Hey James,I hope you passy your test.

Thanks dave
So do I, or my credit card bill will increase with taking it again

Any updates?

Yes, actually, thank you for the prod

I spent last week working for the most part from 7am to 7pm, which while very productive, didn't leave me in a good frame of mind for writing about it when I got back home in the evenings!

I have changed my mind slightly - originally I wanted to do this all perfectly, have it exactly as I wanted it and to be able to call it a finished project when it rolled out of the MOT centre. Ha! I'm finally admitting I may have been a little naive, I now realise that it will never be 'finished' as such, there'll always be things I want to change or improve. Also, I can't keep on taking up this much space in the barn forever, I really need transport for uni, and I just haven't got the money to paint it properly. All things considered, I have decided the best thing to do is just to get it on the road, stuff like reupholstering the seats and renewing the wiring loom can all be done whilst on the road, when I have a few spare hours at a weekend. Then a couple of years down the line, I can tear it down again and give it a proper paint job, but without having the massive amounts of rot to deal with.
Anyway, that is the current plan, well see how it goes. Enough of my waffling, I've finally gotten around to fitting those wheel arches I made yonks ago.

It's been so long they're starting to look rather brown, but it does just brush straight off with a wire brush fortunately. First of all I had to spend a day bashing them, to get the ends of the ripples nicely rounded and to sharpen the bends.



The first trial fit went surprisingly well, with only a few adjustments necessary



After a little more bashing I offered them up again, and they fitted so perfectly I promptly welding them in place. In hindsight, it would have made more sense, I think, to add the bump stops, dividers, brackets and so on whilst it was on the bench rather than in situ, but this method seemed to work.



I then made a start on a new panel for the front of the arch. There have been so many repairs stacked on top of each other here that is was very hard to work out how the original was fitted! I don't know if the solution I arrived at resembles the original in any way, but it seems to work, and I think will look all right when cleaned up.





Another few hours was spent making up the pieces of metal for the corner and welding them in, along with the bracket for the fuel tank mount which I managed to salvage from the old arch.





2CVs are certainly good cars for practising welding thin metal! I think when finished and all cleaned up these new arches will look good. It's a nice feeling, sticking large sheets of metal into the van, rather than cutting out for a change.

Having got this far I couldn't help but put a seat in there and make racing car noises (well, gurgling flat twin noises)



I was making the most of that week, parents in France, friends in Spain, girlfriend in Canterbury, so for a few days I have had uninterrupted work on the van. Distractions are arriving thick and fast now, so updates may be irregular (not that they have ever been regular), but I am fully intending to get this van on the road in time for the start of term, if not sooner. It will be a bit upsetting seeing it look like a shed for a couple of years due to a crappy paint job, after all the work I've put in, but it is probably a good anti-theft device for life in a city, and it is only temporary until I can afford a decent compressor and air fed mask etc.

Seeing this I can only say 1 thing...... 2cv Keza eat your heart out.....

Looking great.....

Don't worry Keza, I've still got a bit to learn!

My friend Tom came over for the day, so I promptly set him to work on the other wheel arch. The entire of the top join was so rusty we didn't have to cut it out!



With that out, I set to fitting the new one the same was as I did the first.



Then I set about fitting all the other brackets and gubbins to them. As I said before, it would have made sense to do all that before fitting the arches, but ho hum. First up was the bump stops, I didn't have a great deal to go on. One side was completely missing, the other side looked like this;



Anyhow, I made up some new ones using the same sort of design, only with some slightly thicker metal.



I made an end cap for them as well, but it's not fitted yet as I am waiting for the actual rubber bump stops to arrive. As you can see there, the spare wheel mount is also fitted. Next to do was the divider between the rear wings and the tank / wheel covers.









Then I ran out of gas, and didn't fancy trying to get a 20kg bottle refilled on the bike 50 miles away... I moved on to something I could do without a welder. In fact, I have been pondering and plotting this for quite some time, no doubt it will upset people, but it makes sense to me...





I searched high and low for some corrugated sheet I could use for the floor, to no avail. 9mm ply ticks all the right boxes though, plenty strong enough to walk on, hardly any difference in weight to the original. It is going to be a working van, so it doesn't matter if it gets scratched or knocked. I also have a theory it might be slightly warmer if I need to sleep inside, but I don't hold out much hope on that account!

Anyhow, it feels as though I'm getting somewhere now, it was rather disheartening to see such large holes in my van.

Until the next instalment!

George

Next I decided to weld the rear wings in place. Eventually, I want to have them hinged to provide access to all the space behind there, as the rear wheel only takes up a little of the room, and I don't like the way it flings mud from the road all over the rear light connections and rust can hide there unnoticed. However, I understand the wing actually provides quite a bit of strength to the rear body, so I want to modify it in such a way that retains that strength, but that will have to wait for a later date

For now I have just welded the wings in place as per original, but that will change eventually.





I think I might also relegate the spare wheel to under the bonnet, freeing up that space for more interesting things, but again that can wait.

Now one of the reasons for getting the van back on the road in such a haste, is that I have somehow become president of the gliding club at university, and it would be extremely useful to have some means of transporting members from campus to the airfield. So you can imagine my excitement when I saw a picture of a van with rear seats fitted!

I had a rear seat from a normal 2cv, which is just a fraction too wide to fit between the wheel arches. That problem was easily solved by loping off a couple of centimetres from each side of the centre. Of course, it does mean the seats are now even saggier than they were before, but perhaps if I have the rubbers going diagonally, crossing over each other that can be alleviated to some extend. I chose to stick with the original car mounting system of three holes in the front, and two brackets at the back for it to slot into.



It's not fitted there, but you can see how it is going to work. Wherever I invent my own stuff like this, I tend to copy Citroën's original designs, with the only changes being thicker metal and stronger welding. I fully accept they know far more about design than me, but I would hazard a guess I am slightly more concerned about corrosion and thin metal than they were when this was originally built?

The space between the front two cross members can be used as a foot well, or storage space when the seats aren't fitted. In fact, the space between all the cross members will eventually be utilised as storage space, but again, that is something I will work on later.

With the rear seat and seat belt mounts (copying Citroën's design again) all fitted and welded, I decided it was time to get the body off one last time, so I could get all the painting underneath done, and also give me some room to manoeuvre whilst servicing all the steering and suspension components. Following absolutely textbook safe lifting practices, I somehow managed to lift the body off on my own.





That will have to do for this post, it is definitely getting somewhere now though! Pretty much all of the bodywork is done, I just need to grind down some welds and give it some paint. One of the knife edge pins needs replacing, but otherwise I think everything just needs a good grease. Then will come the interesting part of the jigsaw puzzle, seeing how many pieces I have mislaid over the years.

Looking forward to see it finished !
Goodluck !

Is there anything left of the original van?! Looking good.

Yep, rearview miror