A friend has asked me to look over his mother-in-law's Charleston.

This is what I know about it:

It's B-registered (1984/5 - is that right for a maroon/black Charleston?), low mileage, one owner, as in the standard "one careful lady owner, gov, only used it on Sundays", and regularly maintained by a Citroen garage somewhere in SW London. It was last run more than ten years ago (presumably that was the last regular maintenance, too) and has been in a dry garage ever since.

They want to know if it's possible to get it back on the road.

What should I expect to find (or putting it another way, what should I look for)? I'm assuming that the tyres and the battery will be flat, and the brakes may be seized. I'm guessing that apart from all that, mechanically it will be do-able. But chassis and bodywork? Where do I start? Can anyone suggest a basic checklist? Or point me to one - I can't be the first person to ask, I'm sure.

Any help gratefully received. And I'll be happy to report back, with photos, of course.

Thanks, that's helpful. I'll take the list with me. I don't think I'll show it to the owner at this stage though. She really does want to get it back on the road and running.

as long as it wasnt laid up because of a problem( they never get better by themselves)
then its a case of pump the tyres
fresh oil , fresh petrol turn it over by hand to make sure its not siezed
fresh battery spin it on the starter till you get oil pressure and petrol from the fuel pump

then start it

you may have to replace the points and condenser as well as taking time to set the tappets when its cold

then you can take your time to check the state of the rest of it rear shoes will have siezed more than likley, but they will be siezed off
fronts are usually fine
exhaust may have rotted
lights wont work
Kingpins will need greasing etc

If the engine refuses to turn over it will be crud in one of the cylinders as the heads can self de coke while standing, some of the crap may get stuck under one of the valves so it starts but only runs on one cyl.

Sean

When it is okay, but the engine has just been standing long, I'd take the manifold of and probably the heads, and clean/hover it all before you start. Reason ist that the manifold tends to rust inside when standing long and the rust parts go throught the valves into the combustion chamber and can do a lot of harm during a first start.

Good luck, Bart

I've seen the car now and it looks pretty good to me. I hope I have succeeded in getting the pictures in below, they are meant to be clickable thumbnails!



The bodywork seems to be really OK, with one exception. The sills and pillar bottoms are fine:



And the other side too:



The floors inside aren't bad:



Front and back seem about the same, a bit of rust but no holes:



As is the spare wheel well:



The one nasty on the body is a very amateur bit of filler under the rear passenger window, where there is a big gap in the window rubber that has clearly let water in:



There has been a small amount of welding on the chassis under the front seats:



The rest of the chassis, with one exception, looks very sound indeed:



I am not sure this really shows it well, it's hard to take pictures underneath!

The exception is the near-side rear chassis leg, which is bent/rusty/folded. It maybe a sign of bad internal rust in the chassis, or maybe someone has tried to jack on it. The picture doesn't show it very well either:



The other side looks reasonably good though.

Andf the other side looks reasonable. It's low mileage, with good compression on the engine:



The rear bakes aren't seized on (they might still be seized), and there's air in the tyres, and plenty of tread (Michelins).

The next step is to start it, run it and see about an MOT.

I would appreciate advice - about what to do next. I am reasonably confident that the car will start and run. It has clearly been well looked after - for example, ALL the driveshaft gaiters are new (ie ten years old, but possibly never used after fitting). It always went for maintenance to the garage that sold it, AMS Motors in SW London (does anyone know who that was?), and the one bit of welding looked reasonably competent.

But I am about to head back to France, where I normally live, and the owner (a very non-mechanical lady pensioner) wants to get it MOTed and ready for a longish run down into the middle of France. I would like to be able to make sensible suggestions about what she can do.

If it were actually mine I'd do all the work myself (well, nearly all). But it isn't. And anyway I can't! So can anyone suggest a Citroen mechanic/garage/whatever in SW London who would be prepared to give it a go?

I also wonder whether anyone could give an idea what getting this one running again would cost. I appreciate that just from the pictures that's not easy, and things like not knowing the state of the rear (or even front) brakes makes this all a bit hypothetical. But should I be warning the owner that it will be (say) at least £500? or should that be more like £1000?

Any suggestions at all would be welcome. Thanks to you all - the checklist that Dago recommended was very helpful. Now I rather wish I'd taken a battery and a couple of gallons of petrol, but they get a bit sniffy on the trains when you go through the barriers with those.

Dennis,

It's worth having a look here: http://www.ecas2cvparts.co.uk/info_page ... 0f9ec77e3f perhaps there's someone in the area that could help with the Charleston.

Probably the only way they'll really know how much needs doing to get it back on the road is to waste £50 or so on an MOT. The patching on the front chassis leg 'under the seats' would worry me most.