205 GTI Restoration

[rikspeed]

Hey everybody. For those of you who read the last issue of the Peugeotist, you may have seen a little advert in the back posted by Alastair inviting some younger members of the club to take on a very special project.

For the last year, one of his Peugeots, a 1989 205 GTI 1.6 has sat unused in a garage. He wanted one of us young'uns to take it on and restore it to it's former glory. That is exactly what a friend of mine and I decided to do.

When we arrived, we found Alastair next to the garage with the car in question presented for us to see.



After blowing up the tyres and moving some stuff out of the way, we rolled it out to have a look around it in the daylight. Aside from some minor rusting, the shell was good as was the interior and when you consider the car has done 109k miles, that's very respectable.













So it was settled. My friend (Dan) and I had fallen in love with the little car and made arrangements to take it back home.



As I had driven up in my car and we needed someone to steer the 205 on the way back, Dan was the one in the drivers seat and after a thankfully event free drive home, we set about seeing if the car would start and after a jump start, it did! You can see the moment it roared into life in the link below.

youtu.be/HGlPgJ2RGuI

Happy with the day's fruits, we put the car into the lock up and are looking forward to getting some serious work done on it. A respray is planned as well as an alloy wheel refurb as well as some fettling to the engine, clutch, brakes etcetera.

I would like to say a massive thank you to Alastair for giving us this opportunity to work on something this nice. Ultimately, we'd love to have it on the road by the annual meet at Castle Donington in August.

Watch out for more pictures and news coming soon!

[Piston Broke]

That's fantastic news Rik. When I saw the ad I was tempted myself, especially as I only live a mile from Alastair, but with a baby on the way I had to be sensible about the time and expense it would need committing to the project.

I'm glad you got her. Not olnly is the 1.6 GTi my favourite, I can't think of a better home for it, for many different reasons.

[CPUK Events]

Looking forward to seeing the results of your hard work in August!

[rikspeed]

Little update for you all. The car now starts and moves under it's own power which is great but there is still a lot to be done. We are planning a full engine re-build to sort out a rattle that could be the bottom end but we also think it certainly wouldn't do it any harm.

The electrics seem to be in pretty good condition with the only problem being the passenger side window not working on both the passenger door switch and dual control switch on the driver's side. Also the radio will need wiring in but that won't be a problem as all of the audio will be replaced and updated later.

The interior will be given a good cleaning and the steering wheel shall be replaced with a slightly less damaged one.

Finally, my friend picked up a 205 for spares so we've had the bonnet, doors, boot, lenses and a whole lot of GTI stuff that was to be put onto it.

That's all I've got for now. Will update you soon with more news as I get it.