89 Peugeot 405 Mi16

Nope, just normal seat belts thankfully.

Awesome! I love French weirdness.

EvanB wrote: Nope, just normal seat belts thankfully.

Cool. If it had them, my wife's word of advice was "Tell him to carry a knife with him."

Good luck with it. Made us a little nostalgic for hers. But not enough to bring another one home.

I tightened the P/S belt, it still feels weird when it is cold but when it warms up it seems fine.

I was thinking about the hard start problem and noticed the coolant temp gauge on the dash wasn't working. I looked around the coolant temp sensor area and noticed a wire broken off the connector so I put it back on. The gauge now works but it still has trouble starting.

It also has trouble starting when warm. It will crank for a bit and finally catch and you have to keep your foot on the accelerator to get it to run. It revs up very sluggishly then once it hits 2500-3k rpm it clears up and seems fine. After that it idles and runs great.

Next thing to try is cleaning the idle air control valve.

Even with the bad strut mounts it drives great and handles well.

EvanB wrote:

Wow! I rarely ever see this.

A Ponderosa Steak House.

Datsun310Guy wrote:

EvanB wrote:

Wow! I rarely ever see this. A Ponderosa Steak House.

They are still around. They left Illinois a loooong time ago.

ValuePack wrote: Attn French auto manufacturers: Fiat gave up too, and they're back and selling cars. Give it another try... please?

Please.

The storefront (boss's mom) is very German and she takes it as a personal insult when we comment on how much of a PITA it can be to work on "European" cars. Everything we work on European is Audi/VW/BMW, with a Mercedes and Volvo here and there.

We need some Italian and French cars coming through so we can bitch about the lack of decent info for them, too.

I'm currently trying to find strut mounts with little luck. So far they are all in Europe. I may look into possibly using something from another car if I can find something close.

Also thinking about megasquirt.

Also the shifter isn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. Better than most Volkswagens I have driven, it's actually kinda nice.

I need to go through the engine bay some more. It seems like whoever replaced the clutch didn't feel like bolting everything down like the battery tray and airbox. The clutch feels great though so I'm not complaining. :D

EvanB wrote: I'm currently trying to find strut mounts with little luck. So far they are all in Europe. I may look into possibly using something from another car if I can find something close.

Rockauto? There's a listing for euro market cars, I'd be surprised if the mounts were different for our market.

I was going to take my chances with those even though I have had bad luck with them shipping the wrong parts and not refunding shipping cost. Then I checked the shipping cost and it is around $115 from Europe. No thanks. I have found some on eBay in Europe but haven't inquired about shipping cost yet.

Was this car on eBay and located in VT?

It was on eBay but located in KY. I think the one in VT is being sold by the guys who hillclimb 505s.

After cleaning the IACV and resetting the ECU the car is beginning to start better. It seems to start decently when cold or sitting a bit but it has trouble with hot starts. Seems like it is extremely rich and you have to rev it up to clear out the plugs until it will idle right. I am thinking it is probably the CTS and the ECU is giving it too much fuel because it thinks it is cold.

The A/C is also stuck on. The switch doesn't work so I am going to pull off the HVAC control panel and try to clean out the switch.

In other news I called Peugeot Holm in VT and talked to the owner, he stocks front strut mounts and struts. He has aftermarket struts and is going to get back with me with what brands he has right now.

I don't remember if the 405 has a vane-style MAF, or a MAP sensor, but it might be worth cleaning that. Like most Bosch fuel injection, it also helps to clean the piss out of your grounds too.

Still jealous. You'll be shocked at the Honda-like aftermarket for these in the UK...but get ready to pay for the shipping. Get on eBay UK and get some lowering springs at least, that wheel gap is horrid!

But how am I going to rallycross it with lowering springs?

I've been going back and forth whether to lower it or not, still undecided.

In reply to EvanB:

Lower the 405, lift the Miata.

Not much work done this weekend. I took the center panel off to see if I could get the A/C switch working (it is stuck on) no luck there. I did find out why the radio was so terrible, whoever installed it just twisted the wires together and wrapped them with electrical tape. About half of them had come apart and the switched 12V and constant 12V wires were switched. I fixed that and it is much better.

While the panel was off I decided to give it a good cleaning. Scrubbing the area above the ashtray removed a lot of brown gunk. The original owner must have smoked constantly or just kept a burning cigarette in the ash tray.

I ordered a coolant temp sensor to see if that fixes the hard starting problem. I am thinking I may need to order another one though. It has two sensors, one for the ecu and one for the A/C and fans. The fans come on with the ignition regardless of engine temp.

I also found out why there is always hot air blowing out of the vents. There is a servo that controls the hot/cold air flow that apparently goes bad often. The common fix is to remove the servo and manually change the flap from hot to cold depending on the season. Another option is to buy a set of 3 for a land rover (cheaper than a single from Peugeot) and keep the additional 2 on hand for when it fails again. Being that it is almost winter I won't worry about that for awhile.

How does the car weigh?

I assume it would weigh quite well.

2400-2600lbs depending on the source.

I replaced the coolant temperature sensor with no luck. I decided to search online about the second "Bitron" sensor that controls the fans and A/C since you can't buy them anywhere I was trying to find resistance values or something. I found an old Yahoo board for the Mi16 and someone was describing a similar problem to mine. He discovered that the connectors for both sensors are exactly the same and may have been inadvertently switched at some point. He switched connectors and fixed the problem.

My problem apparently started when the previous previous owner had the clutch replaced so I was looking for things a "mechanic" would do to make it hard to start all of a sudden. Today I drove around for a bit to get the engine hot (the conditions where it has the most trouble starting) and then switched the connectors on the temp sensors. It started right up and idled perfectly! I love easy fixes.

TL;DR: Switched connectors on the two CTS and problem is fixed.

I also ordered the valve cover gasket to reduce the amount of oil that is dripped on the exhaust manifold while driving.

Also thinking about removing the A/C and Powersteering, I would probably save some money by simplifying the car and not trying to fix all the systems.

Well after some more driving it still needs a tiny bit of gas to keep it running when it starts up but not nearly as bad as it was by a long shot. The fans still come on even when it is cold so I still have some kind of trouble with the fan CTS.

This may seem like a lot of trivial posts but I am trying to document everything incase one of you is silly enough to buy a 405 and needs some reference material.

If the A/C is on all the time, the fans may be on all the time because of that.

I was thinking about that and wanted to pull the fuse but it is used for other important things as well. Maybe pull the relay?