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meltie posted:Is there a suitable Facet cube pump? They're cheap and cheerful... A £10 low pressure ebay fuel pump will do the job on that mini too. (search for HEP-02 low pressure pump). Buy 2 and keep a spare in the glove box!
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Nov 17, 2020 21:42
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Tomarse posted:A £10 low pressure ebay fuel pump will do the job on that mini too. (search for HEP-02 low pressure pump). Buy 2 and keep a spare in the glove box! Glove box? This isn't a Riley Elf!   I don't mind forking out for a decent-quality German SU pump repro with decent internals. I was more amazed at how fastidious you'd have to be about originality to pay eve more for a genuine SU one with the mechanical points which was infamously troublesome back in the day.
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Nov 18, 2020 01:28
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No People's Cars today, but I had to share this: Just over three and a half years ago I was forced to sell my beloved 1990 Land Rover Ninety (the Defender before it was called the Defender, basically) Station Wagon. I'd owned it 11 years, it was my perfect spec for a Landy, I had always intended to keep it for ever, yadda yadda. Unfortunately it had to go - I needed the money, I had nowhere long-term to keep it, I no longer needed a 4x4, it was getting to the stage where it needed an increasing amount of work put into it which I had neither the space or the means to do and its condition (and its value) was only going to get worse the longer I put it off.   So I chucked it on eBay, where it sold quickly and easily for £3700-something...to an account called 'cheapdefenderspares'. Which didn't fill me with good vibes, since I was pretty sure that this meant my Landy was going to be broken for parts (scruffy pre-Defender Defenders with their original non-Tdi turbodiesels are not desirable and usually worth more either as bits or when 'modernised' into Defender clones). But it was what it was, and I genuinely shed a tear or several as I watched it being towed away on the back of a low-loader, driven by an Eastern European man who, understandably, didn't know or care about my stupid emotions over a lump of rusty, red-faded-to-pink metal and who when handed my fastidiously-kept-and-ordered lever-arch file of receipts and paperwork just chucked it behind the cab seat amongst a pile of old burger wrappers, empty cans of de-icing fluid and mucky tie-down straps. Anyway, today I got to watching Land Rover restoration videos on YouTube and had the thought (not for the first time) to google my Land Rover's registration number to see if it came up. Previously I've always stopped myself at this out of fear that I'd see it in a breaker's advert or that some recent picture would show it modded in way that I don't care for (people can do what they like to cars they own - I sold it and that's that, but I don't need to know about it!). Anyway, this time I was in a more positive frame of mind and actually did it. The first few rows of returns were as expected - pics still hosted on my defunct blog, pics from my twitter account, one ancient YouTube video from 2009. Then there was this advert from a classic car classifieds site in the States: http://classiccardb.com/land-rover/409333-1990-landrover-defender-90-county.html  Holy Hell! That's my old Land Rover, one respray later and now with a pricetag of nearly $25k! It's in Somers, NY (nice bit of the world for it to end up in!). It's lost all its gloriously naff 80s go-faster stripes and turbo stickers in the respray, it's had either a good repair or new sections put into the bulkhead under the windscreen where it was starting to get crusty, it's had new body cappings put on the rear tub and they've either repaired or replaced the door frames (and possibly new outer skins too) so now the door cards actually stay attached to the doors but that's about it. For $25k you don't even get a re-covered steering wheel, since I can still see the black duck tape I put on there where the original leather had peeled off. It's still got the crummy 1990 Phillips radio-cassette player (on which all the LCD segments had broken and you had to whack it on the side of the mounting pod several times to get it to put out sound), it's still got the new-old-stock Rostyle wheels I found and put on it in 2012, now showing their age, and it's using the same keyring that I had for it. I'm genuinely pleased to see that it's not been 'messed with' and has basically been improved. And that it's now in a bit of the world where it will be valuable enough to keep around and, potentially, restore properly one day. And I can be pretty confident that anyone who wants to run a 30-year old diesel Land Rover in the USA has to be an enthusiast. I'm intrigued to know if any of its mechanical issues have been fixed. The engine (as the advert says) was rebuilt 15,000 miles ago by my good self and was spot-on, and the main gearbox was fine (a bit sloppy, but that's LT77 transmissions with 160,000 miles on them for you) but there was a slowly-increasing amount of grinding and groaning noises from the transfer box which I think was the centre differential bearings on their way out.
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Dec 15, 2020 02:28
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The 2CV has been getting the odd run since my last post and it's all fine, and very nice to have a battery which doesn't flatten itself after 48 hours and which provides more than five seconds cranking time. Today, in preparation for the 2CV getting more use in summer, I gave the front end (kingpins and sliding driveshaft sections) a grease, which usually means dismantling the front end of the car and even then the grease gun gets stuck at some weird angle on the driveshafts jammed against the exhaust.  But now I have a new, better grease gun with a flexible end so it took about two minutes.   I'd say that's enough grease in there!
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Mar 31, 2021 19:40
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Always enjoy your updates!
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Mar 31, 2021 19:50
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Spent a very nice day this week getting to know the 2CVs main rival in the form of a Gouda-coloured Renault 4 GTL. We were lucky to get access to the default Windows XP desktop as a photo location:  I was a bit worried about this as, knowing the theory of the R4 and having had a very brief encounter with one before, they are basically 'a 2CV but better'. So there was a risk that I'd come away with the 2CV 'spoiled' and looking on Leboncoin for Renault 4s. As it happened I needn't have worried. The R4 is, with your head, a more refined, practical and user-friendly car but it has only about a quarter of the character of the Citroen. It doesn't ride as well and essentially feels a lot more normal. Like any other 70s hatchback but with a weird gearchange and soft suspension. That gearchange caused me some difficulties, because it's a dash-mounted push/pull/twist deal like the 2CV but the pattern's different, so I kept going for second when I wanted first, and first when I wanted reverse. I can't say too much more because this sort of thing is what counts as 'work' so there's going to be a magazine article and a video about this in the future and I don't think my employer would appreciate me spilling everything for free (well,  , but neither me nor they get any of that...) to goons first. In other news:    I'm suddenly noticing how rusty the bonnet/hood of the 2CV is getting. The 'stubble' under the grille is getting worse and there are loads of little specks of rust, presumably where grit and stone chips (or, frankly, a tougher than average mosquito) has broken the micron-thin paint. I was going to wait until I had the entire bonnet hinge section replaced to get it repainted, but I might have to have a go at doing it myself before then. I don't enjoy doing paintwork... angryrobots posted:Always enjoy your updates! And I'm glad they bring enjoyment 
BalloonFish fucked around with this message at 21:55 on Apr 16, 2021 |
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Apr 16, 2021 21:52
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BalloonFish posted:That gearchange caused me some difficulties, because it's a dash-mounted push/pull/twist deal like the 2CV but the pattern's different, so I kept going for second when I wanted first, and first when I wanted reverse. I had the opposite problem when I bought my maserati. My whole life I have driven a normal pattern 4/5 speed, and that has a dogleg first like a 2cv. Now I'm used to it, and I can drive the two styles back-to-back without even thinking about it.
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Apr 16, 2021 22:49
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chrisgt posted:I had the opposite problem when I bought my maserati. My whole life I have driven a normal pattern 4/5 speed, and that has a dogleg first like a 2cv. I have two other cars with normal shift patterns and I can jump between them and the 2CV without issue. I'm lucky enough to drive a wide variety of vehicles on a regular basis and I can generally switch between manuals (various patterns, floor-mounted, column-mounted) and autos without problems. The R4 was confusing because, with the dash-mounted lever, it was close enough to the 2CV that my muscle memory kicked in, which was only half applicable. It's like a more gentle version of learning to drive a Ford Model T - it has what appears to be normal controls but only the steering wheel actually does what you expect it to!
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Apr 16, 2021 23:08
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BalloonFish posted:Spent a very nice day this week getting to know the 2CVs main rival in the form of a Gouda-coloured Renault 4 GTL. I like what Guy Sayer had to say about the R4: (and I paraphrase) ...years later I had to take my first driving test since the war in an excreble R4. The instructor was getting irritable about my shifting and I did not think it wise to tell him I learned to drive in a Heer truck, through Russian mud, with a load of wounded men in the back. There's not liking a car, and then there is not liking a car.
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Apr 17, 2021 19:33
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I swear my life consists of more than doing photo shoots for magazines with the 2CV...but it happened again. Rather different counterpart this time - a late CX Croisette. The point was that these are both 'proper' Citroen designs (no shared Peugeot platforms) near the end of their production life, both from virtually the same time (1988 and 1989) and both are 'special' editions which are actually the base model with some cosmetic garnish. It's weird seeing how many little detail parts are the same/similar between them.   During the shoot I noticed that the 2CV had somehow, somewhere, sometime, sucked a load of onion skins into its grille  
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May 14, 2021 17:14
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It's been another messy and busy summer for me, with very little time for 2CV-ing. The friend whose shed I keep it in is having to move out of his rented house so I'll have to find the Citroen new lodgings for the winter. Today I laid eyes on it for the first time in ten weeks. In that time my friend's garden had been scalped by the builders who will shortly be putting up some houses on the site, a summer's growth of flowers, wild grass and weeds has invaded...and the shed acquired a set of temporary doors.  A genuine barn find!   The spiders had taken over There was still a decent amount of life left in the battery, but I ran it flat just pulling fuel up to the carb. After that it needed half a dozen swings on the starting handle and off it went.   "Will it get through all that growth OK?" Of course it will - 2CVs were built for this sort of thing!
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Oct 10, 2021 20:48
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Interesting to see your views on the R4 also seem to be the same as HubNut's recent review of the R4
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Oct 10, 2021 23:57
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You Am I posted:Interesting to see your views on the R4 also seem to be the same as HubNut's recent review of the R4 HubNut and I agree on many things when it comes to cars - it starts with the red/white 2CV and goes from there. I did watch his video and I wasn't surprised by the verdict. We used to work together and talked about 2CV v. Renault 4 (and 2CV v. Mini, and 2CV v. Fiat 500...) at length. Incidentally, the number of random people who say "your car is just like HubNut's!" since his rise to minor car-related-YouTube stardom is both impressive and a little wearing. I liked red/white 2CV Dollys ~~before it was cool~~, dammit! And my car is not called Elly!
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Oct 11, 2021 10:10
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2CV Part 12 - Pump Action Trifle Hello again friends! Another few months of work, lockdowns and general business have passed without me seeing the 2CV, now spending the winter snugged up in my partner's mum's garage, with luxuries like heat from the gas boiler and a wall socket for the battery conditioner. I am fed up with this issue of fuel either draining out of the pump and line or evaporating out of the carb. The obvious solution is to use the 2CV regularly but that's not really possible over winter. But now there is a solution in the shape of reproduction 2CV fuel pumps with external manual priming handles!  Work commences...  Current pump, spacer and hose off in about two minutes.  Just if you're interested, this is what the engine looks like where the pump sits - the pump is operated by a surprisingly long pushrod off the camshaft.  The old and the new.  New pump with gasket between the body and the spacer, plus a dab of grease on the operating lever. There's another gasket to seal between the spacer and the crankcase. The tricky thing is keeping them all in place and aligned while lowering the pump into position and jigging it past various obstacles on the way. I find a smear of grease on each part usually provides enough stickiness to work.  This is the first time I had the pump in and bolted down. Then I realised that I'd goofed up by detaching the fuel line on the inlet side of the pump at the pump, because even if you can direct the hose up towards the inlet pipe on the pump (up around the fan shroud and through a coil of oil pipe) with your fingertips, there's no way you can slide the hose over the flared inlet pipe and get the clip into place. So it all had to come out again, so I could attach the hose to the bottom of the pump, lower it all into place and tease the other end of the fuel hose through the slot in the inner wing.  Pump with both fuel hoses attached, ready for fitting attempt No.2 Freeing the other end of the inlet hose meant taking it off the non-return valve I've already fitted. Whether it's just exposure to water and road muck, the aluminium body of the valve or the increased ethanol content in the petrol (E10 is the new standard here), the hose had completely petrified and split when I tried to remove it.  The rest of the hose, away from the end, was still pliable and there was more than enough excess length to cut off the 10mm or so of hardened/split hose and reattach it. Then when I undid the hose clamp I'd put on the other side of the valve, the hose on that side leaked too - either the clamp or my attempt to prise off the hose on the downstream side had caused it to split. The first 10mm of that section had petrified too, so also had to be cut and reattached. But I need to get some new E10-rated thick-wallef hose and redo both these sections...which will mean taking the pump off again.  Until then, here is the pump in situ. It's certainly very convenient to be able to use the lever, listen for the pump to stop squeaking as it moves air, give a few more goes on the lever and then have the engine fire up immediately instead of having to play the game of 'will the battery go flat before the pump starts pulling fuel?' Another job was to put new window seals in:  The two halves of the 2CV's flip-up front windows were 'sealed' (in the loosest sense of the word) by this strip of foam. I dunno if this was how Citroen intended it (I wouldn't put it past them) or if it's a previous owner workaround, but a section on the driver's side had peeled off, making an irritating whistling noise (disturbing the otherwise Rolls-Royce-like calm of the 2CV...) and admitting a jet of cold air.  I've got these proper bellows-type rubber seals to go there instead.  The old foam strip basically turned to dust under any sort of pressure, and some gentle action with a paint scraper and a rub with some white spirit got rid of the glue residue.  Then the new seal just slots on to the top (or bottom if it's open, I suppose) of the opening window section.  Done. Did the other side too which was equally easy and quick.
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Jan 16, 2022 19:56
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What oil are you putting in you 2CV and how did you decide on that I put some 20 weight 50 race oil in my 11cv with zinc but that was mostly to just get me home and the original owners manual said "use sae 20" but the world has changed since then
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May 4, 2022 16:58
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Hadlock posted:What oil are you putting in you 2CV and how did you decide on that For the past few years I've been running supermarket 15W/40 mineral oil in it, on the 'cheap oil, changed often' principle. The 2CV gets very little use outside the summer months now, so I give it an oil + filter change each spring. I'd be surprised if the oil gets more than 2000 miles between changes. When I ran it as my daily year-round I used 10W/40 semi-synthetic, still changed annually but doing about 7000 miles per year, including in the winter (although in the southern UK even a cold winter doesn't generally get worse than a few degrees below freezing). I lived in a hilly area and the 2CV had to be worked flat-out just to move up my street. The engines can easily take that, but I felt that the 10W would flow better when cold and be kinder to the engine's innards. My 2CV engine is pretty 'tight', both in terms of the pistons/bores and a pleasing lack of oil leaks but then it's only got 75,000 miles on it which is barely run in for a 602cc 2CV motor. When running the 10W/40 it did use a bit of oil when doing regular long, fast motorway runs (it tended to 'mist' into the air cleaner). On the 15W/40 it, as near as makes no difference, doesn't use any oil at all. Of course Traction engines are a different matter - 2CV motors are basically motorbike engines, precision-made from very high quality materials and purpose-designed to be driven flat-out on the ragged edge their entire lives and if it does break you lift it out, chuck it away and fit another one. The Traction engine is more of a slow, steady, slogger that's easy to rebuild when it does wear out. If I remember right your Traction has the later 11D engine, same as the ID/DS and H-van. I know that here in the UK people with those just run 20W/50 or 15W/50 mineral oil in them, same as virtually every pre-1980s classic. I think that should be fine, although the race oil may have detergents and other additives which aren't ideal for a Traction - although that's mostly a concern for the older models without oil filters, since running detergent oils will clean all the accumulated gunk out of the nooks and crannies and send it through the (non-shell) bearings! E: In fact, since it only happened yesterday evening on the way to work, here's the 2CV's Significant Mileage Moment: 
BalloonFish fucked around with this message at 22:09 on May 4, 2022 |
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May 4, 2022 20:26
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man, what the gently caress is that shift pattern? bizarre, but i guess i shouldn't be too surprised
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May 5, 2022 04:35
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Dogleg first gear, uncommon for normal road cars but not unheard of. Think the idea is you usually only use first for starting off so they put the other, more commonly used, gears in a better spot. The 928 had one, sorry for the terrible flash glare. 
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May 5, 2022 18:06
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It also makes some sense in that anytime you're using reverse, you're almost certainly using first immediately before or after.
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May 5, 2022 18:23
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Raluek posted:man, what the gently caress is that shift pattern? bizarre, but i guess i shouldn't be too surprised The pattern of the 2CV (+relations) push/pull/twist gearknob is as follows:  'PM' is 'Point Mort' (neutral), 'AR' is 'arrière' (reverse). NitroSpazzz posted:Dogleg first gear, uncommon for normal road cars but not unheard of. Think the idea is you usually only use first for starting off so they put the other, more commonly used, gears in a better spot. Precisely - the logic goes that you'll be using either first or reverse to start, immediately followed by whichever of those you didn't start with. And if you're parking you'll be shifting between first and reverse, so it's just a straight pull between them. Similarly, once up to speed and bumbling around town or on a French country backroad, you'll be rowing between second and third most of the time, so those gears are placed together with a straight push/pull between them, and those gears are synchromeshed. Only once out on the open road would you need fourth gear, so that's all the way over by itself on the right. Although on all 2CVs fourth is a direct 1:1 ratio, on the early cars especially (with 9bhp or 11bhp) it was very much an overdrive gear for dropping the revs when cruising, not for gaining extra speed. In fact the original 375cc 2CV had the same top speed in 4th as it did in 3rd (41mph!). On the 'ripple bonnet' cars the gearchange was arranged so you actually had to go through 3rd, not neutral, to get to top gear, which was labelled 'S' for 'surmultipliée' (overdrive):  Like almost everything Citroen did, the gearchange seems totally, pointlessly bizarre at first glance but when you start using it there's actually very sound and user-friendly logic to it. I have it on one of my mugs: 
BalloonFish fucked around with this message at 18:49 on May 5, 2022 |
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May 5, 2022 18:46
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A lot of early FWD French cars had strange gearshifts. The Renault 4 being another car with a strange shift setup
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May 6, 2022 00:17
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The gear pattern in the cabin is wonky but via the shift linkage it just hooks up to a regular H pattern on the transmission itself. At least I think that's what I remember S on my car is the choke (French variant of "to strangle"), and then the starter is.... E? I forget already it's all muscle memory at this point
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May 6, 2022 01:10
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ive seen doglegs, but only 3 and 5 speeds. a dogleg 4-speed is bizarre to me. then again, all the 4-speeds I've driven have been behind torquey V8s, so you're quickly into the upper gears anyway, which would make some sort of sense. thanks for the info, though; these things are quirky and weird in a lot more ways than i initially thought
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May 6, 2022 08:13
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Hadlock posted:The gear pattern in the cabin is wonky but via the shift linkage it just hooks up to a regular H pattern on the transmission itself. At least I think that's what I remember Yeah, the R4 has a conventional gearchange pattern, with 1st up and to the left, 2nd straight back from there, 3rd and 4th in the middle and reverse back and to the right. But it is a push/pull/twist affair like on a 2CV, and the gear linkage itself is a rod that goes all the way over the top of the engine and down to the gearbox in the nose. As a 2CVer, when I drove an R4 I kept trying to start off in second! The Traction Avant also has a shift pattern with a dog-leg first. Of course it's a three-speed, but it's the mirror image of the 2CV's, with first being down to the right. It also has a mechanical interlock with the clutch which latches the gear lever in place until the clutch is pressed down. Most old French cars have their starter switches labelled 'D' for 'démarreur'. The choke is 'S' for 'suffoquer' (the 'suffocator'), which in the handbooks for the British-built Tractions is charmingly described as the 'gas manipulation control'.
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May 6, 2022 10:53
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Raluek posted:man, what the gently caress is that shift pattern? bizarre, but i guess i shouldn't be too surprised My maserati biturbo has the same shift pattern, albeit with a 5th gear below 4th. The principle is sound, but using it in traffic can be a chore. Partly because that car is geared so high, but mostly because in traffic you're always between 1st and 2nd, not 1st and reverse.
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May 9, 2022 10:57
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BalloonFish posted:There are four grease nipples 
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Jun 1, 2022 03:39
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on a 2CV - two per side,... pumping away until you see lube oozing from the top of pin
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I greased my nipples today (ooh la la!)    There's been frustratingly little use of, or progress with, the 2CV this summer. My Xantia has been taking up most of my effort and money with a steady litany of small faults - it's just turned 26 years old/165,000 miles and it seems that PSA designed loads of parts to last precisely 25 years because suddenly almost everything made of plastic has started breaking - the indicator stalk jammed, the gearknob just disintegrated and loads of electrical connectors have started breaking, all in the past four months. Oh, and the fuel gauge is on the blink, which seems to be a common problem with old Xantias and is due to a component failure on the little auxiliary circuit board behind the dash. For complicated reasons my partner didn't have her modern car available for the whole month of May and so used the 2CV for a five-days a week commute. I was a bit concerned that this was the most regular use it has had since I last daily-ed it back in 2012 but it was faultless. As it was when we took it on a 300-mile round trip to visit family. It really is the most dependable old car I've ever owned. The new fuel pump with better one-way valves and the manual priming lever is definitely a boon when the 2CV's been sat for a long time. Fuel still seems to be being lost from the line somewhere, and it seems to be from the pipe between the tank and the pump - my theory that there's a small split in the hose at the top of the tank (that closes under suction but opens when the car's sat and lets air into the line and the petrol drain back to the tank) still stands for now.
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Jun 26, 2022 16:42
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Not sure what to do with this information but gonna dump it here. Maybe it'll prompt someone to post an update Motoguzzi 850 to 2CV transaxle adapter https://www.thepembleton.org.uk/techpages/MG2.shtml Road legal cyclekart type thing using it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZouEkDHLJyQ And then this 
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Jul 22, 2023 02:08
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Hadlock posted:Not sure what to do with this information but gonna dump it here. Maybe it'll prompt someone to post an update I don't know what you mean... Unfortunately the lack of updates is due to lack of 2CVing. It was tucked up in the garage, untaxed and untested since last summer. I did haul it out last month because it was required for a work thing, but it was (as expected for the 2CV) very boring - I just put a battery in it, gave the fuel pump a dozen wobbles, it fired right up and then it passed the MoT without issues and then did a 250 mile road trip in company with a Honda S2000 and a BMW E36 (and a Mercedes W123 200E and an Innocenti Mini which were more in its performance bracket...)  There was a whole series of ads on those lines. Citroën's UK ad people really nailed the 2CV's appeal by emphasising that it was 'just enough of a car and no more. There was another series comparing it to various animals rather than other cars.  
BalloonFish fucked around with this message at 00:21 on Jul 24, 2023 |
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Jul 22, 2023 08:50
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This thread def needs to be the next AI showcase thread and so it is
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Jul 22, 2023 23:59
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Came late to this thread; hopefully, not too late! Happy (US) Thanksgiving! Here's a photo I took at a Citroen (and probably SEAT) dealer outside of Barcelona in June 1977.  (Apologies for the quality; it's from a Kodak pocket 110 camera, which has a negative half the height of a 35mm)
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Nov 25, 2023 15:40
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PainterofCrap posted:Came late to this thread; hopefully, not too late! Happy (US) Thanksgiving! Thank you for the Dyane advert! I do like the contrast of the Batman and Robin mascots with the slogan "For Enchanting People". Citroen clearly had a spell of advertising its small cars through the medium of comic books. I don't think we had the Dyane/Batman series here in the UK, but we had one of 2CV adverts and brochures where it was inserted into special Tintin comic artwork. (https://twitter.com/addict_car/status/1350492052262440961)  I've left this thread languishing (so much so that I didn't ever notice it had made it to Showcase status which is, embarrassing). Very little of interest or import has happened with the 2CV this year - it got lightly used over the summer and beyond some light regular maintenance I didn't do anything with it. Things kept (and keep) popping up that were more important to spend money on than sorting rust on a 2CV - my other Citroen has been especially needy this year when it comes to time, work and money. There are some videos of me talking about my 2CV and going places with it. These were all filmed within the last year, and since I no longer work for this publisher I don't feel quite as conflicted about posting them here now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnfzxl_HrQo (The aforementioned road trip) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoJoV8MDwYE (The prep for that road trip) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-ZiC3fc6Yk (A spot-by-spot tour of my 2CV's rustiness, masquerading as a buying guide. Also apparently an attempt on the world record for spoken words/minute...)
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Nov 27, 2023 15:26
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BalloonFish as someone of questionable automotive taste I've been considering a 2CV pretty seriously lately that buyers guide video was a pretty good watch. The engine size breakdown by year was helpful, do you have an engine preference? Amusingly I'm kind of cross shopping a 2CV or a classic mini. I've driven a fair amount of minis but need to find a 2CV to try out.
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Dec 24, 2023 13:55
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NitroSpazzz posted:BalloonFish as someone of questionable automotive taste I've been considering a 2CV pretty seriously lately that buyers guide video was a pretty good watch. The engine size breakdown by year was helpful, do you have an engine preference? Sounds like you have excellent automotive taste to me! If you're planning on using a 2CV in modern 'main road' traffic conditions (not just puttering around the countryside) and with any real regularity then a 602cc is the one to go for. The original version of that engine in the 2CV (1965-1970) had 28bhp. The 'M28' version of that engine from 1970-1979 had 33bhp and the final version from 1979-1990 had 29bhp. This last version had a reprofiled camshaft and different carburettor setup to give better economy and a torque peak higher up the rev range which improved economy and meant that the cars didn't run out of puff so much at 'high' (50mph+) speeds, but at the cost of less torque at low/mid range (so slower acceleration) and an awkward flat spot as you go from the small venturi to the main one on the twin-choke carburettor. These things make little real-world difference and much more will depend on the overall condition of the engine and how well it's been looked after and set up in the decades since, rather than whatever (largely theoretical) characteristics Citroen designed in to them in the 1970s, and the qualities of modern fuel introduce a whole other set of factors. My engine is the late 29bhp version, but I fitted a larger main carb jet and adjusted the ignition timing to account for the tendency of 2CV engines to 'pink' on modern fuel and several people have commented how brisk it feels...by 2CV standards. I think the higher torque at lower speeds of the M28 engine is of more benefit for the heavier variants like the 2CV vans, the Dyane and the Ami, or if you live somewhere with a lot of hills. But these days things like the 652cc and 720cc big-bore kits provide real power gains if that's a concern rather than fretting about which exact variant of 602cc engine has four more horsepower or 5 lb-ft more torque at 800 less rpm from the factory. A lot of Citroen fanatics will maintain that the 1970s M28 engine is the smoothest, quietest and longest-lived version since it was built on new tooling and before Citroen's material and production quality began sliding in the 1980s. I can't speak for the 435cc cars, having never driven one, but I have driven some 425cc ones. They do not [i]feel/i] as slow as they are but they have roughly the same performance as a modern 125cc scooter and the very tall top gear limits them to a little over 40mph. They are very charming and fun to drive but unless you live somewhere very quiet and rural or in a city where traffic is slow and 'open road' performance is not a concern they are not terribly practical. But no other car will make reaching 40mph seem like such an achievement, and they are an exercise in the perfection of gaining and maintaining momentum. Most of the 425cc cars come with the centrifugal clutch which is another fun quirk to master. In my experience if you like Minis you'll 'get' 2CVs, but they are very different in character. They're both small, old, basic and slow cars but designed to entirely different briefs for entirely different motoring worlds. The thing with 2CVs is they respond best to being driven at 100% as much as possible. A friend of mine had driven a few 2CVs and never liked them - just thought they were slow, creaky, bouncy cars with no redeeming qualities - but I let him drive mine and kept urging him to drive it flat out, trust the roadholding and not slow for corners and basically treat it the way a 1950s French farmer would treat a piece of farm equipment and then it 'clicked' and he loved it. Minis are more 'obvious' and are immediately fun to drive at any speed with their quick steering, perky performance, zero body roll and short-travel suspension.
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Dec 24, 2023 14:57
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Hello thread, Long Time No Snail... The tedious modern car had to go to a garage this week because it was losing coolant for no apparent reason, so I hauled the 2CV out of its storage for the first time in 2024. No coolant here - just as there's meant to be! As always: hook the battery up, prime the fuel, turn the key and off it went. I didn't even have to add air to the tyres. Last year I had an inkling that the 2CV needed its tracking/alignment looking at because it had a slight tendency to drift to the left which wasn't noticeable before. Now, jumping into it after months of being spoiled by a modern car, it was really, really noticeable that you had to keep some right-going wheel on to hold a straight line. There's a chain while-you-wait tyre/alignment place just up the road from my house and they're usually so quiet on a weekday afternoon that you can just roll up and they'll do the work. So I took the 2CV along, to great amusement of the guys there. The first hurdle was whether their computerised laser-alignment rig would actually have the data for the 2CV in it - which it did, both pre-1968 and 1968-1990 versions. Then one of the technicians got in to drive it onto the lift, took one glance at the controls and immediately got out again and said "you'd better do this..."  Then it turned out that the targets wouldn't fit on the back wheels because they fouled the skirts/fenders. Then I demonstrated how you can just lift the back end of the 2CV up on its springs, and after the laughter had subsided one of the guys got underneath and essentially piggy-backed the chassis to lift the car while his mate fitted the targets. By now all other work had stopped and both staff and customers were watching. Turned out the alignment is off - both wheels have measurable toe-out, the left more than the right, when they should be entirely parallel (no more than 3mm toe-out). Unfortunately they were unable to loosen the track rod ends to adjust it, and (understandably for a non-specialist chain shop) didn't want to start hammering away on an unusual and unfamiliar car. If I can get my hands on a blowtorch I reckon a good blast of heat should free them off. Otherwise I'll ask the Citroen specialist to do it when it goes for its MoT next month.   Still, it was a chance to get a good look at the underside when it was on the lift. Galvanised chassis still looks clean, as do the replaced floor and sill sections. Bootfloor not looking too bad. Exhaust pipe getting a bit scaly but it's still solid. It is getting on for 12 years old.
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Apr 24, 2024 11:21
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This thread keeps awakening my desire for a 2CV. I bought a Solex 3800 right before the eclipse. Working on it is getting some of my ya-yas out.
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Apr 24, 2024 13:55
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PainterofCrap posted:This thread keeps awakening my desire for a 2CV. If I recall there is or was a Citroen 2CV specialist in NJ. You know you want to.
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Apr 24, 2024 19:23
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There are at least three Citroen parts providers in the US, one in PA, one in socal, and I recently came across a third one online I can dig up if anyone is interested I also found a guy in south africa who is manufacturing new parts, but appears to be only targeting the DS and parts overlap with the 2cv is probably very small
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Apr 24, 2024 19:35
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c355n4 posted:If I recall there is or was a Citroen 2CV specialist in NJ. You know you want to. Turns out he was a fraudster 
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Apr 24, 2024 20:28
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PainterofCrap posted:Turns out he was a fraudster Oh gently caress, good riddance.
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Apr 25, 2024 01:40
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