The Refurbishment

Saturday 25 January

With all the components off the car & dismantled (only the King pins left to do), the messy job of cleaning each part from oil, grease etc. and subsequent refurbishment cosmetically (by shot blasting & painting) and mechanically  has begun.

I now have the "luxury" of working in my garage. (which still needs clearing before i receive the kit).
Above, i'm undoing the rear suspension arm bearing cover, to facilitate seperating the Arm from the cross rear member.

Removing the "coil" of brake pipe from inside of the cross member.

The outer bearing is secured with a castellated nut, which the workshop manual requires you to use a special spanner (expensive). So you can use a drift (screwdriver) to gently tap it free.

The outer bearing drops free (with the inner still on the cross member). You can then gently drift out the cone races. The inner bearing really requires a bearing puller. (you can drift it away, but risk damaging the grease seal - which i did) !

I still have the  front inner bearings to remove, but i will use a bearing puller this time.
The final job was to remove the hub nuts ( to release the drive shafts) - this proved very difficult to begin with, as the nuts are super tight! i failed with my tool kit. The photo's below showed how i did it, by using a huge 3/4 in drive socket with a two foot breaker bar extended with a very long scaffold tube.
This arrangement is recommended, as it made light work of a tough job.

Only the Hubs to separate now from the front suspension  arms, achieved by pressing out of the king pins. we have a Press at work, so i'm going to attempt this job next week.  TTFN


PS- The Garage, almost cleared out ready !

February 2014:

I Collected the kit from PMC's Phil. I am a little behind schedule, as refurbishing the 2CV parts is taking  longer than i thought, with cleaning almost 25 years of dirt,oil & grease, then de rusting, followed by painting etc.

Phil said the chassis would be OK on my little Fiat Punto - he was right!  weighing only around 40Kg, no problem for my (Brilliant fits any car)  "Handirack" inflatable roof rack.

Chassis in the garage, on my Bargain plastic B&Q sawhorse set

I'm painting the chassis with a high quality Gloss enamel

You don't need expensive coach enamel to achieve a top quality finish, just use high quality (interior) gloss paint, and once dry (weeks) it will be extremely durable.

Exchange modified front arms from Phil, painted in silver grey Gloss

Steering rack, arms & track rod ends, oily & very rusty!

On the bench for disassembly

Using mole wrench to undo rust fast track rod end lever arm

I found that Genuine "white spirit" is best for cleaning/degreasing

Rusty parts (compare to finished items later down the page)

small parts soaked in neat Vinegar for a few days, which will remove most of the rust, with no effort

Best tool by far i 've found to remove rust is the Twist knot wire wheel in my drill

removes all rust form my steering arm

Cheapo Halfords low profile ball joint splitter used to remove steering arms from the rack (very tight)!

Cleaning the steering rack

ready for the twist knot wire treatment

Rear hub & arm are being shot blasted

cleaning swivel hubs

Pedal box

Brake master cylinder

 Part of drive shafts ready for painting

Gear stick assembly

April 22nd 2014:

All the suspension  refurbishment is now almost done!  Only a few items remain.
I am now starting the assembly of the rolling chassis.

May 15 2014

P.S. - last few items to be refurbished are the rear suspension arm & hub. i had them shot blasted at work, then i primed them today. I must say the finish after blasting is good (better than the exchange front arms from PMC, - i can see me re doing the fronts to achieve a more durable finish).