85' Turbo Diesel

[JakeOHagan]

Hey everyone! my name is Jake and I just picked up my first diesel; and its also my first turbo vehicle! It has 161xxx miles on it, The body is in decent shape, the interior is pretty dirty and the really just need a good cleaning-

I bought it yesterday from a fellow in the area for $500, it runs and drives though not very well. There is a lot of shaking in the steering and the brakes are almost nothing. When I bought it the guy said there brakes were done on the front passenger side, which when i brake it pulls over there so I'm assuming drivers side is in need of help as well.

What type of maintenance does one do with a diesel vehicle? also how do you tell if your turbo is fully functioning? Does anyone has a copy of a 505 diesel repair manual or anything I could buy off them? As of right now I think that would be the best way for me to fix most of the issues and find issues at this point.

My sun roof wont move all the way back into place, leaving the rear end down and thus probably going to be an issue due to it constantly rain in my area.

The headliner is torn and the seats are faded in the back; rear speakers are missing.

I'm pretty excited though to have a big boy sedan over my little boy hatchback.

I'm taking pictures later today or tomorrow, I'll try to post them if anyone is interested!

Regards

[Bean]

Welcome to the forum Jake!

I moved this post to the diesel specific discussion page as the build threads was set up to document the actual progress of the work. You're welcome to start one there of course once you figure out how you want to proceed and to document your progress.

If you go through my build thread so far on my 86 TD wagon you'll get a pretty though going over of what things I identified to get my car sorted out.

Your immediate problem with your sunroof is that the sunroof cable sheath is likely split and it can't push it shut. There are ~4 plastic pop rivets on the rear facing edge of the interior sunroof panel, pop those off to see the mechanism. You should be able to see the support that the cable attaches too - and manually move it with your had to close the sunroof.

I've disconnected the cable and left the cover off so that the sunroof was usable - but the proper fix is to replace the cable itself. Best bet for that is to do something like Steffen did up: Steffen's sunroof fix

Rabin

[JakeOHagan]

Hey thanks! I'm going to run down and fix the sunroof now; hopefully it won't give me any troubles. What do you think I should do about the headliner? Its all torn and saggy. I've never really done interior work-

Also on my arrival home I noticed a bit of a puddle under the car, its leaking something but I'm not sure what yet. Hoping something not vital, and easily fixed but with my luck probably not. How do you change the oil on this engine?! hahaha

[Bean]

Headliner: Google and some ingenuity are your best tools to fix it - it's hardly a problem that's going to be an easy fix. Replacement / fabrication is your only solution unless you just rip it all out.

As for leaks - Whatever the fluid - there are easy fixes and hard ones. Hopefully you get lucky.

Hopefully you have some decent wrenching skills and the willingness/patience to figure stuff out, or tons of money to get it fixed right. If neither are true then you might want to rethink Peugeot ownership - it's not for the faint hearted!

Just remember you bought a $500 beater - so the odds that it was well maintained are pretty much slim to none. So be prepared for it to need a fair bit of TLC and parts to make it right. I'd focus on getting it running really nice first, and once it's a nice running, steering, braking car - THEN justify the cosmetic stuff.

Rabin

[JakeOHagan]

I managed to get it to move all the way forward but the part that moves the rear of the sunroof up is fighting me; not sure if I'm just moving it wrong or what.

I ordered new brake pads today; should be here tomorrow or Friday morning; might resurface the rotors if they really need it. If not then I'm going to lay it off for a few weeks. I really need to bleed the brakes- There is almost no pressure in them.

I didn't think mine had an intercooler till I saw this super small one in the front below the radiator; why is it so ridiculously small?

I'm an learning mechanic in a shop currently, I've only ever had petrol cars and never even touched a diesel before; and haven't really worked on turbos directly.

//ninja edit

I was just thinking about how I should probably do a full tune up; oil change, filters all changed out, glow plugs changed, coolant, possibly change the belts but them seem pretty good. I was thinking about picking up new fuel injectors too- not sure if that is very necessarily but I'd like to up the size a tad and if my turbo is in good work order maybe up the boost.

Was also thinking I may use this for TSD rallies; I do some rallycross but was looking more into doing distance type stuff; does anyone know how these cars perform? I saw a few videos of some member's rallycross events but would like to know what they think; if its a good or terrible idea.

I love how stiff the suspension is on this car as well.

[Bean]

Undo the cable at the sunroof (2x 10mm nuts) and it should move freely to close.

Sounds like this is the perfect car to hone your profession. I taught myself mechanics on my 504 when I was 16 - got good enough to be a crew chief on a pro-rally team, and wrench on a race car at Pike's Peak. I can also trace job opportunities that lead me to my current IT career because I could fix anything after working on my car so much.

Diesel injectors should flow all you need on the 85' - but they should get rebuilt with new nozzles and the pop pressure set to ~160 Bar - that's the recipe I'll be using. Monark make good nozzles and www.mercedessource.com seems to be the place to get them.

TD will be great for any long distance or endurance event - but it'd take a fair bit of tuning to get it to have enough HP to do well in a rallycross. Tons of torque - but not enough HP for the acceleration you need. Suspension is perfect for rough courses and the RWD will have you giggling it's so much fun - but I do it in 505 Turbo gas cars.

Keep studying cars - the "intercooler" you mention is a cooler - but it's for the engine oil. North American TD's never got the top mount factory set up they did in later years - but I'll be plumbing one in a front mount in the wagon for sure.

Rabin

[JakeOHagan]

Haha! yeah, i was thinking about how i wouldn't have enough acceleration for rallycross.

I'm pretty excited about that RWD; can't go wrong with it and always fun.

I'll look up the Monark injectors; hopefully they aren't too pricey.

Ahh; now i feel silly calling it an intercooler. Make sure to tell me how it goes when you put yours in; I would like to do that same. Seems like it would only help!

Pike's Peak! Wow, now you got me all excited about being a Peugeot owner.

//such a ninja edit

Yeah! well, ran downstairs to grab a few things from my daily driver and decided to move the peugeot; and found that its leaking oil. When I start it up it smokes for a second from the header area and smoked from the back but stops pretty quickly.

Leaking oil, burns oil for a second from the header area- could my turbo (gaskets?) be leaking or something along those lines to cause this?

[tulaweb]

Welcome Jake,

Your car looks like a twin of mine
See my build thread here

Where are you located?

If you are doing the back brakes as well, be really careful with the calipers. They are easy to damage and very hard to find. The parking brake mechanism requires you to turn the slot in the piston to 1/8th turn from perpendicular to the U bolt holes, before you push it in and back to the perpendicular position for use. Failure to do that WILL damage the emergency brake mechanism. Rebuild kits do not include the parts needed to fix that. As far as I can tell those parts can not be had at any price, so if you damage them, your caliper will be no good as a core but will need to be replaced. While rebuilt calipers can be found, they are really rare, so preserve yours if you can. The front are fairly straight forward.

You should definitely change the oil and all the filters if this car has been sitting for a while. I made the mistake of not checking the air filter when I first put my car back on the road after a few years, and when I did get to it, discovered that the air filter element had disintegrated into a ball of goo. I assume you have the Nevada shaped foam air filter rather than the oil bath filter.

Dave