1989 Citroen 2CV, rolling restoration.. In theory.

I what happened with the project ?

Oops sorry guys, the 2CV is sleeping. I've been taking a year out. It will hopefully come out of hibernation later this year, I'll post updates when things start happening again. Until then...

Next job was to check the swing arm bearings. I've photographed most stages in an attempt to help others who like me, need to do a job like this but haven't done it before and so don't know what's involved. Sorry if it bores anyone to death.

Removed the damper bracket to reveal the castle nut held in place with a spilt pin and accompanied by the suspicious lump of grease. All looked original and previously untouched.


I next made a highly sophisticated tool by hacking up a cold chisel and filing it to the right size so it could be knocked into one of the notches in the castle nut and then belted with a hammer.



To my joy, it worked like a dream. Before loosening the nuts I marked their position in relation to the axle with a centre punch to try and put it back to roughly the same torque.


I realised that to remove that side of the front axle I had to either remove the steering rod from the rack or release the steering arm ball from the rod. I tried removing the steering rod from the centre of the axle first but it was stuck solid, I think I'll need a special tool for this, I don't have a ball joint splitter.

I decided to remove the axle by releasing the steering arm ball joint.


After taking out the split pin, I found that the chisel that I adapted for the castle nut fitted this perfectly too (Instant multi tool).


So I removed the castellated nut and the cup washer thingmy and tried getting the ball out.



This confused me for a while until I realised the ball had 2 flat faces so it was just a case of turning the hub until they aligned with the slot in the rod and then it just fell out.




On fully removing the castle nut from the axle, initial signs were good on the grease front, these often dry out and the bearings seize up.


On pulling off the arm, everything seemed hunky dory.




Both bearings were greased and seemed in good condition, they're all of the Spanish variety, I assume these are originals.



I cleaned them up and re greased thoroughly before refitting the axle and refitting castle nut with new split pin.


I carried out the same procedure on all 4 corners, all were the same. At the same time I removed the rear axle tube and flipped round the solid ally droop stops which I had mistakenly fitted backwards.


I then fitted 4 new shocks and the 2 new rod eyes to replace dodgy ones from ECAS.
The only problem I had was with 2 new shock absorber nuts, again from ECAS, which appeared to made from some sort of soft cheese as the thread stripped before I could get them torqued up. One of them managed to hold, but at an odd angle. Not impressed, why sell such wibblepoo. Better not to sell anything at all.







I also fitted new front axle bolts and lock washers.

With the car in my garage at home I now carried on building up the chassis. Apologies for the curse word quality photos, I lost my camera.

So I started off dusting down the chassis and trying to remind myself where I last left things, rebuilding the chassis ready to pop the body back on.

First on the list was cleaning up the fuel tank and fittings, and attaching it to the chassis.






Next I got the engine up on the bench to check things over.



Bear in mind last time this engine ran was over 3 years ago. On trying to turn it over by hand it seemed to get stuck so I took out the plugs and shone a torch down the holes.

One side looked fine, the other suspiciously rusty looking..



So off with the heads to see what's what.




One barrel looked perfect but the other was a bit crusty. Evidence of water sitting in the barrel for a while, must have been when I pressure washed it before putting it away.

Took the barrel off and cleaned it up, but I don't think it's salvageable.




Luckily the piston looks ok, I've left it soaking in degreaser but all the rings move and it's not very corroded so fingers crossed. The cyl' head looks salvageable, I'll take the valves out and see how it is.

The valve seats cleaned up very well after a thorough lapping, after spending a couple of hours doing one side by hand I rigged up a bit of rubber tube with a couple of jubilee clips and a bit of threaded bar in the drill, worked pretty well and was faster than by hand.


I bought a 9.0:1 cr barrel and piston set from Ecas, I was a bit begrudged spending so much money when I only really needed one side but in the end it wasn't much more expensive than all the standards bits for one side once you added it all up, plus it'll make the engine a bit more spritely.

Nice quality bits from Ecas


Fitted the rings to the pistons, the three oil oil control rings set 120 degrees apart and then the other two offset. This makes for a better initial start up and bedding in and is more efficient at scraping oil from the barrel walls. This is information I learned after already fitting one side with the three oil control rings spaced the same and the other two just randomly spaced. Note my experimental ring compressor in the penultimate pic. This didn't work that well, I ended up putting a light oil on the rings and compressing them with my fingers, slipped in great with a bit of wiggling. Fitting piston rings is very much like making love to a beautiful woman. Etc.





Next I changed the clutch for a new Valeo one




And fitted the heads with new valve stem seals, set the valve clearances and fitted new rocker cover gaskets. All went pretty smoothly, minus a slight mis-calculation with an online torque converter.


I only snapped one head stud but changed all three on that side as a precautionary measure. I now have a laminated torque conversion chart above my workbench...

I then built up the rest of the engine, cleaning and painting bits as I went.







I then stripped and cleaned and checked over the carb, generally looked good, apart from a lot of curse word in the bottom of the float chambers.





Made some new insulator block gaskets from gasket paper


Just waiting for the carb top gasket from Ecas and it'll be ready to fit to the engine.

Next my attentions turned to the gearbox.



I had looked inside here before when a friend showed me how to peen over the selector ring to stop the gearbox unwinding when reversing, a common 2CV problem caused by half hearted factory peening of a selector ring, so I knew roughly what I was looking at. As usual, there were just three badly peened sections. I took a few videos as I went with the gearbox to show exactly what areas to peen as I struggled finding decent info on it.

Video showing factory peening.



Video showing additional peening I added.



I then drained out the oil


Which showed signs of water contamination, most likely from when I pressure washed it a couple of years ago. Luckily it doesn't seem to have damaged anything.


I then removed the rear cover to check the main shaft and pinion nut were tight. Signs of water ingress in here too, no damage caused though.



The nuts were both loose and showed hardly any signs of factory staking.





I made a wee "un staking" tool and knocked out the very slight indents left by Citroen, then removed the nuts. If anyone uses this as a guide, the lower (pinion) nut is a LH thread.



I next refitted the nuts set to the correct torque and using threadlock and more affective staking.


And cover refitted, sealed the join with a thin coat of Heldite. I used to use Heldite for leaky sump plugs before I learned how to anneal copper washers, but figured it would be good for this too.




Same applied to the gearbox top cover


And the top was bolted back on after filling up 0.9 litres of semi synthetic 75w90 hypoid gear oil.

Next I joined the gearbox and engine back together again. Slotted together very nicely, and was then plonked in position after fitting new CV joints and grease all round.








Next up I fitted new discs and attached and torqued up the driveshafts


And checked over both calipers, and fitted with new Valeo brake and hand brake pads.


That's all for now, next job is to continue trying to source a set of these brackets that support the brake pipe coil in the rear axle. I can't find any for love nor money. I've tried both methods.


That's my Christmas break over now so progress will be slow again for a while, but once the rear brake pipes are done the body can go on the chassis...


Soonies, dudes.

So pleased to see this thread come back to life. And what an epic reason it was hibernating. I'll also read the blog in the next few days.

Big thumbs up on the distance travelled to go collect the chassis and even bigger thumbs up doing it in a very cool t25 pickup, that needs some lows
This project is bookmarked do love something different.

Thanks for this, I'm learning as I go.. Post edited accordingly!

Thanks for the positive comments, it feels great getting the project going again. There's already another patiently waiting in the wings..



Stonio, I don't have the t25 pick up any more which is a shame as it was a cool motor, albeit unbelievably slow. Oh and yes I learned most of this stuff restoring air cooled VW's but I've been priced out of that game!