Restauro Peugeot 404 Coupé Iniezione in Canada

[Mike T.]

After filling the engine with coolant several weeks ago, there was a leak from the joint of the head gasket. It was a new head so the shop that assembled it assumed it was flat and not needing a resurfacing. I took the head off and it was checked, and although it was flat, there was a small area about 0.38 mm lower than the surrounding area. This is around where the leak was. So the shop resurfaced it at no charge and I got it back today. 0.38 mm was removed, which is a little bit less than the 0.5 mm maximum for injection heads.

I will reassemble the engine with a Reinz gasket this time.

I got the head back Friday afternoon:

[bassplayer]

How did it happen? I mean, the 0.38mm lower surface area

[Mike T.]

That is THE question but I don't know the answer. There was no impact damage visible on the head anywhere. The surface had all been machined at the factory in the 1970s so somehow it changed its shape after that, a very small, but measurable amount. I hope that this is the end of the problem!

If not, the original head remains to be used if necessary, but it would need hardened (unleaded fuel) valve seats and new valve guides installed.

[Mike T.]

I took the advantage of the current pause in work to clean the old door seals. The new replicas available these days are too thick and press too hard against the doors when shut and because the rubber of the originals seems to be in decent condition, I thought I'd spend a few hours cleaning one up to see if my plan to reuse them would pay off....

Before:

Before (inside the seal where the metal clips are placed):

After:

ifter (inside the seal where the metal clips are placed):

Thanks to Jérôme Roussel in France for giving me 1.5 metres of metal clip strips, to replace the 1.5 metres of my originals that rusted to FeO2 powder in the 5 years these seals from 1975 were on the car, and the car on the road. These will all be de-rusted and electroplated in Cadmium and painted, then reinserted into the seals.


As I noted, the seals were bought by the previous owner in 1975 at Jay's British and European Motors - I still have the invoice - and they were on this daily driven car for five years. After that the car was in a garage and so the rubber is truly in excellent condition. Three hours or maybe a bit more with Flitz polish turned them from a rusted, dirty mess into what appears to be nearly new and very soft and supple rubber!

After a good wash with a nail brush, the cleaned seal was treated with this Würth stuff and wow did it make a huge difference!


The door-mounted striker plates are not as good looking as they should be so they too will be replated when the seal clips are done.


Another faux pas was that the original connection rod bolts were re-used in engine assembly (my fault) and so although I do have a spare set of new ones, It seems that the spare connecting rod bolts I have are a bit too short so I'll be ordering a couple of sets from Europe shortly. And of course this means that the block has to come out of the car again!

[bassplayer]

Hi Mike. How is it going? Are you finally enjoying the car driving around?

[Mike T.]

Hi, bassplayer. Not yet....

I took a break from working on the car in the late summer and soon the work will resume.

Upcoming work includes removing the engine block/pistons from the car so I can replace the connecting rod bolts
...then the head will be installed, engine back in the car and I hope a start not long after.

These pieces were plated in Cadmium: the two door striker plates and the chain-clips for the original Italian door seals.

I also have to replace the brake booster with a newly rebuilt one, and successfully bleed the brakes' hydraulic circuit.

[Mike T.]

The reinforcements are in the passenger door seal now. Looks good!

[Mike T.]

Update:

When the engine block was removed I decided to take the connecting rods apart so I could change the bolts with the new ones I got from Germany and had forgotten to ask the shop to install. Well, when the first one came off I could see that the brand new bearing shell had a deep scratch in it. It was caused by the shop carelessly installing the pistons and bashing the threading of the connecting rod bolts into the newly ground crankshaft surface! Unbelievable. So the entire engine has been taken apart again....

I will obviously not be taking it back to the original shop that did this awful work. Today I removed the flywheel from the crankshaft to get it ready to be refinished. On Friday I ordered another set of 0.3 mm oversize bearings from Dean Hunter in case the crank does not actually need a regrind, but just the high point that the previous shop caused to be polished out again....

Monday it goes into Mid-Island Engines and Machine Shop in Duncan, along with a set of 0.5 mm oversized rod bearings (the 0.3 set from Dean Hunter in England is en route as of Friday), the 4 rods with pistons attached so Chuck in the Mid Island shop can check the roundness of the big ends....

It seems that Coachwerks, who restored my bodyshell and recommended Anderson's - the shop that did this mess, is now using the shop my crank's going to. I suppose we both experienced some issues at roughly the same time.

Chuck at Mid-Island warned me that it could be a while before the work is completed, because his main machinist is working intermittently and Chuck may have to do the work himself. It'd be nice to get it back at the end of February.

Meanwhile I will try to get the braking system working before the engine is ready to go back in the car.

[Mike T.]

I bought a new set of 0.3 mm oversized connecting rod bearings in case the other shop that now has the crankshaft for refinishing can keep it at the same size. The shop is very busy so it could be another month or more before I get the crankshaft back and can begin engine reassembly.