2CV racing with car #48 - the 2025 season begins...

[hairnet]

oh no they let racechaser drive

least car only got squashed

v8 next time obvs

 

[Andyrew]

 

[Mally]

On 24/08/2025 at 09:45, Talbot said:

By way of an update.  The chassis is absolute toast.  It appears there was a "racing incident" at the exit of turn 1, and car 48 came off worst.  Heavy impact on the offside chassis rail has not only twisted and parallelogramed the chassis ahead of the steering rack/front axle tube, but it has also pushed the offside chassis rail back by about 30mm.  The steering column has been punched back towards the driver, and there is a huge bend in the top chassis panel behind the front axle.

Whilst yes, it is possible to bend anything straight again, this would require the body off to do so properly,  and it was determined to be absolutely not viable here.

It needs an replacement chassis.  This one is a used crisp packet.

Are there Chassis and 'Chassis' for these things? 

Are all types and makes allowed?  Prices seem to be 1K to 1.5 K as I read it ?

Light is good presume light ones are expensive? (or banned)

Its only M6 bolts.  Get it bolted to a new Chassis at once!

[chaseracer]

The chassis allowed in the regs are 'original Citroen', 'original design' made on the original tooling by Mehari Club Cassis in France, or the SLC 'race' chassis made by a bloke in a shed in Yorkshire.

The dead chassis on #48 is from a 1975 Dyane which I stripped down myself in 1992 when we first built the car.  It has done us proud and we salute it.  The replacement will be from option 3 above and is essentially similar to the chassis under my Dyane.  We aim to collect next week.

[DaveDorson]

One of Mrs Dorsons theatre mates Seb runs in the same series I think.

 

We keep saying we need to get along and show him some support some time.

[Marshall2810]

19 minutes ago, DaveDorson said:

One of Mrs Dorsons theatre mates Seb runs in the same series I think.

 

We keep saying we need to get along and show him some support some time.

Same as, im mates with Paul and Lance from tower citroen who also compete. I keep hoping they'll invite me along one day 

[Talbot]

18 hours ago, Marshall2810 said:

Same as, im mates with Paul and Lance from tower citroen who also compete. I keep hoping they'll invite me along one day 

Just turn up on the Thursday evening.  There's no-one on the gate at that point and you can just waltz in for free.  Once you're in, you're in.  Jobbed.

[Talbot]

For anyone who is familiar with the chassis on a 2CV/Dyane/Ami/Mehari :

The impact of the crash appears to have been taken mainly on the offside front suspension leading arm.  This collapsed quite badly, but in doing so has transferred a fairly significant load onto the axle tube/steering rack.  The rack/tube is now about 2" further back and 1" up, but only on the driver's side.  This has buckled and collapsed the chassis behind the front axle tube, and put a massive wrinkle in the floor.  This in turn has also caused the entire chassis to parallelogram somewhat, as noted by the offside rear wheel is now pressed hard against the filler neck, and the nearside rear wheel has more-than-normal clearance on the inner wheelarch.  The entire chassis is banana'd. and there is absolutely no way that we could have pulled that back straight again at the track.  It would have taken tens of tonnes of tension to pull the front of the chassis straight, which is just not viable.

The front bit of the chassis that is visible in the above, while twisted quite badly, isn't the issue.  It's the hidden damage under the car that is the problem.  The front axle tube moved far enough that the steering wheel is now an inch closer to the driver, and various bits of the steering are clashing.  The engine and gearbox also happened to punt into the bulkhead and left a sizeable dent.

There was various murmurings from other garages that we should "just get on with it and get it back on the track". and that we were being defeatist by not at least trying.  I'm a bit miffed about this tbh, as there is absolutely no way that the car could have been straightened and put back on the track to any sensible standard.  The chassis is significantly weakened, and even if we could (by some miracle) have found some way to pull it straight again, it would have still been weakened.

Just No.

We did consider doing a high-speed run down to the FoD, grabbing a spare Ami chassis, and trying to do a re-chassis job there and then.  This was quickly discounted, as it would have taken about 5hrs to do the round-trip to get the chassis, and then at least another 5hrs to do the re-chassis job, possibly longer.  That would have been 10hrs out of the race, and we only had 15hrs left at that point.  Even if this had worked (which is a long shot in the first place) then we'd have run another maybe 4 or 5hrs at most.  Which would have given us another 150ish laps.  This, on top of the 190ish we had already done, would not have qualified us as a finisher, and would still have given us a DNF.  So it would have been a vanity project at best.  Utterly pointless.

What is marginally amusing is that on a track-walk on Sunday night, we found the spot that the car had impacted the armco.  This was proven by the fact that there was still a bit of bodywork GRP jammed into the barrier, along with part of the sticker that had been on the front wing.  The amusing bit is that is almost perfectly (within a few meters) of where the team owner stuck the car into the barrier back in 2021.

[chaseracer]

18 hours ago, Talbot said:

There was various murmurings from other garages that we should "just get on with it and get it back on the track". and that we were being defeatist by not at least trying.  I'm a bit miffed about this tbh, as there is absolutely no way that the car could have been straightened and put back on the track to any sensible standard.  The chassis is significantly weakened, and even if we could (by some miracle) have found some way to pull it straight again, it would have still been weakened.

Just No.

Agreed.

A fair amount of utter bolleaux was proffered at the time, and rapidly discounted as such.