Man, how long things have taken......
no pics to update so it's fairly lame.
Still so close but so far away....... Ordered a full set of 5
brand new michelins for her which have apparently arrived. slightly frightened of the bill..........
engine's all back in. Runs like a charm... after sitting for two weeks, half a turn on the crank handle with the timing fully retarded on the dash knob, she rumbles into life, wow.
still need to adjust tappets.
brakes are working lushly...... Sadly I couldn't find a period looking fluid reservoir for these so it's rocking a Willwood one that I sourced from road n track in the hutt. This may go and pending how the brakes perform as a completely stand alone setup. The fronts arent working tooooo well but one the rust's gone from the rotors and the pads get some heat into them I'm sure they'll come right. I've only driven it down the driveway and down the road a little at my old man's place in 1st gear.... From the factory the braking system has an 'emergency circuit' built in. Under heavy braking there's a sleeve in the cylinder which uncovers a port which is hooked to the high pressure line which feeds the front suspension legs. when this happens, high pressure LHS assists the braking effort. many of these cars have had the mater cylinder modified to use this setup at all times. I don't believe mine did..... the standard fluid reservoir has an overflow pipe which returns back to the main hydraulic tank for when said emergnecy stops are made. the extra fluid from the suspension system would overfill the reservoir so needs somewhere to go. When I was commuting I made a few heavy stops (moron drivers stopping in front of me) and I never saw the fluid level change.... thus I reckon it wasn't working. I never had any problems with a lack of brakes aside from the fact that only one of the rears even functioned so when I changed to LHM suspension I left this feature out. I could recommision it again if required but this would require the sourcing the suitable seals for use with lhm from my front calipers, changing the rear cylinders to d-super items, and rebuilding the master cylinder yet again. easily do-able but I'd like to see it as necessary before doing it. I could also run a remote booster somewhere but this would have to find it's way to the boot of the car as there's literally nowhere it could live in the engine bay, and citroens run funny sized piping which could become a hassle, aside of the fact that again, citroen use weird flarings which are extremely hard to find a suitable tool to replicate. I ould buy one from holland but at 450euros i'll hold off for now.
rust is all cut out (need patches welded in).
LHS doors need a little lick of paint as i've scrubbed the bodge dent repair that'd started to lift back to bare metal.
sills need painting.
fuel tank needs putting in.
temp gauge sender need an adaptor brazed into side plate of engine.
splash guards need to be refitted once patches are welded in.
front guards and bumper to replace once everything else is done (10min job)
swap new tyres onto new set of steels that i've got coming (thinking of powdercoating them in a cream colour.... thoughts plz).
Grease steering and suspension joints
once all that's done, I just need to make up some new exhaust mounts, weld them to a length of pipe and strap that all to the brand new muffler I ended up getting made by MLB manufacturers (mastiff mufflers/musket exhausts in inglewood) cost $300 but there really wasn't a nicer way of doing it, present it for a wof and see how I go.
Awesome. It feels pretty bad to know that it was jsut on a year ago that I pulled this thing to bits but it's been a pretty interesting thing to mess around with. I'd never delved too far into working on Citroen suspension prior to this (you could argue that I still haven't ventured too far), but with the completion of an lhs to lhm system I feel pretty proud that it all works well. Most people I've spoken to can't work out why I wouldn't add the high pressure brakes as well (with the weird mushroom button) but I see it as a mere repair job at this stage rather than trying to update the car to that of the later models. I could paint the spheres and tank black, remove the belt driven pump and revert it to the camshaft driven original and nobody would be any the wiser unless they had a look at the fluid it has, so I've kept a little authenticity along the way.
once she's wof'd I'm pretty much set on dropping my CROWN from the fleet. or potentially throwing it into dry storage as it really doesn't suit my needs any more and is rarely used.....
i'm of two minds what to do with the exterior at the moment. with it sitting in a small shed over the last 12 months, and my parents getting a pup that's intensely clumsy and inquisitive, he's rubbed all over the car, and the cat seems to like sleeping on the roof, after walking up the boot. as a result, there's alot of inconsistency in the chalkiness of the paintwork so i'm actually thinking of washing it once it's back together :shock: The paw prints used to be kinda funny but now it looks haggard....
Dad reckons that back in the day they used to fill a bucket with warm water and a couple of capfulls of parrafin, or kerosene. usually you'd do this on a warm day so that the car was also warm. apparently the kero in the warm water acts as a mild cutting agent, and also finds it's way into any stonechips, preserving them from encouraging rust, and givng the paint a little extra sheen. if this actually works it'd end up leaving the ol' cit pretty weathered, but not like it's covered in blue talcum powder. I reckon this might be a bit of me
funnily, this thing only owes me around $1800NZ without the tyres, which is about 775 squid to you guys. I've jsut sorted a deal to buy a '63 from a guy that absolutely rotten for $400. my car cost me $500 with a brand new WOF (MOT equiv) and 6months tax. The guy wasn't interested in the car and he was frankly a little daunted by it all I think. the parts car will give me a spare engine to tidy up ( I was going to do the mains and big ends in mine but they were in relatively good nick still, plus the crank is well worn so I figured I should just get another lump and go whole hog on it......) but mainly a new gearbox for a good friend of mine's 63 which he got for a grand in better condition than my car. Hopefully we both hav them going for the tail end of summer. Double Dees are very exciting, especially when they're two ID19s floating along the road with the windows down
the 106 I mentioned in my last post I ended up getting roadworthy and selling to my sister. She's seemingly keen on french cars now too....... oh no.....