1983 505 XN6 recommissioning

[casm]

That's interesting; the Michelin Defenders have fairly good reviews across multiple sites for wet weather traction.  I'll agree that they probably won't be as good as the Premiers would be, but they have to be better than the Falkens.  Those were so bad that I was getting what felt like axle tramp from the rear end (a really weird feeling, given that it's an independent rear!) when taking off from a stop on wet pavement - and eventually spun the car 360 degrees in the wet.  It was at low speed in a gentle curve, but when I ended up facing the wrong way in the other lane, it was time for them to go.  Just glad there was no other traffic around.

Going to pull the fuel tank tomorrow night for cleaning.  After looking at what it would cost in chemicals and disposal fees to do it myself, I've decided to just send it out to a shop to have it done.  They'll tank it and line the inside once it's finished for not much more than chemicals and disposal would run, and as a bonus the owner of the shop that I called used to have a 505 Turbo wagon.

[casm]

Pulled the fuel tank; going to send it out for cleaning & lining on Friday.  Car will be out of action for about a week while that happens.  Now that I can see the upper bolts for the rear shocks, I might even get around to taking care of those.

[andrethx]

hi cameron! hope all is well.

for what it's worth, i found that once i had removed my 505's fuel tank and figured out how it went in & out, i could get it out in about 10 minutes; the first time is (by far) the hardest. so you could always do the rear shocks later if you're not ready now.

also, the radiator shop i used to clean my fuel tank charged me about US$75, IIRC...

[casm]

Hey André!  Good to hear from you!  Hope all's well on your side also.

You're right about pulling the tank, and I'd forgotten how easy it is to get it in and out of the US-spec 505s.  Once I remembered the trick (take it out from the driver's side, then remove everything at the top and work the rest out along the passenger side as you go), it was a doddle.  The only real issue that I had was finding out that it had closer to 10 gallons of gas in it than the 3 that I thought it had...  But a couple of neighbours were more than happy to take the remains

It's at the shop now and I should get it back Monday or Tuesday.  I told them to take their time; I want to do the rear shocks while it's out.  Hopefully the thunderstorms will let up enough tomorrow or Sunday that it's doable.  And yep, $75 was the price for the cleaning.  Turned out that it was too clean to need sealing; a good de-rusting (which is almost entirely on the filler neck) should take care of it.

[casm]

Rear shocks are done.  Replaced the clearly-ancient ones (one of which had no rebound left in it) with a pair of KYB KG5566s.  No idea how the car drives yet as the fuel tank is still out for cleaning, but I'm expecting that a couple of the local roundabouts will be more predictable with those in there.

[Goce]

Bad shock absorbers can cause axle tramp on a independent suspension, new shocks should fix it, did you check the sway bar bushing if your model runs a sway bar in the back.

[casm]

6 minutes ago, Goce said:

Bad shock absorbers can cause axle tramp on a independent suspension, new shocks should fix it, did you check the sway bar bushing if your model runs a sway bar in the back.

The best way to describe the sway bar bushings is that they're there   They aren't totally shot, but could definitely use replacement.  I'm planning on doing a more-or-less full bushing replacement front and rear but need to get under there and make a real inventory of what I need before launching into it.

[casm]

Fuel tank went back in last night.  Took a test drive and filled the tank to the brim.  Discovered that the fuel level sender unit is now leaking from somewhere around where it mates to the tank.  Suspect possible bad gasket as there was evidence of this happening prior to the tank being sent out for cleaning; no damage to the sender unit or sealing ring was evident.  Will need to track down a replacement.

On the plus side, the fuel pump and sender assemblies were given a thorough soaking in white vinegar for a couple of days before being reinstalled in order to remove as much rust as possible and the fuel gauge now reads considerably more accurately than before.  The damaged fuel strainer attached to the pump was also replaced; used an ACDelco TS7 (GM part number 25055461) item which is a perfect fit.  Pressure is now also released from the tank when the fuel cap is removed, something that I can't remember happening in all the time that we've had the car.

The new shocks are OK.  They're not the same as the Peugeot units that they replaced, but nothing ever is.  Can't complain about ride quality or handling, but can tell that it's different.  Then again, one of the original shocks had no rebound left in it so any change would be noticeable.  Kept the Peugeot shocks for eventual possible rebuild.

[andrethx]

On 9/23/2016 at 6:24 AM, casm said:

Suspect possible bad gasket as there was evidence of this happening prior to the tank being sent out for cleaning; no damage to the sender unit or sealing ring was evident.  Will need to track down a replacement.

i found these a few years ago so i'm pretty sure they are available. let me check my records to see where i got mine from.

[casm]

Between lack of available time and the weather, it's been a slow couple of weeks for getting stuff done.  That said, a couple of things have happened:

Pulled the fuel tank again last weekend and replaced the leaking sender gasket; re-torqued the shock absorber nuts at the same time since the tank was out.  Haven't had the tank full enough to tell if the gasket is doing its job or not, but the persistent smell of gas in the trunk that had been there previously seems to have disappeared, so I'm hopeful that the next full tank won't mostly end up on the trunk floor like the last one did.

Today, I took care of this:

That would be a 1983-era Ducellier M118E distributor which now has a fresh vacuum advance unit attached to it; the Peugeot part number for the vacuum advance is 5952.61.

The old one was so shot that sucking on the vacuum tube had no effect - air just went right through.  Fortunately, the distributor was in good shape internally - the advance plate was a little sticky, but some cleaning and oiling solved that problem.  Springs were in good shape so left them alone.

All I can say is that this has been the single biggest improvement to the overall running and driveability of the car up to this point.  I still need to get the timing dialled in (will do that either later tonight or tomorrow when the ambient light's low enough to actually see what the timing light is doing), but it's really close.  There are a couple of very small flat spots in the rev range, but that's it.

Hopefully next weekend I'll be able to replace the brake and clutch master cylinders.  The brake master is leaking at the rear (suspect a shot piston and/or seals) and leaking down onto the clutch master.  Neither one is bad enough that this has to happen absolutely immediately, but I do want to get at least those two done before the weather really turns.

[casm]

Between work and weather, it's been a slow last few weeks for getting anything done.  This was annoying, because a week or so after replacing the vacuum advance unit the car had - rather frustratingly - developed some intermittent running issues.

Symptoms varied: the engine would turn on the starter, but not catch.  Other times it would catch and run, but later die for no apparent reason.  Then it would behave itself for several days, but lose power at random points in the rev band.  Occasionally it would have trouble holding idle, later inexplicably clearing up.

The culprit was actually tracked down a couple of weeks ago, but I didn't have the time to do anything about it until today: the grounding block on the engine behind the alternator badly needed cleaning, and a number of the grounds going to it had developed internal breaks at their terminal crimps.  I'd been suspicious of a possible ground issue, and finally confirmed it while feeling around that general area - nudging the wiring harness with the ignition on but engine stopped finally produced the sounds of both one of the electrovalves clicking and the fuel distributor intermittently spinning up as wires made contact.

Pulled the bracket with the grounding block attached to it, disassembled it, gave it a good going-over with the wire brushes, and cut off the old terminals from the ground wires and crimped new ones on before reattaching them.  The car started right on the button and ran more or less as it should.  I'll need to re-set the timing and idle to compensate for the fact that it's now getting fuel again properly, but that's no big deal.

If I can find the time to replace the brake and clutch master cylinders before the weather gets seriously cold here in a couple of weeks, I'll call that good enough until Spring hits.

[Goce]

Great progress it's nice to hear that you've resoltet the intermittent problem, grounding issues are cheapest but often hardest to find and fix, as for the master cylinders, i'll suggest find yourself a garage or a car lift and a blow torch for seized bleeders, and replace the rubber flex lines when you are opening the system, keep in mind that some of those cars have 5th cylinder that cuts the flow of brake fluid to the rear wheel, so you may need to support it in a way it thinks it is on the ground.

[casm]

Thanks!  I really hate dealing with electrical issues - it seems like for every time where they're an easy fix, there are 23 other times where they're not.  That said, the wiring on this car looks to be original, so at least I'm (fortunately) not dealing with someone else's 'improvements'.

As for the brakes... The bleeders opened easily a few weeks after we got the car (made sure that they opened but didn't change the fluid), so we should be in good shape there.  That said, it does look as though the problem is entirely around the master cylinder(s) - there's no sign of a fluid leak at the calipers or along the lines, and there are signs of fluid running down the front of the (new) brake booster.

If the weather holds this weekend, the plan is to replace the brake and clutch master cylinders.  We'll see how it goes; this may also be our first snow of the Winter.

Late edit: nearly forgot that the indicators and front parking lights were also replaced with LEDs this evening.  That leaves the sidemarker, licence plate, reversing, and tail lights to take care of, but at least now people will be able to tell when I'm stopping and/or turning.

[casm]

As part of the process of chasing down the starting and running issues, the tachymetric relay (Bosch 9250624280) was pulled this morning and opened up for investigation.  As is common with these items, there were some immediately-apparent issues:

(Late edit nuked the embedded image; click here to view it.)

The above was the first view that greeted me upon removing the PCB from the cover.  The area under the yellow circle is where the capacitor has oozed its goo onto the other components.  Specs on the capacitor are 16V, 47µF, 85°C; going to run out in a few minutes and see if I can't dig up a replacement.

(Late edit nuked the embedded image; click here to view it.)

Flipping the board over, this is what I found.  The yellow arrows are pointing to bad solder joins; all three are responsible for mounting the coil and are so cracked that the coil is wiggling in place.  Those will also be taken care of.

Overall, not too terrible.  Nothing appears to be burned, the coil looks to be in good shape, and all of the components are common through-hole bits that should be easy to obtain and work with.  With a bit of luck, I'll have it cleaned up and the car starting and running far more reliably later today.

[casm]

No luck on finding a replacement capacitor locally, which really wasn't much of a surprise.  Ordered some from Mouser; was able to find ones that met the electrical specs, but not exact physical specs.  Part numbers were EEU-FC1C470B and ESS476M016AE2EA; both are the same spec so bought 10 of each just in case one batch turned out to have issues.

Since it's going to be a few days until those turn up and the car's going to be out of commission as a result, given that tomorrow's going to be the warmest day of the past week (48°F) and the lower dash is already pulled apart, I'll take a shot at replacing the clutch and brake master cylinders.  They've only been waiting to go in for the past three months or so, and as I don't see the weather getting any better until at least March it makes sense to take advantage of the opportunity.

[casm]

Clutch and brake master cylinders are in.  Ran out of light so didn't have time to bleed them; will take care of that later in the week.

[casm]

Repaired tachymetric relay is in.  Fixing the dry solder joins on the solenoid was not a problem, but both of the solder pads for the capacitor lifted from the PCB when I tried to desolder it.  Had to do some meatball surgery with small lengths of solder in order to guarantee contact with the next component down the line, but it works.  Turn the key to run and both the fuel pump and fuel distributor spin up for approximately 1 second; turn it to start and the car fires right up.  I'm hoping this is the fix for the intermittent starting issues.

Mouser's part number for the replacement capacitor was 80-ESS476M016AE2EA; find it here.  We'll see how it does over time, but it has at least held up to the first dozen or so starts.

Weather and work have kept me from tackling the brake and clutch bleeding this week; no idea when both of those will calm down enough that I can take care of them, so further progress is likely to be slow for a while.

[Bean]

Just read through your whole post - awesome right up Cam!  I had never got a notice of this thread and had never seen it before this...

Side effect of not having the time for proper computer seat time and doing most surfing on my phone!

Only comment is you need more pictures.

Rabin

[casm]

Hey Rabin   Seeing as how it's been a month since I last checked my own thread, I can't really fault you for not seeing this sooner   Hopefully I'll get some more photos in the next few days.

Free time and weather keep being the usual obstacles, but there is progress:

• Replaced the brake master cylinder for the second time.  The unit that replaced the one that was on the car when we got it (which had decided to start leaking a few months later) also decided that it should leak as well.  Ugh.
• Replaced the brake booster for the second time.  Not sure if the combination of two leaking brake master cylinders in a row killed it or if it was just a shoddy rebuild (which I had been suspicious of before the leaks started happening), but, again, ugh.  At least it was under warranty.
• Replaced the clutch master cylinder.  This was its first time to be replaced, but I think it committed sympathy suicide after seeing what happened to the brake master cylinder and brake booster.  At least the clutch slave cylinder (replaced a few months ago) is holding up.

Now that the hydraulics are sorted out, brakes and shifting are much improved.  Next up will probably be a conversion to electric fans and replacing the front struts, but it's gradually coming together.

The brake lights were also converted to some decently-bright LED bulbs.  Still need to do the tail lights, reversing lights, licence plate, and sidemarkers, but the priority was on improving the brake lights' visibility.

Goce, I think I now understand what you mean about the Michelin Defenders a bit better.  In the wet they're decent, but on snow they're not particularly great.  Granted, I wasn't using chains, but the Michelins (I forget which ones they are) on the VW do much better.  On the plus side, they did scare the crap out of a BMW driver tailgating me through a roundabout in the snow - the back stepped out fairly wide, I caught it, left the roundabout going straight, and watched in the rear-view mirror as the guy backed off as fast as he could while looking very nervous about what had just happened in front of him.

I'm trying to decide what to do with this car in the longer-term - it's turning into a really good driver, but a turbodiesel wagon is sounding more and more appealing.  A 505 with the XD3T and a 5-speed would be ideal, but finding one that's already been converted (what I can reasonably do in the driveway is somewhat limited) probably isn't going to happen.  I'd be fine with a 504, provided it had the XD2T and a 5-speed...  But, again, best of luck on that.  All things being equal, I'll probably just end up going for whatever crops up on the right day.

[Bean]

Xn6 5sp is a very sweet combo if the motor is in perfect tune and the 5sp is slick shifting. 

Totally agree with the allure of the turbo diesels though and I'm well and truly hooked on them.  As far as I know my soon to be 86 TD 5sp wagon is the only one I've heard of...  Only 504 D wagons I've seen have been non-turbo 4sp manual cars.

Any more updates on the potential Dangel?

Rabin

[casm]

I'm in total agreement with the XN6 and BA7/5 combo being so very nice when it's all set up properly, and prefer it to the ZDJL.  Nothing against the ZDJL, which in a number of ways is the superior engine on paper...  But the XN6 just works so nicely.

There are a couple of 2.5TD 505s with 5-speed 'boxes that I saw when I lived in SoCal, but they were conversions.  Ditto the 504s with 2.3 TDs and 5-speeds; this pretty much explains why I know that I'd be on my own for figuring that one out.

Regarding the Dangel: no news right now.  The friends of the family who own it are still thinking of selling their place in France, and it's not going to be available until they do.  I'm fine with working on their timeline for this; they're incredibly good folks and I'm happy to work at their pace on it.  If anything does crop up, though, I'll definitely be posting about it

In other news, the 505 had two things break today:

• The speedo cable died in one of the most amusing ways I've ever seen one fail before.  For the first few miles that I drove around in +/- 38degF weather this morning, it was pegged below zero on the speedo.  Then, in a random fit of pique, it swung up to about the 75mph mark while I was doing somewhere around 25, twitched a bit, then flopped back to zero and was clearly just dead.  Drove 80 miles in the car today and it never moved again; both the odometer and trip meter stayed static.  New speedo cable time.
• On the way home this afternoon, the backwash from a tanker truck coming the opposite direction blew the wind deflector straight off of the sunroof.  It shattered into a number of pieces that made a really interesting sound as they tumbled off of the roof; pulling over to the side of the road to inspect the end result, the rubber chafing strip slid down the passenger side front window like a snake.  I kept it as a memento, which seemed appropriate.

Other than that, the car's doing fairly well.  It's not totally dialled-in yet, and looking at the (known-but-so-far-ignored) vacuum leaks around the HVAC controls as well as the state of the intake system as relates to the airflow meter would probably be a good idea, but it's getting there.

As far as I know, this is the only Peugeot being driven on a regular basis in Central Oklahoma.  If someone else out there can prove me wrong, I'd love to hear from you!

[andrethx]

On 9/25/2016 at 6:50 PM, andrethx said:

i found these a few years ago so i'm pretty sure they are available. let me check my records to see where i got mine from.

hi cameron, congrats on your continued success (mostly) with this car, the F&I meet last november wasn't the same without you.

i realized that i never followed up on the fuel tank gasket question, it looks like you found some. i couldn't find my receipt from when i got mine for my xn6 but if memory serves i got them from rob courtier @ javel (If anyone else is looking for this item). 

[casm]

On 2/11/2017 at 11:42 AM, andrethx said:

hi cameron, congrats on your continued success (mostly) with this car, the F&I meet last november wasn't the same without you.

i realized that i never followed up on the fuel tank gasket question, it looks like you found some. i couldn't find my receipt from when i got mine for my xn6 but if memory serves i got them from rob courtier @ javel (If anyone else is looking for this item). 

Hey André - no worries on the gasket; totally understood.  Going to try to make F&I this year, but we'll see what happens.

Three weeks on from the last report, here's where things are sitting now:

• Starter needs replacement.  It's had an occasional dead spot since we got the car which is becoming more and more pronounced.  With any luck I'll get that pulled tomorrow and the new one ordered.
• Ignition coil is suspect.  Can't prove anything yet, but I think it may be getting weak when warm.  Need to do some more testing to confirm.
• Had a giant fight with the tachymetric relay; I won, but not before AAA had to tow the car home.  Ordered a replacement and more details of that saga can be found here, but the end result is that Airtex / Wells-Gardner part number 1R1862 as used in early-'80s Volvo 242 turbos is a direct replacement for the original Bosch unit.
• Replacement front struts (cartridges only; KYB part number 364002) arrived and will hopefully go in next week.
• Speedo cable needs to be ordered.  Not enjoying using my phone's GPS for this function, but the accuracy compared to the stock speedo is nice.
• Ball joints, swaybar bushings, and tie-rod ends are starting to appear on the horizon.
• Converting to electric cooling fans is probably also going to happen before the summer.  Need to decide between a single large unit or twin smaller ones; can see upsides & downsides to both approaches.
• Considering full replacement of the A/C system after the fans are done.  Maybe.

As usual, it's maintaining its 'it's getting there' status.  A little cranky at times, perhaps, but not unexpected given that it's 34 years old and I keep removing things from it that have clearly been there since it was new.

[casm]

Fan belt ate death today about 20 miles from home.  A bucket brigade involving my father-in-law, wife, and two Volkswagens resulted in getting tools from home and a replacement belt from the local Autozone to where I'd left the car at the side of the road.  Quickly replaced the belt on the shoulder, made it three miles to the nearest gas station without overheating for a top-off of the radiator, and got home without incident.

Doing the LED upgrade to the external lights was worth it: I'd left it parked with the hazards on for about 90 minutes.  That probably wouldn't have been enough to drain the battery if the incandescent bulbs were still in there, but it was nice to know when we got back to it that the chances of the battery being flat due to that were pretty much nil.  Better visibility of the hazards was also a plus.

Definitely going to convert to electric fans.  I realise that this is a case where having also lost drive to the alternator would really only have resulted in more load on the battery if they were in there, but that's something that can be minimised with a manual on / off switch.  Given that a snapped belt will cause the mechanical fan to not turn, being able to at least limp for a few miles with some degree of cooling seems like a reasonable tradeoff.

[casm]

New front struts (KYB 364002) went in last week and have made a world of difference to the front end.  Now that I can more properly feel the state of the ball joints and tie rod ends, they're being slated for replacement soon-ish.

Found a decent replacement gear knob at Wal-Mart (find it here).  It's pretty close to stock, but is taller / longer.  Not a big deal in practice, though if the car is in reverse with the handbrake on the two will interfere with each other.  Had to drill the gear lever to get it to fasten down properly, but it was absolutely worth the two broken drill bits it took to get it on there.

Fan belt is holding.  Need to change out the coolant this weekend; half of it is currently bottled water as the station I refilled the radiator at didn't have a tap anywhere, so had to stick in some stuff from the cold cabinet.  At least it didn't add any crud to the cooling system, but it does mean that it's only about 25% antifreeze right now.

Thinking of upgrading the radio now that one of the speakers has died.  Not going to do any crazy competition stuff, just a decent $200-ish upgrade to something with Bluetooth and some better speakers.