Our Classics
The 306 gets a year’s ticket and the fuel leak is sorted, but Charlie’s to-do list just keeps on growing…
2000 PEUGEOT 306 1.8 16v
Lockdown is the perfect time to work on your car, or so we’ve said many times in this paper. The only problem with that, of course, is while this coronavirus seems to prefer the colder, damper times of the year, the same can’t really be said for me.
What I’m trying to say is – rather lazily – I prodded about a bit, bought parts to repair the 306’s leaking fuel filler pipe (and even thought about actually doing it for months), but continually decided, every weekend, that it was too cold, until eventually I got to MoT time.
The car passed first time at my new garage, so I asked them to have a go at fitting the fuel filler pipe section, too. And I’m glad I did because it was apparently an absolute pig of a job – not in terms of complexity, but in getting the right-angled section over two pipes simultaneously. This would have been impossible without two pairs of hands, so you could argue that my laziness served me well, because there would only ever have been me had I tried to do it at home.
There were a few advisories on the 306’s MoT, however; there’s a small leak on the exhaust centre box and surface corrosion on the boot floor. The latter obviously concerned me much more, so I drove the car home and dropped the spare wheel (mounted on the underside of the boot floor). I have to admit I wasn’t getting a particularly good first impression as the wheel slowly lowered with each turn of the big bolt. The wheel
I was greeted with had probably never been lowered before, looked like I had just fished it out of the sea and wore a tyre whose date code was somehow even older than the car itself.
In fairness, once I had my head stuck under the rear bumper of the car, I could see that the floor wasn’t as bad as the wheel, and in fact it had acted as a shield to most of it, so I reckoned a few hours with a wire brush and the right sort of anti-rust protection would get it sorted out.
There are still things I need to clear out of the garage before I can get at least the rear end of the car in to jack it up, however – it is the only hard standing I have – but I have plenty to sort in the meantime. For one thing, the timing belt now needs replacing and I still haven’t got around to fixing the non-functioning rear wiper or the similarly kaput air conditioning.
I want to give the car a bit of an aesthetic makeover, too. I bought a late model 306 because I wanted the extra safety equipment and (ironically) air conditioning that they come with, but I have to admit I still look jealously at earlier 306s – and I feel that this is what’s stopping me from knuckling down and getting on with the jobs that need doing.
Unfortunately, I can’t make my car look like a Phase 1 car without surgery – mainly because the front panels are completely different – but I can reverse some of the decisions Peugeot made to make the car look more bubble-like and rounded, as was becoming the fashion by the late 1990s. I won’t do anything that can’t be easily reversed, but a few quick touches will improve things to my eyes, using a Phase 2 306 for inspiration.
In a bid to re-capture the 306’s original boxy lines, I’m going to use
black vinyl to de-colour code the side rubbing strips and bumpers (which will also serve to cover a repair that the front needs) and also add the Phase 2’s vinyl B-pillar trim. Finally – and rather more ambitiously – I’m planning to remove the side skirts, which are simply riveted on. I’m not sure if this will also require me to replace the wheel arch liners, however – if you happen to know, then do please get in touch!