Hi all,
I've got a 2cv gearbox making some very raucous whiny / growly noises and wanted to get in touch with Rick Pembro to find out about refurbing it etc. Can anyone give me his details? Just post or pm me...

Cheers

My own experience is that a good low mileage box is always better than a refurb.....

Personally ive found that the later gearboxes ( dare i say Portuguese) even when low mileage have a rather sloppy build quality -need peening loose main shaft nuts,whereas the pile of Dyane ones all seem pretty tight and well screwed together their only weakness being rumbly input and top rear bearings( cheap!) and the now available and by all reports excellent synchro springs/clips.

Id rather have a box that's got all the major bearings replaced with new and properly set up rather than one that was within some arbitrary "Use by " date and just waiting to shed its 2nd selector ring or spit the nylon cage on the input shaft


DSC00122 by Sean602, on Flickr

My own experience is that it's easier to get a gearbox reconditioned than find a "good" low mileage box.......

I've got 2 gearboxes here that need repairing/rebuilding-learning how to rebuild them is fairly high up on my "to do" list!

'Like'

Then you're not looking hard enough. There were lots of low mileage (less than 20K) cars taken off the road when the chassis rot caused them to fail the MOT.

If you want to learn how to rebuild them the best way is to just pitch in yourself and do it - I have a genuine Citroen workshop manual here and I'd be happy to copy the relevant pages for you.

Have you got a big stash of sub 20k 2cv parts kicking about then? I know I haven't!

I'm sure you will recall that in the 1970's and 80's most 2CVs were bought as second cars and did low mileages. I imagine that very few were bought by salesman who did mega miles (they all drove Cavaliers and Sierras). By the time the first MOT came around some of the later ones were suffering terminal rot.

I had a 4 year old one that passed its first MOT but by the time I came to take it for an MOT it needed huge amounts of welding. By the time it was 5 years the chassis had cracked across the front. In the early 80's the replacement chassis business was in its infancy and far too expensive to bother with when you could easily find another car in Autotrader.

In the early 1980's there were plenty of 2CV's in ordinary scrapyards - usually 3 or 4 to choose from. I don't remember any of them having big mileages. Many of them had been scrapped because of kingpin problems or having had the brake fluid reservoir topped off with DOT 3 by an ignorant owner.

I found that you can put the engine, gearbox and all the running gear from a 2CV on a pallet. I had four of them stashed in my workshop at the family farm. They were all low mileage. All were used to build Avions or traded within the club that I run. I was often given cars by owners who didn't want them to be crushed. I still have a 4 engines, a couple of decent gearboxes and 3 sets of steering racks, suspension arms and other bits and pieces.

Just to prove they are still out there - I have been offered a 1989 2CV by the family who bought it new. They ran it until 2001 when it could no longer get through the MOT. Has less than 50K on it. It then went in the barn where it stayed until now. I hooked it up to my Start 'n Charge, put a can of fuel on the roof and connected it to the carb. Turned it over for a couple of minutes without the spark plugs, put them back and then it fired up on about the third go.

How the fuck do you work that out?

Sure there were plenty of low mileage cars broken "back in the day" but, I don't generally go around breaking low mileage cars-I repair them. And they're a lot worse condition wise these days than they were when people were breaking them 20 years or so ago!

If we just keep breaking 2CVs because the chassis is fucked or it needs sills/floors/screen surround, how many will be left in 2 or 3 years time?

As far as I'm aware, you'll end up with a better gearbox if you have someone like Rick Pembro rebuild it than an old but low mileage ("mass produced" by Pedro who didn't actually give a shit) gearbox.

It really pisses me off when people still encourage the breaking of cars when there are other, less destructive options available!!!