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PostPosted: Sun Jan 13, 2013 3:42 am 
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Location: Belgium
Hello

As requested by some forum members, this is some pictures of a car restoration projet I work on with my father.
The car is an Citroën B14 of 1928, (no warbird connection at all, simply the same will to "restore an old thing").
The chassis is in steel, but all the other structure is in wood with external metal sheet cover.

The car is in our familly since 40+ years: the uncle of my father owned it, and recently decided to sell it to my father.

So we debut with a trip to Normandy to retrieve the car :
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After starting dismantling, as expected the car is in good condition: a bit of corrosion on some area, but nothing really bad:

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One of the worst corrosion area: on the back "fenders" (correct word ?) : as they were slighty damaged, we find new ones build from scratch to replace them.

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Under side : backward to front : the drive shaft.

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One of the two "toolbox" compartiment, as they are in the bottom of the car, they are very vulnerable, this one was hit by someting during the 84 years of life of this car.
The most complicated part (and visible when fit on the car) was in good shape, all the bottom part was build from scratch.


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The two tool boxes and the battery compartiment, restored, painted and ready to be fitted:

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One of the doors after restoration.

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The back door restoration (this car is one "utility car" with a loading area on the back and two seat in front.

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Fuel tank stripped and ready to be paint: the fuel tank is just atop to the engine: no fuel pump, the gravity do the job.

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The inside of the car : all the wood covering inside was replaced and the two seat needed to be build from scratch.

Lot of work ahead, no estimation of date of completion.

Sorry for the bad english: with a few years spent on this board, I learned "aviation english words" but not yet "old cars vocabulary"

Regards

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Last edited by Iclo on Sat Feb 23, 2013 8:38 am, edited 2 times in total.

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PostPosted: Sun Jan 13, 2013 9:27 am 
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That car is in very good condition for its age! I hope I look that good when I'm 84... :wink:

Please keep us updated on this project.

Thanks Iclo!


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PostPosted: Sun Jan 13, 2013 4:03 pm 
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Iclo wrote:
no warbird connection at all, simply the same will to "restore an old thing"

This is an interesting diversion from warbird restoration, it helps me appreciate the similarities between both pursuits, thanks for posting it.

Iclo wrote:
Sorry for the bad english: with a few years spent on this board, I learned "aviation english words" but not yet "old cars vocabulary"

No problem. As a matter of fact, aside from some insignificant errors, your English was excellent - better than some other native English speakers I have seen online. I doubt I would be as good at Belgian. :wink:

EDIT: I almost forgot, good job rescuing this piece of history. Good luck! :drink3:

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PostPosted: Mon Jan 14, 2013 10:09 pm 
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Location: Mt. Vernon, WA.
The current rage in old old cars in the U.S. is 'survivor cars'. Every month HEMMINGS CLASSIC CARS features really old autos that still have every original piece on them no matter how old, ripped, worn, or crusty. A couple months a go they showed a 1909 BUICK touring car that was absolutely decrepid but it still ran and drove-like they say 'anyone can restore one, but they're only original once'. I'd consider putting it machanically correct for reliability sake, but leaving it 'as found'

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PostPosted: Thu Jan 31, 2013 10:47 am 
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Iclo thanks for the post and pictures. Make sure to keep us updated on the progress :drink3:

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PostPosted: Sat Feb 23, 2013 8:34 am 
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Location: Belgium
Some progress:

We are working on the brakes system. On this car, a master cylinder use a vacuum from the engine to assist the brakes:

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Starting to disconnect the linkage

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The cylinder after been removed: stuck by 85 years old grease.

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The body of the brake cylinder

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On the other side, the first restored gauge : the indicator of charge/discharge of the battery.

Not very easy to work in 2°C this morning

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PostPosted: Tue Feb 26, 2013 9:07 pm 
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That brake booster looks like it could stop a semi tractor :shock: Whoever was the last person to put it together did an excellent job!

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PostPosted: Wed Feb 27, 2013 3:24 am 
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My father drove this car 40 years ago, with this "brake booster" inoperative (Thanks The inspector, I learnt the correct english word ;-)
At this time, the car had logically, very poor breaking capabilities.
I received last week the set of new seals, this coming week-end: cleaning and reassembly.

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PostPosted: Sun Mar 17, 2013 10:49 am 
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Location: Belgium
Hi,

Some new progress on the car.

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The brakes booster distribution valves disassembled and cleaned

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Reassembling

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Complete

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And back on the car

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And the start of the reassembling process.

A long way to go

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PostPosted: Mon Mar 18, 2013 8:53 pm 
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Location: Mt. Vernon, WA.
Is that booster diaphragm original or a new/old part? (an original part thats been on a dusty backshelf for 80 years). I just noticed the 'courtesy' lamp high on the door pillar, very clever- :wink: Everything cleaned up very well!

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PostPosted: Tue Mar 19, 2013 4:44 pm 
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Location: Belgium
The diaphragm is new manufactured one : as this type of car is relatively common in collection in Europe, there are a few manufacturers who build new parts.
I orderered it, with a new leather seal for the master cylinder of the brake, and have them in the mail box 5 days later. Very easy and simple for an 85 old car.

For the lights near the door, they came from a 50's or 60's car and will probably removed in the futur.
Originaly, this car didn't have more than two flood light in front and a single light at the back.
We face the same question than some warbird's/plane's owner: we have to find the good compromize between accurary and safe opertation in the today traffic and condition.

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PostPosted: Wed Mar 20, 2013 12:14 am 
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Very informative! I guess we tend in the U.S. to take the reproduction parts business as exclusively about and for mostly consumption of guys restoring 60's/ 70's American cars and trucks. Here if you have an 'oddball' foreign car not an MG, TRIUMPH, or other fairly common European vehicles, you're on your own in chasing down parts.
You'd be hard pressed to find anything for a RENAULT DAUPHINE or 4CV here.
Please keep the narrative going! I'm getting a kick out of watching an unusual to me, vehicle undergoing restoration back to roadable. Once it's back on the street you'll be amazed at how much deference and respect the vehicle will garner from other motorists, be ready to get a cramp in your wrist from waving at people giving you a 'thumbs up' and your jaws will ache from smiling so much!

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PostPosted: Wed Mar 20, 2013 1:20 pm 
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In our case, the market of "new manufactured part" is not very limited but is mainly for "consumable part" like seal, clutch, gauges, brakes part, etc.
But for example, you didn't find new "body part" (not sure it's the correct english word, in french we say "Carrosserie", but it's basically "sheet metal")
In our case, we found some new "body" part by luck, because a small builder in France made a batch of ten partz to reduce cost, but we were very very luky on this point.

We restore a Citröen but my familly have an close link with Renault's models (4cv and Dauphine ) built just in the years following the war as one of our relative was the CEO of Renault at this time.
I suppose your are right and it's more easy to restore French car on our side of the pond, but I found people restoring old Citroen car in Australia.

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PostPosted: Fri Mar 22, 2013 6:30 pm 
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Before he stopped posting here on WIX, I looked forward to JDK's annual posting of the car show @ Hanging Rock to see what sort of foreign built cars were popular with Aussies. Besides the usual Yank Tanks (Chevrolets, Fords, Pontiacs and such) of every year and description from 90 year old rolling rust piles up to pretty modern day cars, there are a great number of Renaults, Peugeots, and Citroens living in Oz.

One of the problems in the U.S, is our NTSB and NHTSA safety cops protecting me from myself by preventing a large number of foreign built vehicles entering the country. A few years ago they seized and crushed a womans Austin MiniMOG sort of jeep because it hadn't ever been presented for crashwortiness (it wasn't ever meant as a road vehicle, but as a farmers pasture vehicle). It took Bill Gates and Paul Allen years to get their PORCHCE 959's released because the NHTSA said they needed to crash one to see what would happen and wouldn't accept that there were only 200 total in the world, even though MICROSOFT did build a computer program showing eactly what would happen in any collioison from a parking lot 'door bump' up to a Mach 7 headon with a brickwall. :?

Total ignorance required to be any sort of government lacky :wink:

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PostPosted: Sat Mar 23, 2013 1:44 am 
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Location: Belgium
I ignored these complexity in the US (Your experimental category for airplane looks so good from your side of the pond, I expected the same thing for the cars)

In Belguim (of course where the type of car we'are restoring is well knwown) we only have to pass a limited security check: we will have to prove that the car brakes correctly (without passing on the "rolling" test use for modern cars). A visual check of the suspension and the general car state, a limited check of the lighting and that's all.
And it's ok for 5 years. Previously there was no regular inspection after the initial one for a new registration but that changed a few years ago.

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