I was shaking the silencer (the one underneath the floorboard) and inspecting the clearance between it and the heat shields to figure out where this train horn sound is coming from under deceleration and noticed what looked looks like a discolored soft poly hose with a protective black fuel line or rubber cover over top of it (less than a foot). It was coated in quite a bit of grease and gooey. Unless this is a white wire.

The only hose I could think of going to the rear would be the fuel line but I'd imagine the fuel line would be a metal tube, not a hose running the length of the car and not soft poly tubing.

It would be on the passenger side if the car was RHD, driver's side LHD.

Any ideas what this is? I have not had a chance to trace it down. I can take a photo if this helps.

Aye, it's fuel. Rot-proof and easy to feed over the top of the back axle in case the axle bolts ever shear - so cutting off the fuel supply. I'd feel happier with copper pipe but the plastic does its job.

Oh hang on, isn't modern fuel a bit corrosive to copper? The early cars were steel, I think.

as far a i know they already had plastic fuellines in the 50s. At least my 2 57 models had plastic tubes. The early brakelines were steel
The fuelline and brakeline should be clipped to the side of the chassis in plastic holders.

Thanks. I wouldn't have thought it was a fuel hose but there are allot of things on this car that are not conventional. Like the in-board brakes.

its Nylon and its probably tougher and more resilient than copper or steel

as for the inboard brakes its to do with the reaction forces and the leading arm suspension with the added advantage of reduced un sprung weight and clutter free swivel hub.

Not much 'conventional' about these cars

That's what you get when you give the engineers free hand.

The best thing about the clutter-free swivel hub is that the swivel axis is in the centre line of the wheel/tyre, meaning that the steering is far less affected by the drag on the tyre, in the event of a blow-out, than it is on conventional cars with their in-board swivel axis.

This simple idea was designed into all Citroën cars from 1948 until the DS was replaced by the CX and Peugeot took over, in 1974/5, after which only the A-series & G-series still had it. Does anyone remember the GS TV advert? A GS driving head on towards 2 trucks, with just enough of a gap to go between them. Just as it gets to them, one of the tyres is blown out but it just carries on in a straight line between them.

As far as I'm aware, in 68 years, no other manufacturer has taken up this simple safety feature.


Exactly. But now PSA have moved on to "DS Automobiles", where, (like with all the other mundane car manufacturers), the accountants restrict the engineers to the extent that the end product is the same as everything else and boring. Then, in order to con the buyers into thinking that the product is actually exiting and better than all the other similar cr@p, they spend loads on marketing b8ll8cks that uses lots of big positive words to say absolutely nothing. That's progress.

Ah thats why it brakes in such a straight line even over ruts and bumps etc? More so than both my other cars, which are S class Mercedes and handle amazingly. (Not as well in this regard though!)

In one of the many books on A series vehicles, the author describes them as using conventional engineering but assembled in an unconventional manner.

Sums them up rather well, doesn't it

in an old book from the dutch AA they say it's an ugly duck with the anatomy of a swan..