Let there be light!

I was debating whether to change the old filament bulbs in my dash gauges for modern LED equivalents. LED bulbs produce less heat and are much brighter than their filament cousins. They also can be fitted with no modification required to your vehicle - providing you obtain the correct ones of course.

I decided to perform this upgrade when I found it increasingly difficult to tell if my main beams were on or off. The reason for this is due to the blue filter, which with age loses its translucency.

In addition I found that the speedometer and tachometer were also quite faint at night, so these two were to be replaced also. These are not bayonet fittings but a flat blade type fitment. Two bulbs are required and these bulbs also illuminate the petrol gauge and the water temperature gauge, if fitted.

It wasn't difficult at all to order the correct bulbs I required first time. This was due to Gil Keane who runs a company called 4Sight automotive. Gil has been involved with classic cars for many years and was very helpful and knowledgeable following a call which resulted in an order. He also offers a complete money back guarantee if you're not happy with the result. My requirement was that I didn’t want the light to be too harsh and I think the result is quite good. Gil also advised that a blue light for the main beam would make it less harsh.

The result, I can finally see my gauges properly! One thing to note with LEDs, is that the dimmer knob becomes redundant since LEDs run at a constant brightness, turning the dimmer knob down will result in the LEDs not lighting up at all. Edit...I have since been informed that Gil can provide a rheostat that can be used in conjunction with LEDs.

Water temperature gauge installation

Water temp gauge now installed

Not all D's were created equal and as such not all had a water temperature gauge, my 1971 DS Pallas certainly didn't have one and like many which have the later style dashboard you'll find that if you don't have a temperature gauge there will still be a space for one in your instrument panel, opposite where your petrol gauge is located.

Since I like to keep an eye on data relating to the engine's condition I definitely wanted to install the gauge and especially since fitting one wouldn't alter much of the originality of the vehicle.

Once the gauge and temperature sender was sourced, thanks to Citroen Classics, I set forth to fit it and was pleasantly surprised how easy and rewarding it was. What's more the factory service manual takes you though each step, see FSM  814 Volume 2, "Fitting water temperature gauge".

Here's how I did it (this does not replace the advice in the FSM but just provides some added commentary):

Step 1 - Disconnect battery.

Step 2 - Undo speedo cable join from engine bay, usually located by right side of engine 

Step 3 - Unscrew the 4 screws located on the instrument panel

Step 4 - I had to remove the steering column trim since I couldn't manage to lever the instrument panel out, but this is easy as it's secured by two bolts underneath.

Step 5 - Carefully pull the instrument panel out

Step 6 - Unscrew the speedo cable from the speedometer and unplug the 3 plug connectors (they are colour coordinated and only go in one way so no chance of getting them mixed up).

You will now have the instrument panel in your hands. Good opportunity to renew any bulbs that may need renewing, the next steps are as follows:

without the temp. gauge installed

Step 1 - Pull off the two knobs on the front of the instrument panel, you will find that it's impossible to do so by hand. I did it by wrapping some material around it and then gripping gently the shaft of the plastic knob with a long nose plier. The next step is to use a wooden spoon (wooden spatula would work also) between the pliers and the instrument panel to lever against the plier and the panel. This technique worked well and it doesn't mark the trim in any way. 

Step 2 - Unscrew the 4 bolts which connect the front of the instrument panel to the rear of it

with the temp. gauge installed

Step 3 - You now can remove the front of the panel and clean the plastic lenses easily on both sides, it also reveals the blanking plate which covers the space where your gauge will be fitted.

Step 4 - remove this blanking plate, you'll find that if you push from the top it easily pops out.

Step 5 - there is a strip of black tape on the rear of the panel, you will need to remove this which will reveal 3 bolt holes and two holes which serve as locating holes for the water temperature gauge

Step 6 - the gauge can only go in one way, and once position screw the 3 philips bolts in place and your done.

The next step is to fit the water temperature sender, which on my car is located on the "water pump mounting housing" (not the water pump). A blanking plug needs to be removed which allows you to insert the sender. I've not done this yet as one school of thought says that the complete water pump needs to be removed as if you try to remove the plug it can strip itself and ruin the threads, jury is till out on what i will do and after asking a few people I'll make a decision on how to proceed.

Jaegar clock renewal

My Jaegar clock wasn't working so I removed it from the dash, put 12 volts through it and tapped it a couple of times in the hope it would come alive, unfortunately it didn't. My next step was to take a look inside and see if anything obvious looked out of place or broken.

Original broken Citroen DS clock

To get to the clock mechanism you must firstly remove the time set knob from the clock, on this style of clock it pulls off on other style of D clocks I am told it may unscrew. It was hard to pull the knob off and I found that a cord wrapped around the base of the shaft made the job a lot easier and one tug of the cord and it was off.

The next step is to carefully prise away the bezel, you need to exercise care as the trick is to do it uniformly and try not to deform the metal too much. I found that pushing the edge of the bezel against the edge of a table whilst I prised away with a knife worked for me.

Once the bezel is off the glass can be removed. The next step is to then undo two bolts from the rear of the clock. From memory they are both 7mm, and once you unscrew them the mechanism slides out.

Nothing looked untoward or out of place to my inexperienced naked eye and I proceeded to put 12 volts through the clock to see if anything was coming alive but was getting stuck. Unfortunately nothing, not even when I tried to coax the movement to work by giving it a helping nudge with a pen...

Mike Phelan has created a write up on how to repair the clock, and can be accessed by  clicking here. I decided though to not try to repair it since I was lucky to find a new old stock Jaegar clock for a Humber Sceptre/Hillman Hunter from 1972, which looked very similar to our Citroen clocks.

Humber Scepter clock

I thought as the seller didn't want too much for it, I'd give it a try. The only noticeable difference I can see from the seller's photos was that the rear casing was slightly different due to the way the Humber Sceptre light illumination was set up. My hunch was that I could swap my Citroen outer casings including bezel with the new clock internals.

Humber case/ Citroen case

I am pleased to say that's exactly what I did and I know have a new old stock clock. The only difference now is that mine has white hands instead of yellow, I understand from Mike's write up that you can swap the hands but after applying some pressure and no movement I thought I'd quit while I was ahead and not damage anything!

 

The Humber clock face in the Citroen case

Since Jaegar produced a number of this style of clock for different manufacturers it may be worth considering this modification if you can't find a replacement or repair yours.

Sable Metallise (AC318)

In October last year I had a visit from Mr. Nigel Wild, he was in the area and had kindly said he'd come and see Celia to help with uncovering the mystery of the colour.

To recap, the paint code in the engine bay reads AC318 which is a sandy gold colour, see here , yet Celia is painted a non Citroen colour -  it's a chocolate brown as found on  MGs and Triumphs of the period which was called "Russet Brown". Prior to Nigel's proper inspection there was no hard evidence of any previous colour on the car and we therefore didn't know whether the car was painted that way from new or had a complete colour change. Initial thoughts prior to looking at the car was that that the paint tag in the engine bay may have been incorrect. Nigel was going to help me determine this and solve the mystery.

Nigel was able to quickly establish what had occurred, at some time in the car's life the body work was starting to get tired. The owner decided to fit brand new panels, so new doors, boot, bonnet were ordered and painted in his new brown colour choice. Nigel noticed that these panels still had transitory primer on them and the rear wings which had not been replaced were sand metallic under the brown paint. Nigel also lifted some  trim from the indicator trumpets and again you can see that the roof was also sand metallic.

Mystery solved! Thanks Nigel!

I will be respraying the car back to it's original sable metallise when the time comes.

I am hoping she will look like this:

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