I bought a new sender and had it on my todo list for the next oil change, assuming that removing the sender would require the engine to be free of oil.   However, my mechanic stopped by recently and told me that it can be changed at any time, and even changed it for me quickly.

I assumed that would be the end of it, however the light continued to come on randomly, and even sometimes came on at idle.  Coming on at idle made me think that maybe there could be more to this, so I decided that I wouldn’t drive the car until I tested the oil pressure properly.

Of course, Citroen didn’t use a common sized oil pressure sender, so none of the adaptors in my mechanical oil pressure gauge would work.    I still had the gauge from the saga with my 300SE a few years ago.

I looked online for adaptors.  They were not expensive, but most of them seemed to come from the UK with shipping higher than the actual adaptor.   I eventually found a local one.   The sender unit is a male M10x1.5 thread.   I found one that provided two ports, one a more standard size and the other for the original sender.  I purchased it.

When it arrived it looked pretty good, but there was a problem.  There isn’t a lot of clearance to get this larger adaptor in, and while I could get the adaptor in, I couldn’t then get the fitting for the mechanical gauge in.   I tried a few times, both from the top and the bottom.  Since the gauge was out of the car, I couldn’t start it, so I used a jack to lift the car to try from the bottom.  In my ineptitude I managed to let the car fall off it and put a scratch on the side.  Luckily its not that visible from the side and mostly hit the bottom.

That left a sour taste in my mouth, so I decided to just order one of the smaller adaptors from the UK.   It took a few weeks to arrive.  It was much smaller and doesn’t have provision for the current sender.  That wasn’t an issue for me as this is a troubleshooting step and not a permanent install.

After all the time wasted with the old adaptor, I had the new one installed quickly.   Its smaller size making it much easier.   I soon had the gauge installed as well.   Starting the car, I had good news.   about 4.5 bar of oil pressure, or 65psi.   It would rev to about 70psi.

I let the car warm up a bit and the pressure stayed good.  A I then took it for a drive around the industrial estate where I keep my cars. I was never able to get the pressure to lower even at 4,000rpm.   I then let the car idle for a while until the electric fan came on and the oil was good and hot.   The lowest pressure I saw was about 2.5 bar or 35psi at idle. I consulted the workshop manual, and the specification for the oil pressure is that it must be at least 3.8 bar (54psi) at 3,000rpm with the oil at 60 degrees. (assuming 20/50 oil, which I use).

At this point I was pretty confident I didn’t have an oil pressure problem. I took the car for a drive again with a warmer engine and hot oil pressure was still good.   I also noticed something else that really sealed the deal.   At one point, the oil pressure light came on when revving the engine.   This should not be possible as the sender is not plugged in.

Its possible that this is related to the circuit board in the instrument cluster.  I know mine already has an issue as I had to bridge the connection for the illumination.    It may also be to do with excessive voltage at high RPM.   I’ll put a voltage gauge on the car at the same time so I can check.

This test, has given me much more peace of mind that there is nothing actually wrong with my car.   Citroen DS engines are very tough.

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My mechanic sent them away to Pleiadies in Queensland.   They were able to fully rebuild my rear spheres including new diaphragms, and repaint them to the factory colour and pattern.   When they arrived back they looked almost too good to put on the car!

A bit of a contrast to my front spheres.    It would only be a few years later that Citroen went to the disposable spheres.    That seems a shame, as the rebuildable spheres are still going strong 50 years later.

Fitting them is pretty straightforward, and my Mechanic had them on in a few minutes.

A quick top up of LHM later, and the DS was back to its original ride quality.   The ride is such an integral part of these cars.

The next day I took the car for a drive and confirmed everything is working properly.   The ride is back to its previous quality, and its a nice car to drive again.  The rebuilt rear spheres are doing their job well.  Since I was out on the road in the car, my Mercedes mechanic has always been interested in seeing the car, as his father had a couple of DS models in the 60s and 70s before switching to Mercedes.

I probably get more positive comments about the DS from people than any other car I own.

Of course the only downside of a drive on a Saturday morning is all the hyper aggressive cyclists. It seems once they put that lycra on, the rage builds inside. Sometimes I think they ride like they are trying to get hit, just to prove a point. Really not sure the point of cutting off cars and trying to block them on a bicycle.

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The biggest impact on ride quality is the state of the suspension spheres.   There are four suspension spheres, one for each wheel.   In addition to the suspension spheres, a D will have at least one accumulator sphere.  These store pressure for various reasons, and my car has two, a main accumulator sphere for system pressure, and a brake accumulator sphere to provide additional pressure for the brakes should there be a leak in the system or the engine cuts out.

The spheres work by having a diaphragm with nitrogen gas under pressure in the top part of the sphere, and hydraulic oil (LHM) on the other side of the diaphragm.   The compressed gas acts as the spring.    This fails to work properly if the gas pressure is not correct.   Over a period of years, the spheres gradually loose pressure.   As long as the diaphragm is still intact, the sphere can be tested and re-gassed to the correct pressure.   Eventually the diaphragm will fail and then the sphere will no longer provide any damping.    The suspension spheres on a DS can be rebuilt with a new diaphragm if needed.

This is quite a contrast to the spheres used in the Mercedes-Benz self-leveling rear suspension, which is uses the same principal.   Those spheres are disposable, and cannot even be regassed let alone totally rebuilt.   Even worse, some people simply assume that a non-punctured diaphragm means the sphere can be re-used.   Just as in a Citroen, over time they lose pressure too.

The Citroen club have regular tech days where they offer Citroen DS sphere regassing and testing.   In the roughly ten years I’ve owned the car, I’ve removed the spheres and taken them for testing to a couple of these tech days.   Last time, they were just borderline on pressure, but the Citroen DS sphere regassing system wasn’t available, so I wasn’t able to do it.

It’s not always easy for me to make the club tech days, so I enlisted the help of my mechanic for Citroen DS sphere regassing.   He first checked the rear spheres and the news was not good.  One was totally dead, with no pressure at all.  The other had a little pressure, but negligible.  These will be sent away to be rebuilt in Queensland.

The fronts were a lot better.   They had a pressure reading of around 28, when it should have been around 60.   He was able to regas these for me without issue.   He was also able to lend me two dead spheres so at least I can move the car around the garage.     I took the car on a short drive, as I wanted to do a quick oil change before putting the car away.   I did one a few months ago, but obviously didn’t seat the oil filter gasket properly, as I had a decent oil leak from the car.  Its not possible to change the filter without draining the oil.  The driving feel was quite odd.   The front being bang on spec and the rear without any give at all.

The rear spheres should be back in a few weeks.  I anticipate them transforming the ride back to what it was when I first drove the car.   It’s one of the things that makes the DS special.

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The ‘new’ one on the left looks a bit sturdier too.    The stiffening piece in the middle is full length, instead of just around the mounting holes.   That isn’t how mine failed though.    Changing the Citroen DS air cleaner bracket was really easy.   I had already sprayed penetrating oil on the nuts, so they came right off.

The easy part of the job was over.   Re-installing the air cleaner to the bracket is a major pain.   The first thing I noticed was that with the grommets, the air cleaner no longer fit on properly.    The air cleaner housing has three captive bolts that go through the holes on the Citroen DS air cleaner bracket.   There are also spacers on these bolts, that hold the air cleaner at the right height.   Probably, because the rubber grommets were missing on my old bracket, there were also some nuts after the spacers.   I removed those, so there was enough room to bolt the air cleaner to the bracket.

I used a washer with each nut on the underside of the Citroen DS air cleaner bracket.   This job is really fiddly.   You can only get about two fingers of each hand under the bracket.   A magnetic pick up tool is a must as it would be impossible to not drop the washer and nuts a few times.   I found a long spanner was the most useful for the drivers side front bracket, a socket on a thumbscrew for the drivers side rear, and a short spanner for the passengers side.    The whole job took about two hours which was about three times what I thought it should.

I think this was a pretty poor design on Citroen’s part.   If the captive bolts were in the bracket, and the nuts inside the air cleaner housing it would be a very simple job indeed.  I suspect this would have been more expensive to produce.

Starting the engine, I didn’t notice the rattle any more.   I wasn’t able to take the car for a test drive, as it was parked in by four other cars, but I will do so soon.     When I first heard that rattle, I thought it may be from the engine, so if this is the complete fix, that is excellent news.

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The pump on my car had been leaking more and more over the last year or so.   This is not ideal not just from a mess point of view, but can cause a safety issue.  The DS has inboard front brakes, and the leaking pump allows hydraulic fluid to drip onto the right hand brake disc.   Obviously this is not ideal for stopping power.

The DS hydraulic pump runs as an accessory off the camshaft pully.   On most DS is is a fairly straightforward exercise to remove it.   On a BVH car (semi automatic gearbox), the Centrifugal regulator runs as a subsidiary accessory and makes the job a bit harder.   The photo below shows the new pump tucked in under the regulator.

My pump was sent away to be rebuilt.  It came back looking much nicer than it left, with a new coat of green paint.

I had a friend help me change it out, who had done it many times before on his car.    We ended up having to do the job twice as we could not get the pump to prime the first time.   Normally leaving the bleed screw open, and pouring LHM down the hose will do the trick.  For some reason it wasn’t working for us.    Second time lucky, and the pump was able to build pressure, and without leaving a green puddle on the floor.

Before the pump was removed for rebuilt, I had started noticing a strange rattle from the engine.   At first I was a bit concerned about internal damage, but I realized that it wasn’t changing in line with revs.   Since the pump needed a rebuilt anyway, I figured it made sense to wait to see if the leaking pump was causing the rattle.    It wasn’t.

In the end, while testing the new pump we were able to find the cause of the rattle – the air cleaner.    Our assumption at the time was that the air cleaner was loose.   Today I removed it to check the various mounting screws.    I found that it wasn’t loose, the mounting bracket was broken.  The broken bracket was allowing vibrations to cause the air cleaner to rattle against the remaining bracket.

I’ll have to find a new bracket.  I’m sure used ones are available.   I guess it could be fixed but a used one seems a much easier option.

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The current battery was a Super Charge MF50 Gold.    Its dimensions were 230mm long, 170mm wide and 180mm high (not including terminals).    My estimates from measuring the frame, its attachment points and the tray was that I could accept a battery that was up to 263mm long, 175mm wide and about 200mm high.

I spent a lot of time researching various battery sizes.   While there is some logic to the model numbers in terms of explaining the features of the batteries, I could not decipher the various sizes.    I spent a lot of time researching various battery sizes including the various recommendations from parts suppliers, manufactures and so on for the Citroen DS.   In the end, the best fit I could find was the Century NS70X MF.   The NS70 part of the model name refers to the size.   That is 259mm long, 171mm wide and 202mm high.   This increased size provided a significant capacity improvement – from 600 to 720 CCA and 60 to 85 AH.

As can be seen in the photo above, the battery fits almost perfectly in the Citroen DS battery frame.    The battery was not cheap, at $280, but I expect it to last a long time.   There is a very similar NS70LX MF.   The L means the terminals are on the other side.   You don’t want that one.

At some point I plan some upgrades to the wiring around the battery.   There are all sorts of auxilliary wires coming off the positive terminal.    Some of them have in-line fuses, but not all of them.    I plan to fit a bused fuse box with a single wire from the positive terminal to feed the headlight relays, radio and cooling fan.    I also plan to add a relay for the driving lights.   Basically that would mean a fuse for radio, fan, low beam, high beam and driving lights.   The fuse box would then feed the existing relays that can’t be seen to the left of the battery.    While I am there I will also fit a better disconnect and Ctek charger port like I did for the 250SE.

Once I had removed the old battery I gave it a quick test on my battery tester.    Only 184/600.   No wonder it was struggling to start the car.   In addition, it was starting to bulge on the sides.

As a comparison, the new Citroen DS battery is registering better than spec: 746/720.

I tried what the Ctek battery recondition can do to the old one.   My experience is that it can bring back batteries that are a bit tired, but cannot do much with a battery as far gone as this one.   That was the case again as all it was able to do was bring the CCA up to 200/600.

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The easiest course of action would have been to solder a wire in place.   I didn’t go with that approach as there is no soldering used on this circuit board at all.  It uses rivet looking connectors to take the power to the other side.    I wasn’t sure how well the backing would hold up to the heat and was worried about the solder breaking off.  The board flexes each time the power connectors are removed or installed and it can get hot in behind the dash.

The copper tracks on the board are particularly wide.   This gave me enough room to drill small holes in strategic spots.  I chose spots that were wide enough so I did not touch any other tracks.   I then used conductive screws to bring the power to the back of the board where I could use wires to get past the crack.    The bolts are 3mm.

The four screws are set up so I can bypass the break.  The break is near the square hole in the top left of the picture.   The outer track is for ground and the inner for +12v.   The screws stick up a bit more than the rivets do, but they are quite secure and are not going to come off over time.    You don’t want normal screws at the hardware store as most of them are coated and have low conductivity.

The picture above also shows my quite rare temperature gauge.  This was generally fitted to cars in very cold climates only.  It is very useful in hot ones too!

Once the screws were in place I was able to create two lengths of wire and crimp eyelet connectors on each. This is a similar approach to the tachometer.  The tachometer uses the rivets instead of the screws though.    It was then a simple matter of connecting up the wires around the back of the speedometer.  The wires are tucked so they should not be in the way.   The only downside is the board sits up a bit  more on this corner.  The bulb just near the wires leaks a little light because it is sitting up.

Once I put the cluster back in I was rewarded with lights that worked without flickering or pushing on the cluster.

While I was at it, I also swapped over the petrol gauge from the parts cluster.  It was in much better shape than the one on the car.    I have not yet taken the car for a test drive, as the weather in Sydney has been poor.  I expect my home Citroen DS instrument cluster repair to hold up well.

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My first assumption was the rheostat had failed.   The rheostat is the dimmer that lets the driver control the brightness of the instrument cluster lights.   Over time, these can develop dirty connections.    On the DS, the rheostat is actually not part of the cluster, but under the steering wheel.   This made it easy to test.   Once I had removed the instrument cluster I could use a multi-meter to check that I was getting 12v to the pin for instrument lighting.    I was.

Next step was to check the cluster itself.   It is simple to remove on the DS – four screws, three electrical connectors and the speedo cable.   Another four screws opens up the cluster.

At first glance, there did not appear to be anything wrong with it.   I didn’t think it would be a blown bulb because there are two of them and both were working before it failed.   In any case both bulbs looked good.

Readers who are familiar with the DS will immediately spot that my instrument cluster is not correct for a 1970 model car.     It is either a 1973 model or has been pieced together from multiple models years.    How do I know?   For 1970 and 1971 the instrument clusters had long needles for the speedometer and tachometer, and the braking distance was a ring set above the speedometer needle.    Specific to 1970 models was markings on the speedometer for the shift points.    In 1973 the clusters went to long needles and some time in 1973 the indicator lights flash together on the dash rather than separately.

When I purchased the car it had this cluster with a different MPH speedometer with a short needle.   Later, I changed the speedometer for a KM/H unit and the front cover for a nicer one.   I don’t know if the entire cluster or just the speedometer was changed in the past.   I keep an eye out for the right 1970 cluster with shift points for a DS21 but so far I have only ever seen the D Special/D Super unit.

After doing more testing I found that the cluster could light up, but it was extremely sensitive.   It would stay lit up if the cluster was dismantled and not in the dash properly, but if i bumped it or re-assembled it the lights would no longer work.

I also noticed that one of the bulb holders was cracked so I changed that one.   That change seemed to make it a bit less sensitive, but now knowing the root cause I’m not sure that was actually the case.  I would get it back in the car and it would work until pushed back into the dash properly.

At this point I was really stumped.   I got out my spare parts instrument cluster and dismantled it to see if I could spot any differences.     Perhaps there was a bad connection in the cluster somewhere?  I removed the circut board on the parts cluster which is the simplest circuit board I have ever seen.   There are almost no electrical components, just copper channels to direct power to the various bulbs.    The board is so simple I couldn’t see how a bad connection would even occur.

I went back to the good instrument cluster and removed the circuit board to compare.   This immediately showed up the problem.   There is a crack in the board!  The place it is cracked has two functions only – power and ground for the cluster lights.   The crack was not noticeable until the board was removed which was why it was so intermittent and why the cluster was not working pushed back in the dash with more pressure against it.

Now I know the problem it should be a fairly simple repair.   The board is so simple even that thick section has only two tracks.     I’m not sure if the crack has been there a while and it just got worse removing the cluster for the fan light, or if it somehow cracked during that modification.

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The tech day did have a hoist available, but my preference is to remove the spheres at home first.   As with last time I removed them, a strap wrench is easiest.   The spheres are different front/rear so it is important to mark where they came from on the car.

The tech day was held on the central coast, a good opportunity to take the old Pacific Highway in the 560SEC.   The car seems to be performing well after the EHA adjustment.

There was a good mix of Citroens at the tech day, including a DS, CX, and some modern Citroens.   The CX is becoming a rather rare car.   Quite a few spheres were tested, mostly the one piece units on the later models.

My spheres had readings in the low 40s for the front (42 & 45) and 28 in both the rears.   Specification for a DS front sphere is 44-64, with 59 being the ideal pressure.  Rears should be 16-28, with an ideal of 26.   I will not be able to wait another 5 years to do a sphere pressure check.  It would make sense to re-check them in another 6-12 months and potentially have the re-gassed.    I also learned a neat trick today – the plastic take away containers make great transport units for at least the single piece spheres.  I will need to check them for the rebuildable ones.

As well as doing the sphere pressure check, I also purchased 5 litres of LHM, the hydraulic oil used in the DS and other Citroens.   The Club sell it for around half the price it is available retail.

If only the hydraulic cells used in Mercedes suspension were re-gassable like the Citroen ones are!

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My car, being a carburetor DS21 does not have this improved radiator / electric fan combination.    The Citroen DS cooling system worked quite well when the cars were new.  However, a combination of the hot Australian climate and an almost 50 year old car that spent quite a lot of time in South Australia means that my cooling system struggles in stop and go traffic.   For international readers, South Australia has very hard water resulting in mineral deposits if distilled water is not used.

While I was having some other work done, I had a Davies, Craig fan fitted behind the radiator.  This is to augment, not replace the mechanical fan.   The setup is basically the same as the Citroen DS electric cooling fan.   Over the years people have tried to replace the mechanical fan entirely. This is a recipe for disaster as the electric fans cannot pull enough air at high speed with no ram effect.     The Davies, Craig fan is equipped with a controller that allows adjustment of the cut in point.

I also wanted to know when the fan is running.   The Citroen DS instrument cluster has an extra warning light that is not used in my car.   This is for parking lights.   The spot for this warning light was taped up.   I have a spare instrument cluster for parts, so I was able to grab another bulb housing to enable this extra light.

Looking at the parts instrument cluster the tape used to disable the warning lights not in use from the factor can be seen.   This is at the 12 and 6 O’Clock positions.   From there, it is relatively easy to run another wire to the back of the instrument cluster for the warning light.   The speedometer cable is already running right past this area.    The connections on the back of the cluster are well documented.

I would have preferred a green or orange warning light, but the red one is fine.    It works quite well.   I took the car for a drive in the 30 degree heat and the light was on for quite a lot of the time, but it did cycle on and off as the fan kicks in/out.   The fan is wired to be ‘always on’.   This means that after the car is turned off, the fan will continue to run if the engine is hot enough to warrant it.  I did this because heat soak can be an issue in these cars.   On my test drive, it ran for about 10 minutes after I switched off the car.   The risk is draining the battery, but on a hot day this is a useful feature for a short stop.

I don’t want my cars to be garage queens.  This modification, while not factory should make the car more usable in Summer.

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