Every classic car community has an issue that polarizes opinion and spawns countless threads on Internet discussion boards. For the Citroen DS, that issue is what is the right tyre for the DS? Michelin were the owners of Citroen during the entire production run of the DS. During that time they pioneered the radial tyre, which was introduced in 1949. The Radial was...
In October 1955, Citroen unveiled one of the most innovative cars ever designed. There have been plenty of new cars that have introduced a new technology, or even a couple, but the DS was so radical that it immediately made everything else on the market seem old fashioned. And this was just the looks. Under the covers, the car contained a revolutionary...
The indicator lenses on my DS were all cracked, and the backing was in poor condition. I purchased a replacement set online, which look a whole lot better. I went to do the swap over today, but for whatever reason, the new indicators cannot simply plug into the factory wiring harness, they have spade terminals when the car uses bullets. Its not that...
I don’t normally post about routine things such as oil changes, but in this case, there is an aspect to the oil change that is not obvious and is worth mentioning. In general, the DS oil change is well covered on the Internet, as are the warnings to ensure the filter housing is properly aligned when inserted back into the sump. The DS...
I seem to have a habit of buying Citroens that have ditch water in their cooling system. I spent quite a bit of time flushing out the system of the DS21, and now I need to do the same for the traction. The Traction currently has a habit of marking its territory after every drive with a nice dirty stain where the...
My Light 15 was awarded 2nd prize in the pre-1956 Citroen category at the 2015 French Car Day. I hadn’t planned to enter the car, but did since there were only a couple of Tractions there. 1st prize went to a nice Big 15. Without a lot of effort I should be able to do better as I was obviously marked down...
The DS is back together and sporting pretty much a whole new interior. The new sill trim is complete and the seats have been refitted and carpets re-installed. I’m really happy with the results and glad I didn’t try and make a part-Pallas. The Pallas cars have carpet instead of this trim, and many non-Pallas cars have this carpet installed but not...
The project to replace the sill trim progresses well. The glue had done a good job with the passengers side trim in part 3, so I proceeded to glue down the drivers side as well. While this set, I was able to re-attach the seatbelt and then start working on re-attaching the lower stainless steel trim. The stainless steel trim is quite...
The installation of the new sill trim in the DS progresses. Today I was able to glue down the passengers side of the car after doing some final trimming to size (mostly done in part 2). I ended up using an entire can of spray adhesive, as the underside of the trim absorbs a lot of the glue. Unfortunately, I...
The DS has large box sections that run down both sides. On the DS comfort, there are various bits of vinyl trim that cover these sections. In part 1, I had replaced the outer trim and door sealing strips. Next was the inner trim. The inner trim comes mostly pre-cut to size, but it needs to be trimmed and also adapted for a...
The Citroen club held its monthly meeting at the Tesla showroom, where club members got to test drive the model S. As well as seeing the Model S, one of the members of the club brought along his electric DS to compare with the Tesla. I have to say I was very impressed with what he had done with the car. ...
The Traction Avant is the easiest car I own to do a basic service. There is no oil filter, so the oil is simply drained and topped up. The transmission is right up front, and not obscured by the ducting of the DS, so it can be done while sitting in front of the car. The downside of course is that...
The other day I had removed all the sill trim from the DS. I also re-routed the speaker wires so new trim can be fitted. Next step was to fit the silver trim that faces the outside of the car, but is only visible when the doors are open, and the inner weather strip. The trim is glued on, but needs to be...
I had originally tucked the wiring for the rear speakers in the DS under the marine carpet that was on the inside of the sills. However, I am now replacing that and gluing down the correct vinyl, so wanted a better solution. The DS wiring harness actually goes between the inner and outer sill, along with some hydraulic lines. This is not...
The sill trim on my DS was in poor condition – the rubbers were perished, the outer sill trim was cracking, and the trim on the inside sills had been replaced with Marine carpet. Most of the information I could find on the Internet referred to a DS Pallas, and I wanted to keep my car as a DS Comfort. The photo above...
I had the traction towed home a week ago as I was unable to select a gear despite the clutch being fully depressed. I didn’t think anything was seriously wrong, as I had been driving fine around that time. After doing some research on the Traction Yahoo Group, and looking carefully at the linkages, I was able to determine that they sometimes...
Today I was planning to change the oil in the engine and gearbox of the Traction. I took it for a drive to heat up the oil so it would drain out nicely. It was a lovely evening and I was enjoying the drive, then all of a sudden, the Traction won’t select a gear. Despite pushing the clutch to the...
Last year I replaced my accumulator sphere on the DS. The main driver for this was that I was getting short ‘cycle’ times. (i.e. the hydraulic pump would kick in very regularly to maintain system pressure, which puts stress on the system). At the time, I did get an improvement in cycle time. Secondarily I was hoping to cure a problem where the power...
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