Citroen DS seat cover replacement part 8

The seat covers project is now complete! This evening I finished the back of the drivers seat (started in part 7), and installed it. I also did the hard task of putting the centre arm rest in place too.

I didn’t fit the ashtray back as it was black for the Targa seats and should be white. At some point I may find a white one, or paint mine, but in the meantime it is kind of funny to own a French car sans ashtray.

I took the car for a drive to ‘test drive’ the seats – the additional […]

DS Door cards – Update

Last year I removed the old targa door card from one of the rear doors and fitted the new velour door card. Today I was up to doing the front door.

This is a job that gets far easier with experience. Some of the websites mention needing far less of the clips than I used, but the holes were all drilled in my door, so I used them anywhere. Where a hole had been drilled I made sure I used some anti-rust paint, which is the black you can see. The plugs are easy to guide in with the wooden […]

E-Type differential ratios

What the best differential ratio is for a straight six engined E-Type (Series 1 and Series 2) is one of those topics that generates plenty of opinions. So much so that my car has had two changes over its life. US delivered E-Type started life with a 3.54 ratio, which my car now has. This is the same ratio it had when new (being delivered in South Carolina). When restored it was changed to 3.07, which was the standard ratio for cars sold in Europe. Later on, the owner before me changed it back to 3.54. This article covers the […]

The Putty road is the best way to the Hunter

There are two ways to get to the Hunter Valley – the boring way, on the F3, sitting in holiday weekend, bumper to bumper traffic; or you can take a bit of a detour and go via the Putty road.

This weekend, I chose the Putty road and to take the E-Type, and this decision was vindicated by a great drive with minimal traffic, vs the people I was meeting up at the hunter who sat in traffic getting on the F3 and then at Cessnock. The E-Type performed well, especially on the back roads and it was good to […]

Citroen DS seat cover replacement part 7

Removing the seats from the car is an easy way of cleaning underneath them, and the trim underneath my seats was rather dirty. A good clean showed the original vinyl trim in good condition, which was great to see. Shame about the blue carpet, but that will be a project for the future.

I found that it was easier to remove the drivers seat before I tried to re-install the passengers seat, not only to get a good clean, but also in terms of access to the four bolts that hold the seats down.

In part 6, the passengers seat […]

Book Review: Mercedes-Benz The 60’s Vol 1 by Bernd Koehling

I had wanted to buy this book for a while, as the author, Bernd S. Koehling had written some interesting blog articles on his website, so I figured I would try a couple of his books too (I also purchased Volume 2 which will be the subject of a later review). Added to that, he obviously has great taste in cars, and I would like to try and support an author doing new works on these fine vehicles.

I have to admit, I am a bit of a sucker for books that cover the W111 coupe and Cabriolet, so with […]

Citroen DS seat cover replacement part 6

The passengers seat is now complete! In part 5, I was able to remove the old targa covers and get the seat down to foam. After a test fit of the covers, I felt they were too baggy, so I bought some additional foam from Clark Rubber. I went with the 25mm high density foam and bought four pieces. 2 61x52cm for the bases and 2 61x77cm for the backs. While the addition of this foam made it hard to get the covers on, it was worth it. I am much happier than the baggy appearance I had before.

I […]

Book Review: Citroen DS: The Complete Story by Jon Pressnell

The Citroen DS, being such an iconic car, has inspired a plethora of books on it’s design, history, restoration, models etc. The one that is the most recommended is ‘The Original Citroen DS – The restorers guide” by John Reynolds, mostly because of it’s excellent set of pictures; but this book is currently out of print and quite expensive. (You can get it for around AUD$100 on UK or USA ebay if you wait long enough). That leaves room for some alternatives, and this book by Jon Pressnell fits the bill quite well. It has a better coverage of the […]

Citroen DS seat cover replacement part 5

Now the rear seat is complete, it is time for the front seats. I started with the passengers seat, so I can still drive the car if necessary, as I expect once i’ve done the passengers seat I will be faster on the drivers seat. The seat rails are bolted onto the car with 4x11mm bolts, and the rails are held to the seat also with 4x11mm bolts.

The front seat foam was in good condition and had been replaced by foam from a company in Sydney, at least after 8 digit numbers came in. Interestingly, even though this […]

E-Type register breakfast run

The JDCA had an informal E-Type register run up to the cafe at Swane’s nursery in Dural. An informal run meaning that the cars had to be on full registration to attend – not a problem for me. There are around 140 E-Types on the club register, so a nice variety of cars that can show up to a run. (I think the record is around 45 for any one particular event).

Despite getting up early to get the car out, it was bucketing down near the garage this morning, so I had to attend an E-Type register run in […]