At a dead end - HELP! Absolutely DEAD car!

[ginge191]

Hi Ginge.  It makes a nice change to see someone on here asking a question rather than commenting on the death of the site!

Ignition barrel does seem to be good place to check for a start.  If the barrel checks as good I'd look at the big connector between the engine bay & the bulkhead.  I assume you had it apart to remove the dash & replace the heater matrix?  I'm just fishing but wonder if it hadn't gone back together securely.  Check for corrosion, any signs of a pin overheating, and potential poor pin tension on the female side of the connector.  The other immediate thought is a poorly secured ground on the dash-side of the bulkhead.

Like I say, that's just blindly fishing for ideas & I'd really want to study a wiring diagram to try to see a link between all of the things that aren't working.  The headlights are a bit of an outlier as they aren't ignition dependent.  That might be unrelated.  I do have access to Sedre but the wiring diagrams in that are pretty rubbish & very hard to read, mostly because of the coding system Peugeot used.  If you haven't got any diagrams you could do an Autodata trial (https://www.autodata-group.com/uk/buy-autodata/).  I did it for my XSi a few years ago & downloaded all of the wiring diagrams I could before cancelling.  You have to be really careful to cancel it before the month is up or you get rolled on to a VERY expensive subscription.  (Cancellation is performed at the bottom of the 'Contact Us' page https://www.autodata-group.com/uk/contact-us/)

Thanks for this - that'll be my next plan..

Weird update - I've been away for 5 days, ordered a new barrel, got back today, plugged new barrel in and boom it lives.

Great. 

Plugged old barrel in to check I wasn't going mad and, it fires up again... 

So why, when not touching it, completely left alone for five days, does it then decide to live?!

Possible wet earth strap where I emptied the coolant, making a nasty earth? And then it's dried out?!

Weirdest thing ever!

Will update tomorrow... Again...