I had been unable to use the blower in the 450SLC for the last couple of weeks as it was making a terrible scraping sound when I would run it. About two years ago I ‘rebuilt’ the blower with a new motor, but with my existing case and fan cages. A new W107 blower motor from Mercedes is prohibitively expensive, but you can...
After suffering the humiliation of a ham fisted owner the DS is back on the road thanks to Jason Hantos. It’s also all ready for another year of rego, success! Quite a hassle to have it towed
The 450SLC spent the last two days at Arthur Rizzo Motors getting ready for the next year on the road. The car was hesitating a bit, and not idling quite right, but a new set of plugs seems to have fixed that. (#1 was a bit coked up). The steering was feeling a bit floppy – so a new tie rod end...
But at least it won’t get dust in the gear selector. I obviously stuffed up in my repair of the carby fuel inlet as I noticed fuel leaking from there, and in trying to tighten it a little, broke it off. It’s a good lesson as amateurs will make mistakes from time to time and they can cost money. As luck would have it,...
The bumpers on the Citroen DS were a bit scruffy, so I used the autosol metal polish to shine them up. They were not nearly as bad as the C-pillar trim, but they came up really nicely with a bit of polishing. The front bumpers (the rears were pretty similar):
I spent a lot of time researching the Citroen DS major production changes when I was buying mine. For easy reference I put the details in the table below. Obviously there were many more changes during the production run, but these were the major changes that make a difference when buying a car. This table is for the DS range, not for...
Today did more maintenance on the Citroen DS, including: Oil and filter change Rotate tyres Cleaned all the dirt out of the space behind the rear wings Changed the small ID style hubcaps on the rear for the correct DS type Still a bit of work to get this car where I want it, but getting there slowly. For future reference on the oil...
While the Citroen DS can be a rather hot car due to the engine being right next to the drivers knee, it is generally not a good idea to let it get even hotter through an engine fire. The weber carburettor that is used on the DS has the fuel inlet fitting press fit into the top housing of the carby, which as...
Today I spent more time doing small improvements to the Citroen DS. The car originally had single side mirror on the drivers side that I think was for a later car. This mirror was never able to stay in the right spot and would always fall back against the car over 70km/h despite how tight it was. I also wanted to...
In other news, an aeroplane fuselage arrived at the garage today. I’m storing it for a guy who plans to restore it some day. Apparently his father crashed it some time ago in Germany and he would like to restore it. He needs to work on the wings and engine first and needed a safe place to store it.
This was a car that I fully expected to hate, yet was pleasantly surprised once I got to drive it. Having driven more than my fair share of Toyota’s, my assumption was that this car was basically a Camry with some leather and a Lexus badge glued onto the front. This is certainly not the case. My then girlfriend (now Fiancee) was looking...
The Radio upgrade on the Citroen DS is almost complete. It’s taken over a month (albeit only a few hours a week). Today I properly installed the speakers. The DS front speaker is a 3″x7″ size which is not very common. Der Franzose carry a drop in replacement, but it is an original paper style speaker and I wanted to go...
This evening I was able to make good progress on the DS. First, I was able to fix a few of the issues with the instrument cluster, where the illumination wasn’t working for the gauges and the light for the heated rear window wasn’t working. (The heated rear window doesn’t work, but at least the light does!) I also spent a bit...
I’ve always regarded the Mercedes W111 Coupe and Cabriolet range as the pinnacle of the regular Mercedes-Benz models. True there were always Gullwings and 500K roadsters, but they are really in a class of their own. They were always rare cars, but the W111 Coupe/Cabriolet in right hand drive are that rarer again. I’ve owned a 250SE coupe (LHD), and currently own a...
I’ve been working on getting the Retrosound Model 2 radio installed in the Citroen DS. As this website points out, the DS does not provide a lot of options to install a decent radio. The little ‘cubby’ in the dashboard is too small for most radios, and the original ones are expensive and not particularly good. I’ve been a fan of the...
Today I attended my first Citroen club tech Day. The event was at Schenk & Co Panel Beaters in Lidcombe. It was a great event. I got a lot of great advice on my car and was able to drive two manual Safaris (a 67 ID21 and 74 ID23). I also got my dash back in and tested a lot...
The instrument cluster of my Citroen DS needed to be removed to fit the new Retrosound Model Two radio I had purchased for the car. While it was out, I had a few things I wanted to address: My temperature gauge was disconnected The silver circles around the gauges were peeling off There was minimal speedometer illumination, a problem in our world full...
The one thing about my E-Type Jaguar that stuck out like a sore thumb after I bought it in 2010 was the 80’s cassette deck that has been installed in place of the original radio. This looked like an easy thing to update. I first looked at Ebay to see if I could get an original radio but even broken radios were going...
More Posts
