Pantene Pro-C - All change (Dyna X content)

[barrett]

Update: gearbox is out! Hopefully the fix will be easier than the removal. Looking forward to driving it again now

[barrett]

Another non-pictorial update.

 

Gearbox went to Stockport for a rebuild, which cost a whopping £50! It should be on its way South early next week, and it's all going back together on good Friday. In the meantime, the timing gear has been swapped for an ally one and we've fitted the nice number plate to the rear.

The car has also been definitively dated as a 1964 build, which explains a few things. It's roughly the 1000th built (of about 8000).

Back on the road on Easter Sunday if everything goes to plan, hopefully I'll be able to get some proper photos

[Junkman]

Who in Stockport rebuilds Panhard gearboxes?

[dollywobbler]

Excellent. See you at Shitefest then?

[barrett]

After some dicking about with unreliable couriers (AVOID palletcouriers.com unless you don't care about things being picked up or delivered), my co-owner drove from Sussex to greater Manchester on Thursday morning to pick up the rebuilt gearbox - heroic!

Panhard Gary had a good crack at getting it together yesterday, and when I arrived this morning this was the sight that greeted me

 

He'd got it all running, and it at least seemed to work in first and reverse, but we had to put the rest of it together to test it properly on the road. Some careful assembly required...

 

And a bit of fettling...

 

And done! It all seems to work, the gearchange has lost a lot of its slop, and the lever no longer pokes me behind my knee when it's in fourth. Most importantly, the synchro on third is now properly aligned which means no more crunchy up-changes and you don't need to go via second on the down change. Much better.

Just time for a shameless Panhard love-in and then home. We're taking it to Stondon tomorrow, so fingers crossed it all stays together for that. 

[garethj]

100% ORSUM, I'm jealous as hell

[dollywobbler]

GARIDGE OF DREEMS.

[barrett]

All of the gears are broken again! Now you can only get second, fourth and reverse if you're lucky. Still managed to do 150 or so miles like this, but it's not ideal. Stupid French cars.

[barrett]

Right, what has happened since then?

 

The lack of gears was done to linkage adjustment rather than anything fundamentally wrong with the box. Luckily (sort of) it's all cable-operated with lots of opportunity for adjustment. In doing this we noticed the clutch cable (no hydraulic clutch either, because Panhard) was seriously frayed, we sent it off for remanufacture after realising the hard way that an LHD cable was never gonna fit, and there aren't any RHD cables to be had. 

 The superbly-named Speedy Cables took bloody weeks to do the thing, all the time the car was just sat gathering dust and getting in the way. Eventually it arrived so I had a go at fitting it. Took bloody ages to get any clutch movement at all, but with some advice from Gary I eventually got it all going again. Big Success! I decided to celebrate by driving it to the pub and then on home, but only managed to get about 8 miles before it conked out. Coil was red hot, wouldn't fire and if it did it wouldn't run properly. It started to rain so I left in in a pub car park and got a lift home.

 Last week we finally had all the bits to replace the entire ignition system - leads, plugs, points, rotor arm, coil, condensor - everything was changed in an attempt to eliminate whatever was causing the system to (technical term:) 'be fucking shit.'

 Took it out for a thrash and it all seemed okay again, so stupidly decided to take it home. BIG MISTAKE. after a few miles it started running like shit again, completely down on power and everything getting super hot again. A look at the inline fuel filter and it was full, and I mean FULL, of crud. The tank has been flushed in the past, but there is still tonnes of shite coming through. Seems like partially blocked jets, plus choke mechanism on the worn carb working itself lose and gradually closing the choke is causing the engine to work extra hard and heating up the ignition system as it struggles to cope.

 

So it's now off the road AGAIN to have the tank out AGAIN and all new fuel lines put in. Last week I wanted to set fire to it for being such a dick, but actually if the core problem here is something as obvious and (relatively) easily solved as crud in the carb then I am slightly more optimistic about making it reliable fairly soon. As it stands, it's been here for seven months and has only completed two journeys without breaking down. If it wasn't so pretty it would have been punted on ages ago I think. 

[LC Torana]

She's pretty, she's French and she's high-maintenance. Just gotta think - there's a good time coming.

[hairnet]

repsect for putting up with crazy madame

[panhard65]

I can't really see how a blocked carb would lead to it overheating the coil ? Does it have a ballast resistor type of coil on it ? I never had any trouble with mine even though the carb was pretty buggered, not easy to find a carb for the BT as the Porsche boys want them for 911's Try a good secondhand standard coil on it. A lot of these new old stock ones seem to be a pile of shite. I am pretty sure they don't have a ballast resistor but if you use a coil that is supposed to have one it won't last long.

[dollywobbler]

I'm struggling to think of anything that could lead to an overheating coil other than a knackered coil. 2CVers now often use Harley Davidson coils for greater reliability, though regular aftermarket coils are now much more reliable than they used to be. Typical hot coil issues tend to be refusing to start when the engine is hot. I had one cook in heavy traffic once, which caused a misfire and left me pushing the car off the motorway. Dousing it in water worked well enough to get me on my way again!

[HMC]

^ At one point I used to carry at least a couple of known 2cv coils on the dash due to their flakey ness, I got springing out and connecting up a new one down to a few seconds flat!

[panhard65]

Just looking back at the pictures is the coil still bolted to the engine ? If so I would move it as that won't help at all. These use a standard coil unlike the 2cv which has a wasted spark coil. When I had mine it had twin spark heads but I never did get a dual point set up running on it as that would of used 2 cv coils to fire each pair of plugs

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Sounds like a right crock of bo11ox, sadly there's no option but to POWER ON through it until you get into the green section on the reliability graph!!! You'll get there eventually unless you do what the PO did and just never use it.

[barrett]

Carb and coil different, but connected, issues. Coil overheating initially caused (presumably) by the points closing up, or some other quirk of the ignition system causing it to work harder than it should be, hence scrap and replace the whole lot for peace of mind.

 

The shitty carb was causing the engine to struggle hugely, the under bonnet area in these gets pretty baking at the best of times but the extra stress made the engine reach insane temps. Having a look under the bonnet the coil was red hot again (yep, it's between the cylinder and exhaust fanimold, because panhard) making me think it was the same thing happening again (fuel and spark issues having very similar effects here) but much more likely this is now a 100% fuel issue. Possibly. Or it isn't. We'll soon find out though.

 

There are two carbs with the car, plus we have a couple of other similar but not identical types knocking about from the other Panhards, so hopefully we can make one decent one out of the lot.

 

Never driving it is deffo the most appealing option at the moment

[panhard65]

If the coil gets too hot it will boil the oil inside so I would move the coil first. Mine had the coil mounted on the bulkhead. It shouldn't be too hard to find a carb for this one as it isn't the tigre engine with the twin choke, but they are solex carbs if I remember correctly and as such made of butter.

[garethj]

As it stands, it's been here for seven months and has only completed two journeys without breaking down. If it wasn't so pretty it would have been punted on ages ago I think. 

This seems quite good for a Panhard, I think they came a few places below Toyota in the JD Power surveys?

[barrett]

Right. This has has had the tank off and cleaned out (not ultra-conscientiously, granted) and new fuel lines fitted. This has more or less put an end to the crud coming through and blocking the carb, though I think I'd like to have the tank cleaned professionally at some point soon (pointers would be welcome, I CBA to do it myself, there are baffles in the tank so swilling round a load of nuts and bolts in there isn't really an option).

 

After that it seemed like it was probably going all right. Over the course of a few days I took it out a few times, doing increasing mileages within a rescue-able area and it was going better than it has been in our ownership. We were planning on taking this in convoy with the Dyna Z to the Panhard club's annual get together in Gloucestershire last weekend. A couple of days before, and with newfound confidence in its abilities, my co-owner took it home. The next morning it would not start. Excellent.

 

Basically, the distributor is toast. The little thing that holds the points in has SNAPPED OFF causing the points to move around and short out on the side of the distributor. Of course, a RHD 24 uses a different distributor from any other Panhard - it is about half as tall as a 'normal' one to fit in under the bonnet with all the differences a RHD car has. The Panhard club don't have one in their spares cache. Without serious re-engineering you can't modify a different dizzy to fit. Even taking the insides out of a similar SEV won't work because of the position of the vacuum advance, which is different to any other used on a Panhard.

 

I will post some pics up of exactly what it looks like, but is there any chance any of the French car pervs on here can have a look in their sheds and see if they have any old SEV dizzies knocking about? It must have been used on other French/European vehicles of the '60s but so far we've not been able to ascertain what they are, or find anything that looks even vaguely similar for sale anywhere. The only markings on it are 'SA244' cast into the body but this doesn't seem to match any SEV part number I can find.

 

Until this is sorted, the car is immobile and sat outside on the street. It's still very pretty though.

[coalnotdole]

I assume the points are retained by a small machine screw and thats whats snapped? if so I'd remove the Dizzy take it to a machine shop have it drilled out and retapped.

 

if wanted a proper pikey bodge you could buy a suitable contactless ignition kit and stick it to the base plate with aradite....

[panhard65]

It shouldn't be too hard to repair I would of thought. It will have to be a Panhard distributor though as it is a 2 cylinder. I did have a spare but sent it to an engineering shop to have the base plate modified for twin points and they managed to lose it. I could give them a ring if you want and see if it ever turned up.

[Angrydicky]

Chemical metal?

[RichardK]

This is beautiful.

[RichardK]

Oh, and a thought. I'm supposed to be getting some 3D goodies, including a scanner, at some point this year.

I will happily have a go at scanning components (even if they've had to be glued together, as long as they hold together enough to be the right shape) to make 3D CAD models, that could then be used for 5-axis milling or 3D printing depending on the material required. Things like RHD Panhards are exactly why I want to get my head around this tech.

[barrett]

We tried repairing it by welding an identically-sized bolt in its place, but I think there was a little lip at the base of the spindle that obviously isn't on the bolt. We thought attaching a washer of the same size here would work, but it hasn't. It won't fire, the points keep moving slightly on the axis and closing up. I'm sure with a bit more thought it could be bodged back together but I have very little faith in it all holding up in one piece now, and can see months of bodging, trying, failing, re-bodging ahead when a new dizzy would solve everything.

Electronic ignition would solve this particular problem too, but I have heard so many horror stories about people converting and it all failing immediately. At least you know where you are with points etc (sort of)

[ShiteRider]

Probaly a daft idea, would it not be possible to use something from a motorcycle?

If not a small distibutor, maybe a distibutorless set up. Most, if not all, bike makers produce twins of varying types so something should be available to hillbilly into place.

Or .............replace the engine with a bmw bike unit and be seen as an autoshite hero/incredibly sophisticated MadMax.

[garethj]

Do you know what the difference in distributors really is?  I'd have thought a P17 distributor would fit as long as it's the same power as yours (can't remember if it's the Tigre or not).

 

Sometimes the distributor part number will change if the vacuum curve or advance springs have been changed a bit, but if it physically goes into the same hole then you can perhaps rebuild your distributor's parts into the new one's case.

 

Richard, the 3D Scanning / Printing thing can be a bit of an emperor's new clothes thing so beware that most of the hype comes from the people that want to sell you the stuff and they're not unbiased.  Even the best scanners can't do better than 0.1mm accuracy, 0.4mm is more usual and that's not good enough for a machined component, even a French one.  With this kind of failed part a tame engineer (waves) could create a 3D model in half an hour, however the problem is getting it made.  3D printed metals aren't yet strong enough for this kind of application.  You could get it machined but that isn't cheap.  Fine for vintage Ferrari components but tricky for Autoshite stuff, even posh Autoshite stuff like this.

 

It's good technology, I've been using 3D printing for decades, but unlike the retailers say it's not the answer to everything.

[cort16]

It sounds like electronic ignition is the answer. I mean it's borked anyway so what have you got to lose? You're then working with a system that more than 3 people in the world have expertise in.

[barrett]

Do you know what the difference in distributors really is?  I'd have thought a P17 distributor would fit as long as it's the same power as yours (can't remember if it's the Tigre or not).

Yep, a PL17 distributor (lhd or rhd) is physically too large to fit under the bonnet. The rhd 24 dizzy is a much smaller item because space is so limited. The innards of a 'large' (ie, normal sized) SEV dizzy will not transfer into this 'small' body, for some reason. Panhard Gary has already tried. We're gonna take off the bonnet and fit a PL17 dizzy tonight and try and drive it back so at least it's under cover whilst we decide what to do.

 

In the meantime, just in case: