Picasso restoration.......a tale of idiocy and citroen fun

[juular]

Ah French van shaped objects, always a journey of mystery and intrigue.

The first vivaro I bought was being sold by a dealer up in Inverness, it was under a pile of snow and the battery was dead. The dealer had no idea where it was and asked me back in an hour so he could jump start it. Went off for lunch and came back and saw him still scratching his head. Had to Google it for him, and found it was under the passenger floor with a rubber mat on top. Actually a very sensible and useful place but no indication to the layman of it being there.

I'm surprised that the battery is enclosed in the passenger space like that. When building campervans I was told never to have the second battery inside the vehicle as they emit hydrogen fumes when charged hard, which can be quite unpleasant. I note yours has a vent tube on the side though so that's a relief.

It's French. Make sure it doesn't eject it's window wipers tomorrow in protest that you haven't plugged it back in using a stopwatch to time it.

[maxxo]

Typically french to have really well designed stuff, but either really hard to access or no indication of it's location at all

I have a feeling an awful lot of picassos don't have the venting tube connected, and most likely the cheapest battery out there

i must admit it does seem to crank over an awful lot faster now which is very nice indeed

i did actually use a stop watch to try and time it as exact as possible

 

[maxxo]

Doing some more buyage

This time to make sure the spare wheel bolt never ever siezes again

[maxxo]

And hopefully winning these

mmmmmm genuine accessories are very very nice indeed

[maxxo]

sort of refurbished a single wheel trim today

took absolutely ages

as you can see this one looks extremely dull and knackered

however, over the weekend i had a good conversation with someone who has a huge collection of trims, as you can tell i am a very interesting person

anyway he reccomended using brasso, so i thought i'd give it a shot

to give you more of an idea

this is after working on it a bit

not sure why it's just the one that;s been so badly affected

i seem to recall it suddenly started looking like that over winter, so i suspect it's a huge salt coating or something

this took absolutely ages to do

i'm in pain, i can barely walk from all the squatting

but

for the most part it's done, i do need to do a tiny bit more in the crevices but i'm mostly happy with the outcome

it does seem to have it's shine back and really does make the car look an awful lot better

the issue with this car is before i owned it, the car wasn't washed at all in absolutely years, which is some ways is a blessing as theres very litle swirling in the paint

as i say i will get all the little nooks and crannies done at some point

but look how shiny it is!

[maxxo]

as can be seen in this photo

the rear passenger side trim does need a little bit of touching up on some scratches (which i didn't do btw!)

i do have some "audi aluminium silver" which is mostly a close match, i reckon if i touch it up then give it a scrub with brasso it will remove the excess and only cover the scratches

but in some more exciting news

this is the list of stuff that needs doing:

bonnet repacing due to dent - will be happening at the end of the month

brake lines - again end of month

front tyres - end of month, will be replacing all 4 so 2 7mm pirelli's will be for sale very cheaply.

that's it, then the car is pretty much finished, and i can say for once theres almost nothing wrong with it

then i will enjoy it for around 8 months before moving it on to a new home

 

[Noel Tidybeard]

if you have 2 Pirellis with 7mm why are you buying 4 tyres?

new tyres are only 1-2mm deeper

[maxxo]

55 minutes ago, Noel Tidybeard said:

if you have 2 Pirellis with 7mm why are you buying 4 tyres?

new tyres are only 1-2mm deeper

always do this, i like to experiment with different tyres and for the full experience i replace all 4

i'll be trying michelin crossclimate +'s next and i'm reluctant to mix all seasons and summers

[lexi]

I think you could maybe search out a set of NOS wheel trims?  I got the proper ones for my C5 for £16 each. Well worth it.

[maxxo]

Yes i could do, and it's what i'll most likely end up doing

however i want to see how decent i can get these ones first

I've been toying with the thought of painting the "citroen" writing on the trims black so they stand out a bit, not sure what to do about that yet

[maxxo]

Well this is quite exciting!

just been sent this, my new (to me) bonnet to replace the one which got dented

looks very shiny!

[Mr Laurence]

On 9/18/2020 at 3:39 PM, maxxo said:

then i will enjoy it for around 8 months before moving it on to a new home

 

How come you’re getting rid of it so soon? If it were my car, I’d want to keep it a bit longer after putting so much money and effort into restoring it.

[maxxo]

5 minutes ago, Mr Laurence said:

How come you’re getting rid of it so soon? If it were my car, I’d want to keep it a bit longer after putting so much money and effort into restoring it.

I want a hydraulic citroen before they either all disapear/go up in value or get stuck with a 2008 onwards C5

plus i'm starting to fancy a change

[Mr Laurence]

35 minutes ago, maxxo said:

I want a hydraulic citroen before they either all disapear/go up in value or get stuck with a 2008 onwards C5

plus i'm starting to fancy a change

That’s understandable. I’m certainly guilty of doing the same haha!

[maxxo]

21 minutes ago, Mr Laurence said:

That’s understandable. I’m certainly guilty of doing the same haha!

i say hydraulic citroen

i just have a huge want for a mk1 c5 estate, so i might as well buy one before the last of them vanish

[Mr Laurence]

8 minutes ago, maxxo said:

i say hydraulic citroen

i just have a huge want for a mk1 c5 estate, so i might as well buy one before the last of them vanish

I don’t think that I’m that brave! Very interesting cars, and they’ll never be as cheap as they are now.  I’ll keep my eyes peeled for good ones for you though

[maxxo]

3 minutes ago, Mr Laurence said:

I don’t think that I’m that brave! Very interesting cars, and they’ll never be as cheap as they are now.  I’ll keep my eyes peeled for good ones for you though

I'll be looking around june next year, that's when the insurance policy on the picasso expires and it seems more logical to get one then

basically a 2.0 hdi 110 or a 2.2 hdi auto, it must be an auto

ideally an exclusive too.....more likely to have been looked after

i'm either very brave or very stupid

[maxxo]

quick battery update

still early days, but at the moment it seems to be cranking over like a petrol and starting both hot and cold instantly

which is nice!

this is interesting, as the old battery still did always start (occasional software bug though) so it must have just been weak

i was surprised the old halfords one made it through the winter

[maxxo]

Time to say goodbye to the chance of a siezed spare wheel carrier bolt!

yes i am going to absolutely cover the bolt in this stuff

might as well properly paint the carrier at the same time and wrap the spare wheel in something protective

[loserone]

On 9/18/2020 at 3:34 PM, maxxo said:

squatting

You could take the trim off before you work on it?

[maxxo]

6 minutes ago, loserone said:

You could take the trim off before you work on it?

shhhhhh don't tell me

what i should have done is brought it inside so i could work on it on a table

but no i like to make life hard for myself, so i either squatted or laid down on the pavement scrubbing it

[maxxo]

Well.........

this surprises even me to say this but

5 months to the day without any issues

it's been completely reliable for the past 5 months and 10k miles which is quite fantastic actually

never ceases to amaze me this car, it's truly fantastic

oh and did i meantion the "restoration" is almost complete!

brake lines and a few little dents to remove and that's it done

[stuboy]

These were shared on bookface so thought u like them

[maxxo]

that's actually quite fantastic!

proper picasso GTI

[maxxo]

Been spending some pennies!

that error message is quite confusing, so will have to give halfrauds a call......don't really want to use them but no where else has crossclimates at a reasonable price

technology is meant to make everything easier, rarely does that

just causes confusement

[maxxo]

what an incompetant company halfords are

just spent the last hour on the phone sorting this out

i think it's sorted, wednesday should be fun

[Agila]

9 hours ago, maxxo said:

Been spending some pennies!

that error message is quite confusing, so will have to give halfrauds a call......don't really want to use them but no where else has crossclimates at a reasonable price

technology is meant to make everything easier, rarely does that

just causes confusement

Blackcircles do them fitted for £290. 15% off today. Get halfords mugged off.

[Agila]

https://www.blackcircles.com/

[maxxo]

6 minutes ago, Agila said:

Blackcircles do them fitted for £290. 15% off today. Get halfords mugged off.

damn it!

i reckon i'll just get halfords to do it, just want it done now after that faff on haha

mind you that is a decent price for them, but i think i'll get most of that back by selling the decent rears i have on at the moment

thanks for showing me that though, it's much appreciated

[maxxo]

Busy busy day today

lets post it in time order

firstly, tyres!

Yes i has new tyres!

they seem quite good as well, which is nice

very quiet and the car seems to ride better than the Pirelli's

haven't pushed them yet due to being new i want them to settle in a bit first

also got these for sale for £20 if anyone is interested

185/65/r15