Hi,
I'm new here, so I thought I'd introduce myself
My name is Kuba and I'm hopelessly addicted to 2CVs
For some time now I'd dreamed of owning a properly simple, purely mechanical and old car. I just never thought it would come so soon. I was fascinated by the 2CV when I was a little kid, and it all came back to me when I saw a few beautiful 2CVs in daily driver use, while I was cycling along German coast to Amsterdam. So, remembering Clarkson ("how hard can it be?") I decided to look around after I get back And by february I had a rusty and mouldy car in my garage.
The mechanical part of restoration took me around 4 months, everything except cylinder head renovation being done in my garage. Then another 9 months for bodywork and a paintjob. After that, I could again work by myself with the interior etc. The car has been road-legal just for the last 2 weeks (I did not register it before I finished the restoration, there is absolutely no way it would have passed inspection with a rusted through and broken chassis, I have no idea how it passed the strict German TUV around 2 years before sale).
Did 500 km so far, still doing minor final tuning and adjustments every now and then.
Now I'm planning on going to Finnland 2CV meeting this July, together with my friend and his yellow 2CV

For pictures visit https://picasaweb.google.com/Saurus8/Ci ... directlink
There are too many to post them here so here's just two - before & after
Do not be deceived by the looks of it - the flag of France colors are not paint, but plastic foil. Underneath was original jaune rialto paint, preserved nicely but the body was rusted through in many places.

Looks brilliant, i love 2cvs this colour

I almost prefer the charm of the car you started with, but it looks like you have put a lot of time effort and money into transforming it into a really pretty looking 2cv, well done you, it's a credit to you!

Welcome to the forum, what's it like being a 2cver in Poland? How many cars are out there?

Hi Saurus,
looking at your photographs, that's 'taking a car apart' redefined...
Ken
( If your rear brakes have any tendency to grab, that will be because you've fitted the shoes the wrong way round, with the leading and trailing shoes interchanged.
It may be different on the driver's side, as the photographs only showed the passenger side
https://picasaweb.google.com/1086646326 ... 4256294002 )

@Russell
There are quite a few 2CVs here, although it's probably not nearly as common as in the UK. The roads are often terrible and that's where this car really shines, the suspension is brilliant. Also love the fact that it seems to get over speedbumps easier at 40 kmph than 20
The 2CV was never sold in Poland when it was ruled by communists, so people do not know this car and don't perceive it as some crappy cheap excuse of a car from 30-40 years ago (as I imagine some people do in countries where it was sold), it would be almost unknown here if not for Louis de Funes It really makes everyone around smile, and during less then 2 weeks about a dozen people engaged me in conversation about it. Just last Friday some guy in a van was tailing me around half my town because he wanted to see it up close so badly, and approached me immediately when I stopped
@Ken
What do you mean by "grab"? Not releasing immediately? I have not noticed anything like that, but I might have missed that, since the rear shoes are set rather tight and rubbing quite a bit to wear them in, because in the beginning I had excessive free play in the brake and that turned out to be because of too large shoe clearances & flexing under load.
Might have to reverse those.

Looking forward to 2015 and experiencing Poland for myself.

Very nice car! Brilliant to see another 2cv on the road and I love the colour scheme

Saurus,
'grabbing' brakes mean that their initial response is too fierce, so instead of the braking
effort being proportional to the pressure you've put on the brake pedal, it's high even
with light pressure and can cause skidding of the rear wheels.

For that reason, the leading shoe usually has the lining displaced away from the slave
cylinder in the direction of rotation, which limits the amount of the 'self-servo' affect on it.

The trailing shoe does not self-servo, so it will have its lining moved closer to the cylinder, or maybe even have a full length lining.

http://www.engineeringinspiration.co.uk/drumbrakes.html

ken

I really enjoyed that explicit and documented explanation.

Cheers

Got new tyres (Toyo) installed today. They're a huge improvement over the 18 year old Michelins I had