Peugeot 106GTI

Firstly I had the car up on axle stands and gave it a good look over, I soon found out some parts to replace, some parts missing and some general cleaning up needed. The steering rack was missing an end cover so I picked up one from the breakers yard along with a new washer pump as that wasn't working either. Cleaned the exposed end of the rack up, re greased it and then fitted the new cap I got. I fitted the new pump from a later 106 which seems to spool up faster, along with the newer style plug soldered and some heat shrink on.

I then decided I needed some decent music in the car. With the old stereo out I could see the complete mess someone had made before so out came the soldering iron and heat shrink again. I also took the crappy fusion components out that sounded naff and fitted some rainbow ones I had just waiting for a use.

More cleaning and parts replacing was needed. A moulded rear wiper improved the look of the back of the car, followed by the removal of the interior seats which allowed me to Hoover and scrub the carpets up nice. Looks much nicer and smells better too. The water that came out from the soap bowl was rather disgusting and you can see how much cleaner it looks in the last of the three carpet pictures

Next it was time to fit a new drop link, some Bilstein B8 shocks and some 35mm lowering springs. Not a hard job but give yourself plenty of time in case something goes wrong. the top nut did not want to come undone off the original shocks so I had to undo the shock clamp nuts and then take the whole shock and fit it in a vice to get the top mounts off. The shocks were tired originals anyway so I wasn't too worried about ruining them doing this. The new Billies popped right on along with the Apex springs and cleaned and greased top mounts, while it was all off I gave the arches a good clean and SRP too.

Over the next few weeks I did a number of little jobs on the front suspension including changing the gearbox oil, changing the offside driveshaft as the boot had gone some time ago and it had been pissing out all the grease and taking in dirt and was now slack as fook. (note the temporary bin liner boot I made to stop the grease fling whilst waiting for the new shaft) I'm still waiting on the nearside driveshaft to come in as its been on back order from France forever.

When I had the driveshaft out I noticed how bad the wheel bearing was on the offside so I changed that too. Not the easiest of jobs as the old bearing fell apart so I had to bosh out the old outer race using the inner race in backwards and then split the inner race still attached to the hub but grinding it a bit and then splitting with a cold chisel. resulted with it safely off and no damage to the hub though so all good. The near bearings pressed in easily after a clean up using an ally spacer I made in Bert's mahoosive vice. All re-assembled and jobs a goodun with new hub nuts.

The gear shift on it was like a bus and not wanting to spend a fortune on the car I knocked up a budget quick shift in a spare hour I had. Don't be fooled thinking this is just some redneck bodge as its plenty strong enough to do the job and is exactly the same as the B&M quickshifts you can buy (I know as I took the measurements off the one on the nana) but its free instead of £100! I just cut a section out of the top side of the pivot ball and welded it back into the bottom side of the pivot ball. This is effectively moving the pivot up the gearstick meaning less movement above for more movement below. To make sure it would be strong I filed the welds smooth and then welded some 1.5mm sheet in the form of a strip over the joint and wrapped it around to sleeve the weld. I would have used a tube but didn't have any the right size and it wouldn't have been possible to get it over the ends once the extensions were welded in. If you want to have a go at it yourself the pictures are pretty self explanatory. With it cooled and then fitted the gearshift is MUCH improved and easier to locate, I am going to finish off by making some shift linkages and maybe replacing the front pivots on the bulkhead.

After much reading on the internets I decided it was time to get the old rotary out and have another bash at polishing (after using a crap guide before and messing it up and hiding it away in the cupboard) I bought some Menzerna pads and compound and gave it a try on a scrap Diablo bonnet i got from A5 salvage. I masked off a couple of areas and had a bash, also testing with the old G3 and G10 I had from previous attempts. Now knowing you have to work the polish hard until it breaks down I was left with some pretty stunning results and found the G3 followed by G10 (and on cheapo silverline sponges) although very messy proved much easier to use and gave better correction than the Menzerna which I had to work much harder. No holograms or swirling could be detected after either! only stuff I hadn't corrected but no self inflicted stuff.

With the MOT looming I thought it best that I fitted some new boots, the resulting car full of rubber came from eBay for £145 delivered for four. These were taken to Ian at Buzzard motorcycle engineering and a few hours later the car was full of skanky old tyres and on its way home. I also spent some time with the seats out again running the sub power cables and RCAs down to the rear of the car although I only have two piks of me wangling the power cable through the bulkhead via the bonnet popper cables grommet which it happened to fit spot on.

With its lumpy idle and occasional hesitation I got to work cleaning sensors and replacing a few of them and doing some maintenance on parts of unknown condition. Firstly I changed the upper engine mounts lower section which was about to fall apart and the lower engine mount. Then I took the coil pack out (had to drill out 3 of the screws as the TX heads were rounded out) And replaced the sparkplugs. The coil pack was cleaned and refitted with new cap heads. I then turned to the throttle body which I removed and thoroughly cleaned, which was when I noticed the throttle cable button was holding on by one and a bit strands so another trip to Peugeot came up trumps and a new cable was fitted too. This lightened up the throttle action a considerable amount so I may do the clutch as well as this is also stiff. I removed the idle control valve and gave that a good clean, fitted a new MAP sensor as that was full of crap. I removed and cleaned the crank sensor as the gearbox input shaft is leaking a bit and it gets covered it clutch dust mixed with oil (a job for next year gearbox seals and new clutch) and whilst I was at it I went under the back of the car and checked the bias valve wasn't seized. Which it wasn't so I gave the hinges a good squirt with grease to make sure it doesn't any time soon.

I have lowered the back of the car as well now and it sits just right (see the photos of it afterwards from the 106OC meet in the pictures section) I have also fitted a genuine standard exhaust system manifold back. The torsion bars popped right out much to my amazement, covered in grease so I'm guessing it was lowered and raised back to standard in the past. Cleaned them up and re-greased before refitting them.

The last photo of the nana *wipes eyes*, along with the diablo and the missus's lil S1 1.1

Painted the cam covers white, fitted a 'Raceland' enclosure from KAM racing along with a big 'Green' cotton filter. The white paint is going funky but still its working that's the main thing. Also had a crack with the rotary on the boot. comes up a treat so moved onto the dull lifeless swirled to fook roof and spoiler and they came up a treat. Check out the beading from that 'Dodo Juice' 'Purple Haze' which not only seems to last a good while but smells gorgeous too! Finally did the right rear quarter panel which also now gleams. Need to do the rest of the car weather permitting. Due to getting down and dirty in the mud and finding some slag flaps on the cheap I went ahead and fitted them. think they look silly in a good way so they can stay for now! They should look better once the wheels are painted white too.

Got my pug-sport today so fitted that. I think scorpion have got their act together as it fitted perfectly first time (no piks yet) and only took about 45mins to do start to finish. sounds and looks ace and is also stupidly light.