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Dean's French follies.


dean36014

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Well the German batmobile, check the reg, is on the road and doing some impressive mpg on gas. Eleven quids worth of gas and a couple of quid of petrol managed 135 miles. Not bad for a 1.8 petrol automatic. It's not as slow as I'd imagined either. Still some issues to sort out, airbag light on due to a school boy error on my part replacing the indicator stalk and an abs light too. Abs works perfectly though and my fault code reader won't communicate due to it being pre obd. The workshop lads at work tried a top of the line snap on unit and also the workshops own mega expensive thing with no joy. I need to order a disc from somewhere to get communication with it, more research needed. It's a great place to be though and completely rust free underneath and in the usual c class areas like spring perches. Fitted a second hand rear bumper as the original was damaged, need to get it painted correct colour at some point. I replaced everything I could find that needed doing before it hit the road so hopefully the mot in June should go ok. Looking resplendent at Aldi.

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First Citroen show next weekend, the x rally near Grantham. The bumper strips are a right mess on Shonky so invested in some of eBay's finest* fake chrome strip. Did the bumpers and used some wider strip down the sides, annoying I'm short to finish the passenger side and had to order more. Personally I love a bit of chrome and think it looks ok against the white paintwork. No doubt it will divide opinion but my car, my way.

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The Merc has hinted at Rickover on lpg since I've bought it. I fitted expensive lpg spark plugs, no improvement, extremely expensive 10mm plug leads, nope. So today I've had another good look at it all. Google revealed the installation instructions and I had something I hadn't noticed before. There's a pipe that comes out the centre off the vapouriser that didn't look right. I traced it down into the inner wing where it look like it had snapped in half. Hunting around underneath and I couldn't find the other half off the pipe anywhere. The instructions said it was a map vacumn pipe and should be attached to the inlet manifold. I checked all the pipes on there and there was no sign off this pipe. But there was a spare taping on the inlet manifold with a blanking sleeve on. Now unfortunately I don't have any vacumn pipe in stock so I puzzled what I could test the theory with. I had a large enough length of thin wall washer tubing that would be long enough but I was worried in would just flatten with the vacuum. Then I had a Eureka moment, brake pipe! A length off pipe was cut to size and fitted round the engine bay with a small bit of washer tubing each end to connect to the stubs. Remember this is only to test the theory and I will get some proper pipe in the future. Started it up, let it switch to log and bingo, a lovely smooth tickover at last. Took it for a test run and no more surging at low revs or stalling at junctions. Pretty damn chuffed with that, will run it for a few days and then order some new pipe. Buoyed with that success I changed the drivers door check strap that was broken with a replacement I got from eBay even in the correct colour. I've ordered a new diaphragm kit for the vapouriser as it looks like it's original and never been changed.

Admire my quick bodge, almost factory

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  • 2 weeks later...

Week off work so time to do a bit on the XM. Just a small rust bubble on the sill revealed structural body sealant. Lots of poking and then angle grinder action revealed solid metal to weld to. Luckily the inner sill is all solid as is the jacking point. Best get making some repair panels then ff596533f5ebb65eef411f341e76949f.jpg

 

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All welded up and just needs stone chipping and blowing in with an aerosol. Typically after struggling with the welder, the wire ran out and the new one wouldn't feed through the gun. After stripping and cleaning out the gun the damn thing welds lovely again. Not sure if it was the new wire or the cleaning out of the gun itself. Just the whole to sort out under the floor now.8d4636784e8b88e4259ff2e2332cd66d.jpg

 

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wondered where the green beasty had gone - I imagined the Caravan dwellers had 'borrowed it' after the window got put through...glad to see it still lives (i'm about 2 mins from where it was parked)

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I hoping to get it in for a mot next month. Can't wait to get it on the road again. It is a bit of a nightmare though as it's too big to fit on the drive and getting it into the tent at the bottom of the garden is interesting due to the narrow rear Access.

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  • 1 year later...

I hope not. However the alledged car restorer who bought it off me instantly tried to flip it on eBay and made a 50 quid profit. The person who then brought it off eBay was one of the people who contacted me to buy it when I was selling it and didn't turn up. He then messaged me wanting to know why the suspension wouldn't lift. Turns out whoever delivered it mullered the subframe and suspension pipes getting it on or off his truck. I then lost touch with it. Will be a crying shame if it's been scrapped as the bodywork was near mint.

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  • 1 month later...

Well a little update.  Current fleet consists of two c15's, one bx tgd and the zx diesel auto estate. Bx was recently dragged out of storage where I put it as it appeared to be suffering head gasket issues. Two sniffer tests done, passed with flying colours. Mmmm, so maybe I won't be ripping the cylinder head off. So I've took the rad out and flushed it numerous times and it's flowing perfect and clean. Replaced the main hoses with a silicone set I'd bought ages ago. All refitted and seems to be running fine now. Changed the rear bumper to the correct style one and put a proper towbar on it I collected from France a few years back. Whilst the bumper was off I attended to a dent it the rear panel that stopped the bumper sitting correctly. Back end now looks so much better. Need to find an excuse to go for a good drive and see if it is now properly fixed. The zx estate plods along nicely and sedately. Going in for a mot on Thursday as it's on a covid extension.  Was supposed to be going over to France in it this year but currently I've had to cancel it twice due to covid. 

The second c15 was purchased earlier this year originally as a parts van for the first. Investigation has revealed that it's a much better example than the original one so a budget restoration is planned to turn it into a French style Citroen service van. 

The original c15 has had a number plate change to something older as it annoyed me by being far to new! It's now gracing a P plate which looks far better. It's my daily motor, scruffy but solid....or so I thought ?. So this weekend I wanted to temporary fit another driver side door so I could rebuild the rusty original.  Whipped the door off and the had a little scrape of a rust spot on the door step. This quickly went into a hole so I  got the grinder out and cut it out to repair. It's here it all went wrong as I decided to look inside the sill and discovered someone had been creative with aluminium mesh and filler.  So out with the grinder and started cutting back to solid metal, it took a while to find some!

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So after some metal work and lots of welding it ended up like this.

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And then finally got the door fitted.

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Driveway looks nice at the moment though.

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  • 7 months later...

Time for an update on this. Current fleet is shonky the bx, currently on restricted duties due to a poorly head gasket. Zx auto estate, plodding along slowly and in rude health. C15 van, just had a new sill on the nearside and various other bits of welding and being prepped for a budget respray. Finally the Vel satis of many shitters. Only had this a couple of weeks and done 800 miles in it so far. Managed to cure the low screen wash warnings by unplugging the sensor and working my way through destickying the interior plastics. Last weekend I went to Plymouth to collect a visa valence, and today I went to chesterfield to collect slot mags for the van. Then home via Wellingborough to drop some bits of at friends. Have some random photos off my phone, no doubt they will be every which way but correctly up IMG_20210408_112227835_HDR.thumb.jpg.59af450441ef572a3f29c93d319bd322.jpg

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Van has one side now all in primer and the sill all stone chipped. Needs blocking down but will get whole van in primer first 

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Scored a cheap replacement grill for the Vel satis and a trim clips so the front end is now properly held together. Trying to find the source of the oil leak on top of the rocker cover. Replaced a few knackered breather hoses and put a new seal on the oil filler cap. Need to get brave and pressure wash the engine. I'm suspecting it's because the engine is breathing quite heavily. Still drives lovely though. IMG_20210512_130449802_HDR.thumb.jpg.d02f5a817411d042f36f99e0f382541a.jpg

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  • 4 weeks later...

Been assembling the van today. Putting the lower valance on was a nightmare. Had to cut a few bits off to clear the diesel subframe. But it's in place, just need to make a couple of brackets to secure it underneath now. Small list of things to do tomorrow then it will be back on the road.IMG_20210607_102035209_HDR.thumb.jpg.30cf284603f23ba0a29c958a62723733.jpg

God knows why one picture is upside down. IMG_20210607_152751513_HDR.thumb.jpg.9a6658019542a6ef88da6519faae69d1.jpg

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