MikeT

2 speed wiper motor installed - which does not leave a lot of room for draining new oil into the oil filler tube, hence the giraffe-style funnel. Another advantage is the screen in the oil filler tube on the engine is not overwhelmed by the rate of drainage from the funnel so it's a "fill and forget" situation. The accelerator cable on the fuel injected 404 has a brutally difficult-to-access fixing bolt. Nothing that about an hour of pain would not rectify, mind you.

I was sorting some photos today and came across a couple of my 1966 Peugeot 404 C looking reasonably OK....it is, after all, a restoration project car for sometime in the future and so it's not all that nice right now, especially in its partially stripped condition. The Coupé and Cabriolet models were built on a 404 sedan floorpan shipped to Torino Italy from Sochaux France. There, Pininfarina fitted the body, assembled and painted the car, trimmed the interior and then shipped the cars back by train to Sochaux for fitting of the engines and suspensions. This assembly process was very expensive, and so was the car, as a result. In Canada, they cost close to $5000 in 1966, which would have got you into a very nice Mercedes at the time. Still, Peugeot did sell somewhere between 50 and 150 of these cars in Canada between 1966 and 1968. Worldwide, about 17,000 were sold. Most of the cars sold in Canada had the optional Kugelfischer-injected engine, which is one of the sweetest engines I've ever experienced. It's a 1618 cc four, slanted at 45 degrees to the passenger side, largely oversquare and therefore smooth as butter. The engine was brought to a new level with the fuel injection. MOTOR magazine in Great Britain tested one in 1965 and found it would do 0-60 MPH in 12.2 seconds (that with the 400 pound test equipment!) and it lapped the banked circuit at MIRA at an average speed of 105.2 MPH. They said it performed like a 2 or 2.5 litre car, with the fuel economy of a 1.6. The Canadian 404 C models all had the optional NARDI floor-mounted shifter fitted as standard, which was only a dealer-fitted accessory in Europe. The 404 sedan won the East African Safari Rally 4 times, in 1963, 1966, 1967 and 1968, the latter three times with the same Kugelfischer fuel injected engine as my car has. The suspension of these Peugeot 404 cars was extremely tough and many 404s are still in service in Africa as bush taxis. The entire lower front suspension is made of forged steel, and the front crossmember is cast iron. The sedans were strong, but the Coupé was even stronger, due to them having the same lower body reinforcements of the Cabriolet, but with a welded roof as well. Most 404 fans think the Coupé is the best-looking 404. Fewer than 7000 Coupés were built, the rest of the 17,000 being Cabriolets. My 404 C VIN registry sucks but I do have 25 cars in it *well that was a long time ago; now it doesn't suck and it has about 2000 of the 17000 cars that were made on it. I owned one of these from February 1981 through July 1985. It was silver and rustier than this white one, but still looked good outwardly and went like a bat out of hell. I swear it was faster than the MOTOR test figures, and I managed to outrun the West Vancouver cops one hight on the Upper Levels highway in this car (well I was going at an indicated 110 MPH when I passed the stationary radar trap and so had a head start!). The car was beautiful to drive and Sandy T almost passed her drivers test in it. Got to work on that one......it was a difficult car for a learner to drive! I have owned this white car - which cost me $500 - for nearly 20 years and it's been garaged all that time. It needs a fair bit of surgery to the body due to rust; the car has never been hit. To that end, I have been accumulating as many OEM body panels as I could find over the past 20 years. The ones common to the sedan aren't too hard to find if you scratch deeply for them, but the ones specific to the Coupé and Cabriolet are super-rare. Fortunately I have still managed to get: NOS front hood from Sochaux NOS front fenders, L and R, from a Peugeot collector in Cincinnati OH NOS rear fenders, L and R, plus L rocker panel and under bumper shield from a Peugeot repairman in eastern Ontario other NOS panels from a vendor in Germany replacement trunk lid for the (rusty) white one in the photo from a friend in Victoria - the very trunk lid from the silver 404 Coupé Injection I owned from 1981-1985! new floor panels and other undercarriage items from Peugeot Germany in 1989-90 The plan is to restore the car once we have stopped hemmoraging money form post-secondary educational expenses.....which should be in about 8 years.In any case, here are the photos. The rear window's chrome trim is in my possession and just wasn't on the car for the photos.

The 404 of my car's age has a funky-ass braking system: 280 mm diameter finned drums on the front wheels with over/under front shoes pushed by 4 pistons (1 on each end of each shoe so the front brakes have no self-servo effect) and 10 inch conventional rear drums. To make up for the unusual front drums, there is a Hydrovac brake booster, which has a 7:1 assistance ratio (old school Mastervac is usually around 3:1) and because the displacements of brake applications are large, there is also a 5 litre external vacuum tank to supplement the vacuum in the Hydrovac unit itself. Mine was bought NOS in 1993 and was installed in the car around 1998 and so it was in there with fluid for 18 years. It may, in other words, need to be rebuilt. However, in the interests of "wanting to know", I've installed it and I will determine how it is on a road test. Meanwhile, my esteemed US colleague in Le Club 404, Todd Langton, has a 3.5 year old rebuilt unit ready in case I need it.... So the engine compartment looks like this (except there's a battery and the wiper motor is installed!), so it's pretty much time to reinstall the hood. The remaining work: get the new lower rad hose as well as the new 75°C I ordered from Germany in mid-April. I have a very good used lower hose and several old thermostats but I'd rather put a new one in all the fluids (gearbox, injection pump sump oil, brake fluid, coolant, engine oil, windshield washer fluid, ~20L of 94 octane no ethanol gas) verification of valve clearances (engine builder did it but I'll "trust, but verify") use the factory fuel injection tool kit to check the 5 main settings of the throttle body, etc. buy a new battery, check the electrics spin her up with plugs out to spread the oil around then try to start. You can get an idea of the weird brake plumbing from this photo: It's looking mostly like a normal 404KF2 now Vacuum tank above, Hydrovac below, from the (future) location of the battery.

With a few spare minutes left in a busy day I installed the radiator and connect the thermo-switch for the fan....and of course, installed the engine fan too.

Photo of the flush and residue in the tube

Today I had some time to test clean the spare set of injector lines with Muriatic Acid to see if it's get more residue out. Boy did it ever! So I pumped about 100 mL of Muriatic Acid through each line of the pipes that had been on the engine with a large syringe, pulsing it back and forth. After the acid flush, they were purged with water, then acid flushed again, and again, until the solution coming out was not orange (rust) anymore. The water purges were at high pressure and that dislodged more particulates and fuel sludge which you can see in the green tray. Following the acid/water purges, the lines were flushed first with WD40 to try and displace any remaining water - each line was done about 6 times until it ran clear. Then I used a syringe to punch about 70 mL of STP concentrated injection system cleaner through each line, letting it stay in there for a while. The final rinse was with MolySlip Combat spray. The lines inside, which previously - near the ends, and no doubt in between too - had visible black corrosion residue, are all clean now and a scriber inside will not find any loose stuff. The spare lines were also quickly cleaned. Then I removed and cleaned the ends of the injectors and delivery valves that had been connected before to the injector lines (pre-final cleaning) and then reassembled it all. I also changed the steel clamp that holds the two lines for cylinders 1 and 2 (nearest firewall) to the intake plenum for an aluminum one I made, because the alignment was slightly off for the steel ones and it could have chewed into the line to injector 2 over time. The aluminum clamp I made is gently shaped and will cause no problems like that.... Finally, I got some rubber tubing for the radiator overflow and also derusted the two tiny steel clamps that hold the tube to the radiator. Then I painted them and installed the tubing. So in terms of visible progress it was minimal but I am much more confident about the cleanliness of the injector lines now!

Magnaflux, I did this with my 404 engine parts.

Canada only got 50 of them - all with 40 HP diesel engine (!) whereas the European ones (74 HP) may not have been limited production - therefore may not have been numbered.

The new master cylinder is installed along with the glass fluid reservoir I found yesterday. The brake line that takes fluid from the Hydrovac booster to the wheels is now connected to its hose (the new one I got last week) and it's bolted to the firewall.

The Architects Garage did this one for me - my car as it might have looked in front of the Pininfarina factory in Torino in 1966.

My best guess is that here on Vancouver Island (home to fully 10% of 450 cdis) is that about half of them are either scrapped (like my first one) or off the road (like the Canada 1). If this is correct and holds country-wide, that would leave around 5000 on the road. They're well into the time when the third and fourth owners have them, buying them cheaply and they will run them into the ground, doing as little maintenance as possible. The survivors long-term will most likely be the more expensive models - loaded cabriolets will probably end up being 50% more likely to survive than stripper pures.

One of the hoses I hadn't managed to get a good replacement for up to today has finally been found - at Serie04. This is the one that connects the Hydrovac (brake booster) slave cylinder to the brake piping. An exact match, Made in France.

The nice thing about doing it on a bicycle is it takes about 13 hours in the saddle if going moderately and every minute of it is spectacular!

I cycled from Jasper to Banff in two days with my son 6 years ago - if you think it's very nice in a car, it is far, FAR nicer on a bicycle. We get there once a year in normal circumstances, or at least to the Selkirks and Purcells.

Did a bit more today.....

Not really, I am slowly assembling it when time allows. Should be driveable in May sometime.

The clutch on the white Canada 1 has begun to slip at 158,000 km. It's probably a simple if somewhat expensive thing to fix so the car will be taken off the road and laid up in the back of our garage behind the Peugeot 404 Coupé Injection for the foreseeable future, maybe years. The smart is surplus to our needs anyway and with the 404 months away from becoming drivable I am not going to want to have three cars on the road at one time in any case. Any recommendations for storing the car? I was thinking of getting a fuel stabilizer and of course removing the battery.

The engine is in. A bit more engine/injection/exhaust system assembly and then the brakes to come....

Thanks

The smart is temporarily out in the elements because I need the room to install the Peugeot 404 engine. That should happen tomorrow. The lower photo shows the clutch centring tool inserted before the pressure plate bolts have been tightened to 9 lbs-ft.

Tomorrow the rebuilt engine goes in the 404C so I connected the smart's battery and pulled her outside. Still need to figure out whether Julia wants this car. Today my wife said "I miss the smart!".

The hood has been removed in anticipation of the upcoming engine installation. Ready to go except for me moving the unlicensed smart out of the garage, moving the engine from its stand to the hydraulic crane, mounting the clutch driven disc and pressure plate, then mounting it. I'l have to wait for a day when my eldest daughter is available. Maybe the next couple of days, maybe a bit later. The green tape and padding are some of the precautions I have employed to protect the paint from damage when removing the hood and installing the engine.

I am Mike, mainly a French car enthusiast from WAY back. Luckily the smart is made in France In 2002 I learned that smart -might- be coming to Canada, so I test drove a European 2002 gasoline cabriolet in Victoria (July 2002) and a few days later a bay grey metallic EU gas coupe in Nanaimo. Impressed, we put $500 down on the off chance that the car might be actually arriving in Canada in 6 months to a year. Then we waited and waited...updates trickled in...there are problems with the fuel system....more waiting.... At the begining of January 2004 we pulled the plug and seriously considered a Toyota Corolla. Then (saved by the bell) the formal announcement that the cdi was coming was made in February 2004! So we waited until April 17th, when we test drove a cdi cabrio. Impressed, we re-deposited our $500 and got in line again. I thought we might be getting our car as soon as October, but that was not to be. Official prices were released in August and we made our choices. We finally got the car in January 2005, more than 900 days since the initial deposit was made. The wait is worth it! Congratulations and kudos to Mercedes-Benz Canada for deciding to import this car!

Discussions with my youngest daughter about buying a smart (her idea - she wants one badly) to replace her Hyundai Elantra automatic led to the idea of her taking over Snowball. We will see if this comes to pass, but it would be an ideal outcome to me - the car gets a new clutch and stays in the family. We will follow up on this idea soon. Of course the sale price would be VERY favourable to her....

...or will I?