I used a piece of a Coke can to seal a blower motor housing at work once.
Very nice car, I’ve always been interested in the 2CV even though I’m a yank. If I had one I would be tempted to completely trick it out.
What kind of mileage are you getting out of that thing?
The coke cans will be a temporary thing, not sure how much I trust them being glued so near to the cam followers when the engine is spending most of it’s time up over 5000rpm… Picked up a good head for it today anyway, which will hopefully solve the sodding oil leak that’s blowing all over the brake disc.
The only times I’ve measured fuel economy I’ve been doing longer runs with a lot of sitting at 70mph, which is somewhere about 5600rpm, so it’s not fantastic, about 36mpg imperial.
Compared to the two vehicles I drive, that’s phenomenal.
I guess your cars engines are a bit bigger than a 2 cylinder 602cc though, heh. I’d guess when it was driven gently round town or something and not on motorway runs it would probably improve a fair bit, but I don’t do loads of miles in it and it’s good fun to rag about, so as I say I don’t check it too often.
3L V6 in the Taurus, and a 5.9L V8 in the Jeep. Best I’ve managed in the Taurus was 24-26 on the highway, in town I get around 10-12. When I last had the Jeep running I was getting about 5-7mpg in the city, and maybe 13 highway.
If most of your driving is cruising on the motorway, you’ll see much higher economy. Highway speeds that are steady are way more efficient than stop and go driving.
Right, since the Pepsi can thing I’ve installed a good head on that side of the engine, so all is well again (and less tappy as a bonus).
It’s in for it’s MOT this week and I’m hoping to god it passes, as it’s lined up for a pretty special event on Monday I’ll hopefully have some good pictures of after the fact. It’ll be completely out of it’s depth but should be hugely entertaining…
You are a cool dude, with some skills and some sick cars. I can’t speak from experience since I can’t drive but I remember beating on a slightly upgraded 2CV in Gran Turismo - so much fun! I see quite a few of them up here in Norway, they are cool little cars. Anyway, I enjoy reading your stuff 
Thanks! I’m pleased somebody does, haha.
Well, preparation for Monday is going well!
WARNING: INCOMING ESSAY 
Well, I didn’t get many pictures from the above mentioned event, as I was too busy having massive fun. I’ve been very ill today off work so I thought I’d scour the intertubes and see if I could find anything, and I managed to find 2 pictures.
So, I can now reveal that previously mentioned special event was… a track day.
I had no idea what to expect going into it. It was a charity event organised by a charity called the Sporting Bears at a local racetrack. Local children’s charities are invited to come along and the children and their families are taken for a few laps of the track in everything from my 2CV to a Ferrari. Drivers volunteer their time and cars for the event, and it’s something I’d always wanted to get involved with.
With the above, I thought it would be quite a sedate event, despite there being some machinery far more serious than mine. As we went into the sighting lap early in the morning, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a tiny bit nervous.
Just out of shot is the Bentley Continental that was following me. Any thoughts I had about this being quite sedate quickly vanished when I realised I was going absolutely flat out and still starting to get left behind - on the sighting lap. When we pulled back into the pits, the driver of the Bentley behind came over in hysterics, saying that despite trying to find lines and apexes it was far more entertaining just watching me rolling about the place.
Despite putting the engine and so on together myself, I had reservations about how well the 2CV was going to hold up. Yeah who am I kidding, I don’t trust my own spanner work too much. It was blazing direct sun, about 25 degrees (for the North of England that’s borderline tropical) and despite barely seeing the low side of 5000RPM all day it performed flawlessly (and I spent most of the time on the back straight moved over to the inside to let other cars pass 
).
I didn’t expect it to go down anywhere near as well as it did. I had drivers of Caterhams, Lotuses and TVRs all wanting rides in it. One Caterham driver even commented how well it gripped during the wide hairpin at the end of the back straight. I was even managing to put in longer stints than some of the serious stuff before my brakes started to, resulting in this picture of it cooling off amongst the big boys.
In all seriousness, these children have life limiting illnesses, and it was an extremely humbling event to be part of. You feel an immense pride seeing them smiling and laughing, knowing that a machine you have put so much time and effort into is bringing such happiness to so many deserving people, and it was definitely a little emotional when the end of the day came around. It was without a shadow of a doubt the best car event I have been involved with, I’ve since attended another with the GT86 and I’m due to take the 2CV to another this weekend.
Properly proud of this little old French heap.
I have to admit, I saw that first picture and assumed you’d decided to do a barrel roll, beautiful looking car mate.
The body roll on that model is Epic!
Is there any car that is anywhere close?
Er I suppose the only other close thing would be the Renault 4 off the top of my head. Don’t think there’s anything else that looks so daft mid corner.
I haven’t logged onto this site in a very long time since I took a break from Automation. One of the first things I wanted to do was swing by and check on your car. I am not disappointed! 
It’s come so far since last time I saw it. You’ve made a lot of awesome improvements and tackled some serious problems. Now look at it, running around a racetrack with such enthusiasm! All for a good cause too. It’s amazing how much an automobile can enrich so many lives in so many ways.
Loving the yellow wheels by the way, and finally got that single-spoke steering wheel! So awesome. Keep it up, I’d love to see more. Most importantly, thanks for enriching my life a little by going into such detail on your posts. Almost feels like it’s in my garage 
Happy Motoring!
Thanks for the warm welcome back! Nice to meet you.
Hey, welcome back.
Thanks, that actually means a lot, I usually just write this because I think I like hearing the sound of my own voice, haha.
I’ve just had a quick look up the thread and it didn’t seem like that long ago, I hadn’t had it very long when we last spoke so yes definitely a lot has changed!
Yes, this, so many times this. Especially knowing how much work you have put in to said automobile.
I hear you loud and clear on that. I can’t think of a more rewarding feeling than driving something you’ve poured your heart and soul into. Hearing them crest the redline with sweat beading off your forehead as you wonder “is it going to hold together?”. Thick and thin, good and bad, the car is always faithfully awaiting your next move. It can sit in the garage for months without being touched and still it’s ears perk up when it knows you’ve come to play. Truly man’s best friend 
Well, it’s been two years.
If anything I’d say it’s looking better now, quite a bit has changed. This year I think will have to be the year I start tackling the body properly though. It’s not bad, but parts of it are going or have been made of filler in the past which is now breaking up, so really it needs to be done before it gets seriously bad.
Most recently it’s seen some decent improvements in lighting. You may notice the DRLs have gone - I never thought they suited the car but was begrudged to remove them when they worked. Fortunately the control unit burnt out earlier in the year, so they’re gone now. I may repurpose the lamp units later on.
Another problem I was having was the headlights seemed to be getting dimmer and dimmer. In a 2CV as standard, the light circuit runs right through from the battery, to the switch, then back to each bulb. It’s not a very safe or efficient setup to begin with, but over time as the contacts in the switch corrode, the output to the bulbs can lower and the switch begins to get hot, eventually to the point where some have been known to melt in use. I noticed mine getting warm after a shortish run one night, and with the Tan Hill Raid coming up (the bottom picture above) with it’s dodgy british weather and dark drive home, I decided to brave the cold and see what I could do about it.
I don’t remember the exact measurements now, but when I checked I was getting something like 9 volts at the bulb. When you consider these were only 40/45w Tungsten bulbs, you can imagine that light output wasn’t spectacular. (Not helped by my preference for selective yellow bulbs either).
I made myself up a small loom at the front of the car that fits into the existing headlight loom, which serves two purposes. One, it allows me to run a much shorter direct feed from the battery, through two relays directly to the bulb holders for the lights, meaning I’m now getting much healthier output at the bulbs. It’s also let me add a fuse into the headlight circuit, as there isn’t one fitted as standard. I’ve put it all together so it connects nicely into where the loom splits at the front, so if any of my relays were to fail I can return it to standard at the side of the road in an emergency.
This made an absolutely huge difference, and at the same time I fitted 55/60w halogen bulbs. Even though they’re just a cheap brand and still selective yellow, the difference is huge, it’s almost like a proper car. 
Still hoping to find some better bulbs at some point just to finish the job off.
I also discovered on the way home that the single spoke wheel makes an outstanding holder for too many Chicken McNuggets.
The good (well, for England at least) weather is coming around again, which means shows are starting up. First of these was a little classic meet at a local supermarket. I gave the 2CV a very quick clean as it’d been stood since the above event at the beginning of the year, so was thick of dust and still had loads of road salt on it.
Then one night last week, a show at a local village popped up on Facebook for the next day. As the weather was good I thought I’d go along expecting a small event, turned out to be relatively massive. The whole village it was in was taken up by cars and bikes on show, tons of people had turned out, and it was a properly nice night with the sun low in the sky. I’ve posted a link to these photos in my photo thread, but another repost can’t hurt. These were also the first pictures of it with my new camera.
This car has really got to the point of needing a fair bit of work doing this year to the body, and I was in two minds about getting it done or getting rid, but a plan may be coming to fruition there to get this sorted out for a few more years.
Well, that, and driving home with the sun setting behind me on deserted roads with the roof back and 80s TV Themes on full blast on the stereo helped me remember why I enjoy it so much. 
