Jeez! With the interior alight, I can see what i assume were frantic attempts to crowbar the bonnet up so that you could douse the fire. If it had been a carb car, my primary suspect would be a fuel hose that has leaked or fallen off the carb - but yours is an ie. From the bonnet fire damage, it looks as though most of the flames were over on the RHS of the car? What's the thinking on the cause please?
Resurrecting a Goddess.......Twice
- Thread starter faulksy
- Start date
Cause? I reckon it needs further investigation Paul.
I questioned Michael's belief that it was leaking LHM on the exhaust manifold.(felt soaked LHM involved)
I carried out a simple experiment of pouring LHM on a (almost) red hot piece of metal and I could not get it to ignite.
Johnģ
I did wonder whether it might be put down to LHM. Your car is a bvh and has a centrifugal regulator. I recently read somewhere that the early centrifugal regulators didn't have a return pie sticking out of the top at the back. It was added when they switched to LHM because of the danger of fluid falling on the manifold and igniting.
The fire started at or just above the exhaust manifold and set the hose connecting the air filter to the throttle body alight. From there it burnt into the cabin via the drivers side cabin vent. Damage in the engine bay is pretty minor mostly just fried hoses and black soot everywhere. I’m really just guessing at the cause. There’s no fuel lines or wiring over that side of the engine and the wiring to the wing is undamaged. I’ve had the felt pad on the crc drip tray ignite before so that’s my best bet.
The bonnet damage was the firemen prising it open. They were more concerned about the 6 gas meters it was parked next to... The fire was hot enough to burn the aluminium roof yet the chassis is perfect with barely any damage to the paint.
The bonnet damage was the firemen prising it open. They were more concerned about the 6 gas meters it was parked next to... The fire was hot enough to burn the aluminium roof yet the chassis is perfect with barely any damage to the paint.
I know that on an ie, the CRC unit is in a different location than on a carb car, but have never really known where. More to the point, on a carb car, there is no trip tray? other than reading somewhere that the springs inside were different, the CRC unit is essentially the same - and I'm trying to imagine where they drip from? Presumably an overflow hole?
No matter, it sounds as though the damage was a setback, but not a showstopper. I look forward to the next instalment of your story. The title makes sense now!
No matter, it sounds as though the damage was a setback, but not a showstopper. I look forward to the next instalment of your story. The title makes sense now!
Hi Paul, the CRC on an injected DS lives on the side of the inlet manifold just below the throttle body above the exhaust manifold. Citroen clearly thought that it might leak so helpfully provided a drip tray......bolted to the exhaust manifold. As such it gets very hot. Weather this was to evaporate any LHM soaked up in the felt pad I have no idea but it verges on dangerous as I've had the felt ignite once before. You can just about see the corrector in this photo below the throttle body.
The cold start injector is a likely suspect but I had the bonnet open about 15min before the fire and all was well. The hoses were all less than a year old and not leaking. The car wasn't running so the amount of fuel still in the rail is pretty minimal. That said I wouldn't rule it out as an option.
Think I've got just about everything to rebuild. Mercifully, all the BVH parts survived despite being at the centre of the fire. Interior trim is providing the hardest to source but we're getting there.
Thanks for that bit of info about the CRC, i was musing what the exact difference was besides the mounting method. I've just taken the CRC apart using your post as a guide and had to use quite a lot of force to remove the slide valve which surprised me. I was wondering if it would be possible to use the valve body off a carby car to rebuild as there aren't many injected BVH cars around here to get a replacement.
The cold start injector is a likely suspect but I had the bonnet open about 15min before the fire and all was well. The hoses were all less than a year old and not leaking. The car wasn't running so the amount of fuel still in the rail is pretty minimal. That said I wouldn't rule it out as an option.
Think I've got just about everything to rebuild. Mercifully, all the BVH parts survived despite being at the centre of the fire. Interior trim is providing the hardest to source but we're getting there.
Thanks for that bit of info about the CRC, i was musing what the exact difference was besides the mounting method. I've just taken the CRC apart using your post as a guide and had to use quite a lot of force to remove the slide valve which surprised me. I was wondering if it would be possible to use the valve body off a carby car to rebuild as there aren't many injected BVH cars around here to get a replacement.
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Episode 10: The Aftermath
Damage from the fire could have been a lot worse, the frame and most panels survived with only damage to the paint. Sadly the car's original 1970 interior was destroyed with many 1 year only parts being turned into molten blobs of plastic. Turns out 70s vinyl burns quite nicely and was what really fuelled the fire. The flames coming form the burning driver's seat were hot enough to shatter the window and evaporate the aluminium roof directly above.
What is really impressive is how little damage there is to the engine. Most of the rubber hoses went hard and turned to dust when touched and the wiring lost it's insulation but thats about it. The suspension was still up 2 days later! What you don't get from the photos is the smell. It's a mix of burnt plastic, oil, paint and rubber that is hard to describe. The final pic is it being sent off to Paris motors for an insurance assessment.
After a week of me agonising over the somewhat onerous process of potentially having to re-register a write-off or of it being recorded a statutory write off Shannons came back with this fun fact: In Victoria, if a car is more than 15 years old at the time of being written off it does not need to be entered onto the write-off register. Because of that the car will stay fully registered. Between that and having full salvage rights at no extra charge the rebuild can begin!
Damage from the fire could have been a lot worse, the frame and most panels survived with only damage to the paint. Sadly the car's original 1970 interior was destroyed with many 1 year only parts being turned into molten blobs of plastic. Turns out 70s vinyl burns quite nicely and was what really fuelled the fire. The flames coming form the burning driver's seat were hot enough to shatter the window and evaporate the aluminium roof directly above.
What is really impressive is how little damage there is to the engine. Most of the rubber hoses went hard and turned to dust when touched and the wiring lost it's insulation but thats about it. The suspension was still up 2 days later! What you don't get from the photos is the smell. It's a mix of burnt plastic, oil, paint and rubber that is hard to describe. The final pic is it being sent off to Paris motors for an insurance assessment.
After a week of me agonising over the somewhat onerous process of potentially having to re-register a write-off or of it being recorded a statutory write off Shannons came back with this fun fact: In Victoria, if a car is more than 15 years old at the time of being written off it does not need to be entered onto the write-off register. Because of that the car will stay fully registered. Between that and having full salvage rights at no extra charge the rebuild can begin!
I guess there's some pretty toxic bits and pieces that will be binned so hopefully you take precautions when working. Very sad to see such a nice car self immolate. You'll get there, and if it ever happens again you'll have an accesible fire extinguisher stored ready to hit it. Been there myself. Everyone should have one in their vintage car.
Bloody hell Faulksy..
I'm glad no -one was injured, that is really nasty.
I'm also really glad you have decided to re-build - you have garnered so much experience to this point resurrection No 2 will be even more wonderful.
Good news from Shannons - I had a similar experience myself when my DS was rear ended, but before I embarked on repairs (not the best way to detect rust)
Thanks for posting your experiences - it is much appreciated .
Good luck
Ramon
so It's been a while since the last update. Since then the head has been off, firewall and frame repainted and new wiring has gone in. Lots to cover but I appear to have been locked out of my Flickr account so standby while I sort another way to add photos.
Episode 11: PROGRESS!
Time for a progress update I think. Step 1 post fire was to remove all the broken glass and rip out all the carpets which had soaked up a huge amount of water. Most of the carpet had survived the fire but I couldn't face the thought of cleaning them and getting the burnt smell out.
Step 2 was scrubbing all the soot and tar off the frame. Amazingly under all the black and melted rubber there was no damage to the frame. There was a small section of the firewall and windscreen frame frame that needed a repaint though. A couple of hours with the wire brush, rust converter and some black paint took us from this
to this. Looks much better I'd say
Once the paint dried it was time for a windscreen. This will be the third time I've had to put a screen into a DS and each time has take a different approach. I began by putting the rubber seal into the frame and trying to insert the glass as i did the last time but it was having none of it. One side went in nicely but there was a 50mm gap at the top on the other side. No amount of shoving was going to solve that. Attempt 2 was a week later by which time the rubber had taken on the shape of the frame having been left there in disgrace. 5 Minutes later the screen was in. One thing that gets missed a lot when fitting a new rubber seal is the need to slice 50mm off the inside part of the seal to clear the dashboard.
In addition to painting the firewall I had to replace all of the insulation that had perished. Since the original mob selling the EZcool insulation appear to have shut up shop I started looking around locally and came upon Car Builder's Australia based in S.E Melbourne. the reviews were all pretty good so i figured they were worth a go. I placed an order for their stage 1 & stage 2 products and it turned up 2 days later!
The stage 1 is a very heavy foil faced butyl sheet designed to add mass and damp vibrations. It's self adhesive so no more being gassed by glue fumes like last time! The stage 2 is a dense foam designed to reduce air born sound and give some thermal insulation. Much like before I'll line the whole firewall and floor with both products. Have to wait till we're up and running again to decide how effective it is but it certainly looks the part. I've only done the section behind the dashboard as water was getting into the car and i didn't want it being soaked into the foam.
Time for a progress update I think. Step 1 post fire was to remove all the broken glass and rip out all the carpets which had soaked up a huge amount of water. Most of the carpet had survived the fire but I couldn't face the thought of cleaning them and getting the burnt smell out.
Step 2 was scrubbing all the soot and tar off the frame. Amazingly under all the black and melted rubber there was no damage to the frame. There was a small section of the firewall and windscreen frame frame that needed a repaint though. A couple of hours with the wire brush, rust converter and some black paint took us from this
to this. Looks much better I'd say
Once the paint dried it was time for a windscreen. This will be the third time I've had to put a screen into a DS and each time has take a different approach. I began by putting the rubber seal into the frame and trying to insert the glass as i did the last time but it was having none of it. One side went in nicely but there was a 50mm gap at the top on the other side. No amount of shoving was going to solve that. Attempt 2 was a week later by which time the rubber had taken on the shape of the frame having been left there in disgrace. 5 Minutes later the screen was in. One thing that gets missed a lot when fitting a new rubber seal is the need to slice 50mm off the inside part of the seal to clear the dashboard.
In addition to painting the firewall I had to replace all of the insulation that had perished. Since the original mob selling the EZcool insulation appear to have shut up shop I started looking around locally and came upon Car Builder's Australia based in S.E Melbourne. the reviews were all pretty good so i figured they were worth a go. I placed an order for their stage 1 & stage 2 products and it turned up 2 days later!
The stage 1 is a very heavy foil faced butyl sheet designed to add mass and damp vibrations. It's self adhesive so no more being gassed by glue fumes like last time! The stage 2 is a dense foam designed to reduce air born sound and give some thermal insulation. Much like before I'll line the whole firewall and floor with both products. Have to wait till we're up and running again to decide how effective it is but it certainly looks the part. I've only done the section behind the dashboard as water was getting into the car and i didn't want it being soaked into the foam.
Episode 12: The Spaghetti Monster Explodes
I can only work on the car itself on weekends so to keep things moving I figured building a new wiring loom or two was something I could do of an evening after work. Removing the old loom required painstaking labeling of both sides of every connector. In most cases I had to slice through the outer blackened layer of the colour sleeves just to see what was what. Eventually the loom was liberated and nailed to a board. As you can imagine the section directly behind the instruments had not fared well ending up as a twisted lump of copper and melted plastic. Al least it was still in one piece.
The general plan is one wire out, one wire in. But Citroen being Citroen, I wasn't going to get away that easily. One surprise was that the main power feed wire from the battery had gotten hot enough at some point to melt the insulation and melt into the wires surrounding it
I can only work on the car itself on weekends so to keep things moving I figured building a new wiring loom or two was something I could do of an evening after work. Removing the old loom required painstaking labeling of both sides of every connector. In most cases I had to slice through the outer blackened layer of the colour sleeves just to see what was what. Eventually the loom was liberated and nailed to a board. As you can imagine the section directly behind the instruments had not fared well ending up as a twisted lump of copper and melted plastic. Al least it was still in one piece.
The general plan is one wire out, one wire in. But Citroen being Citroen, I wasn't going to get away that easily. One surprise was that the main power feed wire from the battery had gotten hot enough at some point to melt the insulation and melt into the wires surrounding it
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Good on you Faulksy. That loom looks like the kind of thing you find on a 68/69 car where everything perishes. I gave up on mine and bought a new loom. I think you are clearly made of sterner stuff!
Thanks Budge. From what I hear the condition of looms from that period is pot luck.
The Spaghetti Monster Part II
After more research than is probably sensible i decided that replacing the wiring with cable form the local electronics supply stores was a false economy. Pretty much all of it sold for automotive applications uses the same insulating material which has a melting point of 80°C and is flammable. In the end I settled on cable that uses a silicon insulation which is fuel & oil resistant, flame retardant and 3 times more flexible. It's available in all 10 of the Citroen colours but the cost of doing that adds up pretty fast and many of the wires have different colours on either end which would add a lot of unnecessary splices. For connectors I went with crimped spades and banana plugs of a much sturdier construction than the Citroen originals. The downside is they have to be soldered on which is somewhat more time consuming but they are gold plated and grip a lot harder than the Citroen design. Colour coding was done with good old heatskrink.
Now for the challenging part, figuring out which wiring diagram goes with this car. For reasons known only to Citroen, an export market RHD 1970 DS21 IE BVH has a different fuse layout to any other model! I went through every workshop manual and cross checked all the wiring diagrams readily available and none that I could find had a layout with 8 fuses that matched what I had taken out of the car. The closest I came was this diagram from manual 814. The major difference is that on my car, power for all the accessories runs through a white & yellow fuse next to the wiper motor and the other 6 are for the various lights. Yes I could have just followed the standard wiring diagram but wheres the challenge in that? On the diagram below, the green and red fuses at the key become white and yellow and the headlamps run through the blue, green, red, yellow and mauve fuses. On a LHD car the headlamps are unfused.
The process of building the loom was pretty straight forward. Each wire was removed from the loom where possible and a new one made up to replace it. Most of the wires don't have any branches and run direct from a switch to the item it's controlling but some have many branches. Citroen used three gauges of wire originally with green being the thinnest, then grey and yellow. The black wires can be any one of the three so matching the wire gauges was tedious as most of the loom is black. I took the opportunity to beef up the wire gauge for the headlamps and main power feed wiring, it didn't add much to the cost and can't hurt. Eventually the new loom emerged as each burnt wire was removed. 2 weeks and 65m of wire later the new loom was ready for connectors and testing.
The hardest part was running the wires for the instrument cluster and the ignition switch. On the old loom it was impossible to separate any of them and all the colour sleeves on the ignition switch were gone. Thankfully I had a spare ignition switch for reference. I'm still amazed the switch survived given everything around it melted or burned. Some sewing machine oil was needed to free off the steering lock bolt which returned the thing to perfect working order. Stand by for part 3 where the loom is tested and installed.
The Spaghetti Monster Part II
After more research than is probably sensible i decided that replacing the wiring with cable form the local electronics supply stores was a false economy. Pretty much all of it sold for automotive applications uses the same insulating material which has a melting point of 80°C and is flammable. In the end I settled on cable that uses a silicon insulation which is fuel & oil resistant, flame retardant and 3 times more flexible. It's available in all 10 of the Citroen colours but the cost of doing that adds up pretty fast and many of the wires have different colours on either end which would add a lot of unnecessary splices. For connectors I went with crimped spades and banana plugs of a much sturdier construction than the Citroen originals. The downside is they have to be soldered on which is somewhat more time consuming but they are gold plated and grip a lot harder than the Citroen design. Colour coding was done with good old heatskrink.
Now for the challenging part, figuring out which wiring diagram goes with this car. For reasons known only to Citroen, an export market RHD 1970 DS21 IE BVH has a different fuse layout to any other model! I went through every workshop manual and cross checked all the wiring diagrams readily available and none that I could find had a layout with 8 fuses that matched what I had taken out of the car. The closest I came was this diagram from manual 814. The major difference is that on my car, power for all the accessories runs through a white & yellow fuse next to the wiper motor and the other 6 are for the various lights. Yes I could have just followed the standard wiring diagram but wheres the challenge in that? On the diagram below, the green and red fuses at the key become white and yellow and the headlamps run through the blue, green, red, yellow and mauve fuses. On a LHD car the headlamps are unfused.
The process of building the loom was pretty straight forward. Each wire was removed from the loom where possible and a new one made up to replace it. Most of the wires don't have any branches and run direct from a switch to the item it's controlling but some have many branches. Citroen used three gauges of wire originally with green being the thinnest, then grey and yellow. The black wires can be any one of the three so matching the wire gauges was tedious as most of the loom is black. I took the opportunity to beef up the wire gauge for the headlamps and main power feed wiring, it didn't add much to the cost and can't hurt. Eventually the new loom emerged as each burnt wire was removed. 2 weeks and 65m of wire later the new loom was ready for connectors and testing.
The hardest part was running the wires for the instrument cluster and the ignition switch. On the old loom it was impossible to separate any of them and all the colour sleeves on the ignition switch were gone. Thankfully I had a spare ignition switch for reference. I'm still amazed the switch survived given everything around it melted or burned. Some sewing machine oil was needed to free off the steering lock bolt which returned the thing to perfect working order. Stand by for part 3 where the loom is tested and installed.
Amazing work!
Thanks Budge. From what I hear the condition of looms from that period is pot luck.
The Spaghetti Monster Part II
After more research than is probably sensible i decided that replacing the wiring with cable form the local electronics supply stores was a false economy. Pretty much all of it sold for automotive applications uses the same insulating material which has a melting point of 80°C and is flammable. In the end I settled on cable that uses a silicon insulation which is fuel & oil resistant, flame retardant and 3 times more flexible. It's available in all 10 of the Citroen colours but the cost of doing that adds up pretty fast and many of the wires have different colours on either end which would add a lot of unnecessary splices. For connectors I went with crimped spades and banana plugs of a much sturdier construction than the Citroen originals. The downside is they have to be soldered on which is somewhat more time consuming but they are gold plated and grip a lot harder than the Citroen design. Colour coding was done with good old heatskrink.
Now for the challenging part, figuring out which wiring diagram goes with this car. For reasons known only to Citroen, an export market RHD 1970 DS21 IE BVH has a different fuse layout to any other model! I went through every workshop manual and cross checked all the wiring diagrams readily available and none that I could find had a layout with 8 fuses that matched what I had taken out of the car. The closest I came was this diagram from manual 814. The major difference is that on my car, power for all the accessories runs through a white & yellow fuse next to the wiper motor and the other 6 are for the various lights. Yes I could have just followed the standard wiring diagram but wheres the challenge in that? On the diagram below, the green and red fuses at the key become white and yellow and the headlamps run through the blue, green, red, yellow and mauve fuses. On a LHD car the headlamps are unfused.
The process of building the loom was pretty straight forward. Each wire was removed from the loom where possible and a new one made up to replace it. Most of the wires don't have any branches and run direct from a switch to the item it's controlling but some have many branches. Citroen used three gauges of wire originally with green being the thinnest, then grey and yellow. The black wires can be any one of the three so matching the wire gauges was tedious as most of the loom is black. I took the opportunity to beef up the wire gauge for the headlamps and main power feed wiring, it didn't add much to the cost and can't hurt. Eventually the new loom emerged as each burnt wire was removed. 2 weeks and 65m of wire later the new loom was ready for connectors and testing.
The hardest part was running the wires for the instrument cluster and the ignition switch. On the old loom it was impossible to separate any of them and all the colour sleeves on the ignition switch were gone. Thankfully I had a spare ignition switch for reference. I'm still amazed the switch survived given everything around it melted or burned. Some sewing machine oil was needed to free off the steering lock bolt which returned the thing to perfect working order. Stand by for part 3 where the loom is tested and installed.
I've been back to this for a second helping
It's still amazing work! Your info. about the different gauges of different colour wires is very helpful.It would depend on what was burning and when you notice Robo. I don't think the DS is any more prone to fires than other old cars but it is worth keeping a close eye on fluid leaks and fuel lines particularly if doing the maintenance yourself. All that said, carrying a fire extinguisher certainly cant hurt. The fire on mine seems to have been a bit odd in that it started on the exhaust side of the engine where there are no fuel lines of wiring.
Thanks Paul, I'm glad someone is finding this interesting. I've been reading through your blog a fair bit to rebuild the hydraulic components and cylinder head.
Thanks Paul, I'm glad someone is finding this interesting. I've been reading through your blog a fair bit to rebuild the hydraulic components and cylinder head.
wow hats off to you! There should be an AF award for resilience and effort I can think of a fitting candidate!