Mike T

British Columbia, all the 405s that were ever here. I could add colours soon, when I get an update: DL: 502323 is scrapped; 503480, 503516, 503627, 504008, 504480, 504683, 506465, 517315, 517623, 518308, and 518461 are written off. S: 501159, 503318, 504430, 505026, 517318, 517328 and 518193 are written off. MI16: 505378, 517379, 518085, 518247 and 518251 are written off. 517972 is an excellent one in Kelowna.

Italian import? Looks a bit crusty.

To be safe stuff some oily rags in the holes to keep dirt and insects out.

Friday I arranged with Hagerty for the insurance to be reset to a higher agreed value of $80K CAD - I sent them these two photos to give them an idea that it's nearly together. This weekend is a long one for me with Monday off so we will head to Saanichton to bring some more bits to the engine shop: pressure plate, woodruff keys and timing gear (pulley is still in the plating shop) and flywheel bolts. The 4 new old stock intake valves are on their way from Dean Hunter in England but won't be here by Monday so I'll have to run them down later. If the pulley's not plated by Monday noon I'll bring another one I have down with me and probably offer it to the shop for the balancing procedure, and use it on the engine.

Hmmm sounds done like dinner. This is why I am recommending a teardown for any engine that's been left a while. You'd be surprised how not being used trashes them.

White smoke, that's usually the flag of surrender (of the head gasket). Happened to my 366K km 405 after it had been parked for a couple of years and we scrapped it right after.

If the car was sitting outside for 16 years the bores may be rusted (what did you see on the boroscope?), rings stuck, oil sludge buildup, just a big honking mess. Unless measures were taken when the car was parked to set the engine up for storage, it's not likely to be reliable even if you get it running. A full teardown would be preferable. Assess everything and replace what's broken or worn out.

I'm trying to remove the Ford Fiesta from my signature (we gave that car to our son about 18 months ago) but after editing it to remove it, the edit won't take due to "too many lines" in signature! Really? 4 is OK but 3 is too many?

Nice project. Now I don't know the XN6 at all but on the KF2 injection engine, those rubber connectors between the intake manifold and intake plenum get swollen if fuel gets in there. How it gets in there is via the cold start electro-solenoid (injector) on the end of the plenum leaking fuel.

Now you fail the contrôle technique without it.

Right beside where the embossed "504" is below the riveted plate, you should scrape the paint away and take the filler out because that is where the chassis number is cold-stamped into the bodyshell. When someone has gone to the trouble of removing the VIN from the shell in this way, it usually means that the car has been illegally renumbered, possibly following a theft or loss of ownership papers.

Don't even try to start the engine after 16 years outside. Needs a full teardown of all systems. Labour of love or lost cause....I could see the love angle if it's an old family car.

...though I should add that they're very well balanced at the factory, into 6 separate weight classes.

Yup

That's how the guy at the shop stated the process works - each element is individually balanced and then all together. Makes sense, no? If they're all individually balanced they should be verified when all bolted together too. Flywheel, clutch disc and pressure plate, pulley....

The stuff to be plated is at Victoria Plating and the engine bits that have to be (nearly all) are at Anderson's, which is where this photo was taken this afternoon. The crankshaft will be balanced by itself first, then again successively with each accessory that is attached to it once all is done.

They're painted leather so it takes a lot longer for it to absorb in comparison to dyed-through leather. The cracks would be red too if they were dyed through.

Well that tube in the post above has been stripped of paint and is going into the plating shop Monday with a whole bunch of other stuff: throttle body parts (just little stuff) another batch of fasteners - I hope, the last trunk latch crank pulley other small bits and pieces fuel injection pipes Also, I removed the three oil gallery plugs from the engine block today in preparation for its hot tanking in the shop I'm taking it to on Monday. They're brass and the square heads are a tiny bit smaller than a 1/4 inch drive. So I took a lower quality 1/4 inch drive and filed it until it fit. The first one on the rear of the block came out easily. The second one I tried, on the front of the block by the cam, stripped immediately (the square hole was rounded). The third one came out beautifully. The front one that stripped was not all that much of a worry. I got a T-55 socket and used a Dremel to turn the formerly square but now rounded hole into an approximation of a Torx. I hammered the T-55 home and used a huge breaker 1/2 inch drive bar to turn it out. No worries. Here is the sole rear oil gallery plug that turned out beautifully with my "special tool": Also going to the machine shop tomorrow is the following: new cylinder head - for fitting of hardened valve seats new piston and liner kit, for cleaning off the preservative and mounting the new pistons to the rods, plus a hone of the liners connecting rods so the small end bushings can be replaced with the new ones I have, and also hot tanked to clean the crud off them crankshaft for assessment and grinding/polishing NOS camshaft to clean the preservative off and check the clearances in the block (with the possibility of a line bore and bearing bush installation if required - I hope it's not) 0.3 mm oversized rod bearing shells 0.3 mm and 0.5 mm oversized main bearing shells bearing caps and rocker arms and rocker shaft holders, for hot tanking and assessment of the rocker arms - new rocker shafts are supplied Once all this is done we will be on the home stretch. With the block ready, I can paint it and then start reassembly.

In 1985 I sold my first very rusty Peugeot 404 Coupé Injection and bought this car. It was carbureted but that was fixed in 1987 when it got KF2 power. The car was imported to BC from California by the original owners in the 1970s and was showing the first significant signs of rust when I bought it at 273,000 miles. It was a daily driver for a poor graduate student so spending much on it was not on and I didn't have a winter beater. This car saw salt and lots of it. Some attempts I made to attenuate the rust were partially successful - at least delaying the inevitable. We had some good times with that car. Drove as far east as Ontario and well into Oregon, plus all over BC and Alberta. In 1988 I yumped it over a huge dike that crosses a road in the Fraser River valley once at 80 MPH, and it flew through the air like a champ and even landed well. Our first born daughter came home in that car in 1989. I even bought new floors for it from Reiner in Germany in 1988. But then in 1989 I found another Canadian 404 Coupé - the one I eventually restored - and it quickly became evident the last 6 months of the 404 sedan's life that it was running out of time. Changing a flat tire one day, the corner jacked up, the doors would not open. So it ended up in a scrapyard in Waneta BC near Trail. The floors were used in the 404C. The sedan had over 400,000 miles when scrapped.

The LSD would be a total waste of effort and money - the FWD 405 is excellent on compact snow and ice - perfectly balanced and neutral handling at highway speed due to the lift off oversteer. I drove one in the BC Interior - in a town that gets 5 metres of snow every year - and 4WD or LSD were never on my wish list. On good winter tires it would run rings around Subarus and Volvo Cross Countrys on the highway, they could not keep up.

I had the old bit of pipe that leads to the injection system thermostat (cold start/supplemental air valve) cut off the old pipe and welded to the new one. The extra take-off on the shank (for the carbureted car) is still there but I will block it off with a rubber dead end clamped to it.

I thought these were fitted with Peugeot diesels in France. What did they do?

The oil sprayers to the underside of the pistons assure very high oil temperatures.

My 404C is insured for $70,000 with Hagerty, no appraisal needed, but you do have to send photos in and the value has to be aligned with their valuation guide. I plan to raise it a bit this fall when renewing, as it approaches roadworthiness.

My 404's original heater tube, which takes hot coolant from the water pump to the heater core is beyond repair. The carbureted engines have a similar tube but its secondary water outlet is in a totally different location. However, the only new one available is for the carbureted engine, so I bought one of them at DEPANOTO and will have it modified in a local welding shop to adapt to the Injection engine format.