My 504 Daily Driver Project

I have been talking for some time of building a new 504 as a daily driver.

But I've been having some trouble finding exactly what I wanted as a base to start with. So, despite it being defected, I've decided that the best option is to rebuild my old 504.

She's a very early 1969 Peugeot 504, originally an 1800cc, push button door handles, big front window model, no C-pillar vent and the wonderful French seats with the seat rails built into the chassis.

And here she is in her not-so-glorious current condition!







I'm pulling the motor and gearbox out tomorrow, and will be stripping the entire car down to a rolling, bare metal shell. Then I'll get the body straight and rust free, followed by paint. The seats and door trims will be re-upholstered, new carpet and headliner will be fitted. It already has electric windows all round

Mechanically, much of my work is already done. It already has the entire front end from a series 2 505 GTi, and the back has 604 trailing arms and swaybar. It has power steering and 604 brakes. I will be shortening the front springs by half a coil and changing the rear springs for shortened 505 GTi items. It currently has ex-works rally springs in the back, far too firm and tall for my liking.

The engine and gearbox combination going into it is the ZDJL engine that had the build documented on here, but it looks like it must have been after the 2006 cutoff. Brief rundown: 2.2 litre OHC motor, 11:1 compression ratio achieved by machining the liner seats and top of the block, so pistons and liners are standard. Ported and polished, oversized valves, lumpy long duration cam of unspecified specs, but previously used in a Fuego hill climber, lightweight aluminium rocker arms, lightened flywheel, completely balanced and now running L-Jet injection. Gearbox is a standard BA7/5 with new bearings and synchros throughout, and modified shifter for shorter throw and long gearstick.

Wheels will be 505 GTi 15". I'm going to convert the brakes over to twin-circuit.

This project has been a long time coming, but I'm finally in a position to do it properly, and have the car I've always wanted.

Got a bit of work ahead of you there, mate. Great project though.

I'd have expected more negative camber than that with an entire 505 GTI front end. Why is there not?

Do you remember the name of the thread detailing the engine build? If you give me an idea I'll try to recover it.

504

Great project Scotty. It should be a brilliant 504 when done. What colour will it be?? Please keep the posts coming of progress.

Think I am getting 504 envy again LOL. I have 405s and 505s right now and nearly bought a 504 a while back. Maybe some time in the future...

Those seats are brilliant. I had them in a 75 South African 504 back in the 80s.

Yes John, lots of work ahead. But it's something I've wanted to do for a long time!

The name of the thread was 'taking my ZDJL to the gym' or something like that. Originally posted by GTirally.

There is actually a fair bit of camber, I'll try to take another photo showing this. The road there is curved quite heavily and gives the optical illusion of the wheels being vertical. Also, as there isn't that much weight over the front axle, it sits fairly high to start with on unsagged 505 GTi springs.

James - Colour is still up for negotiation between myself and swmbo. It sounds like we're coming to agreement with a New Mini bluey greeny colour, or possibly a bluey greeny colour from the new Suzuki Swift. I also saw a Mazda 3 the other day in a colour that I really liked. Open to all suggestions!

The interior I want to do in a similar shade of silvery white as the current interior, with black carpets and a couple of flashes of the exterior colour in the piping in the seats.

The only problem with these seats is that they're slightly too wide to easily fit the later model centre console in!


Who wants to hear the adventure about having brought the car down from where it's been stored 300kms away in northern SA?

i could be interested in those rear springs

they'd probably suit a 604 better than they currently do in that 504

No diesel this time?

I had a 1970 504 , which was going to be the donor for the parts from 74TI which someone rear ended and wrote off.

I bought the car with a "blown head gasket" from a Lilydale Ford dealer for $150 in the latish 80's.

I replaced the fan clutch brush and the was car perfect. Ended up leaving the 1800cc engine in and driving it as was.

In my opinion there is something different and special about the early 1800 504s. The are magic!

Best of luck with the project and if a turbo on the horizon, this mob did it.
http://www.peugeotech.com.au/gallery/404 Rebuild/index.html

Scotty,

and the wonderful French seats with the seat rails built into the chassis.

Does this mean the French seats only fit in imported 504s, not Australian assembled ones?

The only problem with these seats is that they're slightly too wide to easily fit the later model centre console in!

I have a solution - you should sell them to me!

Awesome project by the way, I'd love something just like this to compliment by super bog standard 504GL.

Pugrambo - you're first in line for the springs then. I don't suppose you're interested in a straight swap for a K-jet fuel distribution head from an early V6?

Robmac - You're right about the 1800 motors. The original motor in this car was the sweetest little thing, revved freely, started so easily and ran on the smell of an oily rag. I'd take one over a 2 litre anyday. But unfortunately that motor developed a hole in the block under the exhaust manifolds BETWEEN the welch plugs. It wasn't viable to repair it and I couldn't find a replacement at the time so I fitted the 2 litre I had been building and converted it to gas. Now i'm ripping out the gas gear and going back to petrol. No diesel this time, I still have the 505 TD wagon as a workhorse and to get my fix of dieselness.

Michael - Yep, those are the seats. I'm a little confused about the origin of this car, as I didn't think the Australian 504 plant was up and running in '69, but it has the paint tag for Dulon paint in Latrobe Brown, which I thought was an Australian colour. Someone else might know better.

Demannu said:

Pugrambo - you're first in line for the springs then. I don't suppose you're interested in a straight swap for a K-jet fuel distribution head from an early V6?

Robmac - You're right about the 1800 motors. The original motor in this car was the sweetest little thing, revved freely, started so easily and ran on the smell of an oily rag. I'd take one over a 2 litre anyday. But unfortunately that motor developed a hole in the block under the exhaust manifolds BETWEEN the welch plugs. It wasn't viable to repair it and I couldn't find a replacement at the time so I fitted the 2 litre I had been building and converted it to gas. Now i'm ripping out the gas gear and going back to petrol. No diesel this time, I still have the 505 TD wagon as a workhorse and to get my fix of dieselness.

Michael - Yep, those are the seats. I'm a little confused about the origin of this car, as I didn't think the Australian 504 plant was up and running in '69, but it has the paint tag for Dulon paint in Latrobe Brown, which I thought was an Australian colour. Someone else might know better.

Click to expand...

It would be assembled at Heidleberg in 1970, with parts made in France in 1969.
All the 1970 model 504s I've seen have had 69 stamped on the block.
The seats are the Australia made variety, the imported ones had a basket weave pattern.

Graham

Demannu said:

Pugrambo - you're first in line for the springs then. I don't suppose you're interested in a straight swap for a K-jet fuel distribution head from an early V6?

Robmac - You're right about the 1800 motors. The original motor in this car was the sweetest little thing, revved freely, started so easily and ran on the smell of an oily rag. I'd take one over a 2 litre anyday. But unfortunately that motor developed a hole in the block under the exhaust manifolds BETWEEN the welch plugs. It wasn't viable to repair it and I couldn't find a replacement at the time so I fitted the 2 litre I had been building and converted it to gas. Now i'm ripping out the gas gear and going back to petrol. No diesel this time, I still have the 505 TD wagon as a workhorse and to get my fix of dieselness.

Michael - Yep, those are the seats. I'm a little confused about the origin of this car, as I didn't think the Australian 504 plant was up and running in '69, but it has the paint tag for Dulon paint in Latrobe Brown, which I thought was an Australian colour. Someone else might know better.

Click to expand...

i think i may just have one of those in the engine shed

i'll check for you in the next few days

Graham - Thanks for your insight! It's nice to know where it came from. So it's Australian after all. Do you know why the late model ones seem to rust so much worse than the early ones like this?

Rambo - Ideally I'm after the one from the spider/crab/octopus style manifold, but in a pinch I could make do with the twin-plenum one. Just so long as there is no corrosion in it and the metering rod still moves freely.

Demannu said:

Graham - Thanks for your insight! It's nice to know where it came from. So it's Australian after all. Do you know why the late model ones seem to rust so much worse than the early ones like this?

Rambo - Ideally I'm after the one from the spider/crab/octopus style manifold, but in a pinch I could make do with the twin-plenum one. Just so long as there is no corrosion in it and the metering rod still moves freely.

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I haven't noticed any real difference re rust except that the very late ones rust under the plastic door sill covers and also because of foam stuck in the C pillars.
I agree about the 1800s having that special something, although the rear suspension was very noisy. This was fixed in the late 70s by fitting rear trailing arm bushes with more rubber, the bolts were smaller on these later cars.
By the way if anyone is intersted I have available 3/4 of a set of new (genuine Peugeot) bushes for the early arms, would be unobtainable these days I would have thought.
Graham

Nice project.
I think this thread might be a good competitor for Peujohn's one (which I miss a lot).
But how did the car reach that condition ? was it garaged before ?

Great project Scott,

I've always had thoughts of building a great daily 504.

I may have some of the bit's your after, i'll have a look at the weekend and let you know

Ben

Graham - I have an entire 505 rear end in very good nick that I might just bolt in. Any reasons come to mind why this might be a bad idea? It currently has 604 trailing arms bolted to the original crossmember, it's about 7 years since I put them in but I vaguely remember an issue with the bolts.

Doush_504 - Thanks! The car was pretty rough when I bought it (nearly 8 years ago) and in that time it hasn't been garaged at all. It has spent the last 4 years in country SA where there is fierce sunshine that has totally destroyed any remaining paint. There's a little rust in it, but it's not going to stop me!

Ben - Thanks, I'd be very interested to know what you've got hidden away there! I'll look forward to hearing from you.

GRAHAM WALLIS said:

It would be assembled at Heidleberg in 1970, with parts made in France in 1969.
All the 1970 model 504s I've seen have had 69 stamped on the block.
The seats are the Australia made variety, the imported ones had a basket weave pattern.

Graham

Click to expand...

Scott,

Interesting. So will you have to modify the later model centre console to fit the seats in? Would they also fit in a 1973 model?

Does ANYONE have a pair of the French seats they're willing to part with?

I think the 73 model used a conventional seat frame to hold it to the body, and doesn't have the rails built into the chassis like mine does.

I'm not going to modify the centre console, but I will look into modifying the seat frame a touch, if I can move the whole seat arrangement outboard by about half an inch on each side, it will give the clearance to fit the centre console. I'll also look at bolting the seat belt latch to the seat and have them slide together, instead of trying to fit it up past the console.

Bugger, I thought as much. Next time you have your camera handy, would mind taking a picture of how the seats bolt to the chassis, I've never actually see how it's done.

A couple of other questions:
1. What do you mean by it being a big front window model? I thought they were all the same?
2. I notice your car has the rear vision mirror mounted on the front guard. Is this where they were usually mounted on early cars?

Michael

Big window: have a close look at the front door. It doesn't have the little triangle in the leading corner like later model 504s. As a result the front windows are a tiny bit bigger.

Demannu said:

Who wants to hear the adventure about having brought the car down from where it's been stored 300kms away in northern SA?

Click to expand...

Yes please! :wink2:

Very nice project, I'l be watching this one carefully! I love the early 504s, your doing it up almost the same as I would too! I'd have forced induction though. :wink2:

She looks like she's had a herd life, still looks pretty sound though. Good luck with your project mate!

Thanks

Hayden