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

[Six-cylinder]

[meshking]

Not too much activity, although I've done a bit of prodding followed by a lot of sweeping up the rust that falls off!

Couple of bits of French repair found, nice bit of riveting:

And a fist sized lump of filler where the toeboard should be.

I've braced the shell now, so I can start to work methodically. Most likely will be that I need to weld exactly where the bracing is...

[meshking]

Managed to grab a couple of hours on the car today. Unfortunately it's about 40 degrees in the garage as it has a metal roof. Should get round to some insulation some day. Anyway - what did I get up to?

@Skizzerput me onto, beside his own awesome YouTube channel, "make it kustom" created by a Canadian who shows how to fix and make panels without a complete workshop of tools. Much more up my alley. So, inspired to bash some metal, I worked out that I should be fixing this section first:

Bit of cad

Bit of reuse of offcuts from the steels used in my house extension

Leaves us here

Happy with that for a first attempt. Might try and put a bead in the middle for a bit of strength.

[chaseracer]

Steels re-use admirable!  I have a couple of bits of retired railway which have a similar second life... 👍

[artdjones]

Fitzee's Fabrication is another good cannel. All about fabrications and repairs using basic tools. 

[meshking]

Think I've found a good candidate for my garage:

I've spent a bit more time, having realised that the part I was working on above eventually comes down to the sill. So...

Better chop out the old sill and floor

 

Trial fit sill and floor

 

[Stinkwheel]

Good work, that really is as rusty as Ami's always appear to be. At least i dont feel bad for selling you this rusty citroen.

Makes you realise just how bonkers citroens manufacturing was for creating rust traps 

[meshking]

She's a rusty one, I have picked the worst side to start with.  I'm also now experiencing the pain many others do, where repair panels simply don't exist. 

 

Nevermind, it's all character building...

[Stinkwheel]

12 minutes ago, meshking said:

She's a rusty one, I have picked the worst side to start with.  I'm also now experiencing the pain many others do, where repair panels simply don't exist. 

 

Nevermind, it's all character building...

Thats the spirit, look forward to seeing the progress as always

[meshking]

 

Managed to spend a couple of hours today - located the sill and welded it so I can start to mark up where the seatbelt strengthener will fit. It's quite reassuring to see the strength returning to the shell.

I was more surprised than anyone that the floor dropped in. Need to buy some paint to cover the underside before I weld it in.

[meshking]

Had a few moments to spend on this today - the difficult bit is making sure the seatbelt aligns, and then drilling/reinforcing/welding captive nuts inside the sill before the floor closes off the sill.

 

All needs to align as :

 

Marked and drilled 12mm holes

Bolt up the vertical plane then refit the floor

WIN!

Now to weld it in...

[meshking]

Welded the floor in, but not before adding a strengthening plate behind the seatbelt mount. 

 

That was quite laborious. Let's hope the other side is better.

Oh

Oh

 

Think I'll step back for a while to plan the next move.

 

 

 

 

[High Jetter]

Top work, tho

[rob88h]

On 09/09/2018 at 20:32, brownnova said:

Some form of 2CV is high on mine and the gf’s want list!

Foreshadowing 🤣. Don’t you four now?

[brownnova]

1 hour ago, rob88h said:

Foreshadowing 🤣. Don’t you four now?

😂😂😂

Yep… 

[meshking]

You got me wondering earlier today. This is, I think, my eighth Citroen a series. But I've never been mad enough to own more than two at once. 

Progress has been slow on this - it was never going to be speedy, but it ground to a halt as my work life took a step up. 

In any case, both sills are now replaced, with the floor fitted but not welded in on the nearside now.

With that done, I wondered what to do with the toeboard and what was actually supporting the front of the car. I chopped out the rust and lined up the repair panel

 

I was quite amazed that it all lined up. The floor aligned on both sides but there's a jacking panel that needs to be fitted to the end of the outer panel seen here.

That's a panel that isn't available, but an ami8 was available. So ordered up the four jacking points (which will never be used!) and set about trying to fit something that shouldn't fit.

This is old Vs new:

I was rather amazed to discover that it fitted!

 

Last check to ensure the rear jacking point fits

.

I'm calling that a win.

[Stinkwheel]

Excellent work as always. What really amazes me these days is, having done small A series Citroens for so many years, is that now so much panel work is available. It used to be literally nothing for 2CV's/Dyanes or Ami's back in the day, now you can get 'almost' everything. It is a very good thing. Especially for jobs like the Acadiane and Ami you have done on this thread.

[meshking]

Agreed. @Skizzer has been rather jealous about the panel availability here compared to his fine collection.  It does mean my panel creation skills are not being refined though. 

That said, I'm carefully not looking at the a post repairs just yet. 

[shedenvy]

Progress looks great, and your upsidedown welding skills look very tidy compared to mine!

[jonny69]

I came in here for the Ami capers but got dreadful flashbacks instead. Thanks a lot

[Skizzer]

On 24/10/2023 at 08:55, meshking said:

Agreed. @Skizzer has been rather jealous about the panel availability here compared to his fine collection.  It does mean my panel creation skills are not being refined though. 

That said, I'm carefully not looking at the a post repairs just yet. 

I'm just jealous full stop.  Excellent work and such rapid progress!

[meshking]

Time for an annual update! Few things have changed - health took a nosedive in Jan this year, but a change of job and a few weeks R&R between jobs improved things massively. 

Welded in the outer toeboard (don't look too closely at the welding quality pls)

and turned my attention to the a pillar... or what was left of it

crunchy. And of course, there wasn't much left around this - so had to fix those areas first.

Then onto the inner panel and shelf that was awol

I used some filler rods to keep the channel in roughly the correct profile - but if course had to fix that too. Fabrication

Now some CAD

Resulted in:

Have of course since filled the holes.

Now attention moved to the back of the car - where the boot floor and rear seat mount was awol

Plenty of work here:

Luckily the chassis is solid as a solid thing. The boot floor was available but not the other parts that had long departed.

Fab'd the rear wall, then the rear seat mount

Had to rope in a second pair of hands to put beads in that panel

But happy with the outcome. 

Then noticed the NLA bumpstops weren't there anymore

Created some paper ones, then made them in metal:

Now attention has just turned to the other a pillar... which was also in a mess:

More repairs:

 

more CAD

Phew - and we're up to date.

What's left? Inner toeboard, need to fabricate the pedal recess, fix up nearside inner rear wing. I definitely didn't realise I was taking on such a project, but I'm kinda glad I did tbh. Thanks for reading this far!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Rustybullethole]

Having walked away from A posts like that I am full of admiration. Great stuff. 

[Marshall2810]

Just discovered your thread and am in total admiration for someone that has the skill and patience to do what you've done. I salute you sir 🫡

[Surface Rust]

That is really impressive reconstruction. I've definitely scrapped more solid cars than that before, and am now feeling even more guilty!

[meshking]

Thank you for the kind comments! It’s been a battle - and I’m essentially this cars last hope, so I’ve been learning as I go. Actually enjoying it now and I am getting better at making panels.

 

[Westbay]

Well done that man !

[brownnova]

Wow! That fabrication and welding is very impressive! I look at all that and just wouldn’t even know where to start! 

[meshking]

Neither did I really. But watching @Skizzeryoutube videos inspired me to plug on with it

[Skizzer]

This is WAY worse than what I’ve been dealing with on the Rancho — at least I have some vague shapes to replicate and some actual metal to weld to.

This is a properly heroic restoration. Hat doffed.