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Fixing my 1987 505 STI


ofArc

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  • 1 month later...

Nice job on this one so far. I might have bought this car, with a time set up to meet with the seller, followed by a last minute "sorry, sold!" message. I'm glad the car ended up with someone who is caring for it. It's also interesting to see what you've had to deal with vs. how it was described over the phone.

I'm curious where you managed to find a 505 in a yard in Virginia? I'm still looking for one, but in anticipation I have called around various yards listing them in the state and didnt have much luck.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Small world! Looking back, I would describe the description in the ad as 'charitable', but it is a project car after all.

The maroon V6 I found was at a yard in Maryland ran by the LKQ group. They have five different yards in Maryland, all around Baltimore. All of their inventory is available online, and you can set up alerts for when a certain model arrives. However, all five yards have a high turnover. That V6 was gone the week after I went in November, and I haven't seen another since.

Recently, I heard about a place called Leon's Auto Parts about 1.5 hours south of DC. They've apparently got a small reputation in the vintage Mopar community as a place that has almost any car that you can think of dating back to the 30's. I figured that, if there was any place outside of Peugeot Holm that had a 505, it would be Leon's.

As it turns out, Leon's actually has three 505s. One is a wagon, and two are sedans. They also had, among other cars, a 504, a Renault 10, 5+ Renault Fuegos, at least 2 LeCars, and every Renault-AMC product that managed to crawl its way out of Kenosha. The junkyard itself spans over 100 acres, and I can't imagine the number of cars out there.

 

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Here are the sedans. The silver one kissed a telephone pole sometime in its life.

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I swear there's a wagon back there somewhere!

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The 505 minus 1.

I found some trim pieces that I was missing, along with some switch blanks for when I switch to a single-piece speedometer cable and deactivate the cruise control. I was blown away by the quantity and the selection of cars. There's not too many places where a Daihatsu Charade and a Lancia Beta sedan are within a few steps of each other.

On the way down, we also saw this 505 parked on the side of the road.

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Without a doubt, the nicest one we saw all day!

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I'm no expert on those engines but from experience, heat seal bolt in location or lifting plate bolt, i'll be more concerned about that oil leak and dry rot on the coolant hose coming from the the cilinder head

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Wow, you do have a knack for finding Peugeot’s! I haven’t seen one on the side of the road in a long time. That grey one looks like it’s (maybe) salvageable. Northern Virginia?

I’ve been to Leon’s once a while ago, although I don’t remember seeing many French Cars there. Definitely not a place for the faint of heart, I wouldn’t choose a warm season visit if I could help it. Too many bugs or other creatures lurking.

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