Thanks for the words of support fella's. A good sleep has me feeling better today, normal service will be resumed shortly.

I'm not a man that sleeps very well, or very often, and eventually that takes its toll. Depression is a much misunderstood thing, but I've fought it for over three decades so I'm familiar with the signs. It can last from a few hours to a few days, and I have absolutely no way of influencing that time span other than to sleep until it passes.

On a brighter note, I have just seen a politician on Sky News promising the nation that if XYZ gain power, every day will be like Christmas, and every night like new years eve. At least I have that to look forward to then.

See! - I must be feeling better, the cynicism is returning.

Man, that car is looking Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet!!

Any forecast for it's first meet?

I need it on the road by the beginning of June Bertie as it takes over as my daily ride then - the modern car is going. As for meets, that's anyone's guess? I'm at a wedding up on the west coast of Scotland during the international week so can't make that, but will probably be spotted out and about before long.

Well the brakes are now bled, and the car now drives steers and stops as it should- sort of. The first press of the pedal is still a little spongy so I'll have to revisit them another time, but bleeding brakes on your own is such a ball-ache I feel I've done enough for today.

When pressing the brake pedal I noticed that the rubber shroud at the bottom of the steering column isn't sitting as it should, and repeated attempts to fix it in place have so far failed, leaving a draughty gap down below. Not happy with that so I will have another go later. It looks like someone has made the hole larger than standard, thus making the thing just pop out and inside the car.

Also I noticed that my ignition/oil pressure light no longer works. I often wonder just what it is that can possibly change from one day to the next with things like this? Yesterday switch on the ignition and the light works, then today it doesn't. It's not the bulb I checked it, all the wire connects look fine too, and nothing's changed, so it's another case of the unexplained.

Those that have read most or all of this blog will know that I have found Aldi stores to provide the solution to many of the situations that I have come across, and after a visit the other day to see what else was new (all gardening stuff so no good to me) I picked up a leaflet for what's coming in next week. As the main thing on my mind is now what to do about the seats, how to re-cover them etc. I found this photo from the magazine very interesting... I wonder if I could convert then to fit the front seats to appear similar to the early covers? I probably won't do that, but I'm always looking for options like that.



In the next week or so I hope to be fitting the new roof, completing the interior one way or another, and then I'll probably spend a week or so going round sorting out the little snags (like the ignition light) if I can before MOT time.

I like your idea, but wouldn't they be abit too wide? I really like the recovered red rear seat aswell

Old-Nail,
being nosey, but what happened with the brakes? Did they suddenly decide to play ball?

Re. the oil pressure light, it might be worth checking (wiggling?) the fuses, as they're often the source of problems with intermittent contact, particularly if the car's been out of use for a long time.
The fuse for the oil light also controls the charging circuit and the fuel gauge, if I recall correctly.

ken.

Mr Nail,
single handed brake bleeding?
get ye down to halfrauds as they have a little one way valve for doing motorcycle brakes,goes in line with the tube, pop it on the nipple and sit in car and pump away to your hearts content

when doing a car thats had the master off i tend to bleed the master at the outlets first, logically it shouldnt make a differance but it does-once you have no bubbles there connect up the pipes and proceed as normal

the drivers of the race car always complain that i get the brakes "too viscious" ie solid pedal

Sean

Ken, what I've put it down to is the additional soundproofing felt that I'd laid on the bulkhead floor. When pressing the pedal down it was stopping short of full travel due to the inch thick layer of felt, topped with a rubber coating, and finally the floor mat. Once I figured out that when the pedal was 'down', in actual fact there was still a possible 15mm or so of travel left if you pressed very hard then all went well. I say 'well', that was until I pulled out the steering wheel shroud while sorting the felt!

Also one of the other things that had a day off with the oil light but wasn't mentioned was the fuel gauge, which makes your comments on the fuses sound like a fair diagnosis.

I did actually use one of those pipes with a non return valve Sean, but still, to place it on the rear wheel, go and pump the pedal, go back under car and and look for bubbles, top up the reservoir, get in and pump the pedal again, repeat etc. is a funny old way to behave.

That will be the fuse then, indicators will also be not functioning, along with the wipers, if you've got the same circuit as me. This is the fuse circuit I'm having trouble with on mine, blowing the fuse intermittently... A real pain to track down as the fuse covers so many different things

I remember a Kawasaki motorcycle that I bought from a bike dealer in my old home town. The shop was owned by a guy named Doug Hacking, and although his reputation was one of a purveyor of overpriced goods Mr. Hacking was the local Kawasaki dealer, and in the 1970's a Kawasaki was a very lovely thing to have.

Being young back then and eager to own my first bike, I bought the rather scruffy looking motorcycle from Doug (at a vastly inflated price of course) and proceeded to ride it away. I think that I managed to get all of two hundred yards before it broke down which, even for a bike sold by Doug Hacking must have been some sort of world record! Feeling absolutely conned, and with the imaginary portent of doom already hanging over the machine my spirits hit an all time low.

Now the reason I mention this is that I went on to fix the problem that caused that breakdown, and that bike became the source of some of the best biking memories that I have, even when looking back over my entire riding past. The problem that seemed so utterly devastating at the time wasn't, and a similar thing has happened here with the 2cv since my last post.
The refusal of the braking system to bleed out correctly became increasingly frustrating. The number of times that I checked things like brake pipe connections or master cylinder function made it appear impossible that I had done something wrong, and in a way I hadn't, but I did discover the reason they wouldn't bleed correctly!



Readers of this blog may have unfortunately missed out on many of the posts that I have done during this rebuild due to them originally having been posted on the 2cvGB forum. One of the posts that you might have missed due to this related to the fitting of soundproofing to the car as shown above, which when fitted was given a top covering of rubber matting (below) mainly to prevent and moisture from the odd drip (all 2cv's allow the odd drip of rain at some time) becoming trapped in the felt below.



Once the two layers were glued in place the master cylinder was attached and the pedals were fitted. The final bit of floor covering is the standard fitment rubber matting which were then added. Now here's the thing, the seats are not yet upholstered and so not attached to their floor mounted rails, so in order to bleed the brakes I simply placed the drivers seat in the car and sat on it. This was quite a wobbly business as the harder you pressed the more the seat moved, or rocked backwards!

Now bleeding brakes on your own is not a pleasant task, but with the additional stress of seemingly going nowhere with it, exept in terms of falling backwards off the loose drivers seat each time you press the pedal it soon became impossible, given my temperament, to remain calm. I lost the plot - big time!

After a period of well needed sleep I returned to the car and fixed the drivers seat in position, it has to come back out to be trimmed but I couldn't contemplete rocking about the place on the unattached seat again as I had been doing. It was that one thing revealed what had been wrong. With the seat firm I was able to get better purchase on the brake pedal and found that, in actual fact it was possible when pressing very hard to gain another 15mm of travel on the pedal. The aforementioned soundproofing felt had prevented the full pedal motion from taking place, and the 'rocking' chair had prevented me from noticing, as it fell backwards before that point!

So, using my old motorbike's solo brake bleeding tube the brakes were bled satisfactorily, they are still slightly spongy first press which I'll see to later, but as with my first Kawasaki back in the 1970's, what seemed at the time to be the last straw has now become another setback conquered.