I reckon Sam's hiding the rouge, which Bob had just passed to him in readiness for
their appearance on camera.
For future reference, the base or foundation is usually mixed with just a touch of rouge...

ken

Voila moteur et boite de vitesse demonter.
Boys nowhere to be seen? Where are you?

I'm two weeks behind with the 2cv Mag luckily I have a lot to write about!

2 weeks stop chasing girls and get back to work eh.

Lets find out why Hetty couldn't go home?

So, a little late given all the shenanigans I've been up to lately and that 2cvGB News is horrifically late, here's the full tale of my breakdown in Brittany.

We arrived in Le Havre at around 8am on Tuesday 14th May. Overnight on the crossing, our cars had been parked on the top deck of the ferry.



Full of enthusiasm, I jumped into Hetty, only to discover that her battery was dead. Deader than a dead thing. I presumed that this was somehow related the damp/cold air and that I'd probably left the CD player on.
Thankfully, being on the top deck of the ferry we were also right next to a huge ramp, which bump started her quite nicely so off we toddled.
So there we were, Emily Mackett and I driving through France in a 60s 2cv, living the dream. Until it started to rain. And the windscreen wipers wouldn't work. Now this has been a problem before, my answer is that I don't have a cover on the 'cheese-grater' motor so that I can slip a finger up behind the trim and get things going manually.
I handed the wheel to Emily and was able to jump start the wiper motor successfully. Tres bonne. So on we drove, living the dream. And the rain stopped, the sun came out, all was well. Until it started to rain again. And this time no amount of persuasion with my fingers could get the motor going. So I indicated to pull off into a garage and the engine died. I stopped indicating and the engine came back. This was the point I realised we were suffering epic battery charging failure.
We pulled into the services and I whipped out my £3 eBay voltmeter/electrical tester thing to discover that the battery was charging at a mere 8v. C'est ne pas bonne.

Handily, I always carry a spare. The spare was an electrical type as opposed to the older (and adjustable) Dyane type. With an earth connected Will tested again and we were now charging at a bulb blowing, hyper wiper 18v.
So on we toddled towards Chateau Brian. At this point there was a navigational misunderstanding on Joey's part and a near environmental disaster with Oboe's fuel tank but essentially, around 5pm we rocked up at a Camping Municipal, walked to the nearest Bar and had a well deserved beer.

On arrival at Chateau Brian I started to investigate the charging issue. I bought a new Burton voltage regulator and tested the charge rate. Still up to 18v. So we tested Will's known-to-be-working regulator. Also 18v. At this point Joolz turned up and began to stroke his beard.

After a process of elimination Joolz discovered that the regulator was doing it's job but somehow couldn't see how much power was going into the battery. He tested various electrics (including the nest of snakes behind the dash) and isolated the ignition switch to be the problem.

Weirdly, it's possible to pay anything from €15 to €150 for what appears to be the same Argentinean ignition switch. Mehari Evasion were the only company that had one on site and I paid €40. Fitted, problem solved, battery charging regularly at 14.3v.

So we went for a celebratory hoon!



Pulling away at a T junction there was a slight bang and Hetty fell out of first gear. I pulled her back in but no drive. In any gear. Having the engine running and changing gear without using the clutch is dead weird.
Some French friends kindly hitched us up and we set off back to the site.

Now, if you're going to have gearbox failure there can't be many better places to do it than a French National. Especially as the legendary Mr Viking was on site. Peter came down and took the top off the gearbox (this is easy on an old 'box, nothing pings in your face!) and, much to my surprise, there were neither fairies and magic trying to escape nor 4 little cogs neatly labelled 1, 2,3 and 4. I'd learnt something already.

Peter confirmed that there was nothing he could do on site which left me with two options:
a) get recovered home to Sussex. The issue with this was that it would take up to 3 weeks for Hetty to be delivered and she would arrive broken. And at this point I was still afraid of gearboxes.
b) pursued recovery to take Hetty to Peter's Viking workshop and have him sort her out.

At this point, I am deeply grateful to Rumble602's partner Sarah who was able to explain all this in French to the recovery company.
That afternoon a recovery truck rolled up driven my Sebastian, who seemed pretty impressed with the National, he'd heard it mentioned on the radio. He made short work of putting Hetty on the back (less time than it took me to pack everything away).
And off she went, to be delivered to Viking's place in two days time.





Essentially, from this point on, I was adopted by Peter and his wife Lorraine. It was Saturday and they were leaving the site and offered to take me with them.

We rocked up in La Trinité-Porhoët that evening.



Sunday was drizzly and damp and also my birthday. I walked to the patisserie and bought cake and cider and returned to find that Lorraine had made me home made waffles. Yum!
Somewhat amusingly, I had a number of text messages from friends saying 'so sorry to hear you stranded,' and 'what an awful thing to happen on your birthday.'
Quite the contrary. I had a fantastic birthday.





I rebooked my ferry from Sunday evening to Wednesday evening to give us plenty of time.

Hetty arrived about 11am on Monday and my learning curve began.

Peter's place is like nothing you can imagine. Pictures tell a thousand words so:



That's Peter's 350 Freya - later model than Hetty with M28 engine.

Now that is a workshop!
Great story so far Sam

Coincidence is a funny thing. Hetty's gearbox broke at the year's biggest gathering of 2cvs. I get recovered to the workshop of a gearbox expert and, camped not 200 yeards down the road, are my neighbours Bob and Carol Brotherhood who live around the corner from mt parents house in Sussex. Weird.

Bob came along and we made short work of removing the engine and gearbox in one lump with help from Peter's awesome engine hoist.







I was amused at how removing the weight altered the suspension of the van.



Peter again opened up the 'box and removed the rear cover.







Watching Peter dismantle a gearbox is a sight to behold, the deftness with which he handles all the components is astonishing. I watched eagerly and Peter gave me a running post mortem of what he found. The goo around the end cover showed that the 'bos has been opened in the past. Hetty has, at some point, had the wrong first and reverse gear components fitted. Older cars have a slightly different setup, but the components which create the first and reverse gears are from a later D*lly box and because of this, there was substancial play in those components.

Having got over my misunderstanding that gearboxes are full of fairies and magic I also began to understand my second misunderstanding. 'Gears' are not a physical thing. There are no neatly arranged cogs for first, second, third, fourth and reverse. Its all a matter of semantics. When we change 'gear' a number components in the box are moved to create a new ratio.
In a effect, what we call a 'gear' is actually a ratio created by the interaction of different components.

Peter continued his explorations until he found the cause of the issue.









What you're looking at is an inner drive shaft. A sheared inner drive shaft to be precise. This shaft (correct me if I'm wrong Viking) is attached to the differential. Because this sheared, it possibly saved the entire box.

My initial concern was that my driving style or lack of maintenance had caused the issue, but Peter assured me that unless I'd been 'Kangarooing' (I haven't) there was no way that I could have caused this, it was just metal fatigue. Interestingly, in all his time as a Citroën mechanic and in his years at Viking, Peter said he'd never ever seen this failure on a gearbox. Wahay, I'm unique!

Nice adventure Sam!

What is now done with the D*lly gears?