Miami Blue 205 Mi16

[Shark506 2]

Not posted for a while as busy with work & just using the car. I've collected loads of bits to replace tired or broken parts but not had chance to fit them. A clean red carpet & mint condition seats are the main items but the lack of decent weather is putting a hold on them being installed!!

 

The only thing that annoys me using the car daily is the 1600 gearbox, the dual carriageway drive at 4k is tedious.

 

It went for its MOT a couple of weeks ago & failed on track rod ends (knew it would & had a set ready to replace), brake pipes under the car & the front braided brake hoses. When th GTI6 brake conversion was done they used braided brake hoses (great) but decided to use anything that was laying about the workshop!! The hoses were too short (well the offside one was), so after a few setbacks with replacement hoses I finally got the correct sizes from Miles. I had to cycle to work whilst waiting for the brakes to be sorted & didnt enjoy the minus temperatures.

 

Finally got enough money together & ordered a set of coolant hoses from BBM but when they arrived, the rad to expansion hose was missing, hopefully that will be arriving soon & that will sort out the minor leaks.

 

Thanks to Miles & Pug_ham for their assistance.

[NFS 32]

Keep up with it. You have come so far. And like said before we love some picture

[Tom Fenton 1,524]

So rather than starting a new thread I may as well update this one.

 

I bought this car from Greg (Shark506) in March 2014, I think the bits required had gone past his comfort level, combined with a nasty wobble/shake from the front drivetrain and he was fed up with it and wanted it gone.

 

Being totally honest it was an impulse buy because I thought it was cheap for the bits on it, and I've always had a soft spot for the Miami cars despite never owning one. There were various trains of thought on what to do with it, at one point the gearbox was destined for Allans rally car, then I was going to use the engine in my track car, then I collected engine and box bits to put it back to standard 1.9 GTI, blah blah blah.

In the end I had 1/2 a day on it, which consisted of swapping a driveshaft over for a spare, which sorted out the shake/wobble, and roughly bolted on a blue front OS wing as it was sporting a rough looking graphite grey wing on that side.

After that I put it away in a lockup garage I rent and its been there since, I go to it every few weeks and fire it up and run it to temp but otherwise no real progress aside from lots of procrastination about what to do with it, and collecting parts.

[Tom Fenton 1,524]

As usual I've a monumental lack of pictures. This is the only one from the day I collected it.

 

 

In general it's not too bad body wise but the paint is scruffy. Drivers wing I think the blue one was rotten, it had a grey wing semi fitted but that was also scruffy. The bonnet was also a mess, paint u/s, lots of dents and scratches.

I had a new pattern Miami wing, not totally the right shade, and not a great fit but better than what was there.

I also picked up a second hand bonnet, again not entirely the right shade but 100% better.

[Tom Fenton 1,524]

So to come up to date. Saturday afternoon I was at a loose end and the Mrs off out for a Xmas doo, and with my laser 205 going away for winter, I decided to drag the Miami out and have a couple of days on it to get it up together so I could use it for a bit over the winter.

With it in the garage the front seemed the obvious place to start.

It looks like it has had a knock on the drivers front wing with the bumper not really fitted right, and the wing only attached along the top and at the back due to the other holes in a mess.

So bumper off, bumper irons off, drivers wing off.

Found out a reasonable second hand bumper as the one on the car had suffered a crunch and was pushed in, in the middle. Stripped the valance off the old bumper snapping plenty fasteners as I went. Built it back up, some more work to do on the driving lamps and wiring, fitted a new pair of my stainless lamp brackets.

Next looked at the front panel. Passengers side quite good, drivers side not so good, the area at the outer edge where the wing attaches rotten. Chopped that off and made a repair piece with the folded return and welded into place, once I have offered up the wing I will drill and fit rivnuts for the wing to attach to.

Repaired the bumper irons usual sheared fixing by TIG welding a stainless bolt in place, should not shear again now.

Next job was the inner wing drivers side. As per earlier I did not take a photo before starting, but imagine a nasty bodge plate about 6"x4" slapped over a rusty hole and then blathered in bitumen under seal rubbish and you are there.

 

Ground away the nasty welding and found this!

 

 

So I ground out to a bit more uniform shape and then set about making a repair piece. Tried to copy the circular pressing, and folded the return as per standard so I could spot weld the flange as per original.

 

 

Then welded it in place, not a bad job really.

 

 

After much awkward grinding with air tools trying not to go deaf with my ear defenders on, spot welded the flange from below, and a quick squirt of etch primer, here's where it is now, not a bad job for an afternoons work.

 

 

One other job I forgot about yesterday morning, stripped the scuttle and wiper assy off to repair the standard fitment bust bonnet hinge bolt.

 

While the wiper spindles were off the car I stripped them cleaned all the crud off the spindles greased and reassembled, wipers should be slow and not as slow now than snail and tortoise slow.

[Tom Fenton 1,524]

Tonight I set about the front panel. As mentioned on page 1 some ruffian who obviously should not have been let loose with an angle grinder had done this

 

Yuk. Anyway a few minutes with a hammer and hand weight (my ex Aston Martin panel beater friend says dollys are something young girls play with) and its formed back into some kind of shape. Never going to be perfect but should be a marked improvement.

 

Next up break out the trusty mig welder

 

 

All of a sudden my leg felt rather warm, looked down to see my trousers on fire!!!!!

 

 

A good grind up and then some primer and it looks a whole lot better than before anyway. Again as per the inner wing not perfect but good enough for where it is.

 

 

Whilst there I cleaned down both sides with abrasives, rust treated then acid etch primer.

 

 

That's where I am up to now, got the space heater on in the garage, hoping to get some stonechip on the front panel tonight.

[artois7 20]

Nice work!

[ciarandeery1 22]

you get more done in 1 night than i do in 1 month! lol

[Tom Fenton 1,524]

I need to give the rest of the car a look over, and change the cambelt & water pump, but otherwise I'm hoping to MOT her later this week and on the road for the weekend, we will see.

[calvinhorse 870]

Nice work tom! Lots of "new winter cars" at the next meet then!

[allanallen 528 2 Cars]

Nice progress tom.

 

The combination of the mildly tuned engine and short box in this car has never put such a big smile on my face, it's a riot to drive!

[Tom Fenton 1,524]

Home early from work so I have set about making the front blue. Seam sealed my repair then masked up, painted with Miami basecoat. I have some Matt lacquer so the plan is to get that on tonight so it can be hardening off overnight so I can build it back up tomorrow.

 

[Tom Fenton 1,524]

Hey presto, day off work and 8am till 3pm in the garage and we have this!

 

 

The indicators are the cheap Depo copies but are recent and bright, I had new headlamps and driving lamps ready to fit, I always think the new shiny ones "lift" the front of the car massively.

 

Few other jobs compete, the front legs on the car were Gaz coil overs which were very tired. I swapped these out for some other legs that came with the car, "Selex" dampers. In fairness the dampers felt good, but the springs were mega low, maybe 60mm, too low for me.

So new Bilstein B4's and Eibach pro kit springs fitted, these are my favourite road set up.

Lots of other mess about jobs done, horn fitted and wired in, rear fog light made to work, those crappy earth points on the headlamp panel chopped off and replaced with ring terminals (much better, no more bad earths).

All left to do is a bit of messing about with the drivers wing, it is a pattern wing and not a great fit.

But having said that, it's getting towards MOT ready now.

[Anthony 1,000]

Looking good Tom.

 

It's good to see cars like this getting some love and fixed properly, as it's probably only 2-3 years ago that it would have been breaker fodder with the wing rust, paint/panel issues and lack of MOT.

 

Allan's hit the nail on the head as well - there's something quite brilliant about a 1.9 Mi16 on a short 'box that makes them an utter riot to drive... I really need to get mine back on the road

[j_turnell 134 3 Cars]

Good work, surprising how much a new set of lights improves the look of the front end. New plates too?

[Tom Fenton 1,524]

Indeed new plates front and rear, I was just waiting to bumper snot the front bumper before I fitted the plate.

 

Bearing in mind that the MOT is booked for Friday and I still have jobs left to do, I decided by far the most important job for this evening was to install the stereo! Took a bit of doing with some nasty speaker wiring in the rear and the centre console needing fitting properly, but all sorted now. I have to say I am mega impressed with what £80 buys you these days in car stereo terms. 55w output, bluetooth so it will do handsfree phone calls, plus all the other whistles and bells, I am impressed. Last stereo headunit I bought new was a Panasonic cassette player in 1997 and it was £200 then!

 

On the to do list, check and adjust the tracking bearing in mind I have messed about with the ride height. Some more work on lining up the wing on the drivers side. Fit the wheelarch bodykit to the drivers wing. Give it a clean and hoover, I always think how you present a car to the MOT counts for the testers first impression.

[Shark506 2]

I was wondering what was happening with the car, glad to see it being brought back & look forward to the updates.

[Andy_C 50]

Looks good Tom. My highlight is seeing that an expert like you can set fire to his trousers - just like a novice like me. Legendary and bloody funny.

[Tom Fenton 1,524]

So the car is now as ready as it is going to be for an MOT this afternoon at 3.45pm.

 

It all seems OK having had a good look round now, but as it hasn't been used for a couple of years now who knows what might crop up. Fingers crossed anyway.

[Tom Fenton 1,524]

Insured, MOT'd, taxed, blast round lanes all complete!

Good fun I have to say! Short box is Mega with a capital M, once it's in the good old Mi power band 3rd 4th 5th bang bang bang in quick succession, great success!

As always with a 205 that's been out of use for a while there are always a list of jobs following first use!

Reverse light u/s, minor thing but it's useful for backing it out of my drive in the dark.

STOP light on dash and the high coolant light flickering on and off at random, all the temps seem to be under control so there must be a dodgy wire somewhere, a quick look on the stat housing and there's only a wire connected to the temp sender, nothing to the switch!

Front suspension could be better, I spotted orange poly bushes in the wishbones which I have never been a fan of, they may have to go.

Other than that the stereo is decent and the exhaust sounds well too.

There was a bit of a misfire the other day but I am putting that down to old fuel, I put a tenner of fresh in the other day which seems to have improved things so I will now try to run it down and then get some fresh super in it.

[Tom Fenton 1,524]

Customary shot at MOT station!

 

Rear valance needs painting!

 

[Anthony 1,000]

Nice one Tom! Sort out the niggles and enjoy giving the old girl a damned good thrapping

[calvinhorse 870]

Yeah man! Bet it's a riot!

[Tom Fenton 1,524]

So heap of the week update!

 

100 miles in and it became apparent that the handling left a bit to be desired. Maybe many folk would think it was OK, but I drive a lot of these little cars, and the difference between a mediocre one and a good one is night and day. As mentioned before the front wishbones had poly bushes fitted, on other cars they are great but for some reason they just don't work well on 205's.

In addition I had forgotten just how bad the standard steering rack is on anything with more than standard power. On my laser green bog standard 1.6 GTI its just about paasable, but with another 60-odd-bhp to play with it really is dreadful, how Peugeot got other bits so right and the steering so wrong i'll never understand.

 

So a bit of parts collection and last night I set about it!

Subframe off, rack off, replaced with a 205 power rack, seems roughly 3 turns lock to lock which is much more like it. Ebay came up with the rack, pump, bracket, pipework. Dug through my spares and came up with the lower column, pulley for the exhaust cam, and even half of the belt cover/guard!

With the subframe off removed the wishbones, easier said than done, one bolt was seized into the bush crush sleeve, ended up cutting the head off and then drilling the bolt until I could remove it, a lot easier on the bench than on the car!

Mister Auto now do Febi Bilstein wishbones so I am giving them a go, they are not a lot of money, and everything else I have used Febi has been decent.

In addition I had stripped the thread on a drop link when changing the front dampers the other week so again replaced these with a pair of Febi droplinks, again Mister Auto, £8 a side or something.

As an aside, Mister Auto now seem to have some UK stock, as the wishbones and drop links were with me within 2 days, better than they usual week to 10 days.

 

Anyway fired it all back onto the car, the parts dept got another kicking and fitted a new pair of track rod ends. All I am short of now is a long bolt to lock the pump to the bracket, and the drive belt from exhaust cam pulley to pump. The reservoir is fully floating for now until I can get hold of or make a bracket (see wanted section!)

Once I have drive to the pump I'll bleed it and then check and adjust the tracking.

 

As for other bits, the reverse lamp mended itself (great success), the flickering stop light was a bare wire floating round on top of the gearbox (nice) and the heater fan has now expired totally (typical).

 

But there is a goal, Matlock Motor Club point to point navigational event, 20th Dec, and I'm driving with Al on the maps, MU HA HA HA.

So in light of that, while pissed on ebay I bought £38 of PIAA fancy H4 headlight bulbs. They are good I have to say and so they bloody should be for the price.....

[allanallen 528 2 Cars]

So when you fitting the cage, harness, seats etc....