406 V6 wagon life

[Koukku]

Some of you may remember me from my Xantia V6 Activa escapades (viewtopic.php?t=26875). This time I'm back with another French V6 manual!

It's a 2003 Executive with only 135.000km (~84.000 miles) on the clock. Half leather seats, basic CD player, auto A/C... this is how the Executive was spec'ed for the Finnish market in 2003. No optional extras as far as I can tell. The reason why it's on a trailer is that the timing belt was 14 years old at the time of purchase. And NVM the rusty steelies, it came with 16" Ouragan wheels too, which will get winter tyres on them very soon hopefully.

The belt has now been replaced together with the water pump. Old parts looked good after doing only about 45.000km, but I didn't want to take any chances. There are a few bits that need attention, but I'll get in to those later. There was some surface rust in the floor pan rearwards of the fuel tank, but the sills seem to be intact. No idea how they look on the inside of course...

[mickthemaverick]

Looks an interesting project, good luck

[Koukku]

Thanks!

The car had been with the previous owner for 20 years and it had been sort of regularly maintained, with the exception of the timing belt. Oils had been mostly changed every two years, which most of the time had meant 10.000km between changes, although the last change had been in 2021 (about 8000km ago). The oil looked pretty bleak, so I put in some cheap full synth for a few hundred km's and then proper Total stuff after that, hopefully that cleaned it up a bit.

Brakes had been done couple of years ago (inc. new front calipers and handbrake shoes & cables), exhaust is three years old, front springs and top mount bearings replaced about four years ago, rear springs and some joints replaced two years ago, just to mention a few of the biggest bills in the folder that came with the car.

There is some rust visible at the rear bottom of the front fenders, at the area behing the front wheels where all sorts of dirt and gunk seems to gather. There's also rust at the front inside edge of the bonnet, and some at the bottom of the boot lid.

A bit surprisingly (to me at least) the worst corrosion damage seems to be under the rear seats. When I opened those loose plastic plugs on the floor, there was a sand up to the floor pan on top of the tank on both sides. Weird construction. I'm guessing the loose plugs let in water from below, and then the dirt and sand below and the sound insulation on top keep it nice and moist...

[wurlycorner]

Interesting the differences in spec between countries, of ostensibly the same car.
I've seen corrosion in that same general area on mk1 C5's as well (similar design).
I felt it came from underneath, rather than above.