JDCA drive to Bulli

I recently attended a JDCA drive to Bulli organized by the Grand Tourers Register (i.e. XJS, New XK). The drive started in Southern Sydney and took the grand pacific drive through the royal national park. Unfortunately the event organizers Jag (a lovely XJS convertible) developed an issue and had to pull out of the event, but overall it was a very nice day and some nice cars on display.

The video below is a sped up version of the JDCA drive to Bulli. It shows the route through the Grand Pacific Drive, sea-cliff bridge and in to Bulli.

The […]

W108 300SE – the forgotten Mercedes

There is a blog I look at from time to time called “Aussie old parked cars” where the author takes pictures of interesting cars he/she sees in daily use around Sydney. In particular, most of the photos are around North Sydney and Neutral bay, an area I am quite familiar with.

One entry that stuck out to me was a W108 300SE, a model that is rarely seen on the roads these days, due to only 2737 being made and the unfortunately most of them being junked.

When it was introduced in 1965, the W108 and W109 series occupied the […]

DS Carpet Replacement

When I got it, the DS had threadbare blue carpets. The previous owner also had a blue DS, so I suspect at some point he upgraded the carpets in that car and the blue ones were in better condition than the carpets in the red car. In addition it had marine carpet on the box sills which for a DS Comfort should be vinyl.

I had ordered some new carpets and the correct foam for them from Citro Classique, and while I haven’t had a chance to fit the sill vinyl, the carpets are fairly easy to fit. To […]

CCCNSW Tech Day Oct 2014

Today was one of the regular tech days organised by the Citroen Club. I always enjoy the tech days, even if I am not doing much to my car – you can see the other cars, talk to the other members and sometimes learn how to do things by watching what other people do.

One of the tricks I learned today was simple but effective. When removing spheres, use a baby’s nappy to catch the LHM that will invariably leak out from the sphere. Larger is better.

The tech day was held at a semi-rural property owned by a […]

Changing the DS Accumulator Sphere

Previously, I had removed all my suspension spheres to check their pressure. Their pressure was checked at the Citroen Club tech day, and found to be acceptable. Given I had the system de-pressurized, I also wanted to change the DS accumulator sphere. The accumulator acts as a store of system pressure. This means that the pump does not have to run all the time but only when system pressure drops below a threshold. It is quite easy to hear the pump kick in, run for a few seconds then cut out again with a click. A faulty accumulator will cause […]

Citroen DS Sphere removal

Central to the Citroen DS hydraulic system is a set of ‘spheres’ that hold hydraulic pressure. The spheres have an internal diaphragm so they can contain gas on one side and hydraulic fluid on the other. One is used for each wheel to provide the suspension, as the gas forms the ‘spring’ and the amount of fluid in the sphere controls the ride height. One is used as a place to hold a buffer of system pressure, called the accumulator, and one some cars, and additional sphere provides additional brake pressure (like another accumulator, but just for the brakes).

There […]

280CE major service continued

The 280CE came over to the garage to continue the items on the major service, namely:

New Spark plugs Transmission fluid and filter Rear end fluid change Brake fluid flush

We used NGK spark plugs as they offer non-resistor plugs that are easy to find. The original spec for these cars called for non-resistor spark plugs, which are much harder to find now. The plugs that were already in there were Beru and in reasonably good condition.

For the transmission, we changed the fluid, filter and pan gasket, but didn’t drain the torque converter. When doing this it is important […]

Citroen DS interior rear roof trim – attempt 4

I have tried a few times to get the rear trim that sits between the C pillars to not fall down on to the parcel shelf.

My first attempt was to use the correct clips, however the trim would fall down over bumps. My second attempt, was a 3M product, which is sort of like Velcro and sold in little squares at the hardware store. This also fell down very quickly. My third attempt which worked better was some Velcro from eBay. Instead of little squares, I had a whole strip. After a few weeks, this also fell down. The […]