Here's what I did with my A Series this week: -

A couple of weeks ago, I bought an engine for £45 off a guy when I went to collect some tyres I'd won on eBay. He'd had this engine sat in his garage for years, and he'd never run it. I thought it was worth a punt. So I took it home, and put it on my "engine rebuilding table" in the kitchen, and set to stripping it down to see what its internals looked like. The top end looked very good indeed, so I decided to put it back together with new seals etc. On Sunday, my friend Hazel cooked roast chicken and knitted some socks, while I started putting the engine back together a la Keith Floyd: -





On Monday night, I went for a curry with friends. I gave one mate a lift, and just as I was telling him how reliable 2cvs are, and how mine's never broken down in my 15 years and 100,000 miles of ownership, it suddenly started making some very odd noises. So I pulled over, and opened the bonnet. A knock was coming from the driver's side piston/barrel, so I decided I'd better get thecar to a safe place pronto. I mostly upset about the prospect of missing a good curry.

I tried moving the car a short distance, but it immediately cut out altogether, and I coasted into a parking space, and rang my Dad, who kindly came out with his '72 2cv6 (which coincidently had just had a top end rebuild done by Alan Rogers at Citwins), and a tow rope. Comedy scenes of 2cv-towing-2cv occured, but thankfully the passing Police car didn't bother us: -



We got the engine out on Wednesday morning, only to find the flywheel stayed in the bell housing...



So...all the flywheel bolts had sheared with the force of the seizure, even though I was only doing about 1 mph at the time it happened: -



I rapidly reassambled the £45 engine in the kitchen on Wednesday evening (you can't beat working on engines in your house!), and we fitted it yesterday. The new engine started up and ran sweetly, so hopefully all's well: -





In conclusion: Old cars are more reliable than new ones, and much cheaper (and more enjoyable) to fix when they do go wrong.

Oh, and I did make it to the curry house in time for the meal, thanks to the tow from my Dad, and the loan of his D*lly

Hurrah! for 2CVs, hurrah! for Dads &, most of all, hurrah for currys! I love a happy ending, me.

Don't always get a happy ending with a curry...

shit happens as they say

MoT tomorrow - so all grubby & panicing today, grease gun & windscreen wipers all over the place...

Panic phone call from Scooba Steve as the 2CV has ground to a halt outside of Uttoxeter - usual accusations....why doesn't the fuel gauge work properly...why don't you fill it up with fuel..etc but as I was 120 miles away I could only go through the usual suspects on the phone - wire off the coil, actually ran out of fuel (fuel gauge does work!) fuse gone but checking that all the these were OK had to call recovery company......turns out he'd been ragging it around the bends from Stone to Uttoxeter so much so that he had knocked one of the bullet sockets off the back of the ignition switch and voila! Embarrassment all round!

Guilty as we speak (but found the problem myself; took me quarter of an hour first time to find the problem) many many years back... Nowadays a standard routine is to feel once or twice a week if everything is ok. down there... (well I mean the sockets not what you think )

Took it for MoT. The garage was shut. Not sure who got the date wrong yet...

Me, apparently. Sure they told me 11th...
Anyway, today it passed - Yay!!!

Nice one......another year (legally) on the road lol!