Project Strangeangel's Shite-tastic Shenanigans 12/12 NEW MOTOR - ACHIEVED.

[strangeangel]

1 hour ago, jonny69 said:

Did you whip the front plate off to see if the French painted one is still underneath?

 

Haven't had time to pick it up from the shop yet... you can be sure it'll be the first thing I do when I do get it back though ?

 

[strangeangel]

A little something to help with my Left Hand Drivedness confidence!

 

[strangeangel]

This has been away having the rest of its CV gaiters replaced (a second one ripped, so I figured it'd be easier just getting them all done).

 

I'd been meaning to try this for ages, how pleased was I to find the old French plates still in evidence @jonny69

 

 

 

[Tamworthbay]

I imagine you can get a bit of history from them, department at the very least.

[strangeangel]

The Ami's speedo is pretty hopeless. It seems to bear no resemblance to the speed that you're doing either in km or mph. So I went out today with this device taped to the windscreen (cheers @UltraWomble for the tip):

 

 

It's a cheap Chinese GPS speedometer and, while I wouldn't want it in the car permanently, I used it today to figure out exactly how slow we're going. So 40 on the speedo is 30mph, 60 is 45mph and 70 is 50mph. Simple

 

This is infinitely more practical than the method employed on the collection day, namely radioing @djimbob in the Kia and asking how fast I was going.

 

EDIT: Here's another picture from this morning's jaunt, just because it's such a cool looking car!

 

 

 

[egg]

72 is Sarthe, google tells me, which means it used to run around near Saabnut's French gaff back in the day.

[Tadhg Tiogar]

Here's an Ami at an eye-watering asking price....

[strangeangel]

1 minute ago, Tadhg Tiogar said:

Here's an Ami at an eye-watering asking price....

 

Blimey! For 23 grand I'd buy a DS. I have to say that I don't like the saloon as much as the Break either.

 

I drove to work in mine today, can't say I'd be doing that in one that cost 23 large.

[strangeangel]

Appropriately aged radio fitted to the Ami:

 

 

 

 

There were three factory-looking holes in the parcel shelf, two of which lined up exactly with the bolts on the radio cage. It's running off it's own rechargeable battery pack at the moment, and I haven't checked yet to see if there's interference when the engine's running, or if you can even hear it over the flat twin racket! But it looks nice, doesn't it?

 

@Conrad D. Conelrad it was a Philips after all! I should have stayed with my first guess.

 

[Tadhg Tiogar]

On 9/11/2019 at 8:17 PM, strangeangel said:

Blimey! For 23 grand I'd buy a DS. I have to say that I don't like the saloon as much as the Break either.

 

I drove to work in mine today, can't say I'd be doing that in one that cost 23 large.

DD Classics have form for this type of thing. They once tried asking 25 grand for a CX S1 GTi, also LHD.

I suppose it's worse because they are a London dealer (Kew is never a cheap place to be in, and Richmond is worse!), so high rents for premises whether they move stuff on or not.

[strangeangel]

It's a nice day... what say we do something about this?

 

 

There is a spare set of these, but the front passenger one is fecked; even more so than this effort. I want to spend some money on getting the seats re-foamed and covered, not this, so what do?

 

A trip to Wickes yields a piece of 3mm hardboard and a can of carpet adhesive spray (£11). I used a Stanley blade to carefully prise the vinyl away from the knackered backing:

 

 

Drew round the old one:

 

 

Got jiggy with it:

 

 

Then glue was sprayed, and the two sides stuck together.

 

 

Time for a beer while it sets.

 

 

Cheers!

 

[Tamworthbay]

Worth putting some PVA on to seal it so it won’t warp again. Looking good all round!

[strangeangel]

30 minutes ago, Tamworthbay said:

Worth putting some PVA on to seal it so it worst warp again. Looking good all round!

 

Cheers, that's a good thought. here it is at close of play tonight...

 

 

It looks a fiddly bugger to refit but that joy can be for another day!

 

[richardmorris]

A good fix. If you would like to share in the Citroen car club please do email me at 2cv @ Citroen car club.org.uk

[Cavcraft]

On 9/8/2019 at 8:16 PM, strangeangel said:

The Ami's speedo is pretty hopeless. It seems to bear no resemblance to the speed that you're doing either in km or mph. So I went out today with this device taped to the windscreen (cheers @UltraWomble for the tip):

 

 

 

It's a cheap Chinese GPS speedometer and, while I wouldn't want it in the car permanently, I used it today to figure out exactly how slow we're going. So 40 on the speedo is 30mph, 60 is 45mph and 70 is 50mph. Simple

 

This is infinitely more practical than the method employed on the collection day, namely radioing @djimbob in the Kia and asking how fast I was going.

 

EDIT: Here's another picture from this morning's jaunt, just because it's such a cool looking car!

 

 

 

 

Do you have a link to them for sale, please, and do you happen to know what they measure? Thanks.

 

 

*Edit: by measure I mean how wide/long are they, please?

[strangeangel]

15 minutes ago, Cavcraft said:

Do you have a link to them for sale, please, and do you happen to know what they measure? Thanks.

 

 

You can buy one here. Can't find a tape measure but here's a photo with my hand included for scale which should give you a fair idea.

 

 

 

 

[strangeangel]

I can't turn the Ami's wipers off! Pulling the switch out starts them up, but pushing it back in down has no effect. The only thing that stops them is turning the ignition off and back on (a while later).

 

*heads upstairs to find the HBOL*

 

[barrett]

The autopark function can be a bit iffy on those. When I replaced my wiper motor it was with a motor with no autopark, and iirc I simply left off one of the two wires from the switch. Takes about 30 seconds to take the dash off to investigate... 

[strangeangel]

Prevention is better than cure, even more so if you've already been cured once! Water is entering the Ami somewhere, to my great* surprise, and I noticed that the floor had a distinctly brown hue when I lifted the carpet up.

 

 

 

Not good. This has already been replaced once (at great expense, I would imagine - see earlier in the thread) so I'm keen to sort it out. It looks like it was only ever primered, so I'm going to clean it up with a flap disc, apply Hydrate 80 and then a couple of coats of Zinc 182 followed by some black paint or other.

 

The good news is it's still only surface rust really, here's a test patch I cleaned up earlier:

 

 

I'm probably going to attack this in sections as I don't want to be leaving the clean metal exposed for any length of time. More soon...

 

[artdjones]

Do it with a knot brush,flap discs are a bit aggressive.

[strangeangel]

1 hour ago, artdjones said:

Do it with a knot brush,flap discs are a bit aggressive.

 

I started off with a brush but it there are some pits in the steel and it wasn't getting them clean.

 

[artdjones]

4 minutes ago, strangeangel said:

 

I started off with a brush but it there are some pits in the steel and it wasn't getting them clean.

 

If you get all the pits out you are reducing the thickness of all the metal around by the depth of the pits.And I would imagine Ami floorpans to be fairly thin anyway.

A rust converter like Vactan or Hydrate 80 will make the rust in the pits stable and provide a good basis for overcoating with paint.

[bangernomics]

All your weird blue French estates are belong to strangeangel.

Hopefully he won’t have to insert too many goins

[Uncle Jimmy]

21 minutes ago, artdjones said:

If you get all the pits out you are reducing the thickness of all the metal around by the depth of the pits.And I would imagine Ami floorpans to be fairly thin anyway.

A rust converter like Vactan or Hydrate 80 will make the rust in the pits stable and provide a good basis for overcoating with paint.

Exactly.

[strangeangel]

Chill out, they weren't badly pitted and I haven't gone mad with the disc. I've never had much success with any of these magical rust converter/stabiliser products TBH, so I wanted to get rid of as much rust as possible before putting the stuff on.

[vulgalour]

Flap disc for the surface rust, wire wheel for the deep pits, rust treater of choice, zinc primer, glossy top coat, job jobbed.  If you were really concerned about digging in too hard, polycarb discs are much kinder on the surface and munch through surface rust with minimal fuss and mess, only problem is they wear out pretty quickly.

I still stand by KuRust for doing rust treatment of panels that aren't too heavily rusted.  If you clean everything back well like you are and paint on fairly liberally, it does a good job.  Especially if you then follow up with some zinc rich primer and glossy top coat.  The Hydrate 80 does seem to be even more effective, and priced accordingly.  Jenolite I hate, I usually find I have to revisit any job I've treated with their products not long after applying it so I can't recommend them at all.

Once you've got everything cleaned up, are you going leak hunting?  I bet it's something small and almost invisible.

[strangeangel]

26 minutes ago, vulgalour said:

Once you've got everything cleaned up, are you going leak hunting?  I bet it's something small and almost invisible.

 

 

Isn't it always? Yes, I will try and find the source of the ingress once I've got this floor looking something like.

 

Bonus job: while the front seat is out I may as well 're-string' it with the bag of rubber rings jonny69 bought but never got around to!

 

 

I also finished painting that room that the seat is in this afternoon... been a busy lad on my day off, haven't I?

 

[dollywobbler]

Sorry, bit out of date here, but as Barratt says, the non-stop wipers is a thing and is easily 'fixed' by just removing the park wire from the switch. Then you can also park the wipers straight up, for better* aerodynamics. #Racecar

Windscreen seal would seem a likely culprit, so I'd be giving Captain Tolley's Creeping Crack Cure an outing.

[strangeangel]

21 hours ago, dollywobbler said:

Captain Tolley's Creeping Crack Cure

 

 

Never heard of that! Cheers for the tip.

 

Got on with the painting today... this is looking a bit better:

 

 

[strangeangel]

And say hello to the newest member of the fleet, one I'm very excited about. It's a TMZ Tula 200M: a massively overweight 200cc 2-stroke Soviet scooter.

 

 

See more of this little chap in the Bikeshite thread!