To do list

The biggest pre-requisite was to get her running and I wasn't prepared to just try and start her either, 20 year old fuel which has had that long to ferment in a tank can turn to varnish which is not a good treat to the injectors, a carburetor is more forgiving. There are also a number of other things that you need to consider, the fuel tank will most definitely have had time to corrode and contain rust particles and even if you did get her started then aged high pressure rubber fuel lines have already been known to burst and have claimed many a fuel injected D to engine fires, beware and replace it's not expensive and is just good practice. For further reading go here.

The photo above show's what need's to be changed (make sure you also change all the injector hoses). Changing the rubber fuel lines is doubly important in this day and age of Euro decrees, which has seen the increase in the amount of Ethanol in petrol - which is also set to rise. Ethanol breaks down rubber and hence ethanol resistant fuel injected hose should be purchased as a matter of course. There is an interesting article on Ethanol in Petrol on the TR Register's website if you'd like to read more.

In the same light of prevention is better then cure, I decided to have the cylinder head reconditioned since all injected DS series cars had sodium filled exhaust valves and when a car has been sitting for long periods of time it has been known, especially on Citroen SMs, that corrosion can occur within the hollow valve. This has the cause of alarm since the valves can snap causing major engine disaster. The solution is to replace them with solid exhaust valves. Why sodium filled valves to begin with you may ask? They were used to aid cooling but there doesn't appear to be anyone I've spoken to who feels that solid ones will be disadvantages to cooling in a DS, which begs the question as to why were they fitted to begin with... I am sure someone knows?

Another to do will be to fit rear seat belts since I don't have any, I believe since they were not fitted as standard then it is not a prerequisite for me to have them fitted but this is where I draw the line on originality. 

Before

Here's a last to do which is actually a done.  I got a spare day to work on the car and I decided to get round to respraying the air cleaner which had started to corrode on the outside and was looking a sorry state. It was a case of taking it back to bare metal and spraying it with 3-4 coats of paint and a couple more of laquer. I was pleased with the result and like most things involving paint it's all in the prep. The only other words of wisdom I can bestow is don't over spray in an area as the runs are very hard to get out.

The way I took it to bear metal was simply with sandpaper, it just takes time and quite a lot of it but at least you have control of how much needs sanding, I then rigged my own spray booth using bin liners, it worked a treat!

That's all till next time...

After