Thanks, I've read yours with interest too.


I installed the Autoleads PC99-X19/PC99-BLA (Blaupunkt) remote stalk patch lead today. Not a total success as the stalk does not alter volume without changing the radio station/music track as well! Smegal suggested it could be a worn-out stalk or an incompatibility in the wiring - the worn-out stalk contact sounds a very good possibility but but as the same lead is sold by a Blaupunkt agent the wiring incompatibility seems unlikely. Googling the Autoleads patch lead and looking on here shows a fair few people with problems getting it to work properly - seems to be somewhat hit-and-miss. [EDIT: Got another stalk and installed it but no real difference, so it was not the stalk. Sometimes it worked correctly, most of the time it didn't. Have deleted the stalk entirely for now].

I did delete the completely surplus speaker wire interface though - it adds nothing to the situation apart from giving more room to manoeuvre at the expense of adding more bulky wiring and an extra connector in the speaker circuit which for the purist like me means degradation in sound quality - as if the speaker wires weren't thin enough already!

When mucking about with head units a big piece of double-thickness duct tape (masking tape didn't stick and probably too thin) around the stereo aperture is a very good idea to prevent scratching that centre console with the sharp metal corners of the rear of the head unit when connecting wires. I have put a decent centre console on now but when I got the car the original one had loads of scratches on it from botched attempts to get the stereo in/out. So duct tape FTW.

I've also persevered with the rear floorpan surface rust - after chiseling and both manual and drill-driven wire brushing is looking OK. The rust can prove quite difficult to shift initially - I now use a chisel, then manual/drill wire brush, then various grades of wet and dry. A lot of elbow grease, but the end result is something approaching the actual sound metal.

I am wondering what to paint it with as the POR-15 needs to be employed exactly right or it doesn't work well. It says "paint directly onto rust" and "don't use rust converters" but the website recommends a prep of its own that is a converter! I also tried the Wickes metal primer (water-based unusually) but it was very stiff like jelly and displayed signs of chalkiness when dry - old stock maybe? Just does not inspire confidence. The Wickes "Poppy" red non-drip enamel applied in a test part (so luckily does not need hours of re-doing) is not properly dry after 3 days and does not cover well at all - after one coat it is positively translucent. So despite the fact it is a good colour match I am not going to use it - I'll buy some decent paint thanks very much.

I am currently considering using a normal rust converter like Kurust (nice and thin so gets in all the nooks and crannies), maybe a decent primer, then painting over that with the POR-15 satin top coat Chassis Black - supposedly designed for previously painted/primed surfaces, unlike the POR-15 rust paint.

So all in all a bit of a mixed result today.

The patch lead assembled...the green plug on the right goes into the back of the head unit. The blue plug slotted onto it on the right is a separate purchase and terminates in a 3.5mm jack to plug in an iPhone/iPod. The plugs slot together and go into the 'C' (top) connector on the back of the unit - the plug comes in 3 parts depending on what you are attaching the toe head unit. The bits I have used are C2 (remote control and telephone) and C3 (CD changer/rear aux). (To complete the set there is also available a third one (C1) which can be slotted onto side of the blue/green plug for a separate amp feed).

The 3.5mm jack was fed into the upper glove box (no drilling required and took all of 30 secs) for easy attachment of an iPod. The head unit controls this via the rear aux/CD changer function. Will try it out soon.

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Cherry Rallye SOLD

...leads all plugged in ready for connecting head unit...

mik has attached the following image:

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Cherry Rallye SOLD

Just did another quick job. After noticing that the new better front speakers caused some buzzing at higher volumes, I noted that the factory speakers are only attached with 3 screws, which are not equally spaced - there is a screw at 9, 12 and 3 o'clock but not at 6 o'clock. Just now I grabbed some spare screws and drilled another hole at the 6 o'clock position, at the very front corner of each door. With the speakers out I noticed that the door card itself is not firmly attached at that point, but there is already a screw hole in the door card under the speaker and a corresponding one in the door skin. A couple of suitable sized screws and the problem is solved.

So now the speakers are attached with equal pressure all the way around and the door card under the speaker is firmly attached to the door.

The buzzing, predictably, is gone and the speakers sound better now they are firmly anchored.

Just have to remember that extra screw next time the door card has to come off. It might have been there when new but discarded by a previous door card dismantler.

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Cherry Rallye SOLD

Oh dear,not good about the Por-15

Big job ahead of you,but will be nice and protected when your finished

Highly recommend these:

Rust removal discs

Buy them for a couple of £ from local motor factors

Also good old paint stripper for tight areas/corners etc

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Red GTB1756 powered Fabia VRS daily driver,LBSC Gti6 eater........

Mac1 ZR R1 kit car build in progress.

Received the Raceland strut brace today. It is the same design as the OMP one and in red. OK for the price, but the paint finish isn't that great. And being steel it is heavier than I would have liked but no-one seems to do an ally one at present.

As the (black top P2 type) gear knob in the car is knackered with torn leather, I spoke to Pug about a new gear knob today who said the only one listed is a black-topped version. The silver one he ordered last week had appeared but was a 5-speed type. Should have got the P3 knob that was on e-bay a few weeks back.

EDIT: The "black" gear knob arrived and it is the Phase 3 silver topped six-speed one I wanted - cost around £35.

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Cherry Rallye SOLD

Here is the knob still in its plastic bag - and still available from Peugeot for less than advertised on ebay! I got a bunch of stuff from Peugeot, including the strips that clip onto the door at the bottom of the window, as mine were bubbled from the rusting metal strip inside. I also got the bolts for the front and rear bumpers so all the corroded ones can be replaced, and a nice new P3 rear badge. It is not too apparent from the pic but the P3 style is much better quality and nicer looking, especially as the original one is a bit dog-eared.

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Cherry Rallye SOLD

And finally I spent another 2 days or so chiseling, scraping and sanding off the rust under the car and treating it with Bilt Hamber Deox Gel. The BH stuff is definitely more effective than the Hammerite rust gel. I painted the cleaned up metal with Bilt Hamber Electrox zinc primer, which provides cathodic protection corrosion protection similar to galvanising as the zinc is a sacrificial anode that corrodes before the steel.

After another coat of Electrox it will be over-coated with satin black and I am thinking about over-paintable stone chip stuff in the recesses behind the wheels. Now to get the rear wheel arch liners off and clean up the arches when I've got some more time.

Got a call from daveyboy - my new subframe is all finished. I will be picking it up next week to replace the rust-coloured one on the Rallye.

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Cherry Rallye SOLD

get more pictures involved
nice write up though

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TEAM HIGH BOOST SUPERCHARGED RALLYE

My Rallye project thread

I don't think most of your pictures are working?


Like this for example:

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Chris
1999 China Gti6 Supercharged [Fun car] >>Project Thread<<
2000 Bianca 306 Diesel [Work runabout]

Sorted now - got myself a photobucket account. The old way of attaching photos (attachment box under text when writing post) no longer seems to work.

Thanks all for comments - any feedback gratefully received.

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Cherry Rallye SOLD

This weekend I've been continuing painting underneath at the back, and have made a start on the LH rear wheelarch.

Every time I think I can put the top coat on I find something else to sort, would be easier to see underneath if I still had access to the hoist, but I've changed jobs now.

The wheel arch is not bad at all, some small patches of rust and quite a bit of flaking paint. I attacked it with the drill with the wire brush and more paint was loose than I thought:



I've wire brushed it and washed it down, and will continue tomorrow night after work. It was pretty good but there were a couple of very small random patches of surface rust right up on the inner wing by the C pillar...



And I got a second hand spare tyre bracket (mine was too corroded to refurbish) and put Bilt Hamber Deox Gel on it and covered it with cling film and left it for 2 days. After a wire brushing and rinsing it looks pretty good, the Deox gel is quite effective. I'll paint it at the same time as I sort the wheel arches etc.



I took the car for a drive today, it hadn't been driven since sometime in August. I'd run the battery down and recharged it with a trickle charger from Halfords. It was £24, and I would have got one off the net for £10.95, but I was in the area and it would have meant a trip to the post office to pick up a parcel anyway, so I just bought it. Halfords is bleeding expensive - usually twice the price you could get it elsewhere. The trickle charger, and other recent examples such as the stereo fascia surround at £15 in Halfords vs £4 off the net for an identical part, and Alpine SXE1725S speakers RRP £29.95, Halfords price £59.95!

Anyway, the first bit of the drive, going to meet some people for lunch - only a 10 mile return trip, was awful. The car felt horrible and was making lots of noises (I knew that some of them resulted from only using 4 bolts instead of 6-8 when hastily reattaching the rear bumper to display the number plate, as the bolts holding the number plate on are corroded). When we got home I took it for a drive to see if that would improve things, and it did - the odd noises from the front disappeared, but the brakes were binding and took a bit to get working properly and there was a bit of smoke/smell at first. It was almost back to its normal self by the end of the drive, but the clonking from the rear was definitely worse.

I know cars don't like being inactive, but I was surprised at the extra noises after less than 2 months sitting idle, might rethink SORNing it over winter, and I think it will need brake work for the MoT in Jan.

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Cherry Rallye SOLD

Uploaded some pics in edited post above.

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Cherry Rallye SOLD

Not too bad outside yet, but getting dark earlier is cramping my style a bit trying to fit it in after getting home from work.

Anyway, got some more work done today.

I wanted to change the steering wheel for the leather version and while it was dismantled I thought I'd sort out the radio stalk, and install the aluminium dial surrounds I got from the Tuning Shop.



Not everything went to plan, but the end result was OK all things considered. The steering wheel was duly installed and I managed to do it without setting the airbag off, mainly by using BTDTs from this forum, especially in the FAQs, very helpful indeed.



The stalk issue was after installing an Autoleads stalk adaptor to work with my Blaupunkt San Francisco 300, it worked after a fashion, but irritatingly changes the station when releasing the stalk after altering the volume. I bought another stalk for £7 as I thought (and confirmed from people on here) that it was due to a faulty stalk, worn contacts etc. The "new" stalk exhibited all the same tendencies; it was similar but wiring slightly different. I then experimented with cutting wires and changing them around to see if I could improve things, even if I could et the volume alone to work consistently I could live with that. Worth a try anyway. While I did get it to work better, it was inconsistent and after switching the radio off and on again, it would revert to changing the station and volume at the same time. Eventually I removed the stalk and the adaptor completely (very easy to do), as I don't like having things that don't work in the car and it is not strictly necessary anyway. However, I will keep it and if I happen upon a way to make it work properly I may reinstall it.

The ally dial surrounds from http://www.tuning-shop.co.uk/peugeot-9702-chrome-dial-surrounds-rings-brushed-alloy-p-857.html?cPath=20_119 were installed after completely removing the instrument cluster using the FAQs on here. The plugs at the back with the lever that needs to be pivoted to release the plug were something I've never seen before and took a while to work out - really easy to use once you know how though. I got the cluster apart and the large circular ally rings for the big rev counter and speedo dials went in OK but quite fiddly as there was not much of a lip to bend to hold it in place as instructed. Certainly it took about 10 times longer than as shown on the Tuning Shop video. The ally surrounds for the smaller dials (water and oil temp) did not quite fit properly as they were a little too short top to bottom and the bottom curves for the flat bit weren't quite right and didn't match the shape of the dial. They may well fit a subtly different 306 dash (there are pics on the Tuning Shop website of the surrounds properly installed on a P2/3 306 - maybe there is more than one type of instrument cluster? - or maybe a different batch of product) but what I can say for sure is these ones definitely did not fit mine. After a bit of thinking I decided to install the ones for the large dials and leave it at that. I think it looks OK, and gives a bit of a lift to the standard dash.

As a general point some of the access for screws etc was a bit difficult, and the bendy thing in the photo came in handy.



And everything actually worked when I got it back together! And it looks pretty good. I am going for an OEM+ look, with the ally bling on the dials and P3 gearknob matching nicely. All I need is an ally handbrake button now.

I also installed the right B-pillar black sticky stuff and nice new rubber mouldings along the bottom of the window on each side as the originals were bubbled from the metal strip inside corroding.



And I sorted some small patches of lifting paint under the lights and hatch.



I'll post a pic of the end result tomorrow, as it was getting dark when I finished.

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Cherry Rallye SOLD