'93 205 Si budget restomod

odddit

Member
Fellow Frogger
Tadpole
Joined
May 11, 2019
Messages
153
Location
Brisbane
Thank my lucky stars, managed to pick up a 205 Si for a very reasonable price from Robert at Le French Motors in Brisbane after it's been sitting for some years (10-12 at least, rego sticker says 2008), it's running & driving, so time to freshen the old nugget up and get it back on the road. Plans are a 90% retrim of the interior in red, white and blue velvet (viva la france), a nice cut & polish, get the mechanicals back up to snuff, register it and get to hooning.
119702115_256112238884480_2241414439091648415_n.jpg


1.PNG

Oh what a thicc nugget. Also, double Peugeot, just so you know what you're dealing with.
2.PNG

Interior after a quick vacuum. It's in better shape than I was expecting, but i've never been the biggest fan of grey, so seats are coming out soon for retrimming.
3.PNG

Cargo area, not a fan of the weird faux-leather, perhaps some wood panelling back here? still brainstorming.

5.PNG

Could fit so many eggs in this backseat.

4.PNG

Ruler epoxied into the dash cubby, this came factory with the Si right?

119698603_337097331043465_1681888325477016627_n.jpg

Dash is fairly cracked, but thankfully all the pieces are still there, so with some patience and plenty of strong adhesive I'll learn to not mind it falling off when I go around corners.
 
Great to see it went to a good owner. My current project 205 Si for lockdown here in Melbourne also had not been used since 2008. Painting the roof and Hatch tomorrow, everything else was able to be brought back with cutting and polishing. May do the LH rear if the painting goes OK. Have you started the car? If not you may find that the fuel pump is seized with the old fuel as mine was.
 
Great to see it went to a good owner. My current project 205 Si for lockdown here in Melbourne also had not been used since 2008. Painting the roof and Hatch tomorrow, everything else was able to be brought back with cutting and polishing. May do the LH rear if the painting goes OK. Have you started the car? If not you may find that the fuel pump is seized with the old fuel as mine was.
Seems 2008 was a bad year for 205's. Hope your painting goes well, these cars look amazing in their full livery IMO, there's one around Murwillumbah in bright orange, boy it's a beaut. Yeah, I've started it a few times, hesitated at first, but now it comes on with barely a tickle of the key. Smokes a bit, but to be expected since it's running on varnish from 2008. Even managed a quick lap of the neighbourhood, it pulls quite well. Plan to do a full fluid change of everything, hopefully that'll solve the smoke and firm up the brakes, then polish it up for full shiny.
 
Work has started. Back seats out, cargo carpet out, got the passenger seat out, and 4/5 bolts out of the driver's seat, the last bolt stripped out, gonna have to grind a slot into the head and might be able to get it out for retrimming.
1.JPG

Haven't got the fabric yet for carpets, seats etc, but still wanted to do something so attention turned to the shift boot for a saturday afternoon's tinkering.
2.JPG

Undo stitching, enflatten. Geez does this have a lot of staples holding it in.
3.JPG

Pattern
4.JPG

transfer to some scrap red velvet & get to stitching
5.JPG

Staple it right in, tie a red ribbon & that's all you need.
6.JPG

7.JPG

What shift knob should I get? I've seen dragon balls, I've seen all sorts of ridiculousness, maybe an old wooden MG shift knob, maybe I'll just make something weird. There are some nice 205 GTI knobs on ebay but god are they expensive
 
turns out the back seats just have covers so I'm just gonna pull them off and remake with red, white, blue velvet. Attempt 1:

1.PNG

pattern, from the old clapped out covers

2.PNG

oh boy this ain't it. turns out stretchy velvet is an absolute nightmare to work with. Back to the fabric store / drawing board. the blue, which is a higher quality non-stretch velvet turned out decently, but it's just impossible to get a straight seam with the white & red flopping about all willy-nilly.
 
Wow. You've got sewing skills. Great work, I must say. I envy you. I would like to re-trim mine, but I have no skills. Mind you, the material is rather thick so I guess you need a good machine to deal with it. I also considered leather because I would do that manually but I don't really like leather trim. Maybe the stick shift gaiter could be a beginner's project. Not sure where to find some good quality leather, though.
 
Wow. You've got sewing skills. Great work, I must say. I envy you. I would like to re-trim mine, but I have no skills. Mind you, the material is rather thick so I guess you need a good machine to deal with it. I also considered leather because I would do that manually but I don't really like leather trim. Maybe the stick shift gaiter could be a beginner's project. Not sure where to find some good quality leather, though.
It's not all that hard to learn, you should try it. If you've got an old chair and a shirt you don't want to wear anymore or some old bedsheets, retrimming a chair is a good project to learn with, and if you've got the patience and time, any fabric can be hand-sewn. Leather is quite a bit harder to work with, as you need thicker string generally and usually have to pre-punch all the needle holes, but good quality pleather can be had from any fabric store, and is much easier to sew.
 
3.PNG

Drivers seat is out! Muhaha! Got tired of fussing with screwdrivers and torx bits, the angle grinder made quick work of the last bolt holding in the driver's seat. On to cleaning. A hammer work surprisingly well to shake up dirt ground deep into the carpet. Some degreaser, vacuuming and scrubbing, and the floor came up looking much nicer.
4.PNG

Also quick tip from an ex-used car salesman: Wet look tire shine brings back chalky looking plastic trim to gloss like nobody's business. Replenishes the vitamims and mimerals or something, but it looks a damn sight nicer with minimal effort.
 
I did have a go or sixteen thousand at sewing and the results look like a lawnmower out of control veered into a haberdashery shop.

Leather is nice exactly because you pre-punch the holes (there's a comb like tool for that so they are all equidistant and aligned).

What is pleather?

If you want to clean car carpets perfectly you can try a pressure washer. I did mine and they came up spotless. Even old coffee stains came out. I used a little bit of truck cleaner? green stuff in a canister from Supercheap? Something like that. Spotless, I tell you.
 
I did have a go or sixteen thousand at sewing and the results look like a lawnmower out of control veered into a haberdashery shop.

Leather is nice exactly because you pre-punch the holes (there's a comb like tool for that so they are all equidistant and aligned).

What is pleather?

If you want to clean car carpets perfectly you can try a pressure washer. I did mine and they came up spotless. Even old coffee stains came out. I used a little bit of truck cleaner? green stuff in a canister from Supercheap? Something like that. Spotless, I tell you.
Pleather is plastic leather, the faux leathere stuff. can be surprisingly nice with modern techniques. I'm sure the pressure washer would bring it around brilliantly, but i'm not willing to take this carpet out until I can be bothered / afford to replace it with something nicer.
 
Si carpet is indestructable, full synthetic and not affected by water.
Yeah I took a peek under the back and saw the thick, thick plastic backing, looks incredibly sturdy. I think a treatment with a steam extractor will get all the ground in dirt fairly easily.
 
Finished the bottom rear seats. Good materials makes the job a lot easier, and it's come out a lot nicer than the last try. Still thinking what type of material to do the cargo area in. Blue suede? Elvis be damned, that blue suede will be stepped on.

completeeeee.JPG

Did the bottom in the stretchy white velvet to get tension on the top as some sort of nivea anti-wrinkle cream.

complete bac.JPG
 
122148319_1247102078985853_5833072572016094693_n.jpg


122173094_653621175294498_827881867465781254_n.jpg


Dash is back in one piece-ish. Even during exam crunch, it's nice to get some small things done. Not the prettiest, but it's going to be covered by the end, likely very dark blue velvet.
 
Geez, you are a patient one.

I always wondered how much it would cost to have a few pieces of the dash made in carbon fibre. Not necessarily for look but durability.
If you have the old dash, you can get sheets of thermoset carbon fibre for fairly cheap if I remember right, mould it over the old piece with some release film, heat it and it sets. I've seen some people make hoods and the like from it.
 
Any new updates on this build?
Been doing my last university exams, so progress has been slow. been trying to siphon out the old gas, to replace it with fresh. thinking maybe to jsut disconnect the hose and let the fuel pump pump it all out, but if there's any grit or nastiness in there don't want to mess up the pump.
 
124383976_352369936051365_1691668736388029152_n.jpg


driver's seat down to the frame as the foam is fairly well rotten. also my butt is too thicc for these seats, i'll likely be bending down the side bolsters, and doing custom foam & similar red, white & blue velvet upholstery. likely the custom seats will be less sculptured, but i'd like to drive the absolute snot out of this when el pequeno puggerino is completed, so this comfort mod is mandatory.
 
Top