New HDi owner!

[simo2007]

I thought I'd make a post here before I post in the project section. I have inherited a 2001 306 HDi Meridian in China Blue from my late grandfather. As I was brought up by my grandparents, he was literally my dad, and one of his wishes just before the end of his 2 year battle with cancer was for me to fix up his car and keep it going. Having a keen interest in cars and doing my own work to them, I promised him I would sort it out.

It was off the road for almost 6 months, so first thing was to get it MOT'd. It passed to my (very pleasant) surprise with just 3 advisories! 

She currently has a shade under 169,000 miles on the clock, and whilst I was at uni (several years back), in my spare time I did a spot of work for my grandad, which involved new brake hoses, new discs and pads all round, cam belt and tensioner kit, water pump, auxiliary belt and a full service.

He had quite an issue with the coolant system pressurising a while after, so I suspect the head gasket may have gone near the water jacket. I've ordered a new expansion tank cap and I will also change the thermostat over the next few days, just to eliminate these parts as problematic. If I let the coolant cool down for 4-5 hours and open the cap, it does hiss but it doesn't fly all over the place (as it did in the past). I am doing 70 miles a day in her for the next couple of weeks to see how she gets on before I start work on her.

My plans for his car are the following:

- Engine out, renew head gasket (including skim and new head bolts), all other gaskets, glow plugs, crank pulley, engine mounts, and all seals including crank seal and driveshaft seals
- New clutch kit, possible gearbox recon as it whines a little bit in 3rd gear when slowing down, I might get some cheap 75W-90 from ECP to see if this helps before I take the engine out
- Recon turbo- at this point I am unsure whether to up-rate it or keep it standard, I believe it's a K03 as standard
- Renew all suspension components front and rear, and see how the rear is doing in particular
- Try and assess why the air con isn't working, I believe there are several pipes that are prone to leaking and the condenser, would be a pain if is leaking behind the heater matrix so I may just do an air con delete
- Longer term: underbody seal and recondition alloy wheels, and get a winter wheel set

Some pictures:





And this is my current daily   



Looking forward to my time here, and also giving back to the 306 community!

[Chris HDI]

Looks very clean for the mileage. Love that you’re keeping it going for your Grandad! Plenty help on here if you need anything

[Mattcheese31]

welcome to the club, that's a really nice story, lovely colour China as well, it's unusual for the HG to go on HDI's, nothing's impossible but worth noting, these will map straight up to about 125hbp with no mods, so if you're after a bit of easy power, have a look in the projects section if you want some serious ideas about going bigger power, any questions please get stuck in and ask if you can't already find an answer

[Eeyore]

Welcome to the club A stage 1 remap will be fun enough for now but theres lots of upgrades people have done. New bilstein suspension and eibach springs all round makes a big difference to the car as well

[simo2007]

Thanks for the warm welcome guys! Looking forward to my time here, taken on board all the advice and will start cracking on soon!

[carlukepeugeot]

Great to see you're doing this. Great way to keep the memories alive. Only thing I would say to you is don't do too much i.e. things that may not need doing. Generally things like balljoints, track rod ends, wheel bearings etc don't need doing unless they are actually worn, nothing to be gained by replacing them - in fact some original parts will be better quality than the replacements. Case in point my last 306 at 214,000 miles still had an original track rod end, original CV's, untouched gearbox. You say there is a bit of a whine in 3rd - again I wouldn't rush into a recon box for that, pretty common. My last one whined a bit on overrun in 3rd and also whined a bit in 5th. Noticed it at at about 150,000 miles and at 214,000 when I sold it, it was no worse. If the box is working fine and not whining terribly then I would leave it. My current durbo whines in 5th between 60 and 70 then quietens down. Not planning to do anything to it and it hasn't changed in the 25,000 miles since I had the car.

Same goes for clutch and possibly seals - if the clutch is not slipping then it may well last a long time yet. The original clutches have a good bit of material on them and can last a hell of a long time. Usually the fork fails before the clutch wears out. Is it dropping oil? May not need any seals if not (they all get a bit oily underneath over time mind you). Hard to be sure but from your pics the back axle doesn't look to have much camber if any, so unless it is rubbing or creaking or doesn't seem to move freely, then don't rush to change it (one 'check' is to pull on the handbrake and put it in reverse and let the clutch out a bit - it will rise way up, then press the clutch back in - does the car drop back down smoothly, quietly and evenly on both sides?). If the axle seems to be good then I would keep it as is and limit back end to axle mounts if they are original.

On the headgasket, I may be wrong but I seem to recall reading about cases of the oil cooler / heater (I am never sure which it is..) seal failing and issues similar to HG failure presenting that way. If so, then I think you can test this by just bypassing the cooler/heater by joining the hoses. Look into this further as I may be wrong, or it may be more obvious when this happens e.g. oil in water etc.

Do what needs done and save your pennies on things that are still in good working order. Bottom pulley might be a good shout if it's the original part, these are known to break up however usually they would give some warning with a metallic squeaking coming from the the bottom pulley (careful though, the aux belt tensioners and even the belt if it is a touch loose, can sound a bit like this too. Bit of water on the back of the belt can help with checking for belt noise rather than pulley noise).

Good luck and ask away if you have any questions. This is a great forum, easily one of the best, people are very helpful and very quick to respond too.

Cheers
Craig

[simo2007]

Thanks very much for your very detailed response, Craig. 

I fully take on board your advice, and normally, I would do exactly that- however it appears to be much easier to take the engine out to sort the HG out and whilst it is out, it would make sense to renew things that are worn and potentially will need renewing in the next couple of years in order to save me some aggro down the line. 

In my experience, at least with my old Clio dCi (which I put 100k miles on), after 120k I had a lot of noisy suspension components, so I just replaced the lot (£180 in parts and an afternoon in time, bargain!) and they caused me no grief with 172k on!

Funny you should mention about the clutch, it has literally just started slipping today, but only in 4th-5th up a very long hill pedal to the metal. Admittedly, I may have got a map from Steve at HDi tuning, but I think there's still life left in it!

I will definitely be replacing the crank pulley as this is making a whirring noise now, and I assume that is the original that came on the car, so it's way past due. 

Everyone's been really helpful so far and I look forward to updating my project thread. If anyone wants to keep an eye on it, here is the link:

https://www.306oc.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?tid=36996