Despite having a shopping list as long as your arm just to put the chassis together, I spent £45 on some bits I don't really need.



i *hope* to get the shell, suspension and gearbox this weekend.

After 1000km on the road yesterday, I picked up a shell from Roo, and the 2cv4 'box from Spanners, who kindly fetched it for me when I bought it on eBay. Spanners garage clearout also saw me leaving with a full set of suspension cans and fittings. Thanks to all concerned, it's been a massive, massive help!



Early start...



Passports at the ready...



Roos Dyane...

Picking the new body up...





The car my shell came from. Really neat!



Birmingham...



Spanners decided the roof on tbhis shell looked better than his...



Finally back home, the shells now in the garage.





This is the freshly painted chassis, hope to build it up in the next couple of weeks.



You can see the extra plates that've been welded in to reinforce the chassis.



I hope, now all the parts are here, the build of the car can be sped up a little. I'd like to have it at least on its wheels by registers day...

Nice work Russ! Whos is the 405?

good to see the 2cving community helping out again!

Today I played with suspension at work. The general concensus with 2cv cross drivers is that they use four Acadiane rear springs, turned and cambered front arms and solid mounted spring cans. The trouble is, they all use Ami8 chassis (which are ten a centime in France), which has the provision for larger spring cans. I can't find a decent Ami8 chassis, and I can't afford one, so my chassis is a 2CV one. This means I'm limited to smaller diameter springs, although I could modify large cans to fit a 2cv chassis, I don't think this is strictly legal, and if it is it's a bit of a gris area.

So, I've used four 2cv rear springs, which are shorter that font springs. I assumed they were all the same although two are shorter (by about 5mm tops) than the others, and have less coils. I've made a note of which way round the cans are assembled, but I don't know whether these are harder or softer that the longer ones. I also used four rear tie rods, as they are longer. This isn't simply to make it lower, although it'll be lower than a standard car, I'm quite keen to have the tie rods wound as far into the shackles as possible, with a locknut on.

I've managed to turn one arm, and reinforce it with half of a bent arm welded onto it. I'll do the other tomorrow at tea break.







Call me a tart, but I'm quite tempted to grind the excess metal from the original ERW seam and go over it with MIG, if only to make it look prettier...

My bench at work has accumulated a few 2cv bits along the way...

The chassis colour is a bit 'Dutch'

meant to add 'what springs to you run on that then?' I have got four very short, and very hard springs sitting here, also found a couple of adjustable shockers when I was having a sort out yesterday

Thanks Simon, you're only allowed to use standard parts, although you can mix and match. I did consider using harder springs, but I'm quite wary of being heavily scrutinised.

However, I could probably find a home for the bits on something else...

I found that a lot of that untidy original seem could be removed with a hammer and wood chisel. Seriously, try it.

are you not allowed to run the 'Belgium' Arm type then?