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n0tqu1tesane posted:
Well I certainly had this bit down - in a few hours of light manual labour I got through three rolls of paper towel wiping the sweat of my face and hands and at least five litres of water. Took the 2CV to a wedding today (hence the need to do those gaiters in the height of the hot weather) and gave some people a lift. It's been a long time since I've driven the 2CV with four adults onboard, and two of my passengers were, erm, 'big boned' so I think the poor car was lugging about a payload of about 2/3rds its unladen weight. The ride goes absolutely oily smooth when it's heavily laden, the steering gets so heavy it's like it's set in concrete and the performance degrades to... let's just say I drove along six miles of flat four-lane motorway with the throttle wide open and just about reached 65mph - I counted 74 seconds from 20mph to 60mph! But these engines thrive on this sort of work - they often get 'tight', get plug fouling and sludge up if only ever run gently. It does the suspension good to really get the springs grinding along the inside of the tubes and the brakes - rear drums especially - also appreciate having to do some real work for a change. You could feel the shoes scraping rust/glaze off the drums for the first few miles.
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Jul 27, 2019 01:21
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BalloonFish posted:Well I certainly had this bit down - in a few hours of light manual labour I got through three rolls of paper towel wiping the sweat of my face and hands and at least five litres of water. Sir, what I read here is pure, unrequited Love. I understand you. Please, carry on!!
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Jul 27, 2019 05:46
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Nucken Futz posted:Sir, what I read here is pure, unrequited Love.   Here's why I was so keen to use the 2CV for this wedding - the bride's family (who are long-time friends of my gf but who I've only met four times) are massive 2CVers. This is mine with just two of the nine (!) 2CVs of various ages and types they have - the one under the full cover is a white/red Dolly that's the spitting image of mine, but the white/green Dolly is the one that gets all the use.
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Jul 27, 2019 23:25
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2CV Part 9 - Go West While other 2CVers have been driving thousands of miles across Europe this summer, I've settled for a few days in the West Country, which means 300 miles of motorway to get there. The pre-long,-journey checks on a 2CV are not lengthy. Is there oil in it?  Yes. Because, happily, fitting that new reniflard cured all the Deux Chevaux's oil leaks. Does the brake oil level warning light (yes, it uses mineral oil in the brakes, not DOT fluid) work?  It does! Load it up:   And we're off! The new reniflard has seemingly restoref a couple of extra horses under the bonnet because the 2CV will now sit at an easy 70mph with throttle to spare as long as there aren't any significant hills around.  First stop after 1.5 hours...3.5 to go!  Some cool old Land Rovers. 10 years ago I would have been doing this trip in a very similar 40-year old Land Rover Station Wagon with a trailer on the back, probably smirking at the dork in the two-tone French hippie car. Onward...    Jousting amongst the lorries round Birmingham  Lunch stop at Gloucester. Never a worry about losing your car in the parking lot with a 2CV...  Used half a tank to get here, so if I fill up now I won't have to stop again. After 146 miles of fast motorway driving, nearly all within a few hundred rpm of the engine's redline, the 2CV has returned 48.7 miles per UK gallon.  Hit inevitable traffic crawl near Bristol...the terrain is getting green and hilly, with a few stretches of uphill motorway which need full throttle to maintain enough pace. The trick is to build every bit of momentum you can on the downhill bits and hope there isn't a slow lorry and/or a dawdling Vauxhall Zafira with a roof box and a London registration plate to force you to lift off on the next climb. The last climb before we leave the infamous A30 is a real test - speed drops off so quickly in top gear that it's like I've let go of the accelerator all together, down to third and let the engine buzz away flat out under full throttle, and the gradient steepens even more right before the summit - down to 45mph with my right foot hard on the floor and a Volvo gaining on my rear bumper. If I could have seen under the bonnet I'm pretty sure the exhausts would have been glowing!  230 miles and 4 hours in, it's off the main roads and onto the narrow, twisty country roads over Dartmoor. The 2CV was built for this sort of thing - third gear, full throttle, let the speed wander between 40 and 50mph depending on the gradient, be smooth with the steering and let the car squash itself into gripping in the corners. You can outpace the normal flow of traffic driving a 2CV like this on familiar roads.    A fabulous piece of industrial archaeology...and a derelict mine engine house... In the deepest, darkest West Country there are some seriously steep lanes. The sort which make the 2CV top out halfway up its rev range in second gear. Fortunately you wouldn't want to go much faster than that on these roads anyway! First gear is really, really low on these so even a 435cc example with a heavy load could climb Alpine tracks, albeit at walking pace. There's then a big jump to second gear, so your choice is often screaming away in first or lugging the engine in second to the extent you can virtually hear the individual exhaust strokes. Doesn't stop me carrying outboard motors and deflated dinghies in the Citroen though - it's great for crawling along tracks to hard-to-reach river banks.  The off-road abilities are also good for taking that last parking spot right next to the beach...  I did a few little electrical jobs on the 2CV while I could make use of Dad's tools and workbench. More of that to follow. And what's this lurking in the garage?  Mini fans, prepare for lots and lots of pictures of rust in most of the places you really don't want to see it! BalloonFish fucked around with this message at 22:19 on Aug 30, 2019 |
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Aug 30, 2019 22:02
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By my count you're still missing the Beetle, Model T, and the 500 but you've got a good start on a global People's Car collection. If you want to be ambitious you could add a trabi, a Subaru 360, a Wuling Sunshine, a Hindustan Ambassador, and a VAZ-2101 to the mix. I would go to a museum of global People's Cars, that would actually be super interesting.
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Sep 2, 2019 14:41
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:By my count you're still missing the Beetle, Model T, and the 500 but you've got a good start on a global People's Car collection. If you want to be ambitious you could add a trabi, a Subaru 360, a Wuling Sunshine, a Hindustan Ambassador, and a VAZ-2101 to the mix. I would happily own all of these. And a Renault 4, ZAZ Zapororzhets, Mk1 Fiat Panda, Mk1 Renault Twingo, Maruti 800 and a DAF Daffodil. Maybe a Ford Model Y, Morris Minor, and a GM T-car of some sort if you count those as People's Cars rather than just 'high volume low cost business products'
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Sep 2, 2019 17:34
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2CVs rule, I don't think it's possible not to grin when you see one... Same with that ancient Mini there. They're just cars that light people's faces up when they trundle past. Whereabouts in Cornwall did you end up?
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Sep 2, 2019 17:55
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:By my count you're still missing the Beetle, Model T, and the 500 but you've got a good start on a global People's Car collection. If you want to be ambitious you could add a trabi, a Subaru 360, a Wuling Sunshine, a Hindustan Ambassador, and a VAZ-2101 to the mix. Austin 7, Hillman Imp as british peoples cars with character as well. I think Fiat 126/or gen 1 panda has bit more character compared with the 500.
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Sep 2, 2019 18:01
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Olympic Mathlete posted:2CVs rule, I don't think it's possible not to grin when you see one... Same with that ancient Mini there. They're just cars that light people's faces up when they trundle past. It does get the most attention of any car I've had, and nearly all positive. You do get some dickheads who really hate getting overtaken by a 2CV and then start tailgating or aggressive undertaking. You get people pulling out of side roads right under your bumper (and a red/white 2CV is hardly inconspicuous!) - I assume they either see it and don't expect it to be doing normal car speeds or they figure they don't want to be stuck behind it. My Dad now lives in the Tamar Valley, so about 100 yards into Cornwall. Went down to Calstock, Saltash, Whitsand Bay and up to Launceston while I was there. Englishman alone posted:Austin 7, Hillman Imp as british peoples cars with character as well. I think Fiat 126/or gen 1 panda has bit more character compared with the 500. Austin Seven is a good one. The Imp raises the question of whether, for all the fine intentions, it counts as a People's Car if hardly any of The People bought one! BalloonFish fucked around with this message at 18:50 on Sep 2, 2019 |
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Sep 2, 2019 18:33
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Has your car featured in any of HubNuts videos? I swear your number plate looks familiar. Loving this thread. 
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Sep 2, 2019 19:12
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MrOnBicycle posted:Has your car featured in any of HubNuts videos? I swear your number plate looks familiar. Loving this thread. Not in any of his videos - Elly is also a red & white 2CV Dolly and that number plate is also letter/two digits/space/three letters. Perhaps that's it?
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Sep 2, 2019 19:26
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Englishman alone posted:Austin 7, Hillman Imp as british peoples cars with character as well. I think Fiat 126/or gen 1 panda has bit more character compared with the 500. I'm defining here the People's Car as the car that put a huge, previously inaccessible segment of the population on the road, and only one per segment. Hence the 500. Maybe you could make an argument in Italy for the Balilla. It's not about character, it's about purpose. I think the Austin 7 qualifies if you want to do it in place of the Mini.
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Sep 3, 2019 00:19
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:I'm defining here the People's Car as the car that put a huge, previously inaccessible segment of the population on the road, and only one per segment. Hence the 500. Maybe you could make an argument in Italy for the Balilla. It's not about character, it's about purpose. I agree with your definition. The Austin Seven kinda falls down on 'huge' part though. While it was the first British-built 'proper car' (not some god-awful cyclecar contraption) that was affordable new to anything like the average person, it was still out of reach of the majority of the population - it cost £120-160 at a time when the average annual wage was about £240. It was nowhere near as widely affordable as the Model T was in the States or the 2CV would be in France and it didn't have any governmental assistance to push it to the population like the Beetle or the Fiat 'Topolino'. And the Seven was built in relatively paltry numbers for a 'people's car' - under 300,000 in 17 years which for a company of Austin's size is pretty bad and pales into insignificance against any of the others we've mentioned. The Seven's importance is in being the first small car designed and built seriously by a British car maker, the massive cultural grip it had on the upwardly-mobile middle classes of the time. There were magazines and books specifically about the Seven, there were owners' clubs for it, people wrote personal ads seeking other 'Baby Austin' owners and there were jaunty popular songs written about it like this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkycjDG1HJY Post-war the supply of cheap elderly Sevens meant it became the much-loved first car for new drivers or families lower down the income ladder taking their first steps to car ownership. The Seven had already opened up the world of motorsport to the average middle class chap with a garage and some bright ideas and post-war the supply of cheap Sevens with rusty bodies meant that the likes of Lotus and McLaren got their start building sporty kit cars based on the Baby Austin. Then there's the way it kick-started car production for the likes of BMW and Nissan. The Seven is hugely important and highly notable. It's a strikingly clever bit of design, is great fun to drive and they are still cheap-to-run and surprisingly rugged little cars with a huge social scene behind them. But a true 'People's Car'. I don't think so. Even if you can still find people who are happy to take their 85-year old car and thrash it around a muddy wood at the weekend: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqolgYVlajk For the British, you really have to go forward to the Mini to reach that point. It was stunningly (and, as it turned out, financially-unviably...) cheap and could be afforded by anyone who could possibly consider buying 'a car' and a whole host of people who previously couldn't. If you had any sort of full-time employment in 1959 you could afford a Mini and that wasn't the case for the Seven in 1922. It had the design flair and forward-looking design that is so often a hallmark of a People's Car (think Beetle, 2CV, Fiat 500...) while the Seven was, for all its cleverness, really just a conventional car in miniature.Then there's the whole 'class-less car' angle, in that the Mini really was a car for The People - everyone from coal miners and factory workers to university students and district nurses to company directors and racing drivers to film stars and royalty had a Mini. You could have basic ones, luxury ones, sporty ones, commercial ones and custom ones. And they made a poo poo-ton of them - within three years of launch it had almost doubled the Seven's production total. They made a million after six years and two million after ten. In all it was over six million Minis if you tot up all the variants and overseas production lines. BalloonFish fucked around with this message at 01:32 on Sep 3, 2019 |
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Sep 3, 2019 01:27
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BalloonFish posted:Not in any of his videos - Elly is also a red & white 2CV Dolly and that number plate is also letter/two digits/space/three letters. Perhaps that's it? Ah ok. I seem to remember a 2cv on one of the meets with a similar number plate and the same colour scheme. Anyway, gotten quite aquinted with 2CVs from watching HubNut the last months. Pretty impressed that Elly managed the big road trip without much (if any) problems. Especially with regard to the temperatures. I think Ian was faring worse than Elly to be honest.
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Sep 3, 2019 17:24
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BalloonFish posted:For the British, you really have to go forward to the Mini to reach that point. It was stunningly (and, as it turned out, financially-unviably...) cheap and could be afforded by anyone who could possibly consider buying 'a car' and a whole host of people who previously couldn't. If you had any sort of full-time employment in 1959 you could afford a Mini and that wasn't the case for the Seven in 1922. It had the design flair and forward-looking design that is so often a hallmark of a People's Car (think Beetle, 2CV, Fiat 500...) while the Seven was, for all its cleverness, really just a conventional car in miniature.Then there's the whole 'class-less car' angle, in that the Mini really was a car for The People - everyone from coal miners and factory workers to university students and district nurses to company directors and racing drivers to film stars and royalty had a Mini. You could have basic ones, luxury ones, sporty ones, commercial ones and custom ones. And they made a poo poo-ton of them - within three years of launch it had almost doubled the Seven's production total. They made a million after six years and two million after ten. In all it was over six million Minis if you tot up all the variants and overseas production lines. Hillman I like because its like British Convair and the performance ones were fun and quite dangerous.
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Sep 3, 2019 19:53
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https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=REOYnoDdXK0 Jalopnik has taken inspiration from this thread and done a rather good video on the 2CV, even if it does magically transform from an early 375cc A-type into a late 602cc AZAM when the bodywork is removed... 
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Sep 4, 2019 19:54
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I've got way, way behind on this thread - I came back from Cornwall to find that my home internet had completely died and it's taken ages to fix. It turned out that all my internets were trying to squeeze down the phone line from the telegraph pole to my house that was probably put in in the 1930s and, let's say, it had not improved with age. I'm going to try and catch you up, so to that end, let's go back a couple of weeks when the 2CV was still in Cornwall: 2CV Part 10 - Electrics Boogaloo  There are few electrical niggles on the 2CV. I'm a bit of a dunce when it comes to wiring, even on something as simple as the 2CV so I'd been putting off this until my Dad was on hand so I at least had someone to turn to to ask "why is the smoke coming out of there?" or "Why does the horn switch now control the fog lamp?" The rear lamps have a bad earth, whereby the brake lights strobe slightly if they're on at the same time as the indicators/turn signals. The rear lamp units are the only electrical items at the back of a 2CV save for the fuel gauge sender, and there's a secondary wiring loom that plugs into the main one under the bonnet, runs through the bulkhead, over the top of the doors on the left-hand side and down to the rear lights. Which means that the issue really has to be in the earthing points for the light units themselves.  All the wiring on a 2CV is green, identified only by coloured plastic collars at the connections (great for tracing wires long-distance!) and this is how Citroen thought was the best way to leave the wiring on the inside of the luggage compartment: Just 'there' - I haven't removed any cover plates or trim, pulled up the carpet (there isn't any as standard - what you can see is an old off-cut I put in there to stop the spare wheel rattling around) or undone any cable-ties.  You undo two retaining nuts on the inside and the entire lamp unit pulls out. These chunky units first appeared on the Ami 6 in its 1968 facelift, but by the time my 2CV was made they'd had two-decades of cost-cutting so it's all plastic and flimsy low-grade aluminium. 'MADE IN FRANCE' is always an inspiring thing to see on electrical components. I cleaned up the bulb connectors here on both sides - the tail-light bulb on the other side had gone smoky but I managed to find a spare in Dad's stash.  Then I unplugged the lamp wiring from the rear loom, cleaned all the bullet connectors and nipped them up a little tighter with some pliers. I did the same to the connector for the entire rear loom under the bonnet. Seemed to do the trick! Next up was to fix the dim-dip headlamp system. Dim-dip was a safety feature mandated on all cars sold in the UK from 1987, whereby when you turned on just the sidelights the dip-beam headlamp bulbs also came on at a lower power level. The idea was that it stopped people driving around on just their sidelights, which weren't sufficiently visible. To do this a big resistor is switched into the headlamps circuit when the sidelights are on. After one year dim-dip was ruled against European regulations and the requirement was dropped (Brexit happened a mere 29 years later...makes u think...) but, having fitted the system to their cars, most manufacturers kept it on UK-spec cars into the 1990s until it could be removed in the next facelift or model cycle. Although it's an entirely pointless system, it's there and I'm the sort of person that likes stuff on my car that's supposed to work to, well, work, even if it has no tangible effect. Since the 2CV was re-chassised the dim-dip hadn't worked as it should - one headlamp lit up at full brightness and on the other just the sidelamp bulb lit up but very dimly. I suspect some of you might already have guessed the issue:  Here's the full-brightness headlamp. Can you see the problem? Computer...ENHANCE!  Yes, red/yellow, yellow/red. It's the sort of primary colour-matching toy you'd give to a baby to help their basic cognitive development! Had I actually looked at this rather than assuming it was some complicated problem I'd have sorted this out months ago. Here's the dim-dip working properly again:  And this point my assistant arrived to 'help':  One thing that had cropped up on the long journey down was that the 2CV has no cigarette lighter/12-volt socket so you can't charge up a phone or sat-nav. I had stopped off at Halfords on the way and bought a socket, and then raided Dad's hoard of old interior bits to find a suitably low-rent, nasty and crackle-effect bit of 1970s plastic bracketry to mount it to - its fits the 2CV's interior perfectly!  Then we took apart my horribly bodged front turn signal wiring, ran a new bit of wire and connected it all up with one of those heat-shrink pre-soldered connectors:  The next task was to fix the starting handle. The cross-bit that actually engages into the dog in the middle of the fan had become rather lop-sided, which meant it kept slipping out of engagement and when you heaved on the handle you were in effect twisting the engine on its mountings rather than turning it.  We knocked the bit out, which is just a roll-pin. However we could not find a suitably sized replacement. We went up the road to a local mechanical engineering workshop which rebuilds tractors, cranes, boat stern gear and other interesting stuff and they didn't have one of the correct size either - it's some bizarre metric 7.25mm-section one which no-one else in automotive history has used. We then tried just tapping the pin back through so it sat squarely in the right place but it's clearly either worn or broken so it's not quite long enough. So Dad fired up his lathe and turned down a bolt to the right diameter and length, held in place by a little spot of weld.  Finally - just a little 30-second job - I finally put a new rear door 'handle' on. All the rear passengers in a 2CV have to close the door are these little plastic loops and eventually the plastic snaps at one end. You used to only be able to get the entire handle (plastic strap and the metal bracket that clamps the ends together and attaches to the door frame) for some extortionate price for what they are, but now you can get just the strap for £2.50 each. So I went wild and ordered four as the same part also serves as the seat belt retaining loops at the front and part of the fixings for the rear parcel 'hammock'. That Citroen got so much use out of a six-inch length of plastic pleases me very much.  Mini stuff is coming up next!
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Sep 20, 2019 19:20
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Excellent stuff. That garage looks perfect.
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Sep 20, 2019 21:57
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meltie posted:Excellent stuff. My Dad would be very pleased to hear that. He moved into that place five years ago and has only just got the workshop/garage and all the stuff in it how he wants it. It's a really nice place to work. Mini Part 1 - Austin Inspection Station  My plan to get the Mini sorted for the 60th anniversary (which has been and gone now) died before they even started - I lost one of my more lucrative freelance gigs (the one which basically paid for the 2CV's new chassis) and Dad still has two cars he was planning to get rid of to make space for Mini work (VW Corrado VR6 and an Alfasud Super). So the Mini is going to have to be worked on in dribs and drabs over a long time until it's done. But what actually needs doing?  The front end of the left-hand sill was patched about 12 years ago just primered over rather than being painted and undersealed. It's still OK but needs doing properly.  The grille 'moustache' has had it and needs to be replaced. The front bumper will probably come back with a good clean.  Both headlamp surrounds are badly rusted, the right-hand one especially.  The right-hand front wheel arch is falling to the rust-bugs. This entire wing needs replacing.  The left-hand one has a rust spot on the top and bubbling around the arch so almost certainly needs changing too.  The back end of the left sill has a lot of surface rust on it...  And the right-hand one is in similar condition in the middle. In both cases it's best to replace the entire sill, although ones of the correct style and shape for early Mk1 Minis are hard to find. Later ones will fit but that's a workaround.  There's also this rusty scab appearing out of the sill/body seam just ahead of the right rear wheel arch. It might be possible to clean it up once the sill is cut off but it may need the lower part of the body panel here replacing too.  The roof gutter is quite scabby at the back...  ...and at the front. The windscreen has also picked up a crack at some point in it's stay in Cornwall, probably when the Mini was being kept in a barn full of farm machinery and cattle feed.  There's not much wrong with the Mini mechanically - the oil pressure's not brilliant and takes a long time to build after startup, but there's no sign of bearing wear so it's most likely the oil pump. The engine/transmission 'power pack' has to come out and then be split to change that.  There was the mystery of why, when running at high speeds for long periods, the Mini began pushing water out of the radiator overflow. There's no expansion tank, hence this old drinks bottle being wedged down the side of the rad. The cooling system is fine and there are no signs that the engine is actually running hot, so I'm pretty sure the cylinder head is cracked and it's pressuring the system. I have bought a couple of secondhand heads so I can at least test the theory. If it works I'll rebuild the replacement head with new valves, seats, guides and stem seals so it should be good for another few decades.  The engine side of the bulkhead is very rusty, even if it's still structurally sound. It's especially bad around the brake and clutch cylinders. All this stuff needs to come off then the bulkhead can be taken back to bare metal, patched as needed and repainted.  The interior is basically fine and just needs as a really good clean. All the crucial (and hard to replace) early Mini bits are there. The front floor carpet isreally threadbare and falling apart so it's been folded up in a box for the past few years. Reproduction carpets are available and it would be worth replacing the footwell and rear carpets at the same time so they match. The webbing in the front seats needs renewing as they're very saggy.  The felt window runners on both doors have rotted and/or swollen so they need replacing. Not difficult.  What's the good news? Well, there's nothing fundamentally rotten - it's all relatively easily swapped panel work. The subframes and the floorpan are all solid and remarkably free from rust. I'm guessing because most of the 'damage' was done by the Mini sat outside not being used, so the outer bodywork took the brunt of the weather instead of the underside being bathed in mud, water and salt as happens if the car is actually used.  For all the rusty bits the Austin is still roadworthy, road legal and driveable. So I took it for a little drive to remind myself why I like it so very, very much.  All this work needs to be finished off with a complete external respray. Not only had the paint lost all its shine and finish (it's actually rough to the touch now!) but it's not the correct colour. The real 'Farina Grey' should be paler and less 'dirty dishcloth' shade.  Bonus train pic.
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Sep 22, 2019 15:15
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BalloonFish posted:
That switchgear! 😍
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Sep 22, 2019 15:52
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Just a tiny update, as the 2CV has barely turned a wheel since late August. Winter has now properly arrived, so I have 'winterised' the Citroen - which involves unblocking the heater tubes and clipping on the grille blind (Citroen recommend putting it on at 10C or below and taking it off at above 15C which... doesn't make sense) so the engine isn't overcooled. (It seems a cat has been using my roof as a hammock and the bonnet as a staircase...) Took it for a run on a foul evening after work to keep the battery topped up and the suspension moving. It's nice knowing the chassis is now invulnerable to road muck.  I'm planning to go to some 2CV Club events over the winter, including the Tan Hill Raid which is a drive to Britains highest pub in early January, which often means going over snow-covered moorland roads.
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Nov 8, 2019 18:56
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Just out of interest, how expensive are 2CVs to keep on the road? Seems like a ton of them were produced and have quite a following, so parts shouldn't be too hard to get / expensive.
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Nov 9, 2019 12:11
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MrOnBicycle posted:Just out of interest, how expensive are 2CVs to keep on the road? Seems like a ton of them were produced and have quite a following, so parts shouldn't be too hard to get / expensive. By classic car standards they're really low-cost. The biggest expense will always be metalwork to keep on top of the rust, but (as my example shows), you can still have a new chassis and most of the floor put on by a specialist for about £2000, which is nothing in comparison to many other classic cars - even ones equally as common and popular as the 2CV. There are three big parts suppliers with good online shops and if you have an 'ordinary' 1980s 2CV like mine every single part is available at very reasonable prices. Go for something older or rarer and you'll find that some bits get rare and expensive, but a lot of parts are completely interchangeable on cars from 1948 to 1990. They're mechanically really robust so assuming you don't cook the engine or wear out the suspension through lack of simple maintenance you'll only be buying regular service parts. The only problem can be quality of the parts. A lot of them are cheap for a reason - they're mysterious unbranded pattern parts from suppliers in places that used to license-build 2CVs like Argentina or Vietnam. But if you avoid the absolute bottom of the price range you can find decent-quality bits for what are still reasonable prices. Taking out the big spend on the new chassis, I'd be really surprised if my 2CV cost more than £500 a year in fuel and parts.
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Nov 9, 2019 17:00
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I’ve never really wanted a 2CV before. now I kinda do. love this thread
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Nov 9, 2019 17:22
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BalloonFish posted:By classic car standards they're really low-cost. The biggest expense will always be metalwork to keep on top of the rust, but (as my example shows), you can still have a new chassis and most of the floor put on by a specialist for about £2000, which is nothing in comparison to many other classic cars - even ones equally as common and popular as the 2CV. Sounds nice. Nothing puts me off classics more than overly hard to get parts and overly expensive after market parts. While a 2CV isn't the car I'm looking at to buy as a first classic, I certainly enjoy watching everything about them.  Like snugglz, I love this thread.
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Nov 10, 2019 08:35
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MrOnBicycle posted:Sounds nice. Nothing puts me off classics more than overly hard to get parts and overly expensive after market parts. Same. I've only ever had rather 'obvious' classics - Land Rovers, 2CV, Minis, MG Midget - which are all very well served for parts here in the UK and you're never more than an hour's drive from a specialist. I have friends who have more interesting and unusual old cars - 80s and 90s Japanese or French stuff, for instance - and their cars are off the road for months at a time because some small but vital part is either totally unavailable (meaning you need to find a car being broken for parts or know someone who knows someone who has a stash of bits they're willing to sell from) or is available at astronomical prices that exceed the value of the car several times over. While I could sit on my phone and order anything for the 2CV, from a brake light bulb to a complete interior trim kit or a brand new crate engine, and it would turn up on my doorstep in 2-3 working days. I had an Austin Metro (then 25 years old) which was off the road for five months because it needed a new radiator. They're simply not available new and getting a secondhand one off eBay (when they turned up) was tricky because, being a product of the British motor industry, there were half a dozen superficially similar but slightly different radiators that were not interchangeable. I can't be doing with the hassle.
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Nov 10, 2019 13:36
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Yeah that's why I decided that a Fiat 124 Coupé is probably the perfect first classic for me. Parts are super cheap and it's got enough power and charm, as well as being rear wheel drive. Shame I missed out on one for sale close to me.
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Nov 10, 2019 16:37
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BalloonFish posted:... Land Rovers, 2CV, Minis, MG Midget - which are all very well served for parts here in the UK and you're never more than an hour's drive from a specialist...  BalloonFish posted:I can't be doing with the hassle. You could say I have... rust issues 😎 meltie fucked around with this message at 16:42 on Nov 10, 2019 |
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Nov 10, 2019 16:39
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meltie posted:never more than an hour's AA tow from a specialist Despite the reputation of all those models, I have only needed the AA twice in 16 years of exclusively driving precarious classics - my second Land Rover ran out of diesel on the M40 on the homeward trip the day I bought it because the seller neglected to mention that the fuel gauge stuck on 1/4 full and would go no lower, and the Midget fried its ignition coil at the summit of the Dartford bridge in a traffic jam. Oh, and I called an AA patrol out to break into my Metro when I locked myself out of it. Worryingly, all he did was grasp the top of the door, pull it so it lifted off the seal and slid a thin plastic wire down to hook the lock plunger - I swear I've taken longer to get into cars when I've had the key! Probably not a surprise that the Metro was stolen a year later and ended up on its side in a ditch... Morris Minors are a good example of classics that can be a ruinous money pit. They're 2CV-like to run in terms of the ease and cost of parts, and the simplicity and durability of the mechanical bits, but they're a nightmare structurally - not only are they a unibody but they're a really complex unibody with loads of overlapping and interwoven parts and odd cavities so they cost a huge amount to do any structural repairs to, unlike a 2CV with its simple platform chassis and flat single-skin floor and bulkhead sections. Add the joys of rot, mould, woodworm and probably deathwatch beetle if you go for a Minor Traveller with the timber-frame rear body. All these parts are readily available - there is a company that produces complete Minor bodyshells new as well as all the individual parts, plus suppliers for the Traveller framing but it doesn't come cheap. I know one example of someone who took on a Minor Traveller project that proved to be much, much worse condition than it initially seemed once they started taking it apart, and a lot of the technically 'solid' floorpan was attached to the rest of the car by seriously dodgy welding while some of the sill panels looked like they'd been smashed into fit with a hammer. They kept plugging away at it and ended up with an absolutely lovely fully-restored late-model Traveller but they'd spent something like £15k to get a car worth £11k at best. A two-door 1098cc Minor is likely to be my next classic, in a hypothetical situation where I have the money and space, but they can ruin bank balances and lives if you get a bad one.
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Nov 10, 2019 19:51
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Hello friends. Another long spell between updates! As is obvious, I didn't take the 2CV on the Tan Hill Raid. It really is bizarre; I'll have owned the 2CV for 10 years this October, so that's nine New Years and for at least seven of them I've intended to go to Tan Hill and something has stopped me doing so; either a last-minute change to my work schedule, something wrong with the car, I've been too broke to go or, a new one for 2020, I was instead sat in the Emergency Department of the local hospital! Anyway, what with one thing and another there's been little time for anything on the cars. Today I visited the 2CV to give it what I'm pretty sure is its first run of the year. The battery had a bit of charge left (it's a bit tired but leaving it disconnected helps) but the main problem is that when the 2CV is sat for long periods all the fuel drains out of the pump and fuel line, and the battery won't last long enough to crank the engine round to suck up fuel all the way from the tank to the carb. So it's time to break out the starting handle!  As soon as the float chamber fills it starts right up. I've always assumed the fuel shortage is either because of poor-quality valves in the fuel pump (which was renewed when the chassis was changed after the old one, which showed the same problem, failed completely) but now I think there may be another issue. Because I'm pretty sure I left the Citroen with a third of a tank of fuel and now the pointer's barely off the Empty stop. I wonder if there's a small leak at the tank end. Apparently there's a short gooseneck-shaped section of rubber hose that goes from the outlet on top of the tank to the plastic fuel line that runs along the chassis to the pump on the engine. This perishes with age and, by letting air into the fuel pipe and petrol/vapour out, can cause the loss of prime issue I'm having. But I don't think it would cause an actual leak while the car is sat still, given that it's on top of the tank. The only way to get at this hose is by dropping the tank, which isn't a big job but not one I've done before. I took the 2CV to the nearest garage and filled the tank to the halfway mark. This photo (and this post) will serve as the record, which I can check against when I see the car again in however long.  Then I took it for a run round the lanes just to get it warm, charge the battery and give the suspension some flex. It's a really breezy day here and in this flat countryside the slab-sided lightweight 2CV gets blown around quite badly. On the more exposed roads you have to keep a certain amount of steering lock on against the wind, like beating to windward in a sailing dinghy!  Other than that, about the only mechanical thing I've done is build a brand new windscreen washer system for the Xantia. I got fed up with the jets continually blocking and being generally feeble even when they worked, so decided to take them off and try and properly clean them out. I broke one of the retaining clips in doing so, so I bought two new jets (£3.50 for the pair - they're still used on the current Citroen Berlingo van so that's handy!) and new pipe. Now it scooshes properly for the first time in nearly four years.  (Before I tucked and tied the new pipes out the way)  One of those jobs that is really simple and took about 20mins all in but makes such a difference to how nice the car is to use on dark winter nights. A few days after I did this I got stuck for two hours behind a lorry on a country road and it was chucking all sorts of mud, salt, dirt and muck up. If I hadn't done the washer jets I'd have had to stop every few miles to throw water at the screen from a bottle.
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Mar 1, 2020 17:21
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I've put a non-return valve in the 2CV's fuel line, at the low point under the fuel pump. Hopefully this will stop the petrol draining/leaking back to the tank, or at least leave enough in the line to get the engine running. It was nice weather today so I took the Citroen to work, then went for a drive on the back roads.         
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Mar 6, 2020 16:44
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2CV Part 11 - Putting a Damper On Things One thing that has been bothering me recently (other than things like getting a job in events management three weeks before a global pandemic stops all public events and that sorta thing...) is the quality of the 2CV's ride. It's always been good - really good - at soaking up proper bumps, dips and hummocks in the road surface but low-amplitude, high-frequency surfaces like scabby tarmac, gravel or cobblestones seem to bypass the suspension and go right through the body, with a structure-shattering thud that sets all the plastic trim and windows rattling. I've driven other 2CVs which had the same quality, and assumed that it was a function of a light, flimsily-built car. When it was rebuilt on the new chassis the ride improved considerably, so maybe it was the rotten chassis wobbling about? And perhaps I've been spoilt by my Citroen Xantia, which on its hydropneumatic suspension just treats any imperfections in the road with complete disdain. But over the summer it seems to have been getting worse, and the 2CV has started being affected by mid-corner bumps which would make the whole car feel like it was hopping sideways. That's not right - 2CVs should always corner as if on tramlines. Finally, I noticed by girlfriend's Mazda 2 coped with a bit of gnarled road surface on our street much better than the 2CV, and I'm damned if a modern Japanese supermini will have a better ride than a classic Citroen! After properly assessing the 2CV's ride I noticed that the problem wasn't in the initial bump (I originally wondered if the springs were stiff in the tubes despite all the vegetable oil I've put in, or if the suspension arm bearings were seized) but in the reaction to the bump. Deliberately steering over drain covers, there would be a muffled, well-absorbed 'thud' and then the rattley-bang through the structure, like this: *Thud*...BUBBubbubbubbubub... So that made me suspect the dampers, which weren't controlling the suspension rebound properly and allowing the wheels to 'patter' up and down at high frequency. So let's talk about 2CV dampers. The 2CV was designed to absorb the worst road surfaces France had to offer, which were pretty bad - rural French roads were infamously terrible in the post-war era, so much so that car makers sent their prototypes their to carry out suspension and durability testing. When my Dad was a kid he went on a family driving holiday through France, and within a week the suspension of their Morris Oxford - a car with a reputation for strength and which was built for decades in India where it was renowned for its longevity even on unmade roads - was reduced to its component parts. The 2CV suspension had to deal with this while remaining stable and comfortable. We've already covered how the interconnected suspension with the long, soft coil springs worked. Early 2CVs had no conventional dampers. There was a friction plate in the pivot bearing of each suspension arm and a device called a bateur on the 'wrist' of each arm, tucking behind the wheel. This was an egg-shaped cannister containing a weight sprung on each side to each end of the cannister. The weight and the springs were carefully chosen so that as the suspension moved up and down the weight bobbed up and down inside the cannister, but out of phase with the natural harmonics of the rest of the suspension (themselves carefully engineered to have the same frequency as a human walking gait so the car's ride feels natural). This counteracts the suspension, damps out the motion and prevents wheel patter, even on high-frequency surfaces such as driving over cobblestone roads at 40mph. As 2CV performance and French roads improved this system became outdated. 2CVs gained telescopic hydraulic dampers on the back in the late 60s and then on the front in the mid-70s, with the friction plates and bateurs consigned to history. My late 2CV has telescopic dampers front and rear, but of course they're not conventional dampers! For a start they are mounted horizontally under the car. Secondly, because they are 'upstream' of the suspension arm pivot point they work backwards - as the wheel rises the damper extends and as the wheel drops the damper contracts. Thirdly, the geometry of the suspension means that for every inch the wheel moves the damper only moves 1/4 of an inch. This means that 2CVs need very bespoke dampers, but there was a period in the 2000s/2010s when the original Lipamesa types fitted at the factory were either unavailable or hugely expensive but there was no decent alternative. Guess what? In 2011 my 2CV failed its inspection on worn dampers, so I had to put a set of affordable LIP HydraMax units on. The fact that this new set made no appreciable difference to how the car drove compared to the original but condemned ones should say it all! I think they were actually steering arm damper units with 2CV-appropriate fittings! Anyway, fortunately today Burton (one of the big 2CV parts suppliers, based in The Netherlands) has begun remanufacturing bespoke 2CV-specific dampers, and a full set only cost £150 including delivery! So with my government COVID-19 support payment burning a hole in my pocket I treated myself to all four!  They come in boxes printed with instructions as to how exactly to fit them, and why they're so awesome. Changing dampers on a 2CV is really easy. Because they work in parallel with the rest of the suspension you only have to unbolt them and slide them off - you don't have to touch the springs. You don't even have to jack the car up...in theory.  Here's one of the old rear dampers in situ - just a threaded pin at each end, with a big nyloc nut on each. The worry is that these nuts will be seized, since they're in the firing line of muck sprayed up from the road, but they've only been on this chassis a year and a quarter, so should be cooperative.  And indeed they are. Old damper comes off...  ...Lots of copper slip goes on (I'm hopefully going to be the next person to put dampers on this car in many years time and I want it to be easy!)...  ...and new damper goes on. As it happens I didn't actually take a pic of the new damper on the car on this corner!  The other side is slightly trickier because the exhaust pipe runs outboard of the damper and the silencer is right up next to the inner nut. Fortunately you can pull the silencer out on its rubber bungee mounts enough to get the socket on to crack the nut loose...  ...and then do the rest with a spanner. The front dampers are a little tricker, since at the front end they hang from mounting pegs on extensions to the suspension arm bearing covers, and are on the 'inside' where, while you can get a spanner on the nuts, there's not enough clearance to withdraw the damper off the peg. You gave to take the cov,er plate off then remove the damper from the plate, then do the reverse with the new one.  The cover is held on by the three 14mm bolts, while I crack the 19mm damper nut loose while it's still solidly attached to the car.  I somewhat failed on the picture front, but I ended up having to take the front wings off, because with them on there wasn't quite enough clearance to get a beefy socket on the upper/rear bolt - the one I'm tackling in this pix. I think when the chassis rebuilders put these on they whacked them up with an air wrench because they were frigging tight, and with the socket not squarely on the bolt head it just slipped. Edit:  Me pondering something in the engine bay while holding a tube of gasket gunk.  Struggling to crack off one of the cover bolts, lying on the ground making undignified grunting sounds.  Plate and damper off, revealing the massive tapered roller bearing that the suspension arm pivots on. This is where the friction plate would have been on an early 2CV.  Then you pop the new damper on, loosely do the nut up and run a new bunch of sealant around the mating face to keep the bearing housing vaguely watertight.  New damper on - more copper slip on the damper mounts and the cover plate bolts...  ...and all done. The other side is again complicated by the exhaust, because the downpipe runs right in front of one of the cover plate bolts:  Fortunately if you jack up the front end the suspension drops, the arm pivots and the bolt head is exposed:  I'm sure that when I did this job before I managed to do it without jacking the car up or taking the wings off. Perhaps I had a better selection of tools then, or better problem-solving skills... Otherwise this corner is exactly the same, so that's all the dampers replaced!   One of the other jobs that needed doing was new wiper blades because the rubbers on these ones had given up.  Not really worth describing in detail, but I was amused at how they were sent in the standard Valeo boxes, intended for the blades of a normal modern car, over twice the size of the ones on a 2CV.  The other job was to do something about the perished retaining seals on the wing mirrors. You can get new seal kits but for a couple of pounds more you can get a completely new mirror assembly so I got those.  The mirror is held to the door by a big screw, which is secured by a small hex-headed screw on the inside of the door which goes into a countersunk thread in the end of the big screw. I was expecting these to be seized beyond belief after 32 years but it turned easily, albeit needing some assistance from a spanner on the screwdriver to get it moving.  Counter-holding the little screw on the inside.  Old mirror off.  Comparison with the old mirror. Notice how the new one had a longer arm. The original ones don't give a great field of view and in most useful positions catch on the flip-up windows. So the aftermarket ones sit further out. Trouble came when I fitted the new mirror - no pictures because at this stage I just packed up and went home before I did more damage. Basically, after doing up the big screw and then snugging up the little internal one it was still a bit loose, so I backed off the holding screw, did up the main screw a little more, put a final bit of welly on the securing screw...and snapped it off flush with the tip of the main screw! I don't have a tap and die set to chase the remains of the screw out, although I could borrow one. You can by the pair of screws for £3.50 each so I might just do that. When I ordered the mirrors the website had a prominent warning that the mirrors DID NOT come with the screws, and when I called to place the order the person there also made sure to ask "do you need the door screws too?" I said "No, because I'm replacing the ones on the car, so I already have them "And she went "Well, good luck then..." At the time I took the warning to be that they were probably going to be seized and I'd end up stripping the heads. But perhaps this was what they were getting at! I did take the Citroen for a quick missing-a-mirror test drive and can report that the ride quality is vastly improved. No more crashing and shuddering, just a well-damped, supple 'thonk'. And no real difference between driving on tarmac or a gravel track - in the good way. So that's a result at least. BalloonFish fucked around with this message at 22:09 on Jul 3, 2020 |
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Jul 3, 2020 21:45
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Nice one. Must feel good having it driving properly again.
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Jul 5, 2020 12:44
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slothrop posted:Nice one. Must feel good having it driving properly again. I haven't been able to properly assess it yet, but first impressions are that it's not driving properly 'again' but for the first time in the nearly-10 years I've had it. I'm actually curious to see what it's like when everything's working properly!
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Jul 5, 2020 21:49
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My new screws arrived today: And this time I didn't strip anything:  I was able to re-use the original screws for the other side. Despite all the warnings both came out very easily:  New mirrors:   The new mirrors only have the longer arm on the driver's/RH side - I think it's actually supposed to be longer on the passenger side but it was never changed for right-hand drive cars. Apparently this arrangement is from the 2CV van variants, to help you see past the taller, longer body but they are now the only produced as sets in this way. When I ordered the new screws I also ordered a new ignition contact barrel, since mine was still giving trouble with not always keeping power to the ignition when starting the engine.  Unsurprisingly it's very simple - the barrel slots on the end of the ignition switch. Two lugs on the barrel slot between two lugs on the ignition switch/steering lock housing and a strip of sprung steel wraps around all four lugs as a circlip to hold it in place. There's no trim or steering column shroud in the way. Just unplug the three wires, prise off the circlip, slide off the barrel, slot on the old one, lift the circlip into place and pop the wires back on. Took about 30 seconds.   A large amount of green dust came out of the old barrel when I turned it upside down, which is certainly the remains of the contacts inside and the reason it didn't always work!  A longer test drive proved that the ride is greatly improved with the new dampers. Much less jarring and crashing over short, sharp bumps (I've obviously subconsciously developed a habit of bracing myself for road shocks, because I found myself tensing up when going over potholes in anticipation of a shock that never came!) and much more surefooted in the corners. The ride really isn't far off my hydropneumatic Xantia now - just a bit noisier and harsher going over really jagged or rough bits of road.  
BalloonFish fucked around with this message at 20:41 on Jul 7, 2020 |
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Jul 7, 2020 20:39
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That Mini (Austin) really brings back some of the first memories of being under 5 and learning how to hand spanners to Dad as he rebuilt a 1962 Morris Mini from the ground up. 47 years ago.
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Jul 9, 2020 11:40
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CAT INTERCEPTOR posted:That Mini (Austin) really brings back some of the first memories of being under 5 and learning how to hand spanners to Dad as he rebuilt a 1962 Morris Mini from the ground up. Glad to hear it A lot of my early memories come from 'helping' Dad in the garage as he worked on Minis, MGs and Morris vans. A '62 Mini would have been very similar to mine, save for a few nerdy detail differences. Ten years before a 'ground up' rebuild sounds horribly correct for a Mk1 car!
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Jul 9, 2020 13:24
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No updates on either of my cars - the 2CV is just trundling along fine and I've had confirmation that the Mini still 'exists' down in Cornwall. But fellow 2CVer, acquaintance and occasional colleague HubNut has driven a 'hot' 2CV, modded with a 720cc engine and tuned up to 48hp (about a 70% increase over standard from the 602), electronic ignition with a vacuum advance and 'sports' suspension with no front/rear interconnection and added front top link arms. Thought folks reading this thread may be interested in seeing what a '2CV GT' is like. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=B3rvphDEfOQ&t=792s I keep considering the electronic ignition upgrade, which is extremely common, but have never been moved enough to actually buy it.
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Sep 21, 2020 14:52
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Shiny bits arrived on my doorstep the other day: New rear brake drums and shoes. One lingering problem on the 2CV is that both rear brakes had picked up some rust and then warped, so they knocked under braking and at low speeds you came to a halt in a series of graceless lurches. This is a common issue on 2CVs - especially those with front disc brakes - because the car is so light, and what weight it has is all at the front so unless you're regularly carrying four people down a mountain the rear drums just don't do any work. The rear wheel bearings are carried in the drums rather than separate hubs so they're a bit beyond my means to swap. So I got the local Citroen specialist to do it when they also did this year's MoT test. The 2CV hasn't been used for a couple of months, so it needed a donation of Citroen electrons from the Xantia:  Then it started up fine. I really need to get a new battery...   In good company at the workshop.  Back in the barn with a year's ticket on it. One small hole in one of the CV joint gaiters and the ever-present complaint of 'worn kingpins' (I should have pumped loads of grease into them beforehand) were the only advisories. There's news from Cornwall on the Mini front too - my Dad went to the barn where that's stored for the first time since March. The battery was still at full charge, all the tyres were up and it cranked over eagerly but showed no signs of life. No fuel in the carb and absolutely nothing happening at the fuel pump. Even taking the pump off and trying to coax it into life on the workbench didn't work so now I have the choice of buying a genuine SU reproduction pump (complete with stupid electro-mechanical points) for £90 or a non-original direct swap one with solid-state electronics for £65. What a decision... BalloonFish fucked around with this message at 20:58 on Nov 16, 2020 |
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Nov 16, 2020 20:49
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BalloonFish posted:There's news from Cornwall on the Mini front too - my Dad went to the barn where that's stored for the first time since March. The battery was still at full charge, all the tyres were up and it cranked over eagerly but showed no signs of life. No fuel in the carb and absolutely nothing happening at the fuel pump. Even taking the pump off and trying to coax it into life on the workbench didn't work so now I have the choice of buying a genuine SU reproduction pump (complete with stupid electro-mechanical points) for £90 or a non-original direct swap one with solid-state electronics for £65. What a decision... Is there a suitable Facet cube pump? They're cheap and cheerful...
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Nov 17, 2020 03:25
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