Red Rallye resto

[Ben_w]

More than welcome to come and have a look and a brew mate!

Anyway, there are a few more update bits for this.....

Desperate to escape the seemingly never ending conveyor belt of X Factor type shows or celebs doing some rubbish stuff which is now churning out rubbish on a Sunday night, I escaped to the garage on Sunday night.

I was keen to see in what condition the bumpers and skirts I took off were in. Please excuse the lack of pics but my phone protested it was cold and the battery went flat pretty quickly….

First job was the front bumper. Now, you may remember when the front end all came off, I found evidence it had previously been bumped as it had a slam panel with 'Thatcham approved’ stickers all over it. I was never able to separate this from the bumper as a rusty bolt had sheared it's captive weld and was just rotating inside the bumper moulding. I noticed the slam panel was a bit rusty around the flange of the nut so after a couple of other attempts, I gave up and wellied it with the hammer which pushed it through the slam panel and separated the panel from the bumper. Slam panel is getting replaced so happy days. I then noticed the first bodge…



In that pic, the nut I hammered is top right. Bottom left is clearly a stud that sheared when the insurance repair was happening as the stud should have gone through a hole in the slam panel…..except said hole was still covered by a sticker and the sticker was unbroken. Further inspection revealed the bumper isn't in great shape. Grill is broken in several places…









Again, no major issue as I've a brand new one of these in the Peugeot bag in the garage. The rest of the bumper isn't great though either. Dents, scrapes, poor touch ups, bent corners & broken brackets….









I'll keep this as a spare but I'll be adding a new one to the parts list. I'll need to transfer the fog blanks over but then given a new pair are only £15 from Peugeot, I might just get some new of those too.

Rear bumper. Generally in much better shape although I suspect this is because it had paint recently. Not the greatest job as there were runs both sides...I suspect it has slightly too much paint which ran…



Got busy with a sanding block. Was taking it off nicely until i adjusted the angle and went through what I think was a thin bit of paint.



Again, not a massive issue as this bumper will also need paint if I'm to keep it….







I'll put the feelers out for a new one of these too….polished up ok though!



So, body work aside, I got in some more with the engine. All the ancillaries are off and it's pretty much a bare block, just the oil filter and a couple of pipes to go. I drained the oil and set about trying to get the sump off to check the oil pump sprocket. Need to check it's the later version with the keyway, rather than the earlier friction fit version. I'll upgrade if it's the earlier version as these have been known to fail. They just spin on the shaft and you lose all oil pressure. I've already checked it has the later style, single bolt cam pulleys which is good. I noticed that the sump appears to have been off at some point as it looks like it's been put back on with a load of sealant (I'll get pics), supported by the fact that despite removing all the bolts, the sump doesn't want to come off…….even with a drift, a big hammer and touch not best described as delicate. I'll check I've not missed something stupid and try again at some point.

I'm just starting to make several lists:

Jobs to do
Things to buy

Both are growing at an alarming rate! First job really is save some £££ and have the front end blasted. I can't do any more on the body until this is done. I can't have the bulkhead welded either until thats done.

Following a heavy weekend of drinking, sport (we played in the Peoples FA Cup 5-a-side competition Saturday) and too much food (friends round last night and then out for mahoosive Sunday dinner with family today), I did a bit of tidying up, and sorting out of stuff with the 306.

The biggest news is that my brand new bonnet arrived. My parts man stumbled upon a pair new at a dealership local to him. Given mine came off worse following an incident where I'd whacked my head, again, and decided to lash out at the nearest thing (the bonnet) and practised an uppercut on it, coupled with the rust I'd been finding, a new one made lots of sense, especially at the price.

It has a couple of storage dings which a small amount of prep will sort. It's a genuine panel, and the correct part number for my Rallye. Important as there were a couple of changes over the years. I then had a look at the badge on my existing bonnet to check it would fit and discovered the mounting lugs are broken. I think this is where i pushed my buggy back into it and the engine cage has caught the badge. One more bit for the parts list....

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My parts man, Craig, also managed to find a new bolt for the power steering pump. A really odd bolt, which is now marked NFP I think and we only managed to find two across all his contacts europe-wide....the other one went to someone else as they had the same issue as me with it shearing during removal