Peppers French 1988 480 ES 282,000 kilometres

[pepper]

I like the idea of this diary so thought I'd better start by listing everything that we've done recently to the poor old thing.

A little history of our 480ES, Wanderer bought it off a chap in France for 200 Euro in 2005, it had no Controle Technique (MOT) and had several electrical problems. Wanderer managed to organise the the car so most of it was working enough to get it through the Controle Technique and then used it for going to and from work, but having a largish family he really needed a 5 seater which the old 480 plainly ain't!
So he very generously decided to give it to us as a second car to use when we were in France as he was living there full time and we only pop over about 3 times a year or so.

At the end of August 2007 my step mother died so I had to get back from France quickly, so I decided to drive the 700 miles back to my fathers from our house in France where we were on holiday. It drove back without missing a beat and has been used a run around here in the Uk since September.

Now it needed quite a few things sorting out, drivers side window winder mechanism had snapped, headlights were in the permanent upright position due to the one motor seizing completely and having to have been removed and was kept up by a piece of plastic. The handbrake mechanism on the right hand side is seized, the drive shaft counter balance weight has come loose and rattled constantly, the exhaust rear tailpipe had snapped off and generally the interior and trim creaked and rattled like anything.

Now I'm into mountain biking and as it happened I'd come across a Paris Blue 1992 480turbo automatic down the side of a railway line where I ride, after lengthy negiotations I was able to buy the 480turbo for £150 and drove it out of there! When I had first seen it, it had been quite tidy with just one small dent on the offside corner, but whilst down there some kids had jumped on the roof and dropped concrete blocks on the bonnet so now it was looking rather dented and scruffy, so the idea of putting it back on the road was soon dismissed and it is now being used as a spares car for my French 480ES and Wanderers 480S, I've taken the whole interior and swapped it from cloth in mine to the nice part leather that was in that car, I've been able to use the motors to get the headlights to working again and also fixed the exhaust and window motors. I replaced all the rear boot plastic as all the older plastic had degraded awfully and scratched and broke very easily.
I've also swapped the rear plastic trim either sides of the seats for the later cars as they had the built in rear speakers and have fitted a nice Clarion stereo CD system which sounds lovely.

So now I have a much tidier looking 1988 480 ES with nearly everything working again, whilst its been over here the heater matrix decided to spring a leak and has now been upgraded to the Mark 2 version of the heater matrix (a much better and more efficient matrix than the earlier one). I've removed all the carpets and dried and removed the underlay and replaced it with the better 1992 version.

I've tried to keep the outward appearance looking as standard as a 1988 ES looked with the same alloys and orange indicators, I decided not to alter what after all is bodily still a very solid little car, albeit with highish mileage.

So with just a few more little bits and pieces to finish I should have a much smartened 480ES to return to France, the only thing I've decided not too have a look at so far is the Air conditioning system!

All I have left to do now before returning it to France is the Right hand side brake caliper and change the indicator switch and the lower shroud, the switch is playing up a little and the lower shroud is all cracked and brittle.