The story of my 405!

[baldrickthecunning]

Having been on the lookout for a hardy old diesel to run as a second car for a while, and also being a French car enthusiast I saw a slightly poorly worded advert in the local Friday-Ad.

 

Something along the lines of 'Peugeot 405, no MOT, No Tax, heated seats, diesel'. I rang up and spoke to the woman who owned it, a young mum who couldn't afford to rectify the MOT failures, and re-tax it. She didn't know much about the mechanics, or even the mileage (I just about managed to confirm that it was the 'Executive' model) so I arranged to go and see it.

 

When I arrived, It was obvious that the car hadn't moved anywhere since failing its MOT 6 weeks previously and her dad had the battery on charge in the garage. I could see that it wasn't immaculate, with no lacquer on the roof, 2 bald tyres but seemed to look good where it mattered, and had a fairly tidy mileage of 118450. We connected the battery up and was immediately greeted by all manner of warning lights! 'AIR BAG', 'ABS', low coolant (not actually low) and a scrambled centre display...but the glowplug light came on, and the car effortlessly fired into life from cold and didn't bellow smoke. The rev meter wasn't working and the coolant temperature gauge wasn't registering anything.

 

Despite all these problems, the gearbox and clutch felt fine, engine looked clean and eventually i cracked the handbrake free which was well and truly stuck on! They had lost the MOT failure sheet but assured me that the main failures were the tyres and the ABS light.

 

I agreed to buy it, taking a slight gamble but safe in the knowledge that if it was a heap I could get most of my money back in scrap. I got it to a friends house where I set to work on fixing the obvious things.

 

Photos:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

First of all, the scrambled centre display was fixed by setting the time. Second fix was the airbag light and temperature gauge which was a blown fuse, temperature was running at a re-assuring 80°C. Next I decided to remove the front offside wheel to get a tyre fitted to the rim, oh balls....locking wheel bolts and no removal tool....only one thing for it, bash a socket over the top and work it loose - and when it lost grip, just bang a smaller socket on! Got there eventually and got the local breakers to fit and balance a very fresh pair of firestones onto the rims.

 

 

I couldn't suss the ABS fault out, so booked it in for an MOT regardless and came back to the following failures:

 

ABS light

Front O/S lower suspension balljoint has excessive play

N/S rear brake light

O/S rear brake light

Rear N/S tyre perished on side wall.

 

Not bad in all, but the ABS was bugging me slightly.....my mechanic and I set about fixing the other faults but I left it with him over a weekend and the battery went dead - and when it was charged up the immobiliser was stuck on....

 

Tools downed 'til the following Monday when I came in with a spare battery, and managed to disarm the immobiliser but the ABS fault code would not scan on the diagnostics interface. I set about fixing the brake lights which seemed to have a bad earth on them, gradually getting one side working and eventually the other side.

 

I turned the ignition on to move the car out of the garage and in a weird-French-electrics style twist, the ABS light came on and then went out. Result! Must have been shorting out where the brake lights weren't working, but either way I was happy - the rest of the work was carried out and Voila, a years ticket at a cost (including the test and previous tyres) of about £130!

 

Only hurdles now were a) getting rid of the previous second car (MK3 Golf 1.4 sold for £425) and Getting the thing taxed, the DVLA website refused to allow me to apply for a tax disc online as i'd SORN'd it just a couple of weeks before .

 

Registration document, Check! MOT certificate, Check! Insurance document, D'oh!.....It arrived through the door and I was at the post office 20 minutes later!

 

Some hassle, £550 and a month after responding to the ad, I had a 1996 Peugeot 405 1.9 Turbo D Executive, with a years MOT and a years Tax with an awesome black leather interior, all the whistles and bells including the original 6 speaker stereo with steering wheel controls and a CD changer in the boot, 4 new tyres, and ride quality that is more positive than most modern cars. Love it to bits and wanted to tell the tale to some possible enthusiasts.

 

The predictable twist in the tale, is that this beast is now running 60% used (filtered) vegetable oil and 40% pump diesel. No drawbacks yet, apart from a slightly leaky fuel return pipe and a very slightly lumpy idle when starting from cold.

 

 

 

Sorry for the huge essay, but I don't often take on projects like this and it has been quite exciting - if frustrating at times.

[baldrickthecunning]

can someone delete this please, double post - ta.

[Gompo]

Nice one, I'm not sure why this thread has gone unreplied to as there's quite a few 405 fans on here.

 

It looks a nice place to be inside, good work.

[Timewaster]

Double post Gompo. Theres quite a good 405 love thread somewhere with the same title.

[Gompo]

Yep, I spotted it now and came back here to delete my reply, but seeing as you've responded I'll leave it here

 

Cheers..