Looks good, will look even better with a 3-bar alloy grill to go with the bonnet mounted chevrons

http://www.ecas2cvparts.co.uk/grille-br ... p-566.html

NO!

I'm having a 3 bar and chevrons on my van, dad can have the grill currently on my van



And I still think the headlamp peaks look silly, but everyone else seems to like them

Headlamp peaks are very silly, I agree. There's also a legal issue regarding them, as in a collision with a pedestrian they could possibly cause even more injury (hence the reason why modern cars have much smoother front ends and cars like Mercedes have collapsible bonnet emblems). There might be an issue with the insurance company if a claim is made.

I haven't updated this in ages, but now F741 HGU is no more, I feel I ought to.



That was the week before the ICCCR, I finished patching a few more holes, put new rings in the engine (Finnaly curing the smoke), fitted new roof, fitted rear seat belts (Thank god) generally tidyed everything up a bit. The trip up went well, in convoy with Paul in his D*lly, and a couple of other friends I'd persuaded to come up with me.

I don't have any pictures of the actual event I'm afraid, we were volunteering, ended up working a 19 hour shift on a couple of occasions, didn't get much spare time... On the whole we all had a good time though, great event, just somewhat overworked volunteers!

Anyway, we left after the ukulele orchestra had finished and drove back down through the night. 240 miles completed without a problem, about 10 miles from home at 4:00 in the morning, the F/N/S tyre blew, and we ended up dropping down quite a sizeable ditch, upside down...

Amazingy, we all walked out of it - Geoff had quite a nose bleed, but nothing broken, and Freya a shard of glass in her wrist, but A&E got that out quickly. I think I must have hit my head on the wheel, but didn't even notice until I found a massive lump there the next day.

I still don't know exactly how it happened, I walked back and found the tyre by the side on the verge, it must have come right off the rim before we even left the road. It was a new tyre I had put on before we left, but I would have thought if it was defective, or had been put on incorrectly, we'd have noticed during the previous 500 miles we had just driven, so I can only assume we must have hit something on the road, I don't know what.

Anyway, the car is a catagory B write off, so it's not possible to put it back on the road as F741 HGU any more.

However, we bought it back off the insurance company, I'm determined one day, to get some of it back on the road in some form or another. It arrived back home again today, so at Russ's request here are some morbid wreckage pics









Quite bad really, the front chassis legs are bent, the whole body is distorted, and squashed around the edges, all the panels except possibly the bootlid are beyond repair...

F/N/S swingarm is bent at an interesting angle;



Looks like it took quite a lot of the force of the collision though, rather it than us!

To be honest, I'm quite impressed with how well the 2cv coped, there was a metre high wall, followed by a very steep, high bank, most of which was traversed either on our side or roof, yet the body shell has remained roughly the same shape. We were incredibly lucky though.

Fitting it back in to the garage was quite a trick as well, had to repace the rear wheel so as we could roll it in;





However I then noticed the chassis was still sitting on the ground - the ream arm has bent as well.



After emptying it, me and my dad managed to half roll, hald drag it back into the garage.





Which now contains, a 2cv, honda CB12TB, Honda CB125RSD, Motobecane Mobylette 50VLC, another mobylette, I think a 40V. Also 5 bicycles, 4 2cv engines and 3 gearboxes, and quite a few more parts besides

I'm off to university on Friday (I got in, blast! ) and I'm not even going to start on this until my van is finished. However, one day, I will get as much of this car as possible back on the road, somehow or another.

I'll make another thread here when I start

Oh, and Albert my AKS400 is still happening, I'm restricted to working in holidays now though, so no news until Christmas I'm afraid.


George

George,
now the dust has settled and the bruises healed (or at least gone a nice yellow colour), what tyres were on it at the front?

They were toyos I'm afraid. All the tyres had cracks in the sidewalls when we got it, so I replaced them with toyos. After a year of driving, the F/N/S was looking much more worn on one side than the other, so I got a new tyre for it, and checked the tracking, which was indeed out slightly. That rectified, and new tyre on, I couldn't see any problems when we got to Yorkshire, and even went around and checked all the pressures etc. before our return trip.

I have no idea if the tyre is at fault or not, but I think regardless I'm going to splash out on michelins from now on...

You ever collapsed a collapsable badge? There's more than enough time for it to give you a second arse hole if it hit you at any speed.
And yeah crash safety is so important that soon cars will have to have explosive bonnets, (the do already in Japan) to fire people away from the block, cause it'll be much less painful, being hit by a flying bonnet.
Insurance companies need to man the fuck up.

Louis. Nearly there

Cars will have bumpers fillip of geese feathers

Crashes happen, people get hurt. Sadly thats
The way life goes

Strange Toyos take a fair bit of abuse without coming off the rim, its very unusual for a tubeless to let go so quickly - an often overlooked part is the valve as they flap about a bit in use ( there is a shiny contact point where mine are thrown against the rim by centrifugal forces) its always worth fitting new ones and pulling old ones about to make sure they seal all the time.

Did you change the wheel during the recovery? as all pictures show the NSF in good condition (well not ripped to shreds as would be expected)
NSR is flat was it that that let go? - also worth noting the endless and somewhat heated discussion about which tyres should go where - most folk seem to think that new tyres go on the front as that's where all the work is done. However having a sudden break away at the rear is much harder to control than the gradual understeer that comes from the front being pushed past its limit.

(Not questioning your recall of events George, just curious as there are some points here that could save similar events happening to someone else.)
S

We put the spare wheel on the NSF in order to drag it out of the field, the arm is bent slightly on the NSR so it must have taken quite a lot of force, presumably that's how it got punctured...

The NSF was the only wheel minus its tyre when we stopped, and I found the tyre just back from where our tyre tracks left the verge, so I'm pretty sure it must have gone first.

Recollection of events is hearing a bang, more a sort of thud, and feeling the whole car drop on that side, and a really loud screeching. It felt as though it was skidding, so instinctively I let go of both brake and throttle and just tried to correct it - obviously unsuccesfully.

In hindsight maybe if I had just braked hard straight away it would have stopped before we left the road... Then again, if that didn't work we may well have gone straight into the beech tree we only missed by a metre. Swings and roundabouts!

We weren't going around any sharp corners, just a very long, gentle curve to the road. Trouble is it was curved to the right, it was all i could do to make the car go straight...