Red Rallye resto

[Mighty306]

You're taking attention to detail to new levels Ben!

It's probably not a bad thing to have a new windscreen Ben. My daily has a newish one n its nice n clear. My other car has an original windscreen. It's covered in micro scratches - really distracting at night. Would like to try to do something about it.

[Eeyore]

yes! it looks so easy when youve got the right tools. We should get a club jig and then send it around the country doing all the cars.

[Magenta Sunset]

yes! it looks so easy when youve got the right tools. We should get a club jig and then send it around the country doing all the cars.

how much would be needed?

[Ben_w]

[Eeyore]

What a find!

[Ben_w]

Yeah, it wasn't bad.....

Next step is to etch the vin. I have a template, thanks to Rikky. I also have a 1mm punch.


Watch this space.

[Piggy]

Finds amazing original screen...
Smashed it etching the vin

[cully]

use acid to etch the glass

[Ben_w]

Confirmation this morning that one of the chassis panels from Belgium is found, packed and will be on its way in the next week. Sadly, it's the same number as the one found in Tenerife so the hunt continues. Parts man has a lead on one but the dealer isnt currently responding to messages.....

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Sorry guys, don't think I made it clear regarding the VIN.....I'm certainly not etching the screen with a punch!!!!

Rikky has sent me the template he created. I've got a vinyl sheet. I'll stick the template to the vinyl sheet and use the punch to punch out the characters to give me the template to etch the screen, which as Cully says, I'll use an acid to do so.

[Ben_w]

So, a little progress, but not much....

The chassis panel arrived from Belgium. Pleased as this is for the passenger side and that side has been patched (very neatly and well I might add) in the past. I think I'll end up replacing the whole panel. Alignment issues I was worried about can be overcome by bolting up the subframe and using as a guide.





Onto the windscreen VIN template. Rich sent me it in a file format I could print out. Armed with half a dozen copies, i cut out the print off, stuck it to a sheet of vinyl and got punching. Now initially, I'd ordered a 1mm punch as this is the size of the dots. However, it's slightly tapered and as I was punching through, the punch would go through further and open out the holes too much. Hmmmm. Didn't help I was punching onto a sheet of card.





Ordered another punch, this time 0.5mm and nicked an old plastic chopping board from the wife and punched onto that. Much better results.



Still a couple of issues to resolve. The template size isn't quite right. Compared with the original, it's not as wide although letter height appears about right. I will remeasure and see if Rich can alter it. The W on the print off is also wrong compared to the W on the screen. Couple of extra dots along the base which should be easily sorted. I'm also going to try printing directly onto the reverse side of the vinyl and punch through from that side. Means the side that will sit against the screen for etching will have the cleaner punch marks although I'll have to figure out how to flip the image for this....

[cully]

ben you should be able to get that vynal cut straight onto a sticker from a sticker maker, then your good to etch

[Ben_w]

Rikky tried it Paul, on two different machines. Neither could hack it.

[Ben_w]

So with the forecast for.today being awful, I hadnt got much planned. In the end, I think the forecast rain came early when it arrived late yesterday so today the weather was great so after bumbling around most of the morning, I nipped out to see a mate and borrow some spot weld drill bits. Got home, got busy.

It became apparent fairly quickly that removing this panel was exactly the right thing to do. Drilling spot welds around the section where it wraps around the main chassis leg was interesting....lots of rust coming out. I knew it wasn't great, this had me worried though.













I eventually drilled though enough spot welds (and the floor in a couple of places.....) to enable me to get a cold chisel between panel and chassis leg. The metal was so thin and brittle, it took next to no effort to split it and peel it back. Yuck. Chassis leg appears solid, although I won't know for sure until the panel is fully stripped off but the inside of this panel is rusty too. As said, I'm happy I've taken the decision to strip it off.









The other side of the car is worse. It's already been patched previously to me owning it. It's a tidy job but there is double skinned section very near a subframe mount which looks very rough indeed. It's a double skinned section and I can see the second layer....red circled bit...



Desperately need to find the panel for the other side. Craig is on the case but it's not readily available to him on his list of parts that he can see......there was one listed but wasn't there when called on. The search continues.

[Piggy]

Ooof! Effort!
I'd second the idea of use of the jig...

For the acid etching... Could you get someone like Sam Rowell to do a 3d print of it??

[Mighty306]

I'd rather not think about what lurks below all those seams!!  Good work as always Ben.

[Ben_w]

I'd rather not think about what lurks below all those seams!!  Good work as always Ben.

Well, actually, it wasnt as bad as you'd think.....read on Garçon 

So having the week off, and it finally stopped raining today. So we went shopping

Once that was out of the way, i decided that the rotten stiffener panel would met with a timely, horrifc death consisting of fire and brimstone (well, a cutting disc on the grinder..... ).....which it did. Its taken a while and its been a pig of a panel to get off, but its off.







Appears only the panel itself was the rusty/rotten bit. Chassis leg has some surafce rust and a very small amount of pitting but other than that, is all good underneath. New panel fits well, which to be honest, i guess you'd expect being a peugeot panel. 



Still searching for the other one, weve had no luck finding that so far, which is a bit of a bugger as the other side is perhaps the one more needing of replacement but ill do both as long as we can find it....

[Danny Wideboy]

Good to see this project progressing still.
It's one of the best threads on here ATM.
Fair play for restoring one, not seen anybody else do it yet so good on you.
Please keep us updated with any progress.

[Magenta Sunset]

I'd rather not think about what lurks below all those seams!!  Good work as always Ben.

Well, actually, it wasnt as bad as you'd think.....read on Garçon 

So having the week off, and it finally stopped raining today. So we went shopping

Once that was out of the way, i decided that the rotten stiffener panel would met with a timely, horrifc death consisting of fire and brimstone (well, a cutting disc on the grinder..... ).....which it did. Its taken a while and its been a pig of a panel to get off, but its off.







Appears only the panel itself was the rusty/rotten bit. Chassis leg has some surafce rust and a very small amount of pitting but other than that, is all good underneath. New panel fits well, which to be honest, i guess you'd expect being a peugeot panel. 



Still searching for the other one, weve had no luck finding that so far, which is a bit of a bugger as the other side is perhaps the one more needing of replacement but ill do both as long as we can find it....

could a local metal fabricator knock you one up?

[Ben_w]

Short answer is no, i dont think so, and if they could, it would be prohibitively expensive.

The panel is made up of 3 or different sections, part of which hold a captive nut for the subframe in. Its nowhere near as simple as you'd think. I will get some pics of the inside of the panel tomorrow

[Eeyore]

Seen the photos on fb. This has to be the furthest anyone has gone so far!

[Ben_w]

Here's a couple of pics of the inside of the panel...





Made up of 5 separate sections!

[Paul Baldwin]

Someone out there would be able to pretty much replicate that but as you say it would cost you a fortune to do it. I've got a very similar job to do on a ZX16v soon but I certainly won't be going as far as you are with this, fair play to you :-)

[Piggy]

#effort

[Ben_w]

Thanks for the support and encouragement guys! It is much appreciated.

Yes, it is a lot of effort, but again, all comes back to what im trying to achieve with this restoration in making it one of the best Rallyes around. If its worth doing etc.....

[Mighty306]

Here's a couple of pics of the inside of the panel...





Made up of 5 separate sections!

Mmm, interesting. When the subframe is next off I might spray a shed-load of Dynax S50 through the bolt holes.

[Ben_w]

Yeah, that might be worth doing. I will say however, that the inside of the factory panel (other than the point where its clearly been incorrectly used as a jacking point) and the metal that it covers are in extremely good shape. You can see that on my pics above.

I will still bare metal and then zinc prime and mastic the floor that this panel covers. Belt and braces and all that. In all honesty, ill probably do the same with this panel too. Have it blasted and then apply the same stuff

[Ben_w]

Got a bit more done today....

First job was to finish tiding where the old stiffener panel came off. Easy enough to do. Had to get the cutting disc on just to cut off a couple of small bits of old panel but all done easily enough. I then got all the exposed and cleaned up bits sprayed with Electrox.

I then had a look at the brake line clips in the front inner wings. Now, I never removed these for blasting as they were a pig and would come off but discovered they are in a threaded stud and just screw off. Needed the grips to hold and twist them to break them free of the rust but glad I did....underneath, more of the factory stone chip that whilst not looking brilliant, didn't look too bad. Until i peeled it back....again, failure of the coating and rust with a radius of about an inch, out from the base of the stud. 5 mins with the grinder and brush and all sorted....











Then onto the next job. Still have the servo I took off the 6 I broke. One in the Rallye currently isn't great at all cosmetically so decided to clean this one up and will replace the one in the car with this.









Mostly done. Just the joint between the two halves to do but that will probably need blasting to get in there. Undecided if I'll paint or powder coat this....

Then spotted a bit more I wasn't happy with, but only noticed it when the car was.rolled over as in a tight bit of the engine bay. Again, grinder and brush and sprayed with Electrox.





Last job of today was to offer up the new stiffener panel now all the old bits were out of the way. Fits very well indeed, couple of tweaks and the fit is great......







Apart from this bit. Still too much of a gap for my liking. Little more.fettling required.

[Ben_w]

Today, having watched the last half hour of Le Mans (really got into that this year….watched it late into the night last night, loved it!) and having done all the fathers day stuff (including going to see my dad, who wasn't in, and landing sunday dinner cooking duties!!), i got to play a bit with the Rallye.

Started out by doing a test section on the underside where i wet sanded the zinc primer. Like the small section of Epoxy mastic, im not happy with the brush marks in the finish. BHs guide say it can be wet sanded to a point. Im planning on wet sanding and then asking my mate if he can spray the new 1ltr tin i have (again, can be sprayed if thinned correctly). I'd like a really decent finish on the underside too. Not sure if i'll have to wet sand too much of the original coat to the point it wont protect properly so as i've got some more, i'll get it sprayed on. Didn't get any pics of this although i'm sure you've all got an imagination

Next step was to get rid of some more of the blast media that still seems to in there. This inside the inner wing.



A slight opening up of the panel and out it came.

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So with that done, i decided to move onto the heater fan….thanks to Mr Blaster who just seemed to shove the nozzle anywhere, including fan air intake, the fan was full of media. Joy. So i started by popping out the glovebox (pain as the hinges have two plastic pins needing removal, one of which you need to be a contortionist with the hands of a 5 year old to get to. Removed eventually. Popped the rubber cover off the power & earth wires and media is peeing out already. Not good.



Wires removed. You can see around the joint line on the fan unit and on the bracket i removed the evidence of the matrix failure.



What has someone been doing to the wiring? I need to chase this back further and see what is what...



The fan innards…..yuck.








This is what came out of it….



Evidence of the previous (known about) matrix failure



Then, the piece de resistance…. I had a look at the bulkhead and though hmmmm, sound deadening looks a bit odd. Because it is. Someone has been at it with a stanley knife.



Couldn't figure out why, until i pulled the carpet forward. WTF is that i thought? Very quickly dawned on me that someone has drilled the bulkhead. Ill guess to run a power cable to the boot for some stereo gear, i can't think why else, unless its had a battery relocation done at some point in its past (i know it was stripped to be a track car) but havent found anything else to suggest this is the case



The offending bulkhead hole.



So a little more welding to do and more parts on the shopping list. Ill test the fan motor on the bench but might put a new one in for good measure. The housing it sits in has clearly been prised open as the two halves don't go together properly and clips are broken. Pain to change that and i may well yet have the dash out completely. Need to chase back that fan wiring and see whats what and im half tempted to chuck another matrix in it while the dash is out.

[Ben_w]

Did a bit more to the Rallye today. Since finding what i found previously, its becoming more obvious the dash needs to come out. But for now, it was about removing the passenger seat and carpets.

First job was to get it off the jig again as i need to be in and out of the car frequently. Not doing that with it on the jig so for now, its back on axle stands again and with it back in terra firma, out came the seat and i got busy on removing the carpet. Centre console comes out first and the first thing i find is a broken mount.





Not the end of the world but maybe something else to replace. With that out, i undid the dash mounts at the base of each A pillar and removed door seals. Little surface rust underneath but nothing to worry about.





Then removed the front carpet. First thing i noticed is that its been cut in half and it's in two pieces rather than one. Not a huge issue as you cant tell once everything is in and it's perhaps easier to remove. The foam backing to the front carpet sections was very wet though, so they are in the back garden drying out. Interesting there is a polystyrene section under the drivers side carpet which goes under the footrest to the left of the clutch pedal.



Then the lump in the floor from being jacked in the wrong place..



The bigger surprise was the passenger side floor. The sound deadening was already cracked and lifted but taking out the body plug, which had been sealed in, revealed it hadn't sealed very well at all…..



The bigger surprise was yet to come…..i pulled up the bottom of the bulkhead sound deadening to find…….



A 13mm ring spanner thats clearly been there for some time! And then, on removing the rear carpet….



A T10 torx bit! I know this car has been apart before but leaving tools in it? Well, ill take them.

So, with all the carpets removed, there was plenty of mess to clean up.





I took the opportunity to have a look at the seat pretensioner wiring for the driver's seat. This is the one i had to cut off from the seat and, i suspect, the cause of the airbag light on the dash. Interestingly, the drivers side wiring has an odd date code, 18/10/1999, which leads me to think this has already been replaced once as its different to the date on the other side, and, manufactured after the car was built.




Still, it will be replaced again and see where we go. Theres also plenry of evidence of it being poorly put back together at some point. Hacked fittings, and thats assuming they actually bother to do the nuts/bolts/screws up etc...



There isn't a huge amount else i can do right now until i find this other stiffener panel, which still hasn't appeared anywhere. I may well investigate and see if this panel is common across the 306 range (im hoping so and cant see why not?) and may try and find a shell with one still intact. No point having any of the welding work done until i know what's happening with that.

[Mighty306]

Like you, I would have assumed the body & rails were the same across the whole range. Made a quick check of Servicebox & the Rallye, 1.4 and 1.6 had the same part numbers.  I didn't go through the whole range but have to assume they all used the same stiffeners.

My centre console has broken fixing points too but doesn't seem to rattle around as a result.  I'd be surprised if you were able to source one of those new but I recon it could be repaired with a bit of ingenuity!