#1: Project Phoenix -> Teaching an old dog new tricks: Day 11 Author: VorTechS, Location: Gloucestershire, UKPosted: Mon Sep 12, 2016 10:18 am ---- Not a lot of people know this, but my 'beast' of a 1.6 (or not for those that insist a 1.6 cannot be such a thing) has finally succumbed to age and a general lack of time to keep 'her' up and running as the daily.
Over the years the alloys have gone to pot, the 'stereo' system has broken down, the engine hasn't been maintained as well as it should have been and the axle has finally given up the will to live.
The bonnet is verging on the edge of a motorway disaster, the air filter has definitely seen better days, the gearbox is idling like a tractor, the handbrake is nigh on vertical and the brakes are spongier than a self-perpetuating bouncy ball in a squash court. The blower motor decided to snap itself in a fit of depression years ago and to add the final nail in the coffin, one of the 3 year old Khumo's has given up and slashed itself somewhere secret in a bid for it all to be over.
Those that have met me know that what I know about the humble 206 borders on almost useless, I mean it's not hard to remember about swapping the red and yellow wire, right? And the most advanced thing I ever did to her was to replace the fan relays after 5 years of resorting to cabin heating to stop her sweating like a menopausal woman.
So last week, after blowing out the suicidal Khumo trying to get the old girl home on Tyre weld, I had a decision to make.
It's fair to say she's in a very sorry state and you might think now is the time to give up and concentrate on bigger and better things. But we already have the 308 5-door (which by the way, in the same week also decided to have an axle issue which was luckily repaired under warranty), and at the weekend we bought Mrs VorTechS a run-around Ford Ka(ck).
For only about the 3rd time in the 13 years of owning the 206, I took out the trusty Haynes manual and had a read through whilst scanning Facebook, Ebay and Gumtree for potential replacement vehicles and all the various problems they'd had in their previous MOTs.
A light went off. I can actually read this trusty guide to the 206 and you know what, I think I finally get it. The brake system isn't that hard to comprehend. Head gaskets blown? Replacing it can't be THAT hard can it? Heck, even the timing belt doesn't seem overly complicated.
I can custom build PCs, write and debug computer software, build ponds, stud walls, custom-made sheds and chicken houses.
I think it's time I learnt properly how to sort out a car!
So here starts Project Phoenix, a project that's going to teach me [a once car-ignorant 41 year old] new things and one where I'm going to dive in and do the stuff to bring the old girl back up to scratch to make me proud of her again! I always said, I'm going to keep her until she takes her last breath, and her time isn't up yet!
It's time to stick to my promise to her! Last edited by VorTechS on Mon May 08, 2017 1:17 pm; edited 9 times in total
#2: Re: Project Phoenix -> Teaching an old dog new tricks Author: pAvax, Location: EssexPosted: Mon Sep 12, 2016 12:26 pm ---- I know that feeling! Seems we are roughly in the same boat here with our skills and whatnot.
Going to take "before" photos, before you start? I always enjoy seeing a transformation
#3: Re: Project Phoenix -> Teaching an old dog new tricks Author: VorTechS, Location: Gloucestershire, UKPosted: Mon Sep 12, 2016 12:53 pm ---- Yes, I'll be taking pictures! The first of which should arrive soon!
#4: Re: Project Phoenix -> Teaching an old dog new tricks Author: cainw1, Posted: Mon Sep 12, 2016 12:59 pm ---- Great idea best of luck with it all
#5: Re: Project Phoenix -> Teaching an old dog new tricks Author: Addaz, Location: SuffolkPosted: Tue Sep 13, 2016 10:12 am ---- Brilliant to hear your keeping her going mate
If you need any advice just drop me a message on here or facebook
#6: Re: Project Phoenix -> Teaching an old dog new tricks Author: VorTechS, Location: Gloucestershire, UKPosted: Thu Sep 15, 2016 8:22 am ---- Thanks all for the comments, and Addaz I'll be sure to nudge you for any questions!
So let's start from the beginning and review the exterior of the car:
The front's not in too bad nick. The bonnet is hiding a dirty secret though, which you can't quite see on this picture... but on the front grille there's a light orange patch. Yup, the underside of the bonnet is rusty to the point that it's only a matter of time before things start showing on the upper side and/or the catch loop gives up and comes away. It's also peppered with stone chips and like all 206s the front grille doesn't clip in properly on one side. The lights are in good working order still, although the light output is poor. The bumper needs a good cleaning, as my handy work with wax is smeared all over it.
Plans:
- New bonnet
- Re-secure the grille
- Replace the washer jet hose / jets
Similarly the back end is not too bad either. No, I haven't attempted to de-wiper (and nor do I plan to), but the arm has actually worked itself loose off it's securing nut and fallen off! The observant will notice that since my last public meeting there's a new exhaust on there. It's a LongLife exhaust from the Cat back with a twin slash pipe. It's taken a while to bed in, but it's sounding very nice indeed!
The very observant will also notice the addition of Richbrook anti-theft bolts on the number plate, since the last one got stolen.
Plans:
- Add new wiper
- Get spoiler re-painted (it has chips resulting from bird poo!)
The sides of the car aren't too bad at all either. The doors are in reasonable nick and apart from the obligatory moss growing in the window seals not much really needs doing. One of the front window tints needs replacing as it seems to have concertinaed. The alloys are horrendous, and frankly embarrassing.
Plans:
- New alloys
- Re-tint
- Clean out the moss
This is by far now the biggest problem with the car. There is no weight in the car whatsoever on this shot. Yes, it's been lowered and has a false floor, but what you see now would normally be the ride height with the full sound system put in. You can't tell from the rear shot either, but the car actually sits lower on one side where the speakers lived to the one side.
Also the arch shows the damage caused by my pregnant ex-wife when she decided to lose all sense of spacial awareness. Picking a fight with a wall, she lost. I doubt this will get repaired unless I get a sudden urge to try it myself. (I once tried spraying the spoiler when I first got it, and that didn't work out very well at all!)
Plans:
- Replace the axle
- Build new speaker box to distribute the weight evenly
Other plans:
- Strip and re-paint the rocker cover
- Replace brake hoses [possibly going braided!]
- General servicing (oil change, discs and pads)
- New cone for the GSR [which is staying!]
- Handbrake tightening
- Possible gearbox change [when I've reviewed how feasible it is]
My plan is to start with the axle change. It's strategically the most difficult given the space I have to work in. Here I have two choices:
1) Buy a re-conditioned axle
Pros:
- Re-built to a decent standard
- Delivered to the door
- Could get it fitted by the re-conditioners
Cons:
- Some don't come with everything, meaning a press is required for the bearings
2) Buy a donor vehicle
Pros:
- A recently sorned vehicle should have an axle in decent condition
- Buying the same engine, could yield spare parts
- Possible replacement gearbox available
Cons:
- Logistics of getting a non-runner home
- Could pay a lot more than just the cost of a replacement axle / gearbox
After a lot of thought, and scouring I decided that the best approach would bet to buy a donor vehicle for exactly the 3 reasons above and potentially a fourth. If Mrs VorTechS has the patience, the donor vehicle could be patched up and sold on.
After a week or so of disappointment, in which one car was sold before I had a chance to go and look at it with no contact from the seller to say it was sold, and another was sold a few hours before due to go and see [after being first on the list and assured we would get a first look at it], we finally found a potential replacement advertised as a Head Gasket failure.
Now, in my experience, a lot of people put 206s out of commission with 'Head Gasket' failure when in fact the car is just overheating due to the cooling fan relay problems. So we went to look at the car, and okay - it wasn't in great condition paintwork wise. The engine was okay [same engine as mine and same year which was a bonus!], and no signs of head gasket failure in the usual places. We ran the engine for a while and all seemed okay. Until after about 20 minutes we gave it some revs. Plumes of white smoke out of the tailpipe. That was that then.
Packing up and about to head back, the guy said he was going to scrap it on Monday as it was in the way and then a light-bulb moment was had! I said, if he was at a point where he was going to scrap it we'd take it off his hands for a nominal amount. The car was up for sale at £150, so I decided to offer him £50 for it. And he said yes!
£50 for an axle in not too bad condition, a gearbox that was nice and smooth and a bonus of some temporary alloys!
The only problem now, how do we get the thing 50 miles home with a definite head gasket failure?
I can sense a road trip coming on. Who do I know who might like a road trip near me ?!?!?
#7: Re: Project Phoenix -> Teaching an old dog new tricks Author: MrWhite, Posted: Thu Sep 15, 2016 3:46 pm ---- Good to Hear dude I hope I can help with anything and if you want you can reach me on Facebook. Im off to Watford next friday and back on the sunday so may be driving past your way.
#8: Re: Project Phoenix -> Teaching an old dog new tricks Author: VorTechS, Location: Gloucestershire, UKPosted: Fri Sep 16, 2016 6:31 am ---- If you're driving past and fancy a brew, pop in! You're more than welcome!
#9: Re: Project Phoenix -> Teaching an old dog new tricks Author: Sim, Location: West CountryPosted: Fri Sep 16, 2016 10:50 am ----
VorTechS wrote:
The only problem now, how do we get the thing 50 miles home with a definite head gasket failure?
I can sense a road trip coming on. Who do I know who might like a road trip near me ?!?!?
Jag the pugpicker of course! Nice opener there VorTechS And so we set out on a sunny Sunday to the Shire (Wilts)
I was surprised to see that car has been to at least some scene standards: spoiler, *exus lights, custom plates you name it! And all hooked up
A sturdy tow pole (attended by a lithuanian) has been mounted, but the lack of power brakes and steering on that orange (ap)peal as well as myself inexperienced in rigid towing resulted in a too sharp of a turn just as we pulled out and crunched the front grille (hopefully repairable somehow? who's into plastic moulding?)
..and a bent pole! (again, no hate crime here)
Since the pole lost its integrity, it was half way through the journey that it decided to give up and just scrape the road. Good job I always have a towrope in the Jag Mrs VorTechS slyly suggested to run the gasket-fail engine on idle to just assist braking, for not to be rear-ending the Jag before every roundabout
It worked!
For the rest of the journey the orange engine sat nicely around 90, sometimes doing an impression of Jag-the-pendulum on steep downslopes. Luckily the good satnav managed to avoid the mad Dursley hills, and we reached the final destination without extra hiccups
Best friends (forever?)
France stance
What a roadtrip! Learning from adventures, and not repeating them (will do some other adventures instead! )
#10: Re: Project Phoenix -> Teaching an old dog new tricks Author: pAvax, Location: EssexPosted: Fri Sep 16, 2016 11:07 am ---- Replace the plastic silly grill with mesh, would be my choice... If the grill is any different than the stock grill on 206cc, I think the plastic inner bit is horrendous, not forgetting to mention half closed too!
Happy to have a GTI bumper, including grill, now!
#11: Re: Project Phoenix -> Teaching an old dog new tricks Author: VorTechS, Location: Gloucestershire, UKPosted: Fri Sep 16, 2016 7:19 pm ---- Thanks for the pics Sim!
One thing that we learnt for sure, don't even attempt to tow a 206 if you've got no electrics or a Halfords tow pole. Nothing can prepare you for the lack of braking and the pole itself really is not strong enough to survive the minor pulling/pushing on the winding roads that we took.
The pole gives you no reaction time if you need it, and restricts your view of the road as it is quite short. In comparison the rope was so much easier and the 206 easily handled the weight of the Jag. I say easy.... but there's a reason we had a picture about 10 miles from home!
The last 10 miles was basically a downhill journey. Being the ' leading car' in such situations this meant that I had to be on the brakes pretty much constantly, to the point that there was a very very strong odour of brake smoke! I decided that perhaps after the first major hill, we ought to give the brakes a chance to cool down in order to avoid any risk of a fire before we got the thing home!
So, now we have some of the bits we need to make a start! But having this additional car, in not too bad a condition, I have decided that I'm not only going to fix the ' beast', but also patch up this other one and possibly give it to my son ready for when he can drive.
Game on!
#12: Re: Project Phoenix -> Teaching an old dog new tricks Author: VorTechS, Location: Gloucestershire, UKPosted: Sat Sep 17, 2016 8:09 pm ---- Project Day 1 - Original Axle Removal: Phase 1
I got a few hours today spare to make a start on the project. Before actually getting 'Tools on' though, a little preparation was needed.
During the week I ordered 10 Hockey pucks [bulk was a better buy] after hearing about their suitability for using as weight bearing protection for the cars sills. Obviously as they are hockey pucks, they themselves need some modification and so I set about them with a saw. I experimented with a hand saw, hack saw and a full saw. Things were easier with a full saw, and the ideaa was to cut out a groove big enough to fit the sill inside. I found the best approach was to make 3 cuts, all three quarters of the way down the puck and then to use a large screwdriver to jimmy out the groove. In total I cut out 3 pucks, one for each side of the car and one for the jack.
The car itself required two jacks to raise it up as it's been lowered. The second was a Halfords 2-ton trolley jack. And you'd be forgiven for thinking that the first was a special low jack. But no, I actually used the original jack that came with the car, which seems to be able to get very low to get an initial lift.
My original plan was to use 3-ton axle stands to put the car on in order to get maximum lift (they go to 50cm), but it became clear that would need to be done in two stages using the 2-ton existing stands I have. I sat the car on the peg level of the stands after I became concerned the trolley jack might not go much higher without putting too much pressure on the sills. As it happened, this was just enough for me (a fat old man) to crawl under and get from the back of the car up to CAT.
After having got it jacked up, I then wondered if perhaps it would have been prudent to at least loosen the wheel nuts while it was on the floor. The conclusion was probably yes, but ah well it's too late now.
A quick consultation with the trusty Haynes manual, and the next step is to loosen the Handbrake cable nut. Removing the rear of the center console was nice and easy, the mouldy gummy bear made Mrs VorTechS heave a little though! The aim was to completely disconnect the handbrake cable, by loosening the nut holding the plate tight.
I eventually found the most effective way of handling the adjustable spanner to leverage enough movement on the nut so as not to take half hour just undoing it! It was a nice easy job to do, and in doing so, I've learnt just how easy it is to tighten the cables too! It's unreal the amount you'd get charged for this simple task at a garage, for something as simple as tightening a nut!
With the nut loosened enough it was nice and easy to pull the cables through the plate to leave them free.
Next step, remove the exhaust system. As mentioned before it wasn't long ago that we had a new stainless system installed from the CAT back. The new system was simply clamped onto the CAT, and whilst one of the bolts was a bit rusty, a bit of WD40 soon worked that loose.
Probably one of the hardest jobs was removing the existing rubber mounts, where I'd raised it from the original install. Again, WD40 made light work allowing me to slide the rubbers along the mount and off so much easier than huffing and puffing with brute force.
Next up, is the removal of the Handbrake cable itself. And this is where I got stuck. I thought I knew where the cables were coming from under the car. But apparently, not! Inside the cab, the cables are black. Outside under the car I have some rubber tubes (which I assume are the brake hoses) and some green stiffened cables which I assume are what I need to under. However, the green ones don't match the ones pictured in the manual, and nor did I think the rubber hoses. Thinking perhaps I need to be looking behind a heart shield (as the manual suggests) I also remove the heat shield at the Fuel tank. A word of warning, the heat shield mounts are extremely fragile as they are small plastic screws which screw into, essentially white versions of the mushroom clips!
However, having called it a day at this point, re-consulting the manual suggests that my assumptions about the rubber hoses are wrong and it's these are what I need to be removing!
I've thoroughly enjoyed Day One! I've not gotten as far as I'd hoped (actually removing the axle) but it's to be expected as I'm taking my time to learn and get things right. I'm astounded at the state of the underside of this 16 year old car. It's practically immaculate! Compared to the rusting Ka that we just bought this is really one tough old bird!
It's not faultless, there's a strap holding the 'middle' of the fuel tank that looks like it's not far off breaking.
There's also a lot of hose clips that are rusting away. It looks like I'll be making a little shopping list of things to replace.
So here lies the shopping list:
1. Plastic mushroom clip screws
2. Fuel tank strap
3. Hose securing clips
4. Hub centre caps Last edited by VorTechS on Sun Sep 18, 2016 5:30 pm; edited 1 time in total
#13: Re: Project Phoenix -> Teaching an old dog new tricks: Day 1 Author: Timon2210, Location: PalestinePosted: Sun Sep 18, 2016 2:40 pm ---- Finally you started the project :)...well done so far,keep up the good work my friend
#14: Re: Project Phoenix -> Teaching an old dog new tricks: Day 1 Author: VorTechS, Location: Gloucestershire, UKPosted: Mon Sep 19, 2016 12:21 pm ---- Thanks Timon! It's coming along nicely!
#15: Re: Project Phoenix -> Teaching an old dog new tricks: Day 1 Author: pAvax, Location: EssexPosted: Mon Sep 19, 2016 12:49 pm ---- Vortech, how did you get the groove out of the puck? Cutting it is straight forward... but how did you go from a cut to groove?
I like this idea and I can make use of my 30 odd pucks finally (I am a hockey player).
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And so we set out on a sunny Sunday to the Shire (Wilts) 
and crunched the front grille 
(hopefully repairable somehow? who's into plastic moulding?)
