A few of you will have seen my tales of inevitable serious wheel arch rot on my 1995 306 XLd in the Peugeot section of the forum. As it turned from advice in to a general progress update, I have decided to create a new thread with general progress and updates whilst I carry out what I would consider to be light restoration.
I did wonder about buying, but as things do, I forgot all about it. Until a few weeks later, when I needed to visit their yard to pick up some bits for a Volvo C70 I had in to sell on. As I walked through the gates on a typically British autumn morning of grey overcast and drizzle, I was absolutely astounded to see that same 306 was still there, a splash of colour. Even with all the leaves on it, I was drawn to it. I couldn't help but look around it and asked for the keys. I followed my heart quite quickly and perhaps didn't instantly follow my head like I should have done. Off I went to find Volvo parts. Come back to the weighbridge and on a very much spur of the moment decision, I agreed to buy. It had recently had an MOT fail, just for an exhaust leak, and apparently an old boy had brought it in as he was giving up driving, which seemed reasonable enough. Nice easy repair, MOT and done... so I thought.
I caught the bus a few days later and went to pick up my new 306. Absolutely beaming I really enjoyed the half hour drive back to Nottingham where I had arranged for Mr Tyre on Castle Boulevard to do a fix on the exhaust for me. As a side note, these guys are excellent and they have a welder who is very skilled and has sorted me out a few times on older cars with exhaust problems and hasn't just tried to sell me a new exhaust. I left it with them for an hour or so, and £70 later the exhaust had gone back to sounding like a normal tractor and not a tractor without a silencer...
Booked it in for an MOT at the only location which had slots available the same day locally. Somewhere I hadn't used before, but they are a chain... not naming names for now! I left it with them and headed to work.
An hour or so later, my car world briefly fell and shattered. I got the phone call... "So, it's failed. Badly."
Being rather surprised at this sudden event I hurriedly went down to see what the fuss was about, as I couldn't believe they were serious. But sure enough, you could see the inertia reel of the seatbelt through the wheel arch when you knelt down and looked up with a torch. Absolutely shocking that the previous MOT tester (before I owned the car) would have overlooked this. I paid for the test and took the car away to where I work (a garage, but we do buses). When I finished that evening, I had a look underneath and realised we had gone from one extreme to another. The first test station must have had blacked out goggles on when inspecting, and the second test station seemed to have gone overboard and seen pound signs flashing. An absolute joke of a list of advisories and several fail items that were totally unjust.
I went on holiday for a week and pondered. I decided the best course of action was to get it repaired. I was not going to be defeated so easily, but at the same time I have too much other work on to do the job myself. I contacted a local independent workshop who took it in, agreed a plan of attack for the wheel arch then said their tester (off site) would give it a fresh MOT none the wiser about its previous failures and we can carry on from there. After the arch was repaired, she had another test and amazingly the list had gone from 9 failures and 15(!) advisories, down to 3 failures and 0 advisories! We agreed to fabricate a new section for where the bump stop is supposed to sit on the NSR as that area was totally non existent, and they set to work also on repairing the front jacking points which the previous owners' wonderful* repair and MOT centre had repaired with plates, wood screws and tiger seal.
A lot of time and money later, and she has passed with no advisories, and hopefully this will be the case next time around too. Absolutely loved driving it so far, it is dog slow and has few creature comforts but it is absolutely solid 90s motoring.
I am now in the process of sorting some other bits out with the aim of restoring it closely to how it would have been from the factory. New replica dealer number plates and dealer stickers have been ordered! In the short term however, it does need a clutch as it is starting to slip a fair bit.
Sorry for droning on, but I'm sure I will have more updates soon for those who wish to follow!
Very much looking forward to reading of your and her further adventures 
You wouldn't know it from some of the barely coherent stuff I put on here, but that's mostly the phone "autocorrecting" and my failure to spot it's improvements!