Resurrecting a Goddess.......Twice

[ramonm]

Thanks Faulksy,

Looking through the literature I think you are right, I have evidence mine car is a 1975 car (not 74)- so I might leave it given the drama involved with the switches. I have to replace one so I will give this some consideration.

Also some later cars had welded spheres apparently (which is what mine had originally).

cheers

Ramon

 

[faulksy]

Episode 36: Back to the grindstone

Finally the time has come to bring this thread back to life now that the workshop is within reach. First up is was to retrieve all the sun visor parts that I'd neglected to grab before the border closed. The nylon parts all need to go back in the right place as they set how far the rod can be pulled out of the visor. I purposely left one rod with all its parts in place to use as a reference.

From there the rod just slides back into the visor

Turns out that the chrome plater must have taken a fair bit of metal off when removing the rust as the passenger side visor refused hold its position. I ended up placing a second one of the middle plastic parts onto the rod which seems to have fixed it.

The brackets still need to be painted black but it's all looking pretty good.

Next up is the pallas roof trim. It seems I have no before pictures but the fabric wasn't in great shape. Luckily the foam and steel frame are just fine so onto recovering them. To do it in one piece and avoid a seam in each corner you need a piece of fabric about 3m long. The old fabric made for a good template

Whoever invented the bulldog clip is a genius! They are really handy for positioning fabric so it can be stretched and glued into place.

Getting it installed is really a 2 man job to get the top edge seated above the rear screen and engage all the clips down each side. I ended up having to loosen the roof bolts and push the rubber seal between the roof and rear hoop further back.

And now for another round of guess that part. Anyone want to have a guess at what this piece is?

Originally it had a vinyl cover but that burnt off. Some fabric from the old rear seat armrest made for a pretty good match.

The final piece of news is that the chassis has been reunited with its panels at the paint shop so the guys can finish reassembling the panels. First time it's been out in the sunshine for some time and I have to say the platinum blue paint is really something. Even managed to drive it a short distance which was enough to say the BVH needs readjusting.

 

[faulksy]

 

[faulksy]

Does anybody know of a source for the brackets over the windscreen to hold the pallas roof trim?

 

[SilverBullet]

Hi the part covered in black vinyl is parting the dash, the cover for the top of the steering column slides into it. On manual cars it has a picture of the gears gate.
Ed

 

[Budge]

Nice to see another post Faulksy. I hope you won't mind if I re-use one of your photos of the sun visor innards (with a credit) for someone recently asking on another forum?

I agree with Ed. That part looks like a dash part that has the gear positions on it in white - but that often rubs off - if it is there at all on bvh cars. As there is no gating position on a bvh DS 9all four positions in a row, you need the finisher to tidy the dash, but don't need to use it as a reminder for gear positions.

 

[faulksy]

Top marks to both of you, that is indeed the part. On a BVH it doesn’t have any markings as they are on the plate surrounding the gear selector.

Feel free to reuse the photos. There’s more and at higher res on my Flickr page

 

[SilverBullet]

Hi,
I’m finishing up the interior refit of my DS so all these parts are fresh in my memory .
Cheers,
Ed

 

[faulksy]

Episode 37:

The panel beater has kicked things into high gear with the net result being the pile of odd shaped metal parts I saw last week has been transformed into actual panels again. To repair to doors and front wings they ended up splitting them apart into the individual pressings which also allowed them to seal and paint every inch of the internal structure. The passenger side is done and the drives side isn't far behind.

Suddenly it's looking like a car again after 12 months without panels! I ended up giving the guys a copy of the body alignment section of the workshop manual along with a box of brackets and shims. So far they seem to have done an amazing job realigning the panels. The guys reckon it'll be ready for paint in about a week.

 

[faulksy]

Episode 38: Fixing the Unfixable

Eons ago I mounted a spare Bosch fuel pump to replace the leaking original however about 6 months later the replacement decided to leak as well. Fuel leaks are never a good thing so one shopping trip later and a generic fuel pump with the right specs was fitted. The new pump has always been very noisy and I suspect suffers from cavitation as there are no bubbles in the fuel line before it and quite a few after it. Seeing as I enjoy doing things the hard way I was determined to fix one of the original pumps, mostly just because everyone says you can't.

Here we have the offending article. There are 4 places these pumps can leak, from the both sides of the pump head, motor body, and electrical plug. The first 2 are very easy to fix the other 2 not so much. Guess where both of mine are leaking from.......

4 screws hold the pump head together and are easily removed. Here you'll find 2 o rings to seal things up, leak source 1 and 2. Getting into the motor body is more complicated. 5 crimps hold the outer casing onto the brush assembly and must be bent back without distorting the casing. A pair of pliers, big flatblade screwdriver or a suitable size open spanner work well. The casing is surprisingly thick and take a lot of force to bend.

Now we can get into the guts of the thing.

The shims on the end of the motor spindle like to get stuck to the magnets mounted inside the casing so watch out for them. Much like the hydraulic pump there is a large o ring that seals the casing to the brush assembly which often leaks. The final leak point is the electrical connector which has an o ring to seal it into the housing. under normal operation the whole motor body is filled with fuel under pressure which is why these last 2 seals are needed. To get the electrical connector out we must delve yet deeper into the mysteries of German engineering.

The 2 wires to the brushes need to be unsoldered and 3 spring clips need to be removed so that the brush carrier can be moved out of the way.

One of the wires is secured to a peg on the aluminium casting by another spring clip. With that out of the way the connector can be teased out of the housing, you can just make out the o ring towards the back of the connector. With a bit of luck both wires will stay attached to the plastic connector. I wasn't so lucky.....

A sharp knife was employed to cut back the plastic and expose enough wire to solder onto. Hopefully this holds

In true Citroen fashion, assembly is the reverse of disassembly. The wires need to be soldered back onto the brushes and it's not a bad idea to check continuity with a multimeter before totally assembling. The electrical connector and motor casing just push into place, albeit with a fair bit of force. Don't forget to put the shims back onto the motor shaft, a bit of grease will help keep them there and not stuck to the magnets as you slide the casing over.

The o rings for the pump head live in grooves in the castings. Put them in place an screw it all together. The holes in the block that surrounds the pump rollers are slightly oversize so there is some adjustment of the clearance between the spindle and side wall.

Now it just needs testing which might have to wait a bit. Wish me luck...

o rings used are:
pump head 30 x 2 mm - 31 x 2mm would probably be better
Motor casing 51 x 2.5mm
electrical plug 7.8 x 1.9mm

 

[Budge]

I don't have an efi car, but I some other folks are going to find that really helpful. careful with that testing. Don't think I need to point out that the last thing you want is another fire.......

 

[PeterMol]

He is game budge. No fear no gain

 

[Budge]

He is game budge. No fear no gain

Well I'd be up for another Faulksy restoration thread - but wouldn't want him to torch it on my account

 

[ramonm]

I don't have an efi car, but I some other folks are going to find that really helpful. careful with that testing. Don't think I need to point out that the last thing you want is another fire.......

Yes, perhaps a bench test >>>
Ramon

 

[faulksy]

Not sure I could survive rebuilding this car a third time haha. Current plan for testing the pump is to hook up a pressure gauge to the pressure port and then just run hoses from the inlet and return ports to a jerry can. Going to have to wait a weekend or two before frankensteining that together so in the meantime I've had the metal polish out and been playing with spheres.

Thanks to the amazing generosity of some on this forum I now have a set of interior lamps.

Some soapy water and metal polish later and they came up a treat.

​

Some may remember a while back I was chasing around problems with the front suspension. Turned out that the wrong size o rings had been fitted to the gas port which meant that the spheres would hold the initial 59 bar of nitrogen but leaked when installed and subjected to normal operating conditions. 1 Sphere is fixed but the one still on the car will have to wait till paint is finished. Don't think the panel beater will thank me for spreading LHM across his paint shop.

 

[PeterMol]

This car is beginning to look too good Michael. It’ll be great. By the way the spheres have held up till today. So far so good

 

[faulksy]

Concourse next year could turn into a battle Peter..... Good to hear the spheres are holding their gas, hopefully that's an end to the sphere problems.

Seeing as the body is about ready for paint I figured it might be time to do a bit of a trim stocktake. Sifting through hundreds of identical looking bits of trim piled into the boot of a wrecked GS wagon was certainly an interesting way to get pallas trim. I knew I had roughly the right number of pieces but no real idea of what was missing besides the wide trim with they grey rubber insert.

A bit of detective work with a tape measure and parts book quickly resolved the problem. It was nice of Citroen to list out the lengths of the various pieces in addition to just giving a part number.

Turns out the only missing bits are the 2 lower pieces for the front guards and one of the lower pieces for the front doors. If anybody has those pieces for sale, or know of someone, it would be great to hear from you. Otherwise I'll have to buy a whole set of lower trims which seems a bit overkill.

Everything needed a good polish, I was really surprised at how well they came up. The left end of this part has been polished and the right hasn't. There's a few light scratches under all the dirt but no dents or gouges.

The real transformation is the A pillar trim. It's not a trick, all the stainless trim really is still in place in the photo below. You can just about make out the joining piece in the centre of the windscreen

After a lot of elbow grease they came up like new. The soot was baked on along with melted rubber from the windscreen rubber.

The parts at the bottom of the photo are for the interior at the top of the doors. I'd be interested to hear from anyone that has odd pieces or even a set of the middle exterior trim with the grey rubber insert. Condition of the rubber isn't important as long as the stainless steel isn't kinked and dented. Hopefully this lot will be on the car in the very near future.

 

[Steve K]

Hi Faulksy,
Re the fuel pump, great instructional with photos.
My Alpine A310 1600VF had an identical looking one.
I had to replace it way back in the 70's. Now, after 20 years sitting idle,
it wouldn't spin. Pulled it apart to find varnish in the roller area. Flipped
the rotor over as the drive pin on the shaft had worn a slot into the rotor.
Did you encounter this? Any idea of a fix?

 

[faulksy]

Funnily enough there was a slot in the rotor next to the pin, I assumed it was meant to be there as there nothing else was worn. I've got another pump and it would be interesting to see if it's the same. The only fix for worn out internal parts would be to live with it or replace as spare parts were never made. You can get brand new pumps from the Mercedes Benz Classic Center but be prepared to pay a lot for one. No issues with varnish gumming things up despite the car sitting for about 10 years and going through a flood. Varnish should clean off with carby cleaner or perhaps some metal polish.

 

[Steve K]

I have flipped rotors before. no problem.
They all start out without any slot at all. It is wear.
Probably create more problems trying to fill them up with weld etc.
All very high tolerance stuff.
I have polished off varnish, but if the pump spins, expect it would wear off.