| Before I can get the DS back on the road, I need to sort out the front end wiring. This controls the headlights, indicators, horns etc. There is obviously something wrong here as I had been seeing strange behaviour in the lights. I spent some time on this late last year, and made only minimal progress. I had some suggestions to check the grounds. At the time I cleaned them and while they did look dirty it did not seem to make much difference. To test properly, I bought a proper test light. This did allow me to more easily […] When I completed the boot lid last week, I forgot an important part. The boot lid struts! I was going through my parts box last night to mount the window cranks and noticed them. The boot struts keep the boot lid open. They are quite simple, consisting of a spring inside a tube. This means the Citroen DS boot struts do not wear out like gas struts used in modern cars. They are quite easy to fit, just two bolts per side. These are the same bolts that hold the boot lid to the hinge. The spring tension keeps the […] Today’s job was to work on the DS door trim. Most importantly, re-mounting the door cards. The door cards were new in 2014 and still in great shape. The grey velour goes very well with the darker shade of red. Before I mounted them, I took the opportunity to spray the inside of the doors with some fish oil and lubricate the window mechanism. I also decided to fit new moisture barriers. The previous ones were not in good shape and new set was not expensive. Unlike in other cars, the moisture barrier is one one big sheet, but small […] The DS is finally looking more like a car, now I have mounted the boot lid. A couple of weeks ago I prepared the boot lid for mounting. This involved adding the seal, locking hardware etc. Today, I added the top seal and then fitted it to the car. The top seal has metal clips to hold it in place. Its much easier to add the seal with the metal clips attached rather than trying to remove them. The first task was to attach the hinges to the boot lid. There are four bolts and some rubber gaskets between the […] The world’s slowest Citroen DS reassembly continues. Today’s job was to reassemble the bumper in readiness to put it back on the car. I had taken the opportunity to polish the bumper while it was off the car. Since the DS rear bumper is made from stainless steel it came up very well with a bit of autosol. I went through a whole bag of ebay polishing attachments from my drill, but each one made the bumper just a little bit better. I also took the time to fit a new overrider on one side. You have to be […] The Citroen DS boot lid is almost ready to be mounted on the car. Before Xmas I was able to finally fit the badges properly. The next task was mounting all the other hardware and fitting a new boot lid seal. The latching hardware and handle goes on quite easily if you have a 36mm spanner. The only fiddly bit is getting the drainage tube through the two holes in the lid. I used a pair of dental picks to accomplish this. The standard Citroen DS boot lid seal is a very thick rubber that squashes down as the boot […] Before the boot lid can be attached to the car, the Citroen DS badges need to be mounted. This is something I have unsuccessfully been trying to do for a few weeks. I found a solution last night that works for me, no idea if this is the ‘correct’ way as I couldn’t find any reference on the internet. My car, being a 1970 model has the individual letters rather than the rectangular plate. Personally I prefer the earlier ones. The badges attach by having a ‘post’ that goes through a hole in the boot lid. There are then these […] My efforts in getting the wiring right at the front of the DS continue to disappoint. This time, I made a harness to test multiple wires at the same time. This helped somewhat, but I think there may be something not hooked up right at the headlights. As my car has been fitted with relays, the headlights should both come on at the same time from the passengers side wiring. They kind of do, except one side is only on very dimly when the other side is on full. So I also need to check the actual headlight connections. […] One of the first and easiest jobs after the repaint was to fit the Citroen DS Mirrors. Before the repaint I was continually having the mirrors adjust themselves at speeds above 80km/h. That is, they would slowly fold inwards until they were touching the car. I was also disappointed with the quality of the previous mirrors, so purchased new ones of a higher quality. These are the correct smaller mirror for an 1970 car like mine. This time, I was determined to have a better solution. Instead of using the fiber washer that came with the mirror, I decided to […] The windows in a Citroen DS are frame-less. This means they need careful adjustment so they seal properly and wind up and down to the correct height. When my car was painted, the panels were refitted much better than before – they now generally line up! A proper panel alignment meant my doors were in slightly different positions than before the paint. Not only that, but the window alignment wasn’t great either. Therefore, my Citroen DS needed a window adjustment before the door cards could be refitted. There are two adjustment points. The first is the angle of the […] | |
