Canadian 404C restoration

[Mike Tippett]

The seats went to the upholsterer 11 days ago, to be redone in dyed-through light grey leather with natural grain (not embossed) and they will be fitted with heating elements.....which will necessitate a better alternator than the standard 400W SEV-Motorola unit the car came with.

And....



I bought a different set of rubber isolators for the wiper motor and drive, because it's in a colour that more closely matches the latex rubber original.  The pale red ones in the photo will be used in the 404C and the others will be spare parts.  All the red ones are in what seems to be silicone rubber so should handily outlive the originals.

[Mike Tippett]

I finally got the steering column mounted. Instead of the flector I used a Paulstra Septor for the pinion link.

[Mike Tippett]

The handbrake cable and control were assembled and mounted today, along with the pedal box.

The worst part of the whole operation was discovering that the buttress under the driver's side, which is a Peugeot original, has a captive stud that is about 6 mm too short to hold the metal handbrake sheath under the driver's floor. So I had to remove the brass clamp and reduce its thickness by about 3 mm on both sides using a Dremel and files (good old engineering on this part, with massive redundancy) in order to get it on.

The pedal box was dead easy of course and the stuff under the car was as well.

[Mike Tippett]

The front seats have been reupholstered by Geoff Chrysler.

Very nice: natural grain dyed through light grey "Hyde" brand leather, with heating elements (I'll need a better alternator than it came with to power that!). Parts of the headliner (also redone by Geoff) are visible in the foreground.

His next task is redoing the rear bench, which has a fold-down armrest. I may get the parts in the photo this coming Monday.

[Mike Tippett]

I whipped the Kugelfischer injection pump and head off today.  I'll bring the pump with me to Britain next week for calibration and new seals, and the head seems good with no fine cracks between valve seats, although I have a new one to use.  The liners have a nearly undetectable lip at the top so could be reused, but won't be, because I have new ones.

[Mike Tippett]

My Kugelfischer KF2 injection pumps - the one from the car is second from left.


The stainless steel trims from front and rear windscreens as well as the back of the roof buttresses.


Rear bench seat in light grey leather.

[Mockenrue]

Fabulous, Mike !

[tomtom]

looking GOOD! And plenty of pumps to choose from

[Mike Tippett]

The stainless steel trims are now mounted on the replica inner door and rear seat area upper side panels...


right quarter window installed:



and the left one : 

[Mike Tippett]

I had to drill two new holes in my brand new rear fender to mount the stainless steel trim at the peak of the rear fender.  Stressful!  I broke a small drill bit but didn't damage any visible part of the fender.  So it worked well and now only the left side remains to be done.

[Mike Tippett]

The left fender peak trim is also on and now the rear roof trim as well. The clips that hold the trim on have teeth that bite into the body seam so all were treated with a thick goop of Waxoyl before installing, to protect the metal.

[Mike Tippett]

I mounted the sill trims (stainless steel) yesterday.


And today I retrimmed the driver's door panel in vinyl to match the seats. It turned out well, despite me being an amateur.

Next: passenger side....

[tomtom]

Ziet er strak uit, Mike !

[Mike Tippett]

Original Italian rubber mats glued in on the passenger side.  53 years old and still in good shape.

[Mike Tippett]

Heater controls mounted - all silver cadmium plated


Both rear quarter panel trims were mounted.


New headliner mounted.  Front part is not mounted because the windshield has to go in first.  That's one of the next tasks: front and rear windshields.

[Maarten Deen]

What kind of forward-backward seat adjustment do you have in your car? Is it with the little lever next to the driveshaft tunnel?
Could you make some pictures of that?
In my car it's always giving me a hard time and I prefer not to touch it or else...

[Mike Tippett]

I have the one that you also seem to have: lever with a black handle next to the tunnel. The originals are silver and have a bar that connects both sides. Those are the original ones and they don't have ball bearings in them and are extremely difficult to move.

I bought a set of new ones from L'Aventure Peugeot which are not connected from one side to the other and have ball bearings. Externally the lever is the same as the original, but they are painted black.

If you need photos I could do it tomorrow.

[Maarten Deen]

If you could make some photos I'd appreciate it.

My version has some kind of spring steel giving pressure to hold the bar and the hooks down, but at least one of those broke resulting in either the hooks not being down properly making my seat move when I brake hard, or the bar sits loose. It's something I need to fix but don't know how, so some examples how it could look like are nice.

[Mike Tippett]

New old stock seat sliders on ball bearings, sold in 2017 by l'Aventure Peugeot. They require a new coat of paint because they've been stored at Peugeot for decades and have some surface rust.


Original seat sliders (silver colour) with no ball bearings (the upper track is not in the photo) and NOS ones next to them.

[Mike Tippett]

New carpets custom made for the 404C by Geoff Chrysler in Highlands BC. Wilton wool.

[Mike Tippett]

Seat slides (NOS) hand painted in Krylon semi-gloss after tidying up.

Upper door replica panel for a Cabriolet modified by me to fit the Coupé and it worked reasonably well. The shape difference is quite remarkable and quite a bit of work was needed.


The panel completely installed, taken from inside the car with the door closed.

[Mike Tippett]

I used this new S.U.R.&R. PFT409 brake flaring tool.....


....to make my first ever brake line:


And wow is that tool ever amazing! Perfect DIN bubble flare every time. The pistol grip tool is hydraulic. Expensive but worth it if only for the knowledge that I can't mess up.

This line is the one that connects the two front Thermostable brake cylinders.

[Mike Tippett]

Last week I finished the brake line fabrication and also made and installed the fuel lines.

Then today I had about 4 hours to get some things done, so I cut the inner rear fender protectant and trunk floor insulation, mounted it, put the rubber mat in and clipped it into place with the 4 large modern plastic clips (better than the rubber originals and easier to use!).  Then I mounted the front fuel line retainer that holds the two fuel lines at the front end of the car, mounted the cage nuts on the road wheels and finally glued the seal to the fresh air intake.

[Mike Tippett]

Sander May's stainless steel replica exhaust, with NOS Peugeot heat shield installed. The diameter of the replica resonator is a bit smaller than the original in mild steel, so I had to make up a couple of small spacers in aluminium to allow the bands to clamp onto the body. Soon to be mounted on the car, using all original mounting hardware, new old stock. The third photo shows one spacer, which is on the upper side of the resonator, so it's not visible from below.

[Mike Tippett]

After yesterday's repair to the broken captive bolt on the foam backed lower dashboard pad, today it was successfully mounted:
Dashboard-pads.jpg

Light, horn and turn indicator controls installed, plus wheel of course:
Steering-wheel.jpg

Note the cover for the column shifter, part of the original Nardi floor shifter kit:
Steering-column.jpg

Trimmed the fresh air intake seal so the hood could close!
IMG-5720.jpg