Peugeot 106
Mod Diary
Day1
I picked the car up on august the 13th 03 from camden peugeot on the A5
after my parents paid the 3k for it... nice birthday present which i couldn't
live without now. After waiting about 45mins for camden to sort the car
out which was supposed to already have been done, i had to fill it up
with petrol cos they gave me an empty tank the stingy bastards. Aluminum
tax disc holder also fitted.
Day2
I went down to 'TMC' on the high street and purchased a leather gator
and chrome surround for the gear stick, to go with the Sparco globe gear
knob Rhi got me for my birthday. After removing the dodgy one piece stock
rubber gear knob and gaiter i fitted the chrome surround, only the second
day of having the car and im drilling holes in it ARGH. Once mounted they
look pretty damn nice.
Day3
I pop down to TMC again and decide to purchase a Stateside Cherry Bomb
with a Chrome oval outlet. When i return to the car in the car park it
wont start... *i get extremely pissed off as i got the car from a dealer
in the hope it would be good* after running the fuel pump a while it starts
and i book it in at a peugeot garage in Bletchly because Camden decide
to close.
One Week Later
I get the car back and instantly fit the cherry bomb. I did this by firstly
removing the spare wheel from under the car, this way i could fit under
the car easily without having to jack the back up (hence why i seriously
need to get it lowered). I then took a hacksaw and cut the old pipe off
as it was rusted onto the centre section of the system. Now i am left
with a nice blank bit of pipe to try and fix my new one too. As the cherry
bomb inlet was slightly larger than the end of the exhaust i had cut off
i used an adapter, but i had already known this and bought one so i was
not stuck.. planning is very important before you strip your car! the
adapter fitted over the end of the pipe and i put an exhaust clamp over
it and tightened just to hold it. i then got a trolley jack and raised
the exhaust up on it to the exact height i wanted and pushed the end of
the cherry bomb into the adapter and clamped it in place. To hold the
exhaust pipe up i needed to use a mount that would hook into the rubber
mountings that the old box used to, something i forgot to plan for, so
i cut the clip that held the old one on and took it off. However the new
pipe has to hang lower than the old one so i could not use it to cradle
the box instead i slung the box under the mount and attached the mount
the box firmly with a Very large jubilee clip. it was then rock solid,
i finally touched the seams up with some gun gum exhaust putty and was
ready to go. A short drive later reveals its VERY loud and makes the car
accelerate cleaner in higher revs but at the cost of a bit of low down
torque. I'm happy with it.
  
Stuff i have done but cant remember the date
As the Cd player that came with it was deciding to be a bit shitty i bought
a new head unit on ebay for £75 which is an Clarion DB338r and after
ripping the old one out as i didn't have the keys it was fitted and sounds
rather sweet. I later sold the old one for £45 on ebay ha ha sucker.
Ally handbrake cover fitted. Got this off ebay for £10
with postage which i didn't think was bad, to fit all i had to do was
cut the old one off with a stanley knife and then wrap a bit of tape around
the lever to space it out so the cover would fit tightly and then tighten
the grub nut to hold it firmly in place
Blue lit Dice shaped washer jets. John Sheppard kindly sent
me these. simple to fit, all i had to do was unclip the stock washer jets
push the new ones though and do a nut up on the base of them, i then wired
them into the right sidelight so they would come on when the sidelights
did.
Ice Blue Spotlights fitted. These were also kindly given
to me by John Sheppard, these used to be on his FTO so my car was honored.
these were simple to fit simply drill two holes in the bumper(out of sight)
for each light .I Then wired them into the fog light circuit.
 
Induction kit fitted. After some thought i buy a K&N
57i induction kit for the car. at £55 im not put too much out of
pocket. This was the most complicated thing i have fitted so far and even
this was not difficult. I started by stripping the old intake system out.
I took the old air filter and box out, the intake air hose from the front,
the hot air hose from the exhaust and removed the collector and then the
rest of the sensors and junk from the top of the throttle body. the induction
kit was then piss to fit, just clip the crankcase breather hose into the
K&N filter and then clip the filter over the top of the throttle body
and tighten gently with another huge jubilee clip. the cold air intake
pipe was then stretched and fitted to try and get colder air to the filter
but im sure it does sod all. the K&N gives a nice roar under acceleration
now.
 
Stopped by the police for having blue lit washer jets and
had to take documents down the station to prove i had a license insurance
and the car was roadworthy. all is well and i will have a switch fitted
to the washer jets soon.
Original exhaust fitted as the cherry bomb was just too
loud. This was a real bitch as the stock pipe is rather rusty, after almost
having the right shape filed in the rear so it would fit the adapter nicely
the box inlet broke free, as i didn't want to buy a new stock pipe i turned
it around so it was backwards and clamped it on and then welded a nice
chrome tip to the other damaged end. dual square outs. after two weeks
of driving, on the way home from a trip to dorset the joint went and it
roared solidly for a few hrs down the motorway. when i got home i took
the pipe off from just in front of the cat and took it out from under
the car and then welded the box to the pipe with some metal scrap as braces,
this also removed all of the blowing holes. The pipe is now firmly attached
in a nice place and cos the pipe is almost shot its baffles have all gone
and it sounds pretty nice but not too loud, and still gives a nice roar
on acceleration. i would also say the car is quicker now, it seems to
pull a lot better and people sitting in the rear seats can actually hear
themselves think and i don't need to have my stereo on speaker blowing
volume to hear it.
Christmas holiday 03 going on 04
Got some Blue interior neon's from Rhi for christmas. I have fitted them
under the dashboard, was a simple case of screwing them into somit solid
under the dash. I will be wiring all the switches for my lights up into
the ashtray as i don't use it. The neon's look cool at night and they
also flash to the music and you cant see them from the outside so they
are not illegal.
Jan 24th 04
Bought new sony XS-F1331 140watt 3way speakers. These were simple to fit,
simply take the speaker guard off the door with a torx driver which luckily
i got for xmas. Then drill out the rivets that hold the stock speakers
on, pop them out, unplug them and plug the new ones in and screw them
on via self tapping screws into the holes the rivets used to use.
Feb. 1st 04
Mounted speakers in the parcel shelf. I put some white lit washer jets
on my mates car for him in return he gave me some 100watt kenwood's he
had around. Anyway instead of mounting the old front speakers on the rear
which are 15watt i now have these kenwood's which ent bad for free. I
carefully marked out two points on the parcel shelf for the speakers to
go and cut out the holes with a hole saw which was kindly lent to be by
my neibour Bert. after some ripping of fibre glass i have two neat holes
which the speakers dropped perfectly into and i screwed down, i will wire
these up when i can find enough free time.
Feb..4th 04
With the help of a mate from collage called "shaggy" some keys
were made to remove the head unit from the car. One O2 topup card later
the head unit was removed and ready for wiring.
Feb. 5th 04
Again with the help of shaggy i ran some cable from the rear of the
car through in between the two rear seats and under the centre console
and up to the rear of the head unit cage. If you wire up rear speakers
do it the other way round cos its easy to feed wire down the back of the
dash than up through it! I used a bit of wire feed through tied onto the
speaker wires to pull them up. The rear speaker wires were spliced into
the wires that came out of the head unit for the rear speakers... the
car already had rear speaker wires coming out of the back of the head
unit plug but as it had no rear speakers im not sure where they went,
so i left them alone. After the speakers were tested with the wires twisted
around their contacts to make sure it was all ok I left it as it was only
lunch break. In the evening i also ordered some PI lowering springs for
the front of the car, these are 45mm drop springs so it should look pretty
good.
Feb. 6th 04
Time to hide the wires that look rather ugly and tacky draping across
the car floor. To do this i had to remove the passenger front seat as
it was holding the carpet down, i then pulled the door rubber seal up
to expose the carpet grips, these were removed with pliers and kept for
refitting. after pulling the carpet up i ran the wire from the back of
the dash down under the carpet around the foot well and under the door.
after replacing the seat i used some pliers to push the wire under the
plastic rear trim and then around behind the rear seat. it is now completely
hidden until it surfaces again in the boot of the car. I then soldered
it to the rear speakers, when I get some decent rear speakers i will wire
them up on plugs so I can remove the parcel shelf, but for the moment
this will do as the rear speakers are only temporary. Spring order confirmed
and dispatched.
Feb. 7th 04
As new front springs are on their way I decide it is good time to lower
the rear of the car.. torsion bars ent you supposed to be able to lower
them by adjusting them without buying any parts? Well after finding a
guide on lowering saxo rear torsion bars which happen to be the same as
mine i get the tools ready and get to work. Again shaggy comes over to
lend a hand.. after several hours of wondering around Dunstable looking
for my house. Numerous texts asking for directions later shaggy arrives
and we get to work. I started by putting the car in first (so it wont
roll off the axle stands) and jacking it up and putting it on axle stands
so both rear wheels are off the ground. With the car off the ground i
removed the wheels. TIP: loosen all of the wheel nuts before jacking
it up as this is much easier and safer. now with the wheels removed
i attempted to remove the anti-roll bar but it wasn't having any of it,
so i just rotated it around gently with a hammer so i could get to the
torsion bar bolts. After forcing the torx bolt to undo with a lot of force
i go round to the other side and cannot get it undone at all. shaggy has
a go and can neither. I decided to give up and we put the car back on
its wheels
.
Later when feeling board i decide to go down TMC and get
a set of torx that will fit an adapter and on a ratchet. when I return
with the tools i have another go at the bastard bolt. firstly I try an
impact screw driver but it doesn't seem to do anything to the bolt, about
to give up I try with the ratchet and it gives. I will have to make a
tool to grip the torx bit for when i try to undo the other two torx nuts
tomorrow as I cant fit the ratchet into the gap between the bolt and the
flexi brake hose.
Feb. 8th 04
WARNING: before attempting to do this you must know what you
are doing as a new set or rear torsion bars will set you back almost £400
if you mess them up.
After getting up early i quickly get to work on the car and its up
on two axle stands in no time. Using the torx bit and a spanner to turn
it i quickly get the hard to reach bolt from the back of the right torsion
bar. After removing the flexible brake hose mount i can squeeze a torx
bit on a long extension bar to the end of the nearside torsion bar and
then loosen it off with a ratchet. The next task was to remove the little
washers that stop the torsion bars from sliding out. The washers have
an offset hole in them, they are positioned into a slot in the torsion
bar mount to stop it from sliding out. these pry out easily with a screwdriver
or a careful bit of chiseling if the car is old and the washers are held
in with dirt.
Now for the fun bit, removing the torsion bars. As my car
was five years old and they had never been touched they took some er..
persuading to come free but both were removed. Now the ideal tool to use
is a slide hammer, you fix it into the end of the torsion bar and use
it to pull the bar out, however i couldn't find any fore sale in any of
the car or tool shops so i had to make do with hammering the bars out
with a drift and a hammer from the other side. WARNING if you decide
to use this method you must screw something into the end of the torsion
bar so you are not hitting it directly, as this will mushroom out the
head and jam it into the mount and this is not a good idea. Once
the seals were cracked on the torsion bars and they had started to free
i had a tea break.
To set how much you want to lower the car by you must first
measure the distance from the centre of the hub to the wheel arch and
write it down. check both sides for consistency. As the torsion bars are
mounted on splines they only allow the car to be lowered in steps. they
are around 25mm per step i think. To get the right height i put a jack
under the hub and raised it until it was just touching it. i then completely
tapped the torsion bar end free from the spline. To raise the car i then
jacked up the hub slowly pushing the torsion bar back in until i felt
it catch the spline. i did this twice to raise it two notches and then
pushed the bar right back into the spline. I then repeated the process
with the other side and put it all back together.
When the car was lowered onto the ground it should now sit
much lower. mine is now 50mm lower than the specified ride height for
a 1.1 106, and it looks much much better. new front springs are next weekends
project.
Feb. 14th
Armed with the new front springs, a spring compressor and a ball joint
splitter (as well as a variety of std tools) i get to work on the front
of the car. NOTE I would advise you get someone to be an assistant
when you do this as there are parts where you need four hands. It
is easiest to work on one side of the car at a time unless you have a
four-point hydraulic lift. With one side of the front jacked up and the
wheel removed, the first thing to do is remove the drive shaft nut. Remove
the staking on the nut with a punch. This nut is VERY tight (around 240NM)
the easiest way to do it is to put two of the wheel nuts back into the
hub and tighten them, then get your assistant to push the brake pedal
firmly whilst you put a socket and breaker bar on the nut and give it
some. Put the nut in the bin as a new one will be needed when you put
the lot back together. right i cant really be bothered to explain the
rest of this.. if you really want to know get a haynes manual but its
simple,
I removed the tie-rod end and didn't even need the ball
joint splitter that i made for the job dammit. Removed the nut that holds
the McPherson strut to the lower suspension arm and using a copper head
hammer separated the joint. the 3 mounting nuts at the top of the strut
that hold it to the body were then slackened enough to free the drive
shaft from the hub, and the strut was removed. i hung the drive shaft
from the body with some string to stop it falling out or hanging down
and becoming damaged and to stop the transmission fluid leaking out. With
the strut off the body all i had to do was put the spring compressors
on the spring, undo the nut at the top of the strut and remove the spring,
put the new ones on and put it all back together. Do the whole process
on the other side of the car and viola it should be lowered.
My car however didn't drop the 45mm the springs claimed
to drop by. im not sure what caused this but i intend to find out as soon
as i can, you are supposed to allow two weeks for them to settle but they
only dropped the car by 15mm and that was after a short drive to bed the
suspension in, they will not settle the remaining distance without some
help I am thinking.
Feb. 15th
Today i fitted the new rear speakers. Some Pioneer 240watt 6x9s will
do nicely sir. A very short job, just had to widen the 130mm holes in
the parcel shelf out to the right size according to the template, drill
4 small holes around each speaker hole for the self tapping screws to
bite into and then put the speakers in, very simple. I then simply plugged
in the old wires and gave it a blast. RAR some nice bass now.
*Update*
Well i have added quite a lot of odds and ends to the car
since i last wrote anything in the diary.
I have dropped the front suspension some more by putting
some 60mm drop springs on, which with a little modification to the bump
stops and a change of gear box oil, now has the car sitting with a much
better lower stance. wasn't too hard to do just a quick swap this time
as all of the nuts weren't seized to the bolts.
July 12th
Due to the MOT coming up very soon i decided to replace the old back
box. I fitted a Custom Chrome "WASP" silencer... ok so its a
cheapo one but it looks and sounds pretty nice. It has a twin 3"
slash cut oval exit which looks nice. To fit the back box is a relatively
easy task. as the old one was welded on i dropped the system from the
down tube back out from under the car and then cut the old back box off.
with that out of the way i positioned the new back box on a jack and raised
it to the level and position i wanted it. I then fitted the main pipe
back to the car and made a few links out of some bent pipe sections and
tack welded it all in place (after making sure the fuel tank was shielded
from the reach of welding spatter) then with the exhaust still on the
jack i fabricated some mounts to hang the back box from. i found this
easiest to do with the box on the car so you get the mounts in exactly
the right place so it hangs correctly. finally when satisfied it was all
in the right place i took it out from under the car and welded it all
up strong.
I then tested it and found it to be a rather noisy back
box. To solve the problem slightly i bought a small cherry bomb centre
section pipe and placed this in-between the cat and the back box to replace
a bit of straight pipe. as the pipe i was replacing was straight it only
took about an hour to fit. just cut the old pipe section out and fit the
new bit in and weld it.
To finish the system I simply cleaned up all of the joints
and rusty spots and painted it all in VHT black paint to protect it a
bit. Then i simply fitted it back under the car and hooked up all of the
rubber mounts and went for a drive. driving reasonably gently because
the VHT paint has to cure properly.
Also i have fitted an air scoop for the induction kit behind
the front grill and replaced the plastic grill with a nice aluminium drilled
style mesh. it looks much better and tidier than before.
  
September 25th
The adhesive on the competition mesh kept failing so i have bolted
it on with some nice stainless steel button hex head bolts, looks very
tidy and nice again.
Wondering what the car would be like without a cat i removed
it and replaced it with a straight through pipe, this was however much
too loud and i then put the cat back but replaced the small cherry bomb
centre section with a larger one and its a bit quieter now.
  
October 1st
The wipers really were poo so i have replaced them with some new
champion ones which set me back £30 for three of the buggers.
October 3rd
Today i changed the oil and filter, filled her up with 0-40W fully synthetic
MOBIL 1. cost a few bob. Also popped the exhaust off to add some VHT paint
to the welds as i don't want them rusting over the winter too much.
 
October 10th
Today i fitted some new front discs and pads as the old ones were worn
and the brakes don't feel too good. only took 30mins per wheel a nice
quick easy job. Was going to change the rear shoes but the type the haynes
manual said get were wrong
October 24th
Finally got around to changing the shoes on the rear drums. one of
the bearings was stuck so that took some beating to get it off. the shoes
didn't look too worn but they were badly torn around the trailing edges
of each shoe. after cleaning and rebuilding the handbrake mechanism and
the other gubbins inside they should work better. as the pedal is still
soft i am going to get a brake bleeding kit at some point and try that.
October 30th
Got my new stereo and installed it. This wasn't as easy as i had hoped
as the unit didn't fully use ISO plugs. Being a high powered alpine unit
it needed a direct feed from the battery and a new earth. This involved
10mins of being squashed under the dashboard looking for some holes in
the bulkhead to get a wire through. When i finally found a small one just
that emerged just under the master cylinder which was perfect to reach
the maxi fuse box. To get my arm in to push the wire through the hole
(as it was impossible to get to by hand from behind the dash) i had to
remove the fuse box mount and squeeze my arm down into the engine bay
in between the master cylinder and strutbrace, i then managed to push
the wire through enough to pull it from inside the car. Then the wire
was pulled through and threaded up behind the dashboard into the stereo
mounting space.
Fitting the new earth was much less hassle, which was done
by simply threading a bit of wire behind the dash and down the to earth
point behind the carpet on the nearside foot well. I then crimped on some
bullet plugs onto the cable and some ring plugs and fitted them to the
live and earth locations. Installing the stereo it self was very easy,
the cage was fitted to the fascia adapter and then pushed into the housing
and the retaining lugs bent into place. Then to finish it the wires were
connected to the back off the new alpine unit and it was slide home. I
then spent the next 15mins playing with the settings and tunning the radio
in. works a treat and is even better than i thought it would be.
 
November 11th
With the old tyre's tread getting a bit thin i decided i needed to get
some new ones but seeing how much this would cost me i decided that i
would go for a wheel deal and FINALLY get some alloys. Sounds simple right?
buy some wheels... take the old ones off and put new ones on. Not as easy
as it sounds when you try to replace a 165/70 R13 setup with a 195/50
R15 setup. firstly the front wheels caught on the McPherson strut so i
had to put a spacer on but seeing the still scrubbed badly and the fitting
kit came with the wrong size hub locator spacers and wheel nuts, I went
back to halfords and ordered a fitting kit. This has 20mm spacers! and
comes with longer wheel bolts of course. After looking at the spacers
i realised i would have to order some new locking wheel nut which were
twice as long dammit.
This attempt i decided to try the rear wheels first, the
wheel clears all of the back fine if a bit close in places (misses the
anit-roll bar mount by 1mm or so), when i lowered the car down gently
i noticed that the wheel was going to scrub the fold on the arch so i
would have to get the arches rolled or get thinner tyre's. Thinking about
it and noticing that the top of the pugs rear arches are pretty flat i
decided to do it myself. Firstly i heated the paint a bit with a hair
drier in the hope it would stop the paint cracking, I then tapped the
fold over gently working evenly along the panel and back down again with
a tapping hammer. As a final safeguard against the arches scrubbing on
the tyre's i pushed them out a bit. I did this by simply putting a bit
of thin wood behind the arch and pushing it out from against the inside
of the arch with a small jack. With the rear sorted i painted the drums
in halfords blue caliper paint and put the wheels back on for the night.
Tomorrow i plan to get the fronts fitted, and sort out the front grill
as it has fallen off yet again due to some arse kicking it when it was
in a carpark.
  
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