where the bloke before me used to put notes in the flappy ashtray bit they slide down the back, i had a 10er, 2 5ers and somethign like 22 quids worth of change. so i did some serrious weight saving haha

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ph3 gti-6 china blue- mint condition
ph2 gti-6 nile blue K.I.A dec 2010

This thread has escaped my attention until today. I'd just like to say congratulations! Aside from the financial beating a job like this undoubtedly gives you, it also takes some balls.
I'd like to think that if I was ever in a position to undertake a project like this, I'd also be of the school "Let's see what happens if I undo this....".
Top work, I take my hat off to you, sir. I look forward to buying you a celebratory beer at a meet sometime.
.......or do IT guys only drink G&Ts...?

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’00 Moonstone GTi6
My Flickr Photostream

So anyway, back to the point.

It's been too long since I last did something with the car, and a week-long residential IT course had left me itching for some grease-on-face action. I'd been buying up parts left, right and centre ready for the weather to pick up a little so I can get the car sorted for this year's trackday season.

First job - recondition some wishbones. The current ones have done God knows how many miles since they were last replaced (if ever) and they're not in the best of nick. On a car where I intend to leave the engine well alone, handling is *everything*. So, get in touch with Rich_W and buy up his last set of roller bearings. After some negotiation with him, it's decided that I shall be removing the old bearings and sending him the wishbones, he will then fit the new ones for me and return them.

Rather than pulling my old car to pieces quite yet, I bought a load of old tat from Rikky, which included a pair of wishbones. I think it's fair to say they weren't in factory condition, particularly as one of the P-bushes had actually fallen off in the post. For the record, Rikky had warned me about this and I said it wasn't a problem, I'm not trying to blacken his reputation

He's more than capable of doing that himself. Hmm, greasy:



Now. Rarely will you see removing the old bushes described as a "fun" job, or one that anyone looks forward to. It's therefore extremely important you prepare yourself properly for this task.

Start with a plain old four-cheese pizza from Asda.



Add yourself some red onion, Peppadew peppers, some blobs of tomato puree, a drizzle of Nandos sweet chilli Peri-Peri sauce and some grated mozzarella from the Co-op. Pop it in the oven until browning, then pop under the grill. Nice:



Eat that. Then get to the shed.

Let's start with the one with the busted p-bush. The inner part of the bush was still on the wishbone, as per:



Dremel time + try not to cut too far into the wishbone + old chisel and hammer, and that wasn't too bad at all. As for the other p-bush, I simply cut though with a Dremel in two places and twisted it off:



However, it's now time for the really fun part - the little round bushes. The first one of these took me forever, so I'll show you the second one I did (by which point I'd honed my skills). I'm sure there are many methods for doing this, but this one worked for me.

First up, get the wishbone clamped up, and with a hacksaw held flat, cut around the end to remove the rubber flappy bit.



I then went around the rim of the bush (no sniggering please) with an old chisel and a club hammer, lifting up a lip.



Conveniently, I already had a pack of 100mm x 3mm drill bits from Screwfix, so set about breaking about five of those drilling out as much of the rubber as I could. You'll need to be very careful here, the slightest catch on the centre bit or a twist as you'll have to spend quarter of an hour trying to remove the old drill bit from the bush. Steady hands please:



Back to the Dremel, and I put four or five cuts around the top of the metal lip:



The centre bit is absolutely packed inside the rubber, so there's no chance of it coming out as-is. Drilling will do some of it, but eventually the drill will just be slipping into the existing holes rather than removing more material, and you won't be able to remove any more. However, rubber does have an enemy...



Burn the living shat out of it for a good five minutes or so, until the rubber really degrades into powdery crap that you can pick out with a small chisel or, if you'd rather use the wrong tool (as I did), a screwdriver. I found it's easiest to dig it out when it's hot, as it kinda re-sets itself hard when it cools.

Wear big gloves, you idiot.

After a while of that, I doused it in water and got it clamped back up before setting about generally freeing up the middle bit with a combination of chisels, screwdrivers and other unsuitable tools. Eventually, when you've so nearly given up:



Woohoo! Out it comes, the little bugger. Repeat for both sides (the middle bit is in two parts), until there's nothing left but the metal outer and some old scraps of rubber. There's now enough room to fit a hacksaw inside it, and cut the inner bearing as much as you can without damaging the wishbone.



If you can cut it all out without damaging it then that's great, I went for cutting half way though and then just smashing out the remaining bit until it all came out. Behold!



Having cleaned it all up with a wire brush and some degreaser, I set about building myself a Peugeot Wishbone Painting Rig out of a bit of ply, a bolt, an old curtain rail bracket and a block of wood.



Might patent that. If you don't have one available (or, like me, only have one spare curtain rail bracket), you can always just hang one from the ceiling with an extension lead. After all, that's what extension leads are definitely for.



I've so far slapped on a couple of coats of Hammerite, and they're drying as we speak. I'll bring them inside tonight to get the paint nice and hard (and make the house stink of Hammerite, mmmmmmmm), then I'll package them up and get them in the post to Rich who can set about scraping all the nice new paint off trying to get the new bearings in. Each wishbone took about two hours each once I'd mastered it. Difficulty of 7, cost of 2 and time of 5 makes this little job a 70 on the Ballache Scale. Not too bad, but not something you'd do just for fun.

To all those tools who gave up their lives; to the extension leads which now bear the scars of silver Hammerite: we solute you, fallen comrades.

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Membership expiring soon, get in contact on our new little forum project.

Have fun with that, see you in about a week

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Membership expiring soon, get in contact on our new little forum project.

Fire DOES help. It also helps when you attract a bunch of chavs who wonder what you're burning. Innit.

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Bye bye Sundance Kid

Did the house reek of burning rubber? Or is that a normal occurance? LOL

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1999 Astor Grey GTi-6 OEM+ (now gone...)
2004 Aegean Blue 206 GTi 180 (also gone...)
2006 Skoda Fabia vRS in Sprint Yellow

I love to see people's OTT methods, I just clamp the wishbone in a vice and swing away at the lip with 40oz Ball-Pein and Chisel and out they come

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need a part number? get on here - http://public.servicebox.peugeot.com

Bring on the Trumpets.

Ha! You should try subaru ones. They've got another layer if metal in the rbber. Take forever to burn out....

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Nothing to see here

just like 205 ones

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need a part number? get on here - http://public.servicebox.peugeot.com

Bring on the Trumpets.

It's not a job I ever hope to do again, hence getting Rich's bearings fitted. Speaking of which, they should be here by Monday, but hopefully tomorrow

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Membership expiring soon, get in contact on our new little forum project.

just stick it back in, its not that heavy

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need a part number? get on here - http://public.servicebox.peugeot.com

Bring on the Trumpets.

cut the passenger side off dash and refit

Im not sure whether to ditch the heater stuff in mine and get a heated screen. The thing putting me off that idea is that i go to the 'ring every year and the weathers not guaranteed, so i can see it being a massive ballache if i get wet and then cant get warm or dry in the car.

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Goldie the track car.