1992 Peugeot 205 - Escort wheels fitted!

So during this lock down I have finally got round to doing some jobs on this little zipper. I thought I would just get a couple of small things done, such as get the horn working again and fix the exhaust hole, but upon inspection, I found a bit of oil had made its way into the coolant. This, along with the slight wisp of white smoke when under load and subtle coolanty smell from the exhaust, told me the headgasket was probably on its way out.

So my pal Jason and I whipped the head off. The first thing we noticed was that the pistons moved in the bore quite a bit. I posted it on social media and had mixed opinions, some people saying that a little movement was normal, others saying that it looked like the gap front to back looked a touch wider than the gap side to side, meaning the bores may be ovalled. This might explain the spots of oil making their way into the intake and seemingly excessive blow by with the oil cap removed when running. Hmmmm.

We then took a look at the head to see if it needed skimming.









Yeah... quite a bit of corrosion on the head around the water jackets and the pitting was deeper than a skim could get rid of. Again, mixed opinions on social media. Some people saying it was fine as it was just around the water jacket, others saying it may be worth looking for a cylinder head.

I was tempted to get the head skimmed as much as possible, slap it back together with a new headgasket and see how long it lasted, but I came across another 1.1 205 engine on ebay with 52k on the clock and all ancilliaries still attached. I offered £100 for the lot and to my surprise they accepted! So off we went to collect it. The chap at the breakers seemed quite surprised when we turned up in Jason's shiny 3 month old Mercedes A-Class company car and proceeded to load the filthy dirty engine into the boot!

We decided to simply drop the whole engine into the car without swapping anything over, and if anything wasn't up to scratch we could use the known good parts from the previous engine. I gave the engine a quick clean with a pressure washer and some gunk, chuked a new timing belt kit and water pump on and fitted the gearbox I was previously running. I checked the valve clearances, threw in some new(ish) spark plugs that Jase had lying around and called it done. I also repaired the dented and split front pipe while it was out. My first welded exhaust repair!



Both of us were a little apprehensive. An engine swap, even in something as simple as the 205, is a fairly big job for hobbyists such as us, and we only had the breakers word that it was a decent engine. We needent have worried though. We got the old engine out in about 2 hours and fitted the new one in about 5, with everything plumbed in and wired up. The time had come to turn the key and see what happened...



It fired up on the second turn of the key, and it sounded sweet as a nut! The white smoke was just from transporting it on its side and the oil I'd put down the bores while working on it and it cleared up shortly after. Result!

While the car was in bits I thought it would be rude not to take the opportunity to fit a pair of 30mm Apex lowering springs I had picked up cheap months ago. Now to put the wheels back on and see how it sat...



That sits SO much better than standard. Its dropped a lot more than 30mm as the springs are for a GTi, which are about 20mm lower from the factory. Time for a test drive!



The smile on my sweaty, oily face is indicative of how well it went. It drove beautifully! I'm guessing that the old engine may well have been ok to throw back together and run for a while, but the difference in throttle response and smoothness of the power delivery told me that there was probably a lot of things not quite right with the old lump and that it was worth doing the swap.

After flushing the coolant and tidying everything up we gave it a good wash. I took it on a long drive to take a whole bunch of equipment from one place to another, and with all my stuff in the back the rear ride height looked just about spot on. I reckon lowering the rear beam by between 20-30mm will be about right, but thats for another time.



The long drive proved that the engine was as tight as could be, and that the new springs were much firmer, but not at all uncomfortable, even on very bumpy roads. The gearbox is not happy though. Its noisy and it became quite difficult to get it into 1st, 5th or reverse. I'd recently swapped it out for another, as the previous one was making some pretty janky noises. I'm hoping that its just low on gear oil. I reused the old stuff as it had only done around 300 miles since being changed, so I'm wondering if I lost a little more than I thought from spillage and residue. Fingers crossed a top up will sort it.

For now though, I'm happy. I have fallen back in love with the car and reminded myself that I really do need to make time to work on it, as it keeps me slightly closer to sane than I otherwise would be.

Can't say I like the look of the Frt valance at all. Too wide & square.
A lower lip/splitter on the original valance would look much better, especially with the valances colour coded.

I'm going to go against the grain and give the lower valance a big thumbs up. Would I put one on a gti, a rallye, or a low milage minter? No. But, this isn't trying to be any of those things. I can see this as a nice, late 80s/early 90s pre max power modded look, appearing on the electric boogaloo thread resprayed white with some side strake graphics and the pepperpots done in graphite.

Could the noise be a spring on the pressure plate or a thrust bearing?

It would look the absolute nuts tbh, but I haven't got much cash to spend on non-essential stuff for it at the moment. I'll be putting the valance on eBay in the coming months, which will help to pay for the brake job it really needs.

Aw poor thing ! The gearbox that was on before had a noisy diff, which is one of the reasons I swapped it out. This is different though :/

Stance will be changing slightly in the coming months when I bring the back down to match the front, it is a little rakey atm

I don't have a stethoscope, but did the old long screwdriver to the ear test. Definitely seems to be coming from the clutch area, though could still be a bearing right at that end of the engine I suppose

I really like it in this photo...



It looks nice and subtle with the lows and standard wheels and clean condition so it’s like a well looked after old car without screaming out it’s modified.

I think the valance could work with the pepper pots but if you clean it up, repaint and sell it you could make a bit of money off it.

As for noise it’s not something as simple as engine mounts or transmission mounts is it? Maybe worn bushings rather than loose bolts as I guess you’ve redone all those as part of the swaps.

I know what you mean with the subtle OEM look. It does look kinda stylish and almost sophisticated. I don't think the pepperpots, painted silver, will be too in your face though. The other option is having a 1" band on the existing steels, which would work, but is maybe a little predictable haha.

Hmmmm, bushings all seemed pretty good when we dropped it in and it definitely sounds like a rotating noise. We will have to see...