Recently Citroen Club of North America member Randall Jones sent in this
interesting list of tool definitions. Most of us who have worked on Citroën
cars can identify with it. Enjoy!
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DRILL PRESS: A tall upright machine useful for suddenly snatching flat
metal bar stock out of your hands so that it smacks you in the chest and
flings your soda across the room, splattering it against that freshly-stained
heirloom piece you were drying.
WIRE WHEEL: Cleans paint off bolts and then throws them somewhere under
the workbench with the speed of light. Also removes fingerprints and
hard-earned guitar callouses from fingers in about the time it takes you to say,
‘Yeouw….’ Continue Reading »
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What type of brake fluid should I use in my Citroën 2CV ?
This question recently was sent in and here is my answer:
If you have a pre 1980s Citroën 2CV (that is a Citroën 2CV with four wheel drum brakes), then you want to use a good quality DOT 3 or DOT 4brake fluid . My own personal choice is a DOT 4 product made by Castrol called Castrol LMA . (the LMA stands for low moisture absorbing ). As we all know, this is a good quality for brake fluid to have since it is by nature hygroscopic, or has a tendency to absorb moisture.
Regardless, the other bit of info I can’t stress enough is to completely drain and flush out the system at least every 2 years in your Citroën 2CV . More problems and troubles with brakes seem to be caused by neglecting to do this fairly simple procedure, and moisture builds up in the system and corrosion occurs.
OK, second answer to the question: If you have a Citroën 2CV that is later then this date or has disc brakes on the front to be more accurate, then you want to be using LHM fluid . Yes, the same green stuff that you put in the hydraulic suspension cars of the same period.
Here again you want to practice my advice of changing the fluid at least every two years. Changing the fluid is such an inexpensive form of maintenance, next to rebuilding or changing out brake parts. The more I find, as these Citroëns get older and enter collector status, people have a tendency to use them less and less, and this is where periodic maintenance becomes even more important.
So take care of those Citroën 2CVs because they just don’t make them anymore!
Later,
Denis
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This was a question that recently was sent in to me, and I covered it a bit in the article that I wrote about removing the Citroen D Model fuel tank, but I will go into greater depth here.
What I will be explaining here is the removal of a fastener from your vintage Citroen . Most of these fasteners will be 25 plus years old, and you are perhaps removing them for the first time since the Citroen was new.
Depending on the location and the vintage, and of course where a fastener has spent it’s life, can have a great deal to do with how difficult it might be to remove when you want to take it apart. Continue Reading »
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Do you want to know what the point gap is on your Citroen 2 CV ?
Here recently, someone wrote in and asked me what the point gap was on their 1975 Citroen 2 CV . The best way I figured to answer this would be to list the Ignition System Specs for the 2 CV-6 engines from 1970 thru 1990 . These have the engine code: AO6/634/5Continue Reading »
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Would you like to know how to do that on your Citroën SM ? Tensioning the secondary chains with the valve covers remaining on the cylinder heads isn’t hard if you know the steps.
It is imperativeto bear in mind the grave risk of misaligning the camshafts , causing possible damage to the valves or engine.
When the chain tension is slackened, it is possible for Continue Reading »
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So you want to flush out your Citroën hydraulic system?
OK, so one last hydraulic article and I will move on to other topics, but I couldn’t let you get away with out telling you about a hydraulic flushing product made by Total called Hydraurincage . We seem to call it Hydroflush over here, but Hydraurincage is the correct name for it from the mother land.
This is a good product that I personally have had some very good results with. Continue Reading »
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What do you do if your Citroen has a contaminated Hydraulic System?
I know that I have harped on this subject for several articles now, but it is more of a problem than you might think. I found when I worked on Citroens , the cars either caught fire and burned or were abandoned because the hydraulic system had become contaminated and the owner found out that it was going to be mighty expensive to repair the car.
Well, the shop manuals and the dealer bulletins would tell you Continue Reading »
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Do you think your Citroën has contaminated hydraulic fluid ?
My little video yesterday showed you a simple test to do if the LHM system has a little brake fluid in it. Now I will tell you some of the tell tale signs to look out for when the system might be contaminated.
This may seem silly for a system that is marked properly on the hydraulic reservoir for what type of fluid it should take. But, many of these cars Continue Reading »
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Over the years I found that often times a Citroen would come into the shop or a person would send in a set of spheres to rebuild from a car that had a contaminated hydraulic system .
Always bad news to any Citroen owner, this can prove to be one of the most expensive single problems an owner of a Citroen can have. This includes 2CV s because I have seen the wrong fluid put into their hydraulic brake system too.
Back in the old days, the reason for contamination could mostly be blamed on confussion, for there was a period of time from 1966 to 1969 1/2 that cars being sold over here in the U.S. had LHS2 (Brake Fluid Based ) from the factory, while cars being sold in other parts of the world had LHM or (Mineral Based) fluid in them.
Over the years one thing led to another with many owners and people who really should not have been working on the cars putting in the wrong type of fluid.
What I am going to explain is the method I always used to tell if a system is contaminated with either Mineral fluid or Brake fluid. With this test we are talking about a Citroen with a complete hydraulic system , ie: brakes, steering, suspension etc.
Here’s a little video to show you how…
The video should have shown you the steps, but if you like to read them as well, here ya go. Continue Reading »
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