Peugeot 406 Coupé
‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’ became a reality for James when one of his 406’s springs snapped and tore through the tyre wall…
1999 PEUGEOT 406 COUPÉ 3.0 V6
Most of us who were behind the wheel on 23 December would have been merrily cruising along listening to Chris Rea’s Driving Home For Christmas. So was I – blissfully unaware of the catastrophe that was about to befall me.
As I circled a roundabout, I heard a snap from the front nearside of the 406 followed by a grinding sound. Not good. As I turned around and headed home the noise and vibrations grew louder until… bang! The front of the car was now grinding along the Tarmac. I just about made it to the safety of the hard shoulder.
The nearside front tyre was flat and merely fitting the spare was clearly not going to solve the issue. I put in a call to the AA and the police diverted traffic as I sat and waited for my rescuers to arrive.
With the car retrieved, my father and I could see that the 22-year-old coil spring had fractured, resulting in part of the broken spring actually cutting into the tyre’s sidewall.
With the car up on axle stands, my father cut the remains of the coil spring out with an angle grinder, which revealed that the drop link had also deformed. Thankfully, the wiring cables and brake pipe didn’t seem to be damaged. We did, however, discover that the brake pipe and top bearing were severely corroded and would clearly need replacing soon. We would also discover that replacing those would be the easier of the jobs because removing the strut was a real headache, especially given that we were working on the driveway in the lovely British weather…
My dad removed the deformed drop link, unbolted and removed ancillary brackets, removed the pinch bolt at the back of the swivel hub assembly and widened the jaws of the clamp. Normally this would allow the damper strut to slide out of the hub assembly, but it wasn’t going to be that easy! The strut would only revolve 180 degrees and then stop – widening the clamp didn’t help, either.
More widening of the clamp risked fracturing the hub assembly casting and we didn’t need anything else breaking! The whole unit would have to be removed to identify why the strut couldn’t come loose.
Thankfully, dad’s mechanical expertise was invaluable here. First, he removed the R-clip and locking cap and then released the drive shaft retaining nut along with its washer. With the track rod end released, the bottom nut could be removed from the lower suspension ball joint. The unit was then released from the bottom suspension arm and some gentle pressure with a hub puller saw the assembly come free from the drive shaft splines. Lastly, the three bolts attached to upper mounting plate under the bonnet were removed and the hub and strut assembly came free.
With the hub and strut assembly removed from the car and on the work bench, the problem seemed to be a 3mm metal lobe, which was engaging into a slot within the swivel hub – almost impossible to identify while still attached to the car. We also noticed that the top spring cap was corroded, but a good clean showed that it was only surface rust. Phew! Once we got it back to bright metal it was given a coat of protective black paint, ready to be re-used.
The new damper, coil spring, upper mounting plate and bearing had been ordered from Germany, and we also managed to source a new drop link and brake pipe. Dad set about building the new unit, firstly compressing the spring and re-using the refurbished top spring cap, the existing dust cover/gaiter and bump stop.
Fitting the unit was a far easier operation. The upper mounting plate was first loosely bolted into place, enabling the bottom of the strut to be engaged into the hub unit. We could then re-fit the hub on to splined drive shaft and replace lower ball joint retaining nut. With the drive shaft retaining nut torqued up correctly, the R-clip and locking cap could be re-fitted before we could tighten the three bolts securing the upper mounting plate.
It was then the simple process of re-fitting the track rod end, new drop link and the brake disc and caliper. With the existing corroded brake pipe removed, we could then fit the new hose and bleed the brakes. Finally, with the wheel and spare tyre fitted, we were able to drop the car to the ground and go for a test drive. Success!
Hours of labour (from dad, at least) and the 406 was back on the road. We were also a little concerned about the integrity of the offside suspension unit and brake hose, but it appears that it had been replaced sometime over the last 22 years, probably shortly before I bought the car in 2019.
With that job out of the way,
I now need two front tyres, and potentially a new exhaust… the jobs are mounting up. But if I didn’t have a clever dad, this would have cost me and arm and a leg at my local garage.