Just returned from the weekly shopping trip. It's only around a three mile round trip, but it was carried out in the dark and wet, and in heavy traffic, the relevance of which will soon become clear.

One of the most remarkable things I find about owning and using a 2cv as daily transport is my apparent ability to put one car in the garage on a Wednesday evening, yet pull a seemingly different car out on Thursday morning. I have never managed to come to terms with quite how an inanimate object is able to mal-adjust itself in the privacy of its own garage overnight?

Driving through the bumper to bumper misery that is rush hour this evening I once again got that funny feeling that 'something' had changed.

I didn't know what it was, and it must have been registering on a subconscious level as I just couldn't put my finger on it. Looking and listening as I drove along, my concentration regularly disrupted by various nut-jobs barging through the heavy traffic, I made a mental note that the tick-over was slightly fast. (must get around to doing that sticky choke)

I was all eyes and ears, I knew something had changed, but there were no new rattles or noises, and apart from the aforementioned fast tick-over the car was driving fine. You know what it felt like? Well earlier today I'd been on Lenny's blue Celeste blog where someone had done one of those 'spot the difference' things between two similar photo's, and that's roughly how I felt while driving along... just what was the difference?

In the busy traffic I stopped behind a vehicle that was bigger than me, in fact its brake lights were right in line with my eyes, and he was one of those drivers that kept his foot on the brake rather than use the handbrake which made it uncomfortably bright for me. I wondered to myself if my own high level brake light might do that to to other road users? I glanced back in the mirror to see, and saw a reflection in the back window of the contents of my boot, all lit up in red from the brake light that had fallen in there!

So I thought I'd share that little tale with you as I sit here with a cup of tea and a hobnob, wondering what type of glue will hold it in place against the glass?

another brilliant story from a brilliant top lad!!

classic!!

is there now way someone or you coul dmanufature some sort of bracket to drop down from the bar that comes across just above the rear window?

Thats what I did, used a sheet of alu and bent it to fit the bar above the rear window, and mounted the 'aftermarket' centre brake light upside down. (it was designed to stand up on the parcel shelf of a normal car)

sorry about the spelling, had just woken up!!

I've got a third brakelight on mine at the top of the screen. Found the sticky pads supplied quite useless, to be honest. I got some 'No More Nails' sticky pads from B&Q, and they've kept it in place for over a year now. When the originals failed, I used a length of nylon fishing line to secure it to the bodyshell roof crossmember with bluetack on the window..

Thanks for the advice fella's, I've given it another go this morning so we'll see how it goes.

I tried fitting this to the top of the window like you guys did but I found it took up more window in the zone where I wanted to see out of, so I settled on having it low down instead, you don't seem to see it the same there.

I'm a bit concerned by a post I read elsewhere this morning actually, as it could be that some folks dislike posts that aren't simply factual. Now I know that I'm the one that is usually guilty of rambling on, but in my defence I'll say that I post here just as if I was in the room with you, it's what I'd say if I was there with you, and I try to put in as much small detail as possible in order to help you see what I've done. Handy for if you might ever want to do something similar some day.

So depending which camp you fall into I'll do two posts in one.

Factual post - Glued the stop light back on this morning - job done!

Rambling post. I had some glue left over from Frosts which I had used to stick the sound insulation in - and it's pretty sticky stuff so I decided to try it to glue the light back onto the glass. I'm not a fan of sticking things to glass really, as I can't believe any type of glue will be permanent in that situation. This frost stuff though is very sticky, it's one of those where you coat both bits, allow it 5 mins to go off, before placing the bits together for an instant stick.

The trouble with that is if you put it on in the wrong place, or slightly crooked say, then that's where it stays. To make sure I put it where I wanted it first time I offered it up again placed some fine line tape on the outer window to mark the correct position.



I found that if you simply used the boot lid hinge or window rubber as a guide for the feet of this unit then the actual light bit ended up being positioned partly below the rear window aperture, which is pointless, so it had to be raised up a little and marked as in the pic' below.



The pic' above shows where I found it to perform the best, in that it was visible from behind but not overly visible to the driver. In a similar way that the sun visor cuts down forward vision, I found the stop light to cut down rearward vision, so for me it had to be placed low.



Having applied the glue to both areas of contact and let it go off a bit, I used the tape guides to place the light centrally and level. I suppose felt tip pen on the outer window would do just as well if you have no tape, but you need something as this glue is a one shot deal.



In this final photo I have tried to give the perspective of the driver of a following car. The light is obvious with none of it lost behind the lip of the glass, yet being so low it is fairly invisible to the driver, so not so much valuable rearward vision is lost. You can probably see now that If I had just placed the feet of the unit on the window's edge rather than mark it out and raise it up there would be no stop light showing to the vehicles behind.

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So, someone on here likes only factual posts, eh?!

Well, I have a couple of facts they can have for now't...

Like, er, don't read 'em then or summat...

so er, reading pratical classics, old nail your in it, i took a pic will post tomrow

nice pic of your car in scotland i believe

I've seen it James. The picture was taken in Wales, the PC team couldn't even get that right! Buy classics monthly, it's a far better mag.

i didint buy it just read it