Dj_efk

Afraid i cant agree there, I dailyed them for 15 years on and off. they are fine and with a good thrashing even do fine in modern traffic. Best one was the dyane with the GSA engine, that really upset folks on the motorway.
If points on a 2CV are not your thing, never own a dyane or ami. they may cause issues of self harming

I remember trying to change the points on the one I had - By the time I got it all apart the overwhelming consensus of “fuck that for a game of soldiers” drove me into the arms of one of the electronic ignition kit sellers - Other than that it was a fun car to work on, no way would I daily one for anything beyond short urban trips mind - it felt like a death trap at anything over 35mph!

Main lesson of this thread appears to be don’t even consider dailying anything French of any age 🤯

Id disagree, almost all the 40 to 15 year old stuff i mention above were Citroen

Main lesson of this thread appears to be don’t even consider dailying anything French of any age 🤯

Main lesson of this thread appears to be don’t even consider dailying anything French of any age 🤯

Agree with this post ^, if you need to do proper miles then I can recommend erring on the side of more modern whilst still feeling you’re in something interesting.
Comfort, economy, parts availability and reliability are all of key importance as has been noted. 
 
It would be different if you’re only doing mostly shorter journeys daily, I would then say get a backup car on the go and go madly classic as you like, swapping between them as needed when one breaks / needs work.

Impressive levels of retro car geekery right there!

Impressive levels of retro car geekery right there!

A cheap way kill yourself 
 
 
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/134656255633?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=nu4opBd7TCW&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=FZibxPfIQ0i&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

I’ve never bought anything other than NGK for plugs and I’ve not had one instance in messing about with engines of all descriptions in the last 30 odd years that has made me regret it - so no idea what other brands are like.
 
Like you, I’ve come to the conclusion that the Bosch brand has been whored out to the point where it’s now meaningless in terms of appliances and tools. I will still only buy Bosch (or genuine) engine sensors for my VAG vehicles however.

Yes Howard! Lovely bloke.
When I was in my teens a best friend of mine worked there for a time on Saturday mornings. There was a drunk, semi-homeless codger with questionable personal hygiene (mostly thankfully masked by his chain-smoking) called Merv  - last time I went in there just before he moved Howard mentioned he’d passed on not that long after my mate left, unsurprisingly.
Such a fascinating shop - it was basically a bonkers hoarders paradise for classic car parts where everything was for sale. My mate’s recollections of swimming in “the hose room” - an upstairs bedroom literally waist-deep in radiator hoses - was one of my favourite stories. There must be some pictures of the place on here somewhere.
 
Anyway, back to the Austin - in terms of electronic ignition, back in the day my standard A or B series upgrade was one of those Accu-Spark magnetic / Hall effect jobbies in the distributor, a Lucas gold (high output) coil, NGK spark plus with 0.8mm gaps and 8mm silicone HT leads. Fairly cheap, always reliable in my personal experience and usually bumped the car’s fuel efficiency up by a measurable amount - but for me removing the need to faff around with points and the timing gun every few thousand miles was the biggest draw on a daily. With good quality engine oils and if doing mostly longer journeys you can then do up to say 5000 miles without having to lift the bonnet apart from fluid level checks (hopefully).

In terms of exhaust, realistically getting a stainless one made up is probably the best long-term option - Again I’d be tempted to get a slightly fruitier manifold if you can find / afford one - then get whoever was making the exhaust to make it freer-flowing without being appreciably noisier - the original design would have been pretty awful from a flow point of view so some decent efficiency gains should be possible.
 

Yes Howard! Lovely bloke.
When I was in my teens a best friend of mine worked there for a time on Saturday mornings. There was a drunk, semi-homeless codger with questionable personal hygiene (mostly thankfully masked by his chain-smoking) called Merv  - last time I went in there just before he moved Howard mentioned he’d passed on not that long after my mate left, unsurprisingly.
Such a fascinating shop - it was basically a bonkers hoarders paradise for classic car parts where everything was for sale. My mate’s recollections of swimming in “the hose room” - an upstairs bedroom literally waist-deep in radiator hoses - was one of my favourite stories. There must be some pictures of the place on here somewhere.
 
Anyway, back to the Austin - in terms of electronic ignition, back in the day my standard A or B series upgrade was one of those Accu-Spark magnetic / Hall effect jobbies in the distributor, a Lucas gold (high output) coil, NGK spark plus with 0.8mm gaps and 8mm silicone HT leads. Fairly cheap, always reliable in my personal experience and usually bumped the car’s fuel efficiency up by a measurable amount - but for me removing the need to faff around with points and the timing gun every few thousand miles was the biggest draw on a daily. With good quality engine oils and if doing mostly longer journeys you can then do up to say 5000 miles without having to lift the bonnet apart from fluid level checks (hopefully).

In terms of exhaust, realistically getting a stainless one made up is probably the best long-term option - Again I’d be tempted to get a slightly fruitier manifold if you can find / afford one - then get whoever was making the exhaust to make it freer-flowing without being appreciably noisier - the original design would have been pretty awful from a flow point of view so some decent efficiency gains should be possible.
 

Yeah it’s part of the appeal actually - all the advantages the marque comes with such as good build quality and an upmarket, plush interior (on examples with decent spec anyway), but coupled with a pure focus on efficiency of space and fuel above all else, rather than on aesthetics and “look at me” image.
I love mine for just how out of step with the modern Audi image it is.

Yeah it’s part of the appeal actually - all the advantages the marque comes with such as good build quality and an upmarket, plush interior (on examples with decent spec anyway), but coupled with a pure focus on efficiency of space and fuel above all else, rather than on aesthetics and “look at me” image.
I love mine for just how out of step with the modern Audi image it is.

Yes Howard! Lovely bloke.
When I was in my teens a best friend of mine worked there for a time on Saturday mornings. There was a drunk, semi-homeless codger with questionable personal hygiene (mostly thankfully masked by his chain-smoking) called Merv  - last time I went in there just before he moved Howard mentioned he’d passed on not that long after my mate left, unsurprisingly.
Such a fascinating shop - it was basically a bonkers hoarders paradise for classic car parts where everything was for sale. My mate’s recollections of swimming in “the hose room” - an upstairs bedroom literally waist-deep in radiator hoses - was one of my favourite stories. There must be some pictures of the place on here somewhere.
 
Anyway, back to the Austin - in terms of electronic ignition, back in the day my standard A or B series upgrade was one of those Accu-Spark magnetic / Hall effect jobbies in the distributor, a Lucas gold (high output) coil, NGK spark plus with 0.8mm gaps and 8mm silicone HT leads. Fairly cheap, always reliable in my personal experience and usually bumped the car’s fuel efficiency up by a measurable amount - but for me removing the need to faff around with points and the timing gun every few thousand miles was the biggest draw on a daily. With good quality engine oils and if doing mostly longer journeys you can then do up to say 5000 miles without having to lift the bonnet apart from fluid level checks (hopefully).

In terms of exhaust, realistically getting a stainless one made up is probably the best long-term option - Again I’d be tempted to get a slightly fruitier manifold if you can find / afford one - then get whoever was making the exhaust to make it freer-flowing without being appreciably noisier - the original design would have been pretty awful from a flow point of view so some decent efficiency gains should be possible.
 

Yes Howard! Lovely bloke.
When I was in my teens a best friend of mine worked there for a time on Saturday mornings. There was a drunk, semi-homeless codger with questionable personal hygiene (mostly thankfully masked by his chain-smoking) called Merv  - last time I went in there just before he moved Howard mentioned he’d passed on not that long after my mate left, unsurprisingly.
Such a fascinating shop - it was basically a bonkers hoarders paradise for classic car parts where everything was for sale. My mate’s recollections of swimming in “the hose room” - an upstairs bedroom literally waist-deep in radiator hoses - was one of my favourite stories. There must be some pictures of the place on here somewhere.
 
Anyway, back to the Austin - in terms of electronic ignition, back in the day my standard A or B series upgrade was one of those Accu-Spark magnetic / Hall effect jobbies in the distributor, a Lucas gold (high output) coil, NGK spark plus with 0.8mm gaps and 8mm silicone HT leads. Fairly cheap, always reliable in my personal experience and usually bumped the car’s fuel efficiency up by a measurable amount - but for me removing the need to faff around with points and the timing gun every few thousand miles was the biggest draw on a daily. With good quality engine oils and if doing mostly longer journeys you can then do up to say 5000 miles without having to lift the bonnet apart from fluid level checks (hopefully).

In terms of exhaust, realistically getting a stainless one made up is probably the best long-term option - Again I’d be tempted to get a slightly fruitier manifold if you can find / afford one - then get whoever was making the exhaust to make it freer-flowing without being appreciably noisier - the original design would have been pretty awful from a flow point of view so some decent efficiency gains should be possible.
 

I well remember Merv, gruesome, but again, polite and helpful.  And I remember the hose room, and rummaging in the massive pile of rad hoses.  Just had a  look on Google Earth and the place seems to have become a foodstore, so I hope they swept it out well.   Howard had been a chauffeur in a former life, and had many stories when you got to know him.  I think he liked a drop or two himself....
I went to his house once to look at one of his project cars.  It was a shonky 1930's bungalow, only slightly less disgraceful than the shop and the front garden was occupied by a derelict Austin 1800 from his chauffeur days.  I think he had left it there mainly to annoy the neighbours.  There were always plans to move out, expand, and start a classic car garage, that sort of thing.  One of his ideas was to start an MOT station specifically for classics.  I don't know whether any of this ever happened, but he must be retired by now if still around.  

It’s coming together nicely!

Nice steed.
 
Any plans beyond rust proofing it to the nines? If it was to be my daily driver I’d be thinking birthday-service and upgraded ignition. 
 
If a Riley 1.5 Engine and back axle came up I’d be tempted to lob them in too.

I also discovered a couple of jobs I didn’t realise needed doing. Apparently I had a failing door check strap that threatened to damage the door card, speaker and other door stuff, and I now realise I had been ignoring the creaking door because it’s silent in use now.

The next job I did myself, it took about 3 minutes and is one of the most satisfying jobs I’ve done to the A2 so far. I was moaning about how inconvenient wind up rear windows are because the winders get knocked and the window cracks open and the first we knows the rain coming in, or the wind noise behind on the motorway when it’s inconvenient to stop and wind them up that last tiny bit.

Well, it turns out my winders had been fitted so they are in the wrong position when the windows are closed, so I slid the caps off , undid the bolt and moved it around a few splines to reposition them to the factory accurate 45degrees down and towards the seat.


Now if they get knocked they are pushing the window up and not down.
So satisfying!
Next job is to try to sort out the saggy rear headlining without taking the whole thing out or going to the time/expense of a complete new headlining. Other than that I've pretty much got this A2 as good as I can get it I think.








 
 
 

Sack off all the projects and focus on just one or perhaps two that you can drive and enjoy doing so.

Sack off all the projects and focus on just one or perhaps two that you can drive and enjoy doing so.

A bit of progress with the A2...

I had a go at soldering in a bit of temporarily ABS wiring in the drivers wheel arch to see if it was the chaffed wiring that was the problem.


ABS light still on. Our ever helpful neighbour has a fault code reader so he plugged it in to have a look at what was up. Lots of codes showing so reset and had a look at what came back. Code for mechanical failure of the drivers side ABS Sensor showing so that will need replacing to hopefully put that light out and get it MOTed. Other fault codes related to the EGR stuff so not sure whether the EML is on because of the Oil Level Sensor or whether it's something EGR related.


I had a go at the paint on the spoiler. Rather than doing what you're supposed to and check the results of the paint stripper on a tiny bit that is out of sight I merrily slathered the stuff all over, waited, repeated, waited and hosed off.
I mean, I couldn’t make it look any worse could I?

Oh, yes it appears I could.


Going to leave it as it is for the moment while I either work out a plan for refinishing the spoiler or I find a cheap replacement tailgate the same colour to maybe do a swap (the spoiler is bonded onto the tailgate).
Someone on the A2oc site noticed from one of my pics I had the wrong jack.


Correct jack now bought, the old Lupo/Polo/Arouser one available for cost of postage if anyone wants it. 

Managed to empty my first tank of fuel, and according to my calculations it’s managed 33mpg, which has been mostly local driving and a couple of train strike day commutes into London, including my first visit to the multi story car park in Penge. What a place. Very relieved to be in a small manouverable car!

Last week it went to the mechanic for new ABS and oil level sensor, and a general check over. He cleaned out the EGR flaps and pipes and stuff I don't understand. Came back with no warning lights on and he'd even put it through its MOT which was due next week, so it's got a fresh MOT! Hurrah!

I can now spend some time and effort fixing some of the other low level niggles. Looks like it’s a keeper and will remain in the fleet for the time being, so I thought I'd introduce it to the 924, both cars were built in the same ex-NSU Neckarsulm factory 21 years apart!

Nicely done - here’s mine!
 

I take it you’ve checked out A2OC.net? Cracking forum.