I had hoped to be showing you photo's of the finished car today, all ready for the MOT and on the road for the bank holiday weekend, well that was the plan!
The reality is that with hardly anything left to do I've done hardly anything! The car has also done it's bit to ensure that my goal of bank holiday motoring won't be reached, by having a side repeater from the wing crumble to dust as I was fitting it. With my modern car now gone and the bank holiday virtually upon us I can't get a replacement in time, even ECAS couldn't really be expected to get one to me at this short notice!
The old 'Bluebamboo' then, is almost finished, and has fought me to the last, prompting me to write this post which unfortunately contains no 'finished car' photo's as yet, but a few thoughts on what I have learned during this rebuild, and what things I would do differently next time.
As many of you will know by now I'm not a mechanic, nor am I even remotely mechanically minded, which made the challenge of doing this project all the more interesting. I have relied on a kind of reverse engineering approach of studying then removing parts, examining how they were attached to help understand their function, and thus learning as I went along. You don't need to be a mechanic, just use your eyes and your brain and little common sense, and if you get stuck then ask, which is where owners clubs and forums are invaluable.
In keeping with my lack of mechanical ability has been my lack of tools. I have, what must be regarded as the most basic tool kit possible, and I mean basic! I have struggled through with it regardless, often making hard work of things that could be done in a flash with the right equipment. A similar tale can be told of my using the same various used nuts and bolts that I threw in a box when dismantling the car to rebuild it again, it seems like a logical thing to do but it isn't - buy new! The time saved from rummaging for a suitable used nut, bolt, and washer will move things along a lot lot faster. Having the right kit will also make life immeasurably easier, you can manage without, but you will struggle. just like I suppose you
could climb Everest in slippers, but it's so much easier with the right kit.
Another bit of advice is to carefully label and store everything. That sounds like a no-brainer but have a proper system, as I thought I'd labelled and kept all my stuff only to find (or rather not find) that some of it had vanished by the time I came to need it. I still to this day have no idea what can happen to items like the three wheelnuts, and various other seemingly impossible to lose objects that have simply vanished without trace.
Which brings me on to the next thing. Don't ever give, or throw away anything that you have 'done with' until the very last day. There's nothing so annoying than to give away a surplus part only to find that the one you kept for yourself falls apart and you have to go and buy another. (See opening paragraphs!)
The story isn't entirely over though as I have had in the back of my mind to do a 'stage 2' to this project, which will be to rebuild and fit my spare engine and gearbox to create a car with a bit more oomph. To be fair the engine that is currently fitted was done by MWR in London, and it's the fastest 2cv that I've ever owned bar none, with a genuine and pretty easy 85mph to be had in favourable conditions.
What I want to do next however is to rebuild my spare engine using new 9:0:1 pistons and barrels, nice braided oil feeds, electronic ignition perhaps and so on, then mate it to a rebuilt Dyane box that I have (above) to which I will fit with new disks and rebuilt calipers. I'd also like to find some old metal cooling cowls so that I can clean and paint them up rather than use the oily black rubber ones that I have now, all that's coming next
I'll post up some photo's of the car when it's MOT'd and finished, although this will now be next week sometime. Amusingly, my sprightly 82 year old next door neighbour has asked me if I will take him 'round the block' in the car when it's finished, as it reminds him of cars that he used to have as a young man! There may also be a Panhard PL17 in my future, the purchase of which might involve having to sell this car, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it and for now I'll car on regardless.
