Richard's '89 405 Mi16

[rhalkyard]

Hi all! I'm a newcomer to the Peugeot scene, but I've longed for an Mi16 for years - when I was growing up in New Zealand, my father had (and still has) a Citroen BX 16V, and ever since then I've wanted an XU9J4 in my life in some way shape or form.

Anyway, fast forward a decade and a half, and an Mi16 recently fell into my lap. A friend out in Seattle bought one, but decided it wasn't really for him and offered it to me for a very good price. Cue a 2000 mile road trip back to Minneapolis in a slightly shabby sight-unseen Mi16 (in convoy with a friend in an Oldsmobile Delta 88 Diesel, but that's another story...). What could possibly go wrong?

In actual fact, very little! From what I'm told of the car, it sat for many years with a snapped timing belt, and then a few years ago, was put back on the road with an engine from a '91 car. Cosmetically it's a bit rough, with bad paint and broken interior plastics, but mechanically it feels very sound. So far under my 2 months of ownership it's had:

• New blower motor
• New axles (one of the inner CV joints developed a *really* nasty vibration on the trip home)
• New rear engine mount bushings
• New shift-linkage bellcrank bushings
• Replaced engine-management EPROM to resolve a '54' trouble code
• Removed sunroof shade panel due to sagging headliner

Still on the to-do list:

• Find or repair broken interior pieces
  • Steering column upper shroud
  • Dashboard center stack
  • Instrument panel hood
  • Ashtray
• Diagnose intermittent difficult-starting/no-start condition - seems to be temperature-related? Sensors all check out OK.
• Passenger-side engine mount seems to be on the way out
• Synchromesh on second gear is very weak. Engine mounts, shifter bushings and Redline MTL fluid made things a little bit better, but it's still pretty bad.

I'd definitely appreciate any advice/leads/commiseration on those problems! Aside from that though, it's just been fabulous. Puts a great big stupid grin on my face every time the tach passes 4000 RPM. I don't think a full restoration or anything like that is on the cards, at least in the short term - the plan is to just drive it and enjoy it and hopefully just gradually make it a little bit nicer as I can.