idea how it happened as I had my welding mask on which covers my ears. I'm guessing that the spark ricocheted off the suspension and straight into me.

[Blake's Den]

Another video update:

For those who didn't see my post in the "Ask a " section, I have 'upgraded' the wiper motor on my 306 with one from a Peugeot Partner van. Why? Because new RHS wiper motors for 306's are not available! The done thing is to get another wiper motor from a scrap car.....this means that eventually all of the wiper motors will run out. Mine was beyond repair, a brush completely fell out of the motor and the gearbox had teeth missing.

This upgrade is not without issue though, the wipers don't always park themselves. But I think that I can get away with this if I have a friendly MoT tester.

I thought that this would be a quick win but it took a lot longer than expected. Especailly when I was trying to work out why the new motor wouldn't fit. I was supplied with a LHD motor (at this point I did not know that new RHD ones don't exist) which is a mirror image of the RHD one. There simply isn't enough room for it to fit. The Peugeot Partner one is a bit shorter so I managed to shoe horn it into place successfully.

With just over a month to Rustival I have the following to do:

Brakes

New windscreen (available, I have a quite for about £250)

New tyres (also about £250 fitted)

Service including timing belt.

Wish me luck!

[Blake's Den]

Have you ever started a job that you have instantly regretted? That has been me for the last few weeks....

I thought that I would check out the brakes on the 306 as the pedal is spongy. The front discs and pads looked great but I thought that I would change the front felxis just in case. Mistake number 1! All of the fasteners were corroded so I had to cut the old pipe off. But access was limited so I had to use my air saw. Whilst taking a break from this my curiosity got the better of me and I attempted to slacken off the bleed nipple on the caliper. Mistake number 2! Ping, it snapped clean off........

After some choice words I managed to weld a nut onto what was left of the nipple and managed to get it off.

Then onto the back breaks. A previous coupler was leaking so I replaced that. Then I found a rear flexi that was leaking and badly perished so that was replaced. This involved removing the exhaust which then broke.

After fitting the new rear flexi I attempted to bleed the brakes but could not get anything out of the rears. A few pumps of pedal revealed that the coupler that I replaced was leaking badly which had me questioning all of the brake flares that I had done.  So I ended up buying a new Capri brake flarer (very good) and remade all of the flares.

After doing this I could still not bleed the rears. I think there something funny going on with the load sensors which are built into the drum (mine does not have the leveller attached to the axle).

Completely giving up I decided to service the car which resulted in the oil filter wrench and the sump plus socket falling into the bowl of used oil......Fed up I decided to get the car out of the garage. In doing so I bashed the front wing on the door frame and found out that the diesel leak that i had fixed wasn't fixed!

Cars - nothing but trouble! I will persevere with this one but I think it is time for a small break.....
 

 

[Dan302]

12 minutes ago, Blake's Den said:

Have you ever started a job that you have instantly regretted? That has been me for the last few weeks....

I thought that I would check out the brakes on the 306 as the pedal is spongy. The front discs and pads looked great but I thought that I would change the front felxis just in case. Mistake number 1! All of the fasteners were corroded so I had to cut the old pipe off. But access was limited so I had to use my air saw. Whilst taking a break from this my curiosity got the better of me and I attempted to slacken off the bleed nipple on the caliper. Mistake number 2! Ping, it snapped clean off........

After some choice words I managed to weld a nut onto what was left of the nipple and managed to get it off.

Then onto the back breaks. A previous coupler was leaking so I replaced that. Then I found a rear flexi that was leaking and badly perished so that was replaced. This involved removing the exhaust which then broke.

After fitting the new rear flexi I attempted to bleed the brakes but could not get anything out of the rears. A few pumps of pedal revealed that the coupler that I replaced was leaking badly which had me questioning all of the brake flares that I had done.  So I ended up buying a new Capri brake flarer (very good) and remade all of the flares.

After doing this I could still not bleed the rears. I think there something funny going on with the load sensors which are built into the drum (mine does not have the leveller attached to the axle).

Completely giving up I decided to service the car which resulted in the oil filter wrench and the sump plus socket falling into the bowl of used oil......Fed up I decided to get the car out of the garage. In doing so I bashed the front wing on the door frame and found out that the diesel leak that i had fixed wasn't fixed!

Cars - nothing but trouble! I will persevere with this one but I think it is time for a small break.....
 

 

Bloody ungrateful car! 

Stick with it though I always look forward to your videos on it

[Andyrew]

Certainly been there before. 

Very easy to forget that this is ment to be a hobby, and that when it's not enjoyable it's time to walk away. 

Time doing another job on something else is much better spent than continuing to fight frustration.

[Bear]

I would gave gone full thrashing it with a stick at that stage. Two "sharp pointed corners of the scissor lift" to the skull and 20 minutes of trying to fit a bracket into a space it falls out of while rust and oil falls in my face has me wanting to damage the RX, let alone a neglected Peugeot!

(The RX broke a brake pipe while changing flexis. At least fixing it will take less time than googling for an actual answer on the right flare tool and nuts to use and reading reviews of "copper nickel" pipe to see if it's actually copper coloured)

[Blake's Den]

Thanks all the support and encouragement! I'll get there with it. I guess thats the advantage of having a few projects on the go at the same time, if you get fed up then you can drop onto something else.

[Blake's Den]

In other news.....today I got the new windscreen fitted. £195 all in which I think is a reasonable price. I got a local fitter to do it rather than one of the big companies, he said that he hadn't worked on a 306 in years!

The existing trim around the screen didn't fit too well but I can live with that. I'm sure that super glue will make it look better.

Sadly, it is not going to make it it Rustival. I have cancelled the MoT (was Friday) as I need to replace the rear brake cylinders. But my Mini did pass it's retest so I'll be taking that instead.