I'm not a fan of 2CV "kitcars" .....but I could happily own a Manx.
T.

Changed my brake pads. I don't do brakes normally because although happy to have a go at stuff, I've never trusted my standard of workmanship on brakes.

So funny, I had no idea it was so laughably easy!

My old ones were working ok after an oil soaking but obviously they must be impregnated with oil, and I have MOT on Tuesday.

Reminds me to change mine sometime after my "event" although they do work really well never the less - key with anything to do with brakes is absolute cleanliness once you get anywhere near the actual fluid and to be fastidious and logical.

I've had the pads sitting in my kitchen for awhile.. The old pads took a full on soaking on a long journey but surprisingly did recover in the end. I feel the very slightest of pulls to one side though still, cant imagine thats going to be ideal on the MOT machine.

Usually they are, if someone hasn't hassle with them. Makes me laugh, to hear how much it would cost at workshop...

As plenty of maintaining with 2CV, very simple, no need of special tools (ok, some, but possible to made on your own), no heavy parts to lift - all this compared to "real cars"... These little gems are made to maintain by owner with simple tools, and also need to maintain them, not only drive until they break...

Ian,
did you ever have to carry out a 'fully laden, from high speed' stop with those oil-contaminated pads?
If you did, you'd probably find out the hard way that the peak stopping power was less than with brake pads in good condition.
With pads or brake shoes which have been contaminated by brake fluid or oil, the initial 'grab' is higher, but the friction that's available under maximum contact pressure is reduced.

Oil-contaminated clutches suffer judder because of that 'high initial grab' effect, but it's most noticable in a drum braked car, when it will initially veer towards the side that's been contaminated, then as brake pressure is increased, it heads off in the opposite direction.

Most unsettling and not at all safe...

Ken, no it was that kind of thought that prompted me buying new pads.

Took the old girl out for a pootle around the island this afternoon. Had the front half of the hood open, with the shade fitted. Very pleasant.

Changed the nearside driveshaft for a nice new ECAS one. Haven't done one before, it was laughably easy, quite fun really.
Only slight snag was the castellated nut that came with the shaft didn't have long enough teeth, so I had to reuse the old one. It also didn't have the kind of self centring ring that the original had. Also the fixing strap that came with the driveshaft was snapped, so I used a ziptie.

Apart from that, I can't believe i had a garage do this job before. Took an hour or so. Needed a bit of heat to loosen the big nut on the end. Buggered up my torque wrench too I think It only went up to about 250NM so I tightened it to that and then some. It doesn't work now, serves me right

So I have two new driveshafts now, all is hunky dory down there. (One got really worn last year so it was done.)

Didn't do anything but drive it today but yesterday I did the following:

1) Changed the engine oil/filter
2) Changed gearbox oil
3) Swapped main and dipped beam wires going to headlamp on passenger side (someone got them reversed at some point)
4) Removed groaty looking insulation that had separated from bulkhead and curled up on the edges and the padding.

This was what it looked like when I got it.



Since the inside walls has this same flocking material, I figured doing the dash tray in this same material would look like it belongs there. So far I just have the corner on the drivers' side:



I did not have one of those fabric chalk sticks so I'll need to see if I can remove the blue marker with some lacquer thinner.

The passenger side looks bad as well.



I have not decided whether to leave the insulation be and glue the flocking over top of it and use the piece of insulation from the corner to make up the hole at the edge (if that makes sense).

So far I've felt of the bulkhead in the corner and it's not even warm. So I'm thinking about just removing the insulation and go with the flocking material.