Project 1980 Citroën Acadiane | 1967 Citroen Ami 6 | 2005 Audi a2 colour storm | 1996 Lotus Elan

[320touring]

Tremendous progress on this - looks ace!

[meshking]

Acadiane in leaving the garage shocker ( just to turn it around to work on the otherside, but ...)

 

 

Wifey seems a little too excited tbh.

[meshking]

 

Popped down to Hampshire today to pick up a replacement door for the van. The man selling it was clearly a serial 2cv botherer,  and had many many 2cvs. He was also about to start making kits for a pony replica, this is one he had brought over from Greece

Looks fun!

[meshking]

Holy moly, it's an update. 

Where were we? Ah yes, fitting the nearside rear wing:

Found some more time today:

 

Ta da!

Hopefully the etch primer I've ordered will arrive this week so I can paint it over the BH weekend. I think that is hopefully welding complete.

[meshking]

Thread update alert. 

Where did we leave this? Oh yes. Bit of welding on the rear wings. That's all done and dusted, front doors painted now too. Couldn't find a windy window door so I picked up a replacement slidey door. This had a repair panel fitted , not too badly fitted but filler wasn't the best finish. Not claiming I can do any better of course, but I tried and at least the shonky work is my shonky work.

With that all done I thought I'd pay some attention to getting the car rolling and running. When moving it the rear brakes sounded like the were grinding, so best to inspect and replace.  Up she goes:

Now get the drums off and .... Oh. Nasty.

 

Eagle eyes readers will notice the next picture isn't much good news...

Yup, pivot sheared off. Not sure what to do now... I fear those are brazed/welded in. Anyone faced this before? I can't believe I'm the first...I'd ask on the 2cv Facebook group but I've forgotten my password and one of the three 'trusted' password release people is my 80year old dad... He's never going to manage to authenticate me. No bother, I'm not missing out on much on there anyway 😉

[HMC]

Liked for how great she (the van, ahem) is looking and not your brake woes

[dollywobbler]

Eesh! Not good. I've never heard of that happening, but that doesn't mean it hasn't. I had a hell of a game getting one shoe off on my 2CV so can't have been far from doing the same!

Nice to see this coming along though.

EDIT - have asked on the 2CVs and Friends group. Will report back.

[jonathan_dyane]

I would tack on a tube which tightly fits over the remains of the sheared stud then use it as a drill guide then replace it with a bolt entered from the back held in position with a blob of weld.

Or if you have a steady hand you could grind it off flush then centrepunch and drill out dispensing with having to find/make a drill guide.

[dollywobbler]

From my pal Laurence. "I heated around the stud and then hammered it out, new one pushed in and a bit of weld to secure. Obviously stays in place once it is tightened. I have had a look around and as I feared it is no longer available, but a tame lathe man could easily make one. Lesson learned though for us all - treat these very carefully! The nut and eccentric are available, the stud isn’t!"

[meshking]

Thanks Ian, appreciate the help-by-proxy

I was wondering if back plates are available, seems they are from some places, but it's not clear how easy they are to replace. No pivots available? Sigh.

[Mr Pastry]

13 minutes ago, meshking said:

but it's not clear how easy they are to replace.

Unfortunately the backplate is welded to the suspension arm.   A brilliant piece of innovative design!

[meshking]

Damnit! And of course acadiane rear arms aren't particularly easy to come by.

[Mr Pastry]

10 minutes ago, meshking said:

Damnit!

Yeah good luck welding the new one on straight.

I can make a few pins or any similar parts if anybody is really stuck, but would need accurate dimensions or an unmolested pattern.

In practice you would probably get away with a plain through bolt and a nyloc nut.

[meshking]

Yeah, I've gone off the idea of welding a new one on. Will try to find a replacement arm. Sigh .

[Mr Pastry]

9 hours ago, meshking said:

I've gone off the idea of welding a new one on.

Looking at the pics, I'm not sure it would be so difficult as the backplate has a spigot which locates it on the stub axle.

[meshking]

So where did I get? Happened to mention this to a travelling 2cv mechanic and he swung by one evening.

After 45 mins:

He drilled out the snapped thing, tapped the thread into it, screwed a new bolt in and welded it to the back plate. 

What I didn't realise is that this has a larger bearing making the replacement drums made of unobtanium. So he kindly offered to take the drums away and separate the wear surface from the hub and replace with a set of drums he had turned on a lathe. 

Better take the other side....

Same story. No friction material left here either. Looks like it has been parked in a lake. I'll get all this cleaned up, new brake pipes going in and we should be back motoring.

[meshking]

Keen to get more work done on the van since we can't go out. Many moons ago I bought some epoxy mastic converter to try and keep the chassis going a bit longer

Let get this done

quick whiz with the wirewheel...

Better. Mix up this stuff... Wearing a mask obvs..

Couldn't find my stirrers so a rawlplug will do. It says you can spray it, but I'm not sure how thin you would have to make it. It's seriously gloopy stuff. Covers well though, 400ml did the rear arms and most of the rear of the chassis

Turns out this isn't the original chassis - Rick has changed the chassis on this van before, saying that the original one was stuck to the body with mastic - they lifted the whole body up, unbolted, and the mastic brought the chassis with it. Impressive hold, but probably not the best fixings between body and chassis...

Now waiting for an ecas delivery, and for Rick to return to finish off the brakes.

[meshking]

So where did I get to on this ? It's been sitting unloved, but occasionally poked at in my garage. I did consider a BMW swap, and purchased an engine, but realistically I think that level of engineering is beyond me. When I removed the old engine, I realised the chassis was far worse and hence put in an order for a new one:

Then got the body up:

Before realising I couldn't get the body high enough to clear the tyres without it hitting the garage roof.  I therefore present the patented meshking wheels - OSB3. I guarantee everyone will be rolling these next season.

 

So here we are:

Now the simple task of stripping the chassis, rebuilding the bust spring can, and building the new one up. Whilst dealing with a new job. Easy huh ?

[dollywobbler]

Get some good penetrating oil for those spring can nuts pronto! Good luck with it.

[meshking]

Thanks - yes, remonstrating fluid (© @320touring) was deployed along with freezing spray. Both off now. Axles are a different story, however. Deploying heat next on those.

[meshking]

So where did I get to on this?

Is currently sitting on a new chassis, engine in and running 

This work took sometime as I managed a change in job and dealt with the loss of my father. This meant that certain things left in the garden had begun to return to nature

Here, my grapevine has decided it prefers french vans to cling to. Understandable.

Spring cans were knackered, so can was replaced.

if anyone wanted to see inside an Acadiane spring tube, here's your chance:

 

naturally, separating a van from it's chassis wasn't completely straightforward but we got there.

Dirty carb into the ultrasonic cleaner helped running. 

And it's nearly there. The plan for the last month or so has been to utilise a traveling mechanic to get it into a fit state, since my spare time doesn't contain much spannering at the moment.

 

[bunglebus]

Love these quirky vans. There's a very crusty looking one the same colour local to me

[shedenvy]

Sorry about your Dad, very inspirational progress though. I've got a 2cv in the garage perched ontop of the old rusty chassis. Went down a rabbit hole of fixing rust and lost momentum. Need to finish it next year.

[meshking]

Thanks!

I think this is the fourth Citroen a series I have put a new chassis under. Third Ken Hanna chassis, each one as awesome as the last.

I know what you mean about losing momentum, which is why I decided it was quicker to get an expert in. Good luck with yours.

[meshking]

Thread update : a new project vehicle has been purchased and this needs to get driven to my lockup. Luckily, it's nearly done!

It's not concours, but tbh it'd be triggers new broom if I got it anywhere near that standard. "Good enough" or "that'll do" were the motivational words in my head.

 

[High Jetter]

Looks sharp tho

[meshking]

As the foo fighters sang " Done, done and I'm on to the next one "

Drove the van to my lockup and tucked it in:

With a hole in my garage, the itch started again. Definitely not encouraged by @Skizzer @320touring @Kiltox and @RobT, one copy of 2cvgb later, a couple of phone calls and today this arrived:

Definitely needs some work - but it's honest. Chassis is solid (genuinely, not acadiane solid) but the floors less so. 

So what is it? It's the Citroen a series that I haven't owned - 1967 Citroen Ami 6 Break. My wife was ecstatic* to see it arrive today.  Doesn't look great now, but look at it - just needs a bit of love.

Bench seat at the front, single spoke wheel. Lovely. I'm a happy bunny. Friday has been taken off to start stripping the interior out and forming a plan of attack.

[High Jetter]

Lovely, looks grumpy tho

[Stinkwheel]

Having owned a certain acad (sorry about that) and having just sold an ami break i can confidently predict you will love it. It looks great as is, classic old french patina 

[Six-cylinder]

Red bench seat for the win!