Hello again,

I have a question about the ride quality of a 2CV.

When I got mine (1988 D*lly) the ride was much stiffer than I was expecting - certainly more rolly than a normal car but not as good at soaking up the bumps as all the books etc. say. There was a lot of thumping, rattling and bumping over even small flaws in the road.

After reading the (excellent) suspension thread on this forum I put some vegetable oil in the supension cans (half a litre each side) and checked that the tie rods were slightly slack on the knife edges when each side was on full 'droop' (which they were). The front drive shaft splines and the knife edges were and are well greased.

That made a noticeable difference- much more of the gentle bouncing when going along, less noise from the springs and now you can very easily bounce the car up and down and it reacts a lot more when people get in or out.

However it's still quite harsh and rattly when going over potholes. It seems to be the smaller flaws in the road surface that are worst, especially manhole covers and badly filled in potholes which really jar all the way through the bodywork. I've driven it over a cobbled street surface and it was pretty uncomfortable.

My problem is that I've never driven another 2CV and haven't even been in another one for 15+ years so I don't really know what they should be like. The ride in mine is certainly good by normal car standards but when you read of people saying that 2CVs 'go over speed bumps like they weren't there' and so on then I just wonder if mine still has room for improvement or whether I've been led to expect a bit too much by journalistic hyperbole.

I guess I need a ploughed field and a basket of eggs....

Jack

P.S- when I was putting the oil in the L/H spring can the tip of the oil can came out covered in LM grease as if someone has been trying to fill the rear part of the can with the stuff. That can't be right, surely?

It might be worth checking which was round the shock absorbers are? Also, tyre pressures can change the ride quality (higher psi = tougher ride)

Yes, check the shock absorbers/dampers are fitted the correct way round and also the correct way up. This should help viewtopic.php?f=7&t=1924

Based on your rattles over potholes comment, I would also check for play in the king pins and track rod ends.

Well, I checked the dampers today. The back pair are fairly new looking Boge ones and despite both having stickers on them saying which way they go on they were both upside down! Turned them round and there's a big improvement in the ride quality .

One more question- the rear dampers were attached with the 'piston' end at the spring can and the 'fixed' end at the trailing arm. The front ones (LIPMESAs) were the other way around (fixed end at the spring can). The thread Joolz posted implies that this is correct but I'd like to be sure.

Thanks a lot guys,

Jack

Just to second Joolz note on kingpins. My N/S one is very much in need of replacement and giving it a really good grease has helped a lot - I was experiencing exactly what you describe so will be changing the KP ASAP

sam if you need a hand doing the kingpin gimme a shout