My first car - back in 1971 - was a Citroën 2CV, left hand
drive, imported from Belgium. It was made 10 years or so earlier, and was one
of the last with a 'corrugated' bonnet and a 425 cc engine. I'd fallen for the
deux chevaux while on an International Voluntary Service workcamp in Rennes; of
course it was the sort of car that student volunteers would have. Mine (which I
named Maude) gave me all sorts of problems, over the 20 years I had it running,
but the problems were always soluble, and were outweighed by the delight of
swinging round bends with its floating suspension, rolling back the roof when
the sun was shining, taking the seats out to make space for a big load - and
the waves and hoots of recognition when passing another 2CV - a rare breed at
that time in Britain. It served well as a family car, at least until there were
three children (sitting in the middle of the back seat - on the tubular steel
frame between the two mains seats - was no fun); but the youngest, Nicholas,
loved it as much as I did, and before he could talk he was imitating the noise
of the engine, complete with gear change.
Maude was abandoned when I could no longer
obtain spare parts (or even tyres) for such an old model, and she gently
decayed in our garden in Scotland. A few years ago I read about a small company
in the Netherlands that supplies the parts for kit cars based on the 2CV. The
thought of a sports car with the underpowered 2CV engine and gears was so
appealing - to me and to Nick - that in 2012 we made a visit to Burton Cars, in
Zutphen, to see for ourselves. To say we were impressed is an understatement.
All we needed was a sound chassis and engine.
Back in Scotland, we were clearing out rubbish,
including bits of Maude that I hadn't been able to bring myself to scrap
earlier, and before taking these to be recycled, we made a mock-up of a sports
car. A fitting end to a fun car.
I was then preoccupied with strawbale house building
(and my job in Norway) but Nick explored the internet and in April found a
Dyane for sale near Insch - just 30 miles from home. It had suffered minor
damage after only 15,000 miles, and had been abandoned in a barn for 20 years
or so; there was a good chance that the chassis and the engine would be usable.
We paid 200 pounds for it, hired a trailer, replaced a couple of wheels that
had flat tyres with Maude's old wheels, rolled it up onto the trailer and
headed for home.
(Aesthetic comment; while the 2CV was
essentially feminine, with curves in all the right places - a feature
replicated in Burton's sporty bodies - the angular Dyane attempted to look
modern by being angular, and ended up as one of the plainest cars of its time.)
We soon removed all the easily removable bits -
doors, seats, wings - and managed to sell them (for not very much) to a Dyane
fan (his wife's name is Diane, which probably accounts for the affection). We
were defeated by the steering column, and the car stayed in this
half-disassembled state until early October when we found time to tackle it
again - thinking to remove the engine to work on it under cover. We
disconnected cables, pipes and wires but the engine/gearbox mountings defeated
us; getting the body off would make the bolts more accessible, so we removed
the dozen or so screws that hold the body to the chassis and took a hacksaw to
the steering column. Then we were able to yank the body clear of the chassis,
which - as far as we could see seemed to be rust-free; but we will need a
professional opinion. 
Some corrosion on the rear arm of the chassis: we took the chassis on our trailer to the local agricultural engineer, who were bemused by the project but agreed to repair it for us.
The front wheel arms
Nick has been busy taking the engine to bits, derusting and painting.
The gearbox
The engine, from the front, with cylinder heads detached
Cylinder head covers, manifold, etc.
Tuesday, 21 November 2017
Update on the 2CV project
In spite of appearances, or rather non-appearance of entries on the blog, there has been some progress, and in future I will try to be more diligent in posting pictures to show how close we are getting to having a real car. We managed to start the engine...(see video below)
The body arrived from Burton Cars in Zutphen in the early summer. and the tub is now attached to the chassis.
The steering column and detachable wheel are waiting to be fitted, as are a plywood dashboard and various dials and switches. Lighting set, windshield, boot lid set etc. are ordered so that when Nick comes up to Aberdeen for a week in November there will be plenty to do - not least the wiring.
At last, we were ready to install the steering column. It's in two parts; the lower part from the steering rack is linked by a universal joint to the upper part which is supposed to be inserted from above through a hole in the dashboard. But when we tried this, the lower end wasn't long enough to fit into the joint. We found that inserting the shaft from behind the dashboard instead gave us enough length to engage fully with the splines on the joint. A phone call to Keith Noble confirmed that this was the way to do it - very reassuring.
Almost in running order
But meanwhile, I was working on the wiring, using a diagram supplied by Callum, who recommended not buying the Burton wiring loom, but doing it all from scratch. So we bought colour-coded cables, lots of connectors, a new soldering iron, and set to work. A prolonged process of trial and error, with eventually the satisfaction of seeing lights coming on or wipers wiping at the click of a switch. It involved a lot of lying on the floor gazing up at the back of the dashboard.
To solve a problem with the lighting switch (I have forgotten the details), we decided to have a footswitch to change between main and dipped headlights - as was done in my father's Morris Traveller. Nick made a neat steel mounting bracket for the switch.
He also made - following Callum's drawing - a bracket to to fit behind the dashboard to take the gear stick; the bracket also supports the choke cable. The big black handle at the top of the picture is the handbrake.
The gear stick is extra long compared with the original 2CV; Callum kindly gave us an extension piece (in effect, two sticks are joined together). Because of its length, it needs support where it passes into the engine compartment - a sandwich of thick polyethylene between two steel plates.
