Aston On Clun. A forgotten Great Western outpost.

[MrWolf]

The best way to describe driving a well looked after Citroen Deesse is it's like flying at an altitude of  eighteen inches. A rusted out one with worn out suspension is more like a rowing boat.

When I was at university there were several people had 2CVs, / Upturned Prams / Vegetarian Panzers. They tended to buy one for £100 or so and run it until the tyres wore out (Weird Michelin only metric things that cost a fortune.) and it would be consigned to the garden as spares for the next one. Several bulkhead braces and other bits got made in the metalwork shop. 

 

Lecturer: What's that thing?

 

Me: It's a conceptual piece of sculpture exploring man's constant battle with entropy...

 

Lecturer: It's for Tabitha's old car isn't it?

 

Me: Damn. Rumbled.

[MrWolf]

I don't think that you need to be a mechanic as such. I've never been employed as one.

It's just about following simple instructions one step at a time and doing so in a set order.

If you can read sheet music, you can apply the same logic to a car manual. 

Most of what it takes to look after an old vehicle was something our fathers did like we check our email.

[JustinDean]

5 minutes ago, MrWolf said:

The best way to describe driving a well looked after Citroen Deesse is it's like flying at an altitude of  eighteen inches. A rusted out one with worn out suspension is more like a rowing boat.

When I was at university there were several people had 2CVs, / Upturned Prams / Vegetarian Panzers. They tended to buy one for £100 or so and run it until the tyres wore out (Weird Michelin only metric things that cost a fortune.) and it would be consigned to the garden as spares for the next one. Several bulkhead braces and other bits got made in the metalwork shop. 

 

Lecturer: What's that thing?

 

Me: It's a conceptual piece of sculpture exploring man's constant battle with entropy...

 

Lecturer: It's for Tabitha's old car isn't it?

 

Me: Damn. Rumbled.

I find the lust for 2CVs bizarre these days. You can pretty much build one from scratch these days - new spares are in production including entire bodies and chassis. They’re a very ‘unique’ driving experience and sounds nothing how you describe the DS. The bonkers ‘you can drive this over a ploughed field full of eggs’ suspension makes cornering interesting, coupled with the dashboard gear shift and flat out at 40mph make them not particularly desirable for me but each to their own I guess. 

[JustinDean]

3 minutes ago, MrWolf said:

I don't think that you need to be a mechanic as such. I've never been employed as one.

It's just about following simple instructions one step at a time and doing so in a set order.

If you can read sheet music, you can apply the same logic to a car manual. 

Most of what it takes to look after an old vehicle was something our fathers did like we check our email.

Yeah I get that. Maybe ‘tinkerer’ is more appropriate? My mate would’ve been a tinkerer with that specific car for a long time then moved over into actually making money out of it. So does that make him a mechanic now?
I’ve never been a car tinkerer, just appreciate a well designed classic. Even though my dad was a motorbike and car mechanic for his entire working life he actively discouraged me from taking part in those activities so my own knowledge is the basics. I’ve always felt you need a bit more than that to own a vintage vehicle.

[JustinDean]

…also apologies for rambling and filling your thread Rob. It’s late and I’ve had a few whiskeys!

[MrWolf]

They make a decent town car and very practical if you like the styling. I don't think they were ever meant to be distance cars, that was handled by the Light Fifteen. (Which the H van uses mechanical bits from) It's very difficult to tip a 2CV over, unless you do something spectacularly daft. It just feels like it will do! 

 

[MrWolf]

3 minutes ago, JustinDean said:

…also apologies for rambling and filling your thread Rob. It’s late and I’ve had a few whiskeys!

 

No worries, there won't be any modelling done in the next week or so. We too have had a few as well. As I can't move without waking someone up, I'm idly scrolling through RMWeb, It's safer.

[JustinDean]

6 minutes ago, MrWolf said:

They make a decent town car and very practical if you like the styling. I don't think they were ever meant to be distance cars, that was handled by the Light Fifteen. (Which the H van uses mechanical bits from) It's very difficult to tip a 2CV over, unless you do something spectacularly daft. It just feels like it will do! 

 

I’ve taken a 2CV round a track and it’s hair raising because the suspension makes you feel like it’s going to tip.
Despite it not meant to be long distance my mates in the GB group drive over to Europe every year (preCovid) for the world meet-ups in them. Needless to say they have to plan for a fair few stops. 

[Nick C]

22 hours ago, MrWolf said:

Because otherwise you might respond with: "Sure, I'll do you a tip run, though I'll have to book a time at the tip as it's a van. It'll cost you £20, a tenner for petrol and a tenner for a couple of beers."

Our local tips require a permit for any kind of commercial vehicle, and that only gives you a certain number of visits a year. You have to book a slot even for a car now (since covid), but I prefer that, no need to queue...

22 hours ago, MrWolf said:

You want a vintage van? Be prepared to learn how to look after it and learn how to take a different attitude to driving.

You want something that drives like a modern van? 

The problem I had when i had the landy was the attitude of other drivers, who didn't either know or care that an old vehicle can't stop as quickly as a modern. It's just too busy around here most of the time, so you end up needing to drive more defensively, which takes away from the slower pace of life you're trying to achieve...

 

That and the fuel consumption... 

[MrWolf]

As I have grown up riding motorcycles (perhaps that's a contradiction?) I have always driven defensively and watching out for @ssclowns in Audis becomes a game. 

Not that it makes you bulletproof of course.

Not only do modern car drivers not know that it can take a lot longer for old vehicles to stop, they also assume that you're doing 25 not 55.

Which gives them a shock when they either pull out in front of you or decide to overtake because the old car will hold them up.

If I had a pound for every chump who has tried to race my motorcycle off the lights in some tuned up 2 litre rice burner and try to overtake on the inside, I'd be having my layout built by someone who knows what they're doing...

 

Land rovers always were terrible on petrol, similar consumption to a 6 litre V8 hauling an Elvis Cadillac.

 

Of course that didn't matter so much back in 1948 when petrol was about 3/- a gallon. ☹️

[Tortuga]

23 hours ago, MrWolf said:

You want a vintage van? Be prepared to learn how to look after it and learn how to take a different attitude to driving.

This is why VW vans are now silly money; people buying them “because Dad used to have one/I always wanted one” then spending loads of money restoring it and fitting it out then selling it for what they paid and what they spent because “it doesn’t drive like a modern car”.

I’ll admit I bought my VW Camper “because I always wanted one”, but I was never under the illusion that it would drive any better than my old Mk2 Polo - and it didn’t disappoint.

 

[MrWolf]

It doesn't help the "driving experience" to fit big alloys with wide radials and dumping the suspension, even if it's the required look. It's like driving a henhouse on cast iron wheels then.

The 1969 VW camper I owned was a bit of an accident. I went with a friend of mine who had bought a couple of old Honda twins to bring them back in my van. 

The previous owner was moving house and having a clear out. The van was just sitting there, non runner, no brakes, but all sound original metal bar one rear wheel arch and a missing engine lid.

I did drive it around for a few months, but being rear engines and a camper, I couldn't get anything much in it.

I bought a Karmann Ghia because I wanted one (1959 flat dash, high headlights) but I never got into the "Dub scene". The only VW rally. I took it to, some **** tried to steal the early style (and unobtainable) KG script off the engine lid, scratching my nice black paint.

[Donw]

I have owned an Ami, a 2CV and a Dyanne so I am quite used to them. The Ami was great looked more like a normal estate car. In deep snow a big chunk of OAk in the passenger footwell helped traction and the plated underside of the chassis would toboggan over deep drifts. It started OK at -25 deg. I did miss it when it went. 

I did a round trip of over 400 miles in a day a few times in the 2CV. Overtaking was fun you ouldn't wait until the was a suitable gap as aceleration needed to be pre-planned so if you though (or knew) there was a chance of a gap ahead it was foot down start a run up to the car in front  timed that you could pull out as the gap appeared. Of course if something was coming the other way it was brakes on quick.

The real with them all was changing the rear brakes. you had to take the wheel off the nut holding the wheel on needed a special tool so I made one up. However the nut was usually secured with a punch to jam the threads !!!

 

Don

Edited April 18, 2022 by Donw
typos

[Captain Kernow]

I once owned a Daewoo 2L estate.

 

It was craap.

 

It wasn't really a car, it was a 'bleedin' Daewoo'.

 

I bought it when I was ill because the MoT on my previous car was about to expire, along with the remainder of the non-rusty parts of that vehicle and I regret not getting my act together sooner.

 

[Barclay]

On 16/04/2022 at 23:05, MrWolf said:

Oddly enough I was looking at a couple of Panhards (a '51 and a '57) when I went to collect a bike last week. The owner is restoring the later one which was done once before in the 80s, the earlier one has some impressive patina and is all original, so he's keeping it that way.

I always fancied a Citroen ID19, the earlier the better, with the single headlights, but they seem to have gone mad in the last few years.

That said, so has the H van. I think that once all of the VW vans went stupid, the classic car dealers thought: what's a similar cult van that we can talk up as an "investment quality classic"?

I remember Wheeler Dealers doing one and getting all excited about making it like a modern van by shoving modern running gear into it.

You want a vintage van? Be prepared to learn how to look after it and learn how to take a different attitude to driving.

You want something that drives like a modern van? 

Go and buy a modern van, leave the vintage stuff to those of us who appreciate it for what it is.

I quit a vintage motorcycle club because of the number of folks wittering about fitting modern forks, disk brakes and indicators to vintage bikes and saying that they didn't use their bikes because of modern traffic.

I just stay.off the motorways, they're horrible to ride on anything.

I may have said something along the lines of what you need is a shiny new Honda...😉

 

Sadly there are too many people out there with plenty of money, who have no interest in classic cars but think that owning one will make them look cool/interesting/etc. The ultimate manifestation of this being the classic converted to electric propulsion, which will be illegal when I rule the world.

 

Must go - I'm popping out to fit a Ford Zetec engine and 5 speed type 9 gearbox into the Austin Cambridge...

[Compound2632]

2 hours ago, Barclay said:

Sadly there are too many people out there with plenty of money, who have no interest in classic cars but think that owning one will make them look cool/interesting/etc. The ultimate manifestation of this being the classic converted to electric propulsion, which will be illegal when I rule the world.

 

Ditto the diesel-powered steam-outline locomotives at amusement parks and the like. Even Beale Park has given up its steam engine since we were regular visitors with small children 15+ years ago - now diesel or possibly petrol, poisoning the llamas. 

 

My only experience of a 2CV was in the early 90s - a friend had one before she moved on to a Morris 1000 shooting brake. Ideal for picnics, since one could take the seats out and eat in a more civilised manner with the aid of a folding table and dare I say it a bottle of decent red.

[MrWolf]

9 hours ago, Barclay said:

Sadly there are too many people out there with plenty of money, who have no interest in classic cars but think that owning one will make them look cool/interesting/etc.

 

Ah, the "conversation piece", "pension investment" or "man cave ornament". 

But whatever you do, don't drive it, ever! Today's roads are too dangerous, there's no seatbelts, airbags, anti lock brakes, hazard flashers even!

(How on earth will you be able to park half on the pavement next to a cash machine or takeaway?)

If you find driving that unnerving, perhaps you shouldn't drive at all?

 

9 hours ago, Barclay said:

 

The ultimate manifestation of this being the classic converted to electric propulsion, which will be illegal when I rule the world.

 

That's definitely some kind of ego trip - look what I can blow 50k on! 

The electric car fans get upset when you mention children working in mines in Africa for the necessary materials and the problem with the batteries not being recyclable.

 

I love those green energy adverts, Wind, Solar, Nuclear...

 

Nuclear?

 

The greenest thing about that is glowing in the dark.

 

When I was a student, we were campaigning against it. Suddenly the "enlightened" want it? WTF?

 

9 hours ago, Barclay said:

 

Must go - I'm popping out to fit a Ford Zetec engine and 5 speed type 9 gearbox into the Austin Cambridge...

 

After you've spent a few grand doing that, the old Cambridge might be worth half what you paid for it!

 

Don't forget to ignore the lever arm dampers, worm and peg steering and the non servo drum brakes! 😀

 

[57xx]

On 16/04/2022 at 23:05, MrWolf said:

I quit a vintage motorcycle club because of the number of folks wittering about fitting modern forks, disk brakes and indicators to vintage bikes and saying that they didn't use their bikes because of modern traffic.

 

I remember being at a classic bike show in Stafford. some guy on a Vintage club stand was raving about how his restored bike was exactly as it would have come out of the factory - until some wag asked him how much the Japanese air he put in his tyres cost.

[Donw]

Nuclear is considered zero carbon but I rekon they will have chucked out a lot of CO2 by the time they get Hinkley C built. There is a area of sky lit up at night by the lights on all night. Solar panels aren't generating much overnight.

 

What never seems to be considered is the lifetime of a solar panel about 25 -30 years which means we will soon have another load of stuff to recycle or dump. What with them and electric car batteries what fun it will be. 

 

Oh and I am not looking forward to old windturbines breaking apart becaue the cost of dismantling them was too high for no profit.

 

Don

 

 

[57xx]

On 17/04/2022 at 00:24, MrWolf said:

I don't think that you need to be a mechanic as such. I've never been employed as one.

It's just about following simple instructions one step at a time and doing so in a set order.

If you can read sheet music, you can apply the same logic to a car manual. 

Most of what it takes to look after an old vehicle was something our fathers did like we check our email.

 

I never trained or worked as one either, but IMO you need some mechanical aptitude. I made some real howlers in my early days but learnt quickly, eventually getting to the point that my RD400 ran like clockwork, did over 24k on a crank (which was still good when it got taken off the road for other repairs) and was also bloody quick without radical tuning. Meanwhile I had people telling me you had to run hotter plugs and thrash the t1ts off an RD to stop it fouling plugs, then wondered why they holed pistons. Me, I learned how to tune carbs properly and run the right amount of lube. Stood me in good stead for a later life in drag racing!

[57xx]

On 16/04/2022 at 23:28, JustinDean said:

With classic cars and bikes a lot of  people dig the aesthetic but don’t understand these things are a labour of love.

 

Most definitely a labour of love. I was riding my RD to work daily for many years. It was like the Forth Bridge - something needed repairing/maintaining, by the time you gone through the whole bike, you were back to the first thing needed fixing again. That's why I eventually took it off the road and bought the Fazer, so I could rebuild the whole RD in one go and then not trash it by commuting on it.

[MrWolf]

14 minutes ago, 57xx said:

 

I remember being at a classic bike show in Stafford. some guy on a Vintage club stand was raving about how his restored bike was exactly as it would have come out of the factory - until some wag asked him how much the Japanese air he put in his tyres cost.

 

I try to get bikes as original as possible, but frankly if you're restoring something to use and to look good, you tend to put on a lot more paint than the manufacturers, use stainless spokes instead of galvanized, put in lockwashers everywhere. Just little improvements to preserve the bike longer.

I don't understand the concours winners with every bolt in polished stainless and more bling than the makers put in for the Earl's Court show.

Yet the judges are looking for original pattern tyres and the right labels on the wiring harness.

[Graham T]

25 minutes ago, 57xx said:

 

I never trained or worked as one either, but IMO you need some mechanical aptitude. I made some real howlers in my early days but learnt quickly, eventually getting to the point that my RD400 ran like clockwork, did over 24k on a crank (which was still good when it got taken off the road for other repairs) and was also bloody quick without radical tuning. Meanwhile I had people telling me you had to run hotter plugs and thrash the t1ts off an RD to stop it fouling plugs, then wondered why they holed pistons. Me, I learned how to tune carbs properly and run the right amount of lube. Stood me in good stead for a later life in drag racing!

 

Would like to hear more about this 57xx.  I never had an RD400; my two-stroke pedigree is X7, 350 YPVS, then 500LC.

 

Wish I'd kept them, especially the last one - I could probably retire on that!

[Nick C]

9 hours ago, 57xx said:

 

I never trained or worked as one either, but IMO you need some mechanical aptitude. I made some real howlers in my early days but learnt quickly, eventually getting to the point that my RD400 ran like clockwork, did over 24k on a crank (which was still good when it got taken off the road for other repairs) and was also bloody quick without radical tuning. 

I agree - I never had any kind of formal mechanics training, just learnt as I went along, getting help occasionally from a few mates and buying the tools as and when I needed them. For me (and most of my peers), it was the only way I could afford to run a car as a student, and has stood me in good stead for working life too, you can save a fortune by being able to do your own maintenance!

[MrWolf]

Not much has changed around here in the last 90 years.