205 Clubman/road Rally Car

[TAG 25 1 Cars]

Hi there,

I thought it was about time that I made a thread for my ongoing 205 project. My plan is to have a car that I can use to compete in Road Rallies, 12 cars, autotests and track days. I'm hoping that creating this thread will spur me on to complete the car, even though I have no set deadline for it, and am just enjoying working on it as a hobby in itself. :-)

 

Right, on to the car. I picked her up in May of 2014, from Dorset. The previous owner had apparently used it as a track car, with an MI16 fitted, along with a 309 beam, gti6 front brakes, gaz coilovers, 309 wishbones, and a "Peugeot Sport" LSD. He needed the car gone, but had sold the mi16 separately, and had reinstalled the 8v 1900. He had however, fitted the Bosch Motronic MP3.1 ignition to it.

 

So the deal was done, and I drove it back to Bridgend without any real issue (other than a headache from the 4.06FD and 'chav cannon' exhaust!). Here is a photo I quickly snapped whilst taking a pitstop at the services;

 

 

Since then I have driven it back and fore to work a few times, and a couple of blasts around the local area. Having the LSD fitted, and without power steering made the car a bit of a handful whilst driving reasonably slowly and when parking(didn't half grip around roundabouts though!), and so I put a standard open diff back in whilst I tried to sort the rest of the car.

 

I replaced the loud, rusty exhaust with a Klarius middle and back box.....much better! Being something like the 17th owner of the car,there have been numerous bodges I have found and have put right - mostly electrical.

 

I had an issue of the oil temp, oil pressure and coolant temp gauges not working when I got the car. A few evenings with a Haynes manual, and these were sorted. There was no sensor loom on the front of the engine, just individual spade connectors going into the dreaded brown plug, it turns out that about half of these were plugged in incorrectly.

 

The car seemed to initially pick up well, but then felt flat. I managed to find some documentation on the MP3.1, and realised that the green diagnostic connector was actually plugged into the ECU coolant sensor!

 

The motronic loom was very long and around the gearbox area was like a rats nest, so I got to work, labelling all of the connectors, shortening and taping up. The car didn't have an SAD fitted when I bought it, so firing it up and getting it to idle from cold was tricky. A few minutes on ebay and a SAD and some silicon hoses were sourced. The car has a K&N moulded plastic inlet in place of the standard system, so I turned up an adapter to fit between the inlet and the intake hose for the SAD. Hey presto, no more starting issues!

 

 

With the engine running better, and the gauges now working as they should, I turned my attention to the suspension.

The car had some Gaz coilovers on the front, 309 wishbones, and some AGX adjustable dampers on the rear.

I bought some Bilstein B4 dampers and Eibach springs from Kam Racing (these were the 306gti6 dampers).

I haven't done much mileage since swapping over, but the ride is much better on the road with the B4s, even if I have had to cable tie the brake lines to the damper, and the drop links rub on the inner arch slightly.

 

It was at about this point that the water pump decided to let go. I thought this was a good time to whip the head off and have a look, and also change the valve stem seals as she was a smokey beast when she hadn't been run in a while :-)

 

I replaced the water pump, timing belt, tensioner, valve stem seals and head gasket. I also had South Wales Pistons check the valves, and check to see if the head needed skimming, which it turns out it did.

When I had the head off, I noticed that the exhaust manifold had cracked, and went looking for another. I ended up buying a 4-into-1 toyo system from DCC on here, and he was kind enough to weld up the new pipe and flexi to my existing system.

 

The rebuild was all going nicely until I got to torquing up the headbolts. The last bolt (front far right) let go as I was torquing it up.....bugger!

The bolt wasn't completely loose, so I decided to build it up and run it, and hoped that I had got away with it. Long story short, I hadn't and coolant was leaking from between the head and block. This meant deciding wether to pull the engine out and have South Wales Pistons helicoil the block for me, or just whip the head off and have a go myself. After finding a very good guide on here, I bought the kit from ebay for about £35, and cracked on. Putting it all back together again and the bolts torqued up fine.....phew! I took a quick video of the second time I fired it up after putting the head back on, and put it on youtube;

 

 

Somewhere during the engine troubles, I really got the urge to have a go at road rallying, and compete in local autotests. So from this point on, I have been trying to prep the car, as well as sort out anything that was wrong with it.

 

I managed to get an OMP 10 point roll cage, 2 bucket seats, harnesses and other road rally goodies from Large on here.

This weekend I have stripped the cage down, primed, painted and lacquered the front and back sections, now only having the door bars left to do.

The next task I have is making up the cage mounts, and taking care of some surface rust on the floor of the car.

 

I plan on fitting a 205 beam back on the car, along with some uprated torsion bars. I am also planning on getting a set of Bilstein Group N/Challenge dampers and PLR gravel or tarmac springs (Peter Lloyd is a 5 minute drive from me). At the moment I am undecided on wether to go for the gravel or tarmac spring, as I would have thought the gravel spring will give more clearance on whites, but that the tarmac would maybe be a better all-rounder, considering autotests and trackdays too. Any advice on this would be welcome!

 

Right, I think I've yapped on for long enough now, so I'll leave you with a photo of the freshly painted cage, and a few of the car in general. I hope to update this thread soon!

 

 

 

 

[jonb_5 6]

Looks like you are starting with a really nice base car!

 

The one regret I have is not keeping mine road worthy for testing out etc so that will be nice to have as well as a weekend toy.

 

My only concern would be using a full roll cage on a road car when you are not wearing a helmet? I'd make sure you put plenty of padding around the front section.

 

Will be keeping tabs on this build.

 

Jon

[Tom Fenton 1,526]

As above it looks a bit too nice to go bashing down whites in!

I navigate for Allan, I'm sure he will comment further if he sees this, we did 3 seasons road rallying in a 205 with reasonable results, a few 1st in class. However as we got faster the car got progressively harder to keep in one piece, I guess it depends where you compete as Derbyshire where we mainly compete is quite rough compared to other areas.

Anyway, if you are serious about road rallying here's what Als old car had

Group N front yellow billies with PLR gravel springs

Rose jointed lower arms, these were a constant battle on standard bits, knackered nearly every event, making the toes jointed ones was one of the best improvements to the car.

21mm rear bars, group A 306 rear billies

Engine standard, k&n 4 branch exhaust, make sure it's well up in the tunnel and well skidded, make sure you have good uprated mounts .

Clutch, the standard clutch doesn't take kindly to the regular stops at give ways then launches. An AP paddle sorted that out.

Diff, plate LSD is ideal, sounds like you have that already, a short close ratio box also transformed the car, the standard 1600 box has a massive jump 1st to 2nd which on a standard 1900 heavy car was a real pita round the lanes.

Brakes, as much as you can get, Als car had AP 4 pots which he raved about, but the handbrake is also very important and something he never got to work all that well.

Sump guard, big substantial required!

After a few frustrating DNFs and Al getting fed up of the constant repairs needed, the 205 was broken for bits and he has now defected to a Proton, which is a different league to be honest, but not without it's own weaknesses already.

[TAG 25 1 Cars]

Thanks for the replies gents.

The photos flatter the car slightly, it's certainly no minter bodywork-wise. Pretty much every panel has dings and scratches on it...apart from the boot!

 

I took a trip up to Peter Lloyd in the week (pay day!), and picked up a set of Group N dampers, PLR gravel springs, and also a set of Mintex M1144s for the 1.9 calipers I'm putting back on the car.

 

 

I have used Kurust on the floor inside, where there was some surface rust. I also covered the welding repair I did to the drivers side inner rear seat mount, which had split and had caused the handbrake area to sink a little.

The priority I have at the moment is getting the car waterproof! I don't know if I have disturbed the door seals, or if they've always leaked, and having the carpet fitted has made me not notice. The car is kept on my driveway, which has an incline on it. It seems that water is pooling at the bottom of the door, and seeping in through the door seal, is this a common fault with tired door seals?

The drivers side is also leaking from the top, and pooling right around the front seat mount. I have taken a photo of the top where I think it is coming through (excuse the out of focus shot), not sure how I'm going to fix that part yet.

 

I have the final parts of the cage hung up in the garage, ready for a coat of primer.

 

Thanks for the info Tom, I decided to go for the gravel springs. There seems to be contrasting opinions on how high the front of the cars sit on both PLR gravel and tarmac springs, so I'll have to wait and see.

 

I am planning on fitting a 205 drum beam with 21mm torsion bars, so hopefully this will make a good combination - at least it shouldn't be too far off to start with.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[allanallen 528 2 Cars]

The ride height on gravel springs is a little higher than standard i'd say, here's mine on tall (620s from memory) tyres.

 

I found 21mm bars to be a perfect match for them, you may find the rear dampers you have aren't up to the job though, I'd say at minimum you want grpAs

[hudson 10]

I ended up upgrading from 1144 pads to 1166's tbh but see how you get on.Try and find some bx front calipers for the rear a far better handbrake then as the standard one is toss.Best of luck with it as I loved mine in the lanes

[dcc 855]

Ges going from disks to drum on the back! All about that handbrake!!

[allanallen 528 2 Cars]

I'd leave the drums on too!

[TAG 25 1 Cars]

A few more jobs done on the car this weekend. I took the aftermarket speakers out of the parcel shelf, and then glued the covers to the top, to hide the really rough holes cut out for them. Weight saving of 2.4kg!

 

I then got the rear of the car up onto axle stands, and set about removing the 309 beam.

 

 

A short while later.....

 

 

Tada!

 

 

 

 

I then spent a few hours yesterday replacing what was left of the rear bump stops. The O/S bump stop had been chopped down by a previous owner, and the N/S was completely missing!

With the N/S bolt being exposed to the elements, it was an absolute mare to remove, and it resulted in me drilling out and tapping to M10, then cutting an M10 bolt down to size, and a quick wizz in the lathe to bring the size of the head down to enable it to fit in the back of the bump stop. The O/S bump stop came off without issue, and a spray of GT85 around the edge of the rubber made both slide in without problem.

 

Next on the list is to get the 205 drum beam fitted!

 

I have also been keeping an eye on the floor to see how my new door seals have been getting on. No issues all week, but having the car up on axle stands, and therefore pointing slightly downhill, seems to have shown that the front of the sunroof is leaking!

I'm considering just plating over the sunroof, as I'm not a huge fan of the one that's on there anyway.

 

Hopefully more action soon!

[dcc 855]

Best door seals in south wales!

 

Beams on the way, currently have a detour via swansea.

[TAG 25 1 Cars]

I managed to make another chunk of progress this weekend. I started work on plating the roof, and got the new beam on.

 

So starting with the roof. With having the interior out of the car, it's been quite apparent that I've got a few leaks. I had also noticed that the roof lining was wet on the drivers side, right around the sun visor area. I thought that this could either be the sunroof itself, or perhaps the aerial. Dcc mentioned that the aerial can leak, causing water to sit in the map light console, and can even cause fires. So with learning this, and with the sunroof being the probable cause for my leaks, I decided to plate up both of them.

 

On Friday I popped over to the machine shop in work, and found some 1mm ally plate in the scrap bin that would do the job for the aerial plate. I cut it 80mm x 80mm on the guillotine, and rounded off the edges.

 

Two coats of primer, three coats of Halfords graphite grey, and two coats of lacquer, and the plate looked up to the job.

 

I spent a little while taping up and marking out the roof, then drilled the holes and test fitted the rivets. All went together okay, so I popped down to Screwfix and picked up some Sikaflex. A ring around the two holes left by the aerial, and individual rings around the rivet holes, then a ring joining up all the rivet holes, and hopefully this will provide a solid seal.

 

I pop rivetted the panel on, then sprayed some more graphite grey into the aerosol lid, and painted some on over the rivets. I then added more sikaflex to the underside of the rivets, just for good measure.

 

A before shot;

 

 

With the wind deflector removed;

 

 

I also noticed that whoever had fitted the wind deflector in the first place hadn't put any sealant around the O/S bolt, which could have been another place that water was getting in. These holes will be plated over with the sunroof.

 

And here is the aerial plate, if it remains watertight then I'll be happy;

 

 

 

The other job for this weekend was fitting the rear beam. Whilst the beam was off, I treated the underside and the wheel arches to a quick wazz over with some underbody spray that we had in the garage;

 

 

 

 

Earlier in the week I sent allanallen on here a PM on facebook, to see if he had any figures for setting the rear beam when using 21mm bars. He suggested that 318mm would be a good starter. So again, I found a handy bit of 3mm ally strip in the scrap bin in work, and drilled one 12mm hole, and one 14mm hole, 318mm apart.

 

Over the weekend I also knocked up a couple of ally spacers to help give a more accurate reading for the beam height;

 

 

And here they are in action;

 

 

They didn't take long to make, seemed to do the trick, and were yet another handy use of my old Myford ML7 lathe!

 

Earlier in the week I ordered up a set of new sandwich mounts for the beam, as I was certain that the thread was stripped on one of the ones that I had on the car previously.

 

 

The new beam going on has nylon front mounts, so we'll see how this combo works for now, upgrading the sandwich mounts at a later date won't be too much trouble.

 

The beam ready to go on;

 

 

My old man lent a hand, and we had the beam on in no time. Fitted up the Group N dampers, torqued everything up, and stopped for a brew. I then fitted the handbrake cables, and got it adjusted roughly. I'll have another go when it's back down on its wheels. The only other job on the beam now is to make up some new brake lines. I picked up a swaging tool for it a few months ago, so it'll be good practice doing a small run, before tackling the more awkward shapes in the engine bay.

 

I quickly measured the height from the rear arch trim to the tyres, and they were within 2mm, and from the edge of the bodywork to 3 o'clock on the tyre was ~40mm both sides. Happy!

 

 

 

That's it for this weekend, I'll have to wait until it's back down on its wheels before deciding if the beam height needs to be changed, but pretty happy with the amount of work that got done, and it keeps the project moving forward!