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swordfish210

[misc_work] Mardi Gras Td Runaround

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swordfish210

Hi. I'v taken my 205 XT off the road for a couple of weeks while it pays a visit to Colin Satchells workshop to have some work done on it, and while i complete a few other jobs on it. So i needed another car to get me to work, uni and the suchlike. A quick search of ebay turned up a 205 Mardi Gras TD that had 3 days left, a starting price of £50 (scrap value) and no bids s i e-mailed the owner and went to have a look at it. It was in pretty good nick really but the owener was so apathetinc about it he just wanted it gone so i offered him £90 and he said for that price he'd throw in the JVC 6x9's in the parcel shelf and the tax :D .

 

I drove it home the next day and the drive revealed some problems so i made a list of parts that i needed on the way back (it didnt have a stereo in it and i had an hour to kill)

 

Air Filter

Oil Filter

Oil

Brake Fluid

Gear Linkage Bushes

Droplinks

Suspension Bushes

Parcel Shelf

Stereo

Tyres

Brake Calipers

 

It also needs one hell of a clean and polish. Anyway i got it home and took some pics of it parked next to my XT:

 

DSC00431.jpg

DSC00430.jpg

DSC00429.jpg

DSC00433.jpg

 

The next day i went and bought some bits for it (air filter, oil filter, oil, brake fluid) I also got a bottle of diesel Redex which i chucked in. I then started cleaning the interior. I spent about an hour hoovering it :) as it was really manky inside, loads of fag ash everywhere. I then cleaned out the boot as it was full of junk and i replaced the spare wheel from this very illegal tyre:

DSC00435.jpg

 

to a much more legal tyre that also came with the car. I then replaced the air filter for a Fram foam type:

DSC00437.jpg

 

and i bled the rear brakes. I need some front calipers now and a parcel shelf as the one that came with it had holes for these in it:

DSC00436.jpg

 

I should be able to do some more work on it tomorrow like the oil change ect and i'm going to get some new tyres sorted on Monday.

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danpug

Looks like a steal! I'll give you £100 for it, lol! :)

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Matt Holley

Guess whos got a 205 parcel shelf :D

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swordfish210

I was going to ask if you had one Matt :D

 

I'v done a bit more work on this recently. I bought myself some calipers for £20 and fitted them. I has a right polava fitting them as i only had one of the jacks that come with the car and no axle stands so i did a pretty stupid thing and used a couple of tyres to hold the car up and i got the wheels off and started taking the calipers off. Unfourtanatly because it was very wet outside i had the front of the car in the garage and whilst i was removing the right hand caliper the car slipped off the tyres and crushed me against the side of the garage :( Well i didnt crack any ribs (just ;) ) so i managed to haul the car back up just enough to get it perched back on the tyres and i got straight on the blower to Matt Holley and he came over with a jack and axle stand. We changed the calipers and bled the brakes. I also changed the oil and filter.

 

I took the car on a drive to Heathrow airport yesterday as i was dropping my mum off there and i started to think about what was causing the wandering. I decided it was most likely a bottom ball joint. I got home and jacked the car up againand begain shaking the wheels, the ns suspension was fine but the os had a pretty bad wobble in it, i looked at the suspension and it was the wheel bearing that was loose so i got my torque wrench out a torqued the hubnut up........problem solved :( I then adjusted the handbrake and put some new carpet mats in it.

 

I just need a stereo, a parcel shelf, droplinks and some new tyres for it now and she'll be ready to sell :D

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mid-life crisis

The turbo diesel 205's are great fun and you got a bargain there. Forget Redex as it is useless IMO. Try "Millers" Diesel Power Plus. A couple of capfulls of the stuff cleans the pipes and works wonders!.

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swordfish210

Time for an update on this. I stopped updating over 2 months ago because i was driving thorugh Swindon and i had an altercation at a roundabout with a girl in a Megane resulting in the Mardi Gras looking like this:

 

DSC00550.jpg

 

DSC00551.jpg

 

and her car being decidedly worse off. Anyway we both had the cars values for repair at a bodyshop and they were both deemed "uneconomical for repair" So we just decided to leave it at that being that we were both partly at fault.

Since then the cars just been sat around looking sorry for it's self but i've decided to fix it up now and get it MOT'd so that i can drive it on the road again whilst i'm rebuilding the engine for my XT (again :P )

 

I started on it this morning and after about 15 minutes i had the indicators, headlight and the bumper off. Then came the real shock, the wing just fell off after i had undone all the bolts, despite being a factory wing. I hear all these horror stories about how hard they are to remove and i really wasnt looking forward to it but this couldnt have been easier so i was well chuffed :D

 

Then it was time to inspect the damage. This part of the slam panel was bent:

DSC00552.jpg

 

and it was much the same under the wing, lots of bent metalwork. However after about 30 minutes of pulling, pushing, hitting and even jumping, on the bodywork i had it all reasonably straight:

 

DSC00553.jpg

 

I'v just noticed that in that picture it still looks really crooked but you'll just have to trust me that it is as straight as the other side :D

 

So in order to get the car roadworthy atm i need:

 

Front bumper

FNS wing

NS indicator

NS headlamp

4 tyres (165/70/13)

 

and to get it to a good standard again it needs:

 

A stereo

new gear rods

a really really really good clean and polish

new fuel filters

possiblly a new exhaust centre section

 

if anyones got any of these bits let me know as it would be much apreciated. Thanks. Mark

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swordfish210

Just a quick one. I'v just bought a Sony CD player for the car, but i do need an aerial if anyones got one, just the screw on bit as some pikie half hitched my old one :P

 

Only other thing i forgot to add was that it also needs some new front droplinks as they were an advisory at the last MOT

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swordfish210

I've been doing little bits on the car the past week so i thought i'd update this. First off i got a new stereo fitted. It's a Sony CD player and it looks quite neat in the car, should drive up the value of the car a bit :o

 

The next job was the wipers. When i bought the car i had: wipers on the front, but no washers and on the back i had no wiper and no washer. I swapped the wiper blades on the front because they were as useful as a chocolate teapot. I then checked the voltage at the washer motor and i had 12V there so i bought a new motor from Halfrauds and ....problem solved. I then checked the rear, I got the pump working but no fluid was coming out of the hole. I also got some voltage at the wiper motor but it wasnt working so i went to the scrappy and found a 205 but surprise surprise...it had no tailgate so no wiper motor. I then got pissed off so i just junked the whole lot.

 

I also had some new tyres fitted today. I picked the cheapest tyres they had and they're actually fairly soft so they should have a decent amount of grip for 165 section tyres ;) Whilst the wheels were off i had a look around all of the suspension and found the wishbone ball joint on the off side is wanked and the bushes on the near side are wanked. The rear dampers have also seen better days. So i PM'd Baz asking if i could have the front wishbones and GTI6 rear dampers that he's got forsale. I also scored a headlight for it from a breakers yard and i got some new droplinks from APD.

 

So in the new year i just need to find a wing, bumper, clear indicator, fuel filters, and a set of gear road. I'v gotta pop the ones that are on there off and send the measurements to Miles to see if he's got a set of his metal ball jointed that will fit. It would really help because the gear linkage is probably the worst i'v ever felt on a 205.

 

I'll put some pics up in a bit.

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EdCherry

I probs have the indicator you can have mark, will dig it out while im at the warehouse.

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Matt Holley

I might have some gear rods if they are the same as the usual be3 rods.

 

Are you not swapping the engine in the xt while you do the engine now then?

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swordfish210

Nah i'm gunna use the block from the spare motor that i bought for my new engine. What sort of gear rods are they?

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swordfish210

New stereo:

DSC00554.jpg

 

Removed rear wiper:

DSC00555.jpg

 

New tyres:

DSC00557.jpg

 

New wipers:

DSC00558.jpg

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Anthony
Just a quick one. I'v just bought a Sony CD player for the car, but i do need an aerial if anyones got one, just the screw on bit as some pikie half hitched my old one :o

Bit late, but if you still need an aerial, there's one in my garage that you're welcome to have free if you're over Swindon way again anytime next week onwards - still got those window rubbers of Baz's for you in there as well btw ;)

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Matt Holley
Nah i'm gunna use the block from the spare motor that i bought for my new engine. What sort of gear rods are they?

 

 

Just standard rods nothing special, They didnt pop off or have lots of play though, I would have to did them out first, will have a look tomorrow.

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swordfish210
Bit late, but if you still need an aerial, there's one in my garage that you're welcome to have free

 

Thanks, i do still need an aerial actually. Not sure if i can pop over any time soon but i'll drop you a PM if i can.

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swordfish210

I actually managed to get some work done on this today and it's nearly ready to go for an MOT now.

 

I went to APD the other day and i got myself some new droplinks, some new wishbones and some stuff to do an oil change with. I had also bought a wing and a bumper from ebay off of a car that was being broken.

I left the oil to drain out overnight but not before running a can of this through the system:

 

DSC00576.jpg

 

I started today by filling the oil ssytem back up and changing the filter. I removed the old filter and cleaned up the base plate:

 

DSC00570.jpg

 

and fitting the new filter:

 

DSC00571.jpg

 

i then filled up the oil system and set about on the bodywork. The bumper i ordered on ebay turned up with a front valance and some spotlights so i was pretty happy:

 

DSC00572.jpg

 

so after about an hour of jiggiling, pulling, bending and hitting i had the new wing and bumper fitted:

 

DSC00574.jpg

DSC00573.jpg

 

it looks gash i know but at least it's functional, the headlight and indicator came from the local breakers yard and they only cost me £10. I then moved on to the suspension. I had bought some GTI6 rear dampers from Baz as the ones that were on there sounded as if they had no oil in them whatsoever. Heres the ones i took off:

 

DSC00567.jpg

 

and the "6" dampers stiffened up the rear a fair bit so i was pertty happy with that. I then moved on to the front suspension. The old droplinks were pretty caked so i replaced them with these Delphi ones:

 

DSC00560.jpg

 

and i then removed the old wishbones. The right wishbone had a knackered balljoint and the left one had a knackered bush, when i removed it you can see how much of the rubber had peeled away from the steel insert:

 

DSC00568.jpg

 

so i replaced them with these Delphi ones:

DSC00575.jpg

 

and problem solved. No more play in the front suspension at all. Now i've just got to sort a couple of little problems and i can take it to be MOT'd then.

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EdCherry

Got your MOT booked? Looks good, can join that other red 205 diesel thats often around on a wednesday!

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swordfish210

Not yet, gotta see if Dixon will trailer it to the MOT place for me.

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