Dramatis Personae

There has been a change in the driving roster. Ron "As Seen On TV" Bauer has had to back out due to work related schedule confliction. Bret "The Artful" Dodson has moved in to take Ron's place in the drivers seat. I believe I saw Bret smearing Crazy Glue on the seat of his pants before climbing in so it'll take explosives to remove him.

This is going to make for some messy driver changes at the track.

We have also lost our chief mechanic. She has moved on to other projects (pictured) and will only be available for French muffler bearing tightening as her schedule permits. Doug is now the official Chief Mechanic and engineer. :-)

Saturday Doug, Scott and I (Alan) got together to work on the Peugeot again. It was another one of those "2 steps forward, one step back days" in many ways but when the day was done we (or at least some of us) had made significant progress.

I decided that I was going to try to make a hood scoop for the intercooler using a scrap piece of aluminum from Sean's shop (any metal without what the aerospace guys call a "cert" is effectively scrap so there is a good supply of metal sheet lying around the shop) despite never having used a sheet metal brake or the air-powered "nibbler" before. However I had once spent 3 months working in Sean's aerospace machine shop so I thought "how hard can it be?". Well that turned out to be like a monkey at a computer wondering how hard can it be to write like Shakespeare. I have to say however my design was an elegant one, simple yet functional and requiring only three bends with the brake. With help from Scott I got the pattern cut out and proceeded to do the first bend perfectly. Unfortunately I got cocky at that point and clamped down too hard on the aluminum. My next bend was going fine when all of a sudden I heard a crack and all the tension went away. Yup, I had bent the aluminum too much and snapped it like someone bending a paper clip too many times. Dejected I decided to try again. Once again the first bend went great and unfortunately I repeated the same mistake I made the first time, revealing that I am a) an idiot and b) should leave the bending to the professionals (Sean).

Thankfully Doug was having better luck at the other end of the car. We were worried about the wheel bearings so Doug pulled both axles and repacked the bearings. Thankfully the bearings appeared to be in good shape despite apparently being the ones that had originally came on the car from France! Not too surprising given how big each ball-bearing was, it looked like a string of pearls in a circular bearing race.

Scott decided to tackle removing the rest of the A/C and ID'ing and fixing the numerous vacuum leaks we knew the car had. Once he had wrestled all of the A/C hoses out of the way and removed them we discovered that two of the vacuum hoses down in the bowels had broken off. Thankfully without the A/C in place both hoses were now too long so Scott simply cut them off and re-clamped them. Scott also removed the cruise control but not its associated vacuum source because he was not sure if it served another purpose or not. We will have to figure out this week whether we can steal the CC's vacuum source for the blowoff valve but as our '85 manual doesn't cover the '88's vacuum hose routing we'll have to depend on the wisdom of the Peugeot list. I am a bit worried that we may have more problems in this area so I think we'll make sure to bring plenty of hose to the race just in case.

So all in all another successful weekend. I'll have to get Sean's help this week with making a new scoop (out of steel this time) so we'll be all prepared to cut through the hood next weekend.

Mentioned on Cold Track Days too

Wow, now that we've been accepted to the Thunderhill 24 Hours of LeMons race word is really getting around the Intertubes. In addition to Jalopnik we've now also been mentioned on Cold Track Days as well! Guess this is that mythical "15 minutes of fame" they always talk about!

That's cool but frankly I'm not looking forward to the "years and years of infamy" we'll have to endure after the Peugeot leaves parts scattered all across the track at Thunderhill :-).

We're on Jalopnik!

Earlier this week I submitted a tip to Jalopnik on a potential Lemons car in Wisconsin (a Bristol 408), i suggested it might also fit as a subject for Jalopnik's "Project Car Hell" series.

I signed the email withthe tag line "a Cheese Eating Surrender Monkey - comming soon to Arse Freeze-Apalooza!"

That triggered a response from Jalopnik's resident saucy minx, Murilee Martin. Shortly thereafter the story linked below appeared.

http://jalopnik.com/5068138/index-of-effluency-bar-set-unreasonably-high-for-thunderhill-peugeot-505-turbo-or-chevy-corvair

We're In!

Sean received confirmation from Jay Lamm that we've been officially accepted into the 24 Hours of LeMons! Apparently they had over 200 entries and could only take about 80 so our wise (ok, it was crazy at the time but it seems wise now) choice of car made the difference! Now all we have to do is work our butts off for the next 10 weeks to get the car ready and we're all set! Well of course except for the actual driving in the race part, can't wait for that and our chance to show America just what an old hunk of bent-up French iron is capable of!

Pujo!

We got a lot of work done on the car today. We have also unanimously decided to name the car "Pujo!".Unnecessary wiring has been removed and the motors and regulators have been removed from the doors. Brent went to town with a Sawsall and the doors are now about 10 pounds each lighter than they were before. Some vacuum issues were discovered in the engine compartment. Apparently French vacuum lines crumble into dust after twenty years. Go figure. The wheels have arrived from Tire Rack so I can start fabricating spacers to allow for the funky Pug offset and bolt pattern. Doug's roll cage is coming along nicely. It'll be SCCA legal when he's done and would be at home in any self respecting World Rally car. Hmmm, I wonder if Jay would consider putting on a LeMons version of the Dakar rally? :-)

New photo page created

I thought it would be interesting to have more photos than just the few that we have on this blog so I've created a new photo page here. The cool thing about the new page is that I can update it from my iPhone so we'll be able to post real-time photos from the race itself. Is that cool or what?

Snug as a Doug in a Pug

Nice seat mount Doug! I'm glad this falls under safety, it looks way too nice to be part of this piece of merde! :-)

Making Progress

Today Brett and I came over to Doug's place to test out the Peugeot's race seat location and to get some work done in preparation for installing the cage. Brett couldn't stay too long but Doug and I made lots of progress anyway. First step was to get the sunroof and it's mechanism out of the car as it just took up too much headroom. We'll put the sunroof panel itself back in place once the cage is in, probably by attaching it with several aluminum straps but for now it's a lot easier to have it out. The sunroof actually turned out to be pretty easy to remove, perhaps half an hour and 10 bolts and it was free!


Since the sunroof wasn't much of a problem I tackled removing the driver's window and mechanism so Doug can cut out the door for the cage. While I was doing that Doug removed both rear brake calipers and figured out what was holding them up and reinstalled them on the car. The bad news is Doug thinks we (or the previous owner) damaged the pistons in such a way that the e-brake won't work very well but we're not likely to need that for the race anyway.

In addition I removed lots of miscellaneous bits and wiring related to the parts we'd taken off and so it's starting to look more and more like a real race car. There still is a lot to do and less then 3 months to do it in so I suspect there will be a lot more work parties before we're done but we're making progress!

Odds and Ends

Just a short post this week. Now that everyone (well Ron and I) is back from Nationals or vacation (Sean + Bri) it's time to get going on the Pug again because time is getting short! Doug has the car now and is working on installing the cage and getting the braking system sorted out. I got the racing pads from Porterfield and I need to get up to Doug's place this weekend so he can install them. Sean is going to measure the hubs off of the black car so he can get going on making the hub adaptors (turns out that Diamond can't make wheels with the backspacing we need to clear the Peugeot calipers) so we can fit some cheap Tire Rack wheels to the car.

Good news on the bypass valve front, with parts from Lowes + McLendon's I can put together everything we need to plumb it in for $25 or so. Probably won't actually install it until we get the car rolling on the new wheels however as I want to use the Dynolicious iPhone software to do some before and after 0-60 runs to make sure it actually helps us like the Peugeot forum guys says it will.

Sean hasn't put out an official call yet but I'm guessing there will be an official or unofficial work party up at Doug's this weekend as we all have a lot to do!

Labor Day weekend work

On the Friday before Labor Day Sean and Scott changed the front shock oil and wonder of wonders we now have stiff front shocks! On Saturday Sean and Doug installed the front suspension and replaced the brake pads with some el-cheapo pads so we could drive the car (one of the rear pads was metal-to-metal) and so I could send the old ones into Porterfield to be made into real racing pads). While they were at that I tackled the wiring inside the car and removed or cut back almost all of the unneeded parts with the exception of the power window controls since we haven't yet removed the window motors. I also attached the computers securely so they wouldn't flop around and removed the front amps for the stereo.

I had discovered during the week that Ford F150 shocks were supposedly replacements for the Pugs rear shocks so I headed down to TC's Off-road to get a set of Ranchos. Well once I got there I discovered that a) F150 shocks were not that close and b) the rear OEM Peugeot shocks we have were shockingly stiff compared to the Ranchos anyway (I'd never tried them before) so the good news is we now have 4 stiff shocks for the total outlay of one bottle of motorcycle fork oil!

About 5pm everything was done and we were ready for a road test. We installed the wheels from the parts car since we'd already sold the Pugs wheels for $250 a couple of weeks ago and that's when we discovered that we are idiots. Before we'd sold the wheels Sean and I had tested the black car's wheels to make sure they fit and there seemed to be no problems. Well when we tightened down the wheels we discovered that they didn't quite clear the bigger '88 front calipers and they wouldn't rotate at all! Now the plan is for Sean to call Diamond on Tuesday and find out how quickly they can get us a set of wheels and in the mean time we'll make spacers out of a few thick washers so Doug can get the car onto the trailer and transfer it to his shop to start the process of installing the cage. Oops!

There are still lots of things to do on the car before we're ready including figuring out a way to plumb in the 944 bypass valve I bought for $10, removing the mechanism for the sunroof and windows, cutting or replacing the springs with Volvo ones and getting the racing brake pads made so we're not done by any means but hopefully soon we'll have a running and driving car again!

Another work party

Well we are making slow but sure progress. Today Sean, Scott, Doug and myself (Alan) got together to work on the Peugeot once again. Today's goal was to get the springs out of the car so Doug could take them home and cut a coil off of each and to finish the job of stripping the interior. As Doug, Sean and Scott are a lot better mechanics than I am I let them concentrate on taking the suspension apart while I finished the interior job.

The first thing to do was to get the front half of the console out which took a little studying before I finally located the hidden screws that were holding the console in place. Once the console was out it was an easy job to remove the carpeting and the two layers of sound deadening underneath. Once I removed the second layer I discovered that the front was every bit as wet as the back had been and it felt that I'd taken 50 lbs out of the car just by removing the carpet! Once everything was out it was even more obvious that our car had been in a serious collision at one point, both the driver's and passenger's side floorpans were buckled and the cross-brace that the driver's seat bolts to was in none too good shape either. I no longer feel bad about turning the car into a LeMons racer, frankly it should have by all rights been hauled off to the wrecking yard years ago.

Meanwhile the rest of the team got the front suspension out fairly easily but the rear turned out to be more of a problem. Just getting the rear shocks out required a lot of wrenching in a tight area and applications of heat from a butane torch (right next to the gas tank!). However once the shocks were out it became obvious that there was no easy way to pop the axles out so we could remove the springs. A quick check of the PDFs on our Peugeot service manual CD confirmed the worst, that we had to remove the hubs to get the axles out, unfortunately the hubs were on so tight that they broke Sean's 1/2 inch Craftsman breaker bar! Thankfully Sean has an impact wrench but the air pressure from his small-sized air compressor just isn't enough so the rear springs will just have to wait until Sean can take home his bigger work air compressor which should hopefully do the trick.

Anyway it was a good but slightly frustrating day but with luck we'll get it all taken care of soon. Thankfully we have almost 5 months left to go but there's no need to tempt fate and wait to the last minute!

Our Inspiration

Ok so we have a POS Peugeot but that doesn't mean that every Peugeot is a POS, does it? Ok so far that's been true of every one I've seen in person here in the states, but elsewhere in the world I've heard rumors that there are actually new Peugeots which run well and are shiny and everything! And get this people actually race them and spend a few more than the $500 we're spending in the process!

Well it turns out that several Peugeots 908s actually participated in the real 24 Hours of Le Mans this year. Not only that but they almost won! Perhaps this is a good omen? The Pug guys had to settle for second place behind the winning Audi but they beat a lot of great cars including Porsches, Corvettes and the other Audis. Not too bad for a company that saw fit to abandon the States over 15 years ago, huh? We're hoping that some of this almost-winning tradition will rub off on our car!

Pug of the litter

We had a productive day of labor on the car last Saturday. We swapped some wiring from the black car into the red car and the ignition problem that had manifested itself during my test flogging went away. We also stripped away most of the civilizing bits of the interior. Ron and Bret are the co-discoverers of 'Lake Peugeot' underneath the rear seat. There were two full sized bath towels under the seat presumably to reduce the irritating sloshing noise of free standing water. I think we removed 70 lbs. from the curb weight just by binning the towels. The leak that produced the pool that necessitated the installation of cotton breakwater was caused by cracks and tears in the sheet metal incurred by a tremendous rear end impact. I'm actually surprised it survived the crash. The frame was so bent that the floor under the front seats was rippled. I'm glad we're installing a roll cage if for no other reason than to reduce the chance of the car being torn in half by 14 hours of brutalization.

We also began discussing planting a new (used) engine into the black car and fielding both Pugs. Now we just need to find one for dirt cheap. The black car has a much straighter body but mechanically it's quite the hoopty.

We had a guest mechanic on duty. She's certainly not afraid of getting her hands dirty. Especially when fine tuning a French muffler bearing.

What does it mean?

So at the work party yesterday, my brain took a little hiatus (it does that from time to time) and I discovered something.

When you take our current 7-monkey team, and put their initials in the right order, you can take Brent, Alan, Ron, Doug, Scott, Bret, Sean.... and make it say

Bard's BS.

It's gotta mean something, right?!

A typical email thread

One problem with filling your team with smart asses, is that they tend to digress into ... being smart asses. Today for example, a straight email went out reminding the Monkeys of the work party tomorrow, which, for once, will have 6 out of our 7 teammates in attendance, though possibly not all at the same time.

Doug replies, confirming the start time, which was somehow left off today's email.

Sean: Yes, 10:30 or 11 will be fine. It's not like an Amway business party, so you don't have to show up exactly on time. ;-)

Bret jumps in: What if we bring 3 friends...
Then *they* bring 3 friends...
And then *they* bring 3 friends...
.
.
.
Then after a short period of time:
Sean's house will be annexed by France, we'll all have more junker Pugs than we know what to do with, and everyone's weird cousin who does Amway will be insanely jealous.

Sean: Remember to bring your passports and work visas. You'll have to clear customs at the driveway and you'll have to endure a body cavity search before you return to US territory. Fortunately US customs that will handle that issue. The French Protectorate of Sean and Brianne's House has no interest at all in your body cavities or their contents.

Sean Green, Governor FPSBH.



See what I have to put up with here?

Pic of the New Car

Thought I'd post a pic of the new car. As you can see it was literally parked in a field next to a barn owned by this old Peugeot nut. I think I counted a half-dozen Peugeots of various years but there may have been more hidden in the out buildings. The car next to ours is an '87 STi and next to that is an '89 Turbo wagon. The test drive was an adventure as the car hadn't been licensed in a couple of years and had no insurance so we weren't even allowed to drive it, we had to just ride along. However the old guy wasn't shy about proving that it ran good and strong so we ended up buying it without ever taking the wheel ourselves!

Episode IV: A New Car

Just when I'd really started to like Pugly, we found out our engine is crap. There are multiple cracks in the head that run from the valve seats to the water jacket or spark plug holes. The nastier problem is the piston with a big chunk eroded away from one edge. I'm pretty sure the cylinder wall is f***ed up to the point that there's no way we can fix this engine and stay anywhere near our $500 budget. So, we started a search for a new engine and have so far come up empty handed. Not just because parts are difficult to find for an old Peugeot 505, but because Pug enthusiasts are proving to be really flaky folks that seem incapable of answering an email or a phone message. I mean, really, is it so hard to answer an inquiry generated by an ad that YOU placed concerning an item YOU want to sell?? What's a guy got to do to get some information out of a Pug owner anyway? As luck would have it, the need for a new engine became a moot point a few days ago. A really decent (OK, OK, decent for an old POS)505 Turbo S showed up on Craigslist. It was reasonably within our price range and once we'd begged the guy down to $500, found ourselves in possession of car that actually runs pretty well. The body is not as nice as the other car, but it's good enough for a cheapo race car. I'm quite pleased with the find. Most of the stuff we need to do to the car falls under the safety category, such as brakes. Everything else that doesn't work we don't want anyway, such as air-conditioning. Once we buy down the cost of the car by selling off everything we don't need, we can replace the few hoses and fiddly bits that look a little rough.

I hope someone reminds me to answer the ads for the parts I want to sell.

-Sean

Pug Owner symptoms

We seem to have found a prerequisite for owning a Peugeot. You are never allowed to return another phone call.
I wonder how long it will take to hit us? Hopefully, it's just a symptom of people trying to sell one....

Adolescent genetically altered Kung Fu spiders

The spider silk seats are coming along nicely. But they really don't look right in a French car. I'm starting to think we should have looked for a decent Chinese car, like an MG.

We probably could have gotten one of those brand new for $500.