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...
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,...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
A few weeks ago, I wrapped the steering wheel on the DS and used a 3M adhesive. On the whole, this worked well for the main part of the steering wheel, but the ends were lifting up. I re-glued the ends with some araldite and covered them in black electrical tape. Lets see how well that works. I also had the...
Today I changed the transmission fluid on the DS. I’m glad I did as the colour was a bit more like coffee than a nice clean red. A lot of the members of the aussiefrogs forum swear by Nulon G70 (additive) so I also added some of that to the fluid too. I used a Penrite gear oil, which turned out to...
The 450SLC had been idling rather roughly and stumbling when taking off from stop. This got a bit better when I changed the coil, cap and rotor – and at that time I noticed that the leads were not in great shape, especially the one to the coil. There are a lot of leads for sale, many of them inferior quality. The Beru HT...
Lets face it, R134A is rubbish when it comes to cooling older cars. It is significantly less efficient than R12. Systems that are not designed for it struggle to keep the car tepid in the Australian summer. Added to that, the air conditioning on the 107 models from Mercedes was never their strong point either, so when you couple a marginal system, that...
This post is a flashback to 2009 when I upgraded the lights on my 1988 560SEC I owned while living in Michigan. When I moved to Michigan in 2007, I bought a 560SEC. The car was a bit rough, but Detroit is not a city you can really live in without a car, and it wasn’t expensive. Being a midwest car, it...
In part 3, I was halfway through installing the covers on the upper part of the rear seat. Today I was able to complete the job – the rear seat is finished, in the car and looking great. To finish the job, I had to insert the final hog rings on the upper part of the seat. The foam and springs were...
The Citroen DS is known for its single spoke steering wheel. It is one of the many things that make this car so unique. The steering wheels up to the 1971 model year were thin wheels wrapped in black plastic tape. (I understand some very early cars had a different system). Later cars had the soft ‘safety’ steering wheel. My car, being a...
Regular readers may recall that I started installing the missing rear interior lights for my DS21. These interior lights are only found in the DS Comfort – they do not exist in the Pallas model, nor the ID models such as D Special, D Super etc. After a few questions on the Aussiefrogs forum, and a lot of adjusting in the car I finally got...
In my opinion, the BMW E39 is still hands down the best looking 5 series BMW have produced. It significantly sharpened up the looks of the fairly boxy E34. It was later replaced by the bulbous looking E60. The current model still follows on too much from the E60 aberration. The BMW E39 has now depreciated to the point where they are an...
Citroen DS door cards are quite simple as the door handle etc is above the actual door card. So all it comprises of is the arm rest and a small hole for the window winder mechanism. The door card is held onto the door through a series of metal clips that attach into holes drilled into the door. The holes are...
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