Cleaning the Engine Block

I used a wire brush on a drill to clean all the rust from inside the block - trying hard to get into all the nooks and crannies.

Removing the Liners Revealed Rust in the Block

I used a Dremmel (actually a cheap Dremmel copy) for those hard to reach areas around the bend. I also used a grinding head to remove the flash from when the block had been cast so that there would be better coolant flow when it was all re-assembled.

I used a gasket scraper to clean up the head top surface. There was some pitting where the gasket closed around the water ways. I also used the gasket scraper to clean the flat circular surfaces that the liners (and their delicate paper gaskets) would close against. These surfaces had some really stubborn stuff on and it took quite a bit of effort in the confined space to clean up the flat surface and vertical edges. It's vital this is done properly: if any bits are missed, the liner and gasket will not sit flat and so not seal properly when the engine is assembled. If this happens, coolant will find it's way down into the sump.

Flash Removed and Top Face Scraped

I used a wire brush on a bit of coat hanger to clean out the oil gallery. I removed the side plug and plug at the flywheel end, but not the alloy plug at the timing chain end. These have to be drilled out and replaced: I hadn't managed to find a source for the replacements and from advice I had taken decided to leave that one in situ. 

With the inside of the block cleaned I set about cleaning the outside.

Cleaning The Block - 4 December 2016

The domed cover over the oil breather was removed, as was the dip stick tube, the remaining hex plugs and the petrol pump mounting bracket. Again I used a wire wheel, wire brush to clean. Anything that got in the nooks and crannies.

With the initial cleaning done I hoovered everything out and also used some compressed air in all the narrow channels.

Dismantling The Engines (Part 2)

With the DX engine dismantled, I strapped it up and suspended it from my crane. Freeing it from the engine stand I lowered it  - still upside down - onto a couple of blocks on a work bench.

Using a block of wood and hammer I was able to remove the liners from three of the cylinders. Theses came out reluctantly and with the gift of large amounts of rust. 

Piston Liner Released

The fourth liner came out with the stuck piston still attached. With the piston and con rod still in place, there was no scope to push out the piston from the bottom of the liner. Working from the top end meant hammering on to the crown of the piston itself and meant that the piston might not be usable afterwards. it would all depend on how readily it yielded......

I placed the liner over the jaws of an open vice so that the con rod hound free below. As my hammer blows on the piston got more and more forceful I split several blocks of wood. The piston wouldn't budge. Taking a tip, I bought a plastic fence post driver from my local DIY store. And had soon smashed that into splinters. I bought ANOTHER fence post block from my local DIY store. Splinters. I tried heat. I tried freezing. I tried heat AND freezing. I tried going away for half and hour and then suddenly coming back to tackle it. Nothing worked.

That Troublesome Piston Soaking - December 2015

What finally worked was giving up for the time being. I put the piston/ liner combination in my appropriately numbered tub (that felt good), and tried not to think about them anymore. I moved the engine block to a bench in the other garage and turned my attention to the DX2 engine I had pulled from my DS.

The procedure for stripping the DX2 was pretty much as before, except that this time I had to remove the clutch and flywheel before I could fit the engine to the stand. The clutch was straightforward. The flywheel was more stubborn: I had to replace the clutch assembly bolts back into the flywheel and then use a bar to brace between them to stop the flywheel revolving. With that done it was placed on the engine stand for stripping. 

DX2 Engine - Preparing to Remove The Oil Pump - 18 November 2016

As before,  once stripped the engine was placed on blocks on a bench and the liners removed.

On Blocks - Removing The Liners - 18 November 2016

With this being my second engine strip, I didn't take anywhere near as many reference photos. I was, however, equally careful to put the parts I removed into labelled pots and tubs. 

Pots and Tubs

A few surprises along the way:

• the tappets were badly worn and pitted
• The bottom end of the engine was very glued-up with burnt engine oil.
• The sump was similarly full of sticky tar. 
• The main and big end bearing shells showed significant pitting and wear tracks
• There were linear marks on the bearing shells where contaminents had gone through the oil ways and onto the bearing surfaces. 
• Pushing the pistons through the liners revealed that there were broken top piston rings on two of the pistons (!)
• There was some pitting on the engine block top surface

Water damage - Pitting In The Block Surface

The next step would be to clean everything up.........

Dismantling The Engines (Part 1)

I finally got round to starting to strip the engine. I've never done anything like this before so had been very nervous. But there was no going back. I was going to get plenty of experience as I as going to dismantle two!

The procedure for dismantling the engine is covered in Operation 100-3, which you can find in Section 2 of Volume 2 of manual 814. I was going to start by dismantling the DX engine engine I'd bought from Adie Pease at the back end of 2015, so I also studied the version of operation 100-3 that is in the older Manual 518.

I'd asked for a lovely shiny engine stand as a Christmas present back in 2015 and now was going to build it and get it dirty. As well as deciding what weight the stand needed to be able to bear, I'd also  done my research on how to actually fit a DS engine to a stand: The stand was going to bolt to the gearbox end of the engine. Engine stands tend to have four arms with a good level of adjustment - but you need to decide what mounting points you can/ will use on the DS engine itself. And you need to make sure that the engine stand arms spread wide enough for these.

Research: Mounting An Engine (Photo Credit: Pallasuto.co.uk)

SAFETY: I bought myself a pair of steel toe capped shoes: you don't want to drop and engine block on your feet. You don't want to drop a crankshaft on them. While I wanted to pour as much of my available money into the car as I could, my feet were worth the £35 it cost me for some proper footwear.

My engines had been sitting on a couple of trollies rigged from pallets and castors. Using straps and my engine crane, and through a bit of trial and error, I managed to get the engine in the air and fairly level. 

Using a Crane at the Barn - September 2016

I wheeled the engine stand over and introduced the two. I tried to pick mounting points that held the engine evenly around it's circumference but that's not that simple: One of the mount points was going to need to be on the top of the 'eye where the starter motor fits. With gravity pulling the engine down, I felt there was a risk that the cast block could break at that point.

Mounting An Engine over the Starter Motor Point  (Photo Credit Unknown)

Based on the bolt holes from where the gearbox is mounted to the engine, I ended up putting two bolts directly into threaded holes on the casting (so no nuts on the end) and putting too long bolts and nuts  straight through holes. In all cases I used several large washers to spread the load - and to stop the bolts pulling through the mount points

Engine stands allow you to rotate the engine to work on top, bottom or side.  I fiddled with the adjustment of the arms and positioning of the engine so that the engine was central to the axis of the engine stand and the weight distributed fairly evenly.

Having tightened the bolts I gingerly lowered the crane. RESULT! It didn't all buckle and fold into crumpled heap!

The very rusty timing chain cover was removed to reveal very clean and tidy gears and chain within. I compressed and locked the timing chain tension before removing it. How you do that will depend on which of the two chain tensions you have fitted. See step 6 of Operation 100-3 in the workshop manual for details. The hole it locates to on the block is an oil shaft and, if it doesn't come out on the end of the chain tensioner, you will find a delicate meal gauze oil filter hiding in that hole. Winkle it out carefully.

Adie had already removed and inspected the tappets when i bought the engine so, I turned the engine over and removed the sump. A couple of the bolts were stubborn and I gradually loosened and tightened them to get them going, giving a blast of WD40 as I did so. Not all the bolts holding the sump in place are the same length. In particular there are two longer bolts that also serve as a mounting point for the bracket that supports the down pipe/ flexi pipe joint. 

Removing the sump was very satisfying and gave me my first sight of the workings of a DS engine!

DX Engine Bottom End - 10 November 2016

Having first removed the locking pin in the tower, I'd removed the oil pump. I'd been warned these could bind. Mine was very tight but by some twisting action and a spray of Plus Gas, I managed to gradually corkscrew it out. The timing chain tensioner was removed, as was the chain and large gearwheel on the end of the camshaft.

I removed the bearing caps - noting that they were numbered according to position and relative to the water pump/ flywheel end of the engine.

Caps On The Crank Bearings Are Numbered

The caps were reluctant to pull off. I don't know if they are intended for this purpose but there is a small metal tab at one end that proved very useful for lifting the caps free.

A Bit Of Leverage.....

As well as taking lots of reference photos, I was carefully popping all these dirty greasy parts into ice cream tubs already labelled up with their respective positions. A quick glance at the bearing shells showed these to be in very good condition. No significant pitting at all.

With growing confidence, I moved on to the caps of the piston con rods. These are paired with their respective con rods. There is a hand written 3 digit number written on the two halves. it's sometimes very difficult to see these under all the grease and dirt. 

Con Rods and Caps are Numbered Pairs

I'd labelled up tubs and dropped the bits in as they were removed. One of the trickiest things (especially with the upside down, in bits and with points of reference removed) was to remember which cylinder was which: Cylinder 1 is at the water pump end. Cylinder 4 is at the timing chain end.

With the con rod caps off, the crank was ceremonially lifted off the block.

Crankshaft Removed - 10 November 2016

As this was my first engine strip down I'd like to say I held it aloft over my head like the conquering god I surely was - but I'm no weight lifter and that thing was heavy. So I popped it on a workbench out of the way and took a photo instead.....

Hammer of the Gods - Crankshaft Removed

With the crankshaft out of the way, the con rod rod and piston combinations were pushed down and through the block, being caught neatly under the engine. Well - three of them were.......When I'd bought the engine from Adie it was seized and hadn't turned over - I knew that. I had been liberally dosing all four pots with Plus Gas to loosen them up but, in the case of one of pot, it stubbornly sat and pooled. Guess what? It was this same piston that wouldn't now shift. 

THAT Piston.......

With the engine suspended on the engine stand I didn't want to risk trying a few hammer blows to loosen things up so moved on.

Removing the locating fork, the camshaft was carefully pulled out from the block. It wasn't that heavy. I held it aloft over my head - like the conquering god I most definitely was! A triumph of man over machine! The rest would surely be easy.........

In which my 1968 D21bvh Pallas finally comes home..... FINALLY

My DS may only have been over in a barn an hours drive away, but it had been a long, long journey, (and with a few delays and wrong turns up dead ends), to get to this point.  After years of plotting and planning, finally, FINALLY, my car was coming back home.......

As It Was: Big Barn - May 2004

Initially I'd thought of hiring a flatbed and driver to recover the car, but that was likely to prove expensive. Car money was tight and I wanted to save as much of it as I could to spend directly on the car. Doug, the race car builder from the barn, had a long, four wheeled trailer and generously agreed to lend it to me.  I assured Doug I'd towed before. That much was true, but I'd found it a hair-raising experience. I  had hired one to collect my DS from Doctor Chevron back in 2001. I used a Citroen BX to tow on that occasion and, in hindsight suspect the BX was woefully inadequate for the job. At one point on the journey home the trailer developed a swerve which grew in intensity. Only by speeding up before gradually slowing right down, was I able to calm the beast. I was lucky I didn't lose everything. With that in mind, and since it was his trailer I would be borrowing, I asked Doug for any advice he might want to give. "Just don't fuck it up".

Now, 2017, the family car was a 1.9 diesel Vauxhall Zafira. Far more suited for the job in hand. Especially as the DS was without an engine - so considerably lighter than when I was towing the DS with the BX. The big snag was that I had zero experience of manoeuvring a trailer, so reversing it onto the drive at our new house was going to be a problem for me. As I did back in 2001, I contacted Richard (always my 'go-to' co-conspirator for all things-DS) and a plan was hatched. He was in: Richard would help me load the car at the barn end. I would drive the Zafira and Richard would follow along in his car. At the Bedford end, Richard would take over and get the trailer on to the driveway, from where we could push it into the garage. Richard would hook the trailer up to his car and return it to the barn before going home. now that's what I call a plan!

Doug uses the trailer to get cars to race meetings and so I had to wait for a convenient weekend to get access to the trailer. On a trip to the barn one workday lunchtime I gave the trailer the once-over: seeing what it's maximum load was. I noticed it had it's own breaks. When the towing vehicle slows down, the continuing momentum of the trailer pushes car and trailer together. Through a lever, this action operates a cable which pulls the trailers bakes. I was reassured when I noticed this. I also investigated towing regulations and techniques. I also had to estimate the weight of a DS without engine and associated peripherals. Cars have a 'recommended' maximum towing weight limit, with the absolute max being a little above this. Remembering my experiences with the BX, I wanted to be safer this time. I can't now remember the figures, but I estimated that the DS was just at - or only slightly over - the 'recommended' towing ability of our diesel Zafira, and almost certainly below the 'maximum' limit. That was good enough. I checked my insurance cover - all was fine. I made up a number plate for the back of the trailer. I couldn't check the hook up for the brakes and indicators. i just had to hope they were going to be okay. 

It's Really Happening! 15 October 2016

 Supervised by Doug we got the car on the trailer. In terms of technique, the way to load a car is engine end first. If you do it the other way round, all the weight is at the back of the train and you are at far greater risk of developing a snaking, uncontrollable whiplash. As the DS had no engine, the weight distribution of the vehicle was more even, but overall weight was still up at the towing maximum and I would need to take care.

As it turned out, the DS needed to be loaded nose-first anyway to get the wheels suitably placed over the trailer axles to create the right level of pressure on the towing hook. The rack on the trailer for storing race tyres got in the way of the DS nose.  Any hard braking and the DS bonnet might be ruined. Rather than remove the rack, we opened the DS bonnet over the rack. It looked odd, but did the job.

Gently Does It - 15 October 2016

The journey back to Bedford was uneventful. I felt like a triumphant returning king. With storage costs for the car having been a frequent source of friction, as we pulled up at the house Gayle came out to see me to find out just what all the fuss over the past 15 years had been about. Secretly I was worried about the state of the car and what Gayle would think - especially given that I'd spent the past two years telling her that everything needed to be fixed. "It's not nearly as bad as it looks" I offered. "Oh. It's not nearly as bad as I thought it would be" was the reply. Thanks Babe. Love you. XX

A Quick Word About........Flywheels and Timing Marks

Back in 2002, having dropped in a new three-finger clutch, Mick Groombridge had wondered whether my 'clutch snatch' problem might be down to the clutch being married to the wrong type of flywheel. By this time he had reassembled the car and it was too late to check again!

When I'd brought the DX2 engine back home, one of the first things I did was count the teeth on the flywheel: 95 This was VERY useful information........

From October 1969 (so for the 1970 model year), the flywheel was changed from 95 teeth and from then on had 123 teeth. 95 teeth on the flywheel, told me that either:

• the DX2 engine was pre October 1969 - i.e one of the first DX2s from 1968/9  (which from other clues I doubted) or;
• that, in dropping the DX2 in the DS instead of the DX, whoever did it had gone to the trouble of re-fitting the original 1968 flywheel. (This was far more likely).

95 teeth also told me that (once re-assembled) inserting a pin......... 

The hole for the timing pin is under the alternator mounting point

.........in the timing notch in the flywheel........... 

Timing Notch In The Flywheel

.......would show the firing point for number one cylinder i.e 12 degrees before TDC (top dead centre) *.

It was very helpful to know this for sure - especially as I am going to have to set the timing up from scratch.

Something else it was useful to be able to confirm: a 95 tooth flywheel marries to a starter motor with a 10 tooth pinion. Since my car had it's original Ducellier 6182A with 10 tooth pinion, it was good to know it was being used with the correct flywheel!

Told you it was all useful!

* Something to note if your DS is 1972 model year or later: initially - after the flywheels changed to 123 teeth - the timing notch continued to show 12 degrees before TDC. However, Manual 814 Op. 210 notes that the flywheel changed after July 71: from that point the notch in the flywheel corresponds to TDC i.e. zero degrees. 

Parts Manual 604 concurs:.the part number for the 123 tooth flywheel changed from 5 413 852 to 5 414 483 from 6/71 onward with the annotation that the timing mark is now 0 degrees.......

Getting The Engines Home

Now more firmly settled in our new home, my thoughts turned to the important business of 'claiming' the garage before it was overrun with box, bikes and lawnmowers. I bought a second hand engine crane from Ebay, using the specification of the one I had borrowed from Doug as my guide.

Typically cranes are sold in 1 ton and 2 ton versions, the weight that can be lifted is not the only consideration.You also have to consider how far you will need to extend the lifting arm: the further you extend it, the less load you can safely lift. With the DS gearbox out front and engine behind, you need to extend the arm quite a way to be over the lifting eye attached to the water pump housing. Another factor to consider is the 'spread' of the legs of the crane as you will need to manoeuvre it between the from wheels to get over the engine. 

I bought a one ton crane. At 'half-stretch' it can carry half a ton safely - which was enough for the engine and gearbox. In addition to the crane, I also bought myself some lifting straps. These are colour-coded according to the weight they can cary. I got a couple a couple of two meter purple loops - rated for 1000kg.

DX Engine Retrieval - 11 September 2016

First to come home was the remainder of the DX engine I had bought from Adie.

The weekend of 10 and 11 September 2016 was the Citroen Car Club's 'Chevrons' rally on the Little Horwood site. I'd already arranged to meet Darrin from Citroen Classics there on the Sunday to collect some new valve guides and cylinder head bolts. Killing several birds with the same stone, I also used the trip to collect the DX engine from the farm nearby. Setting off very early, I was at the farm soon after 8am.

In It Goes......11 September 2016

Tyre pressures had been increased for carrying a full load and the back of the car was suitably padded-out. With the use of Doug's crane at the barn I carefully loaded the engine in. Mission accomplished and I still had my parts to collect from Darrin and the Chevrons rally to enjoy!

Arriving home at the end of the day, I used my new engine crane at home to unload at the other end. I'd rigged up a couple of trollies using pallets and some sturdy castors from Screwfix. Rubber wheels - not plastic one that might shatter.

Engine and Gearbox - 25 September 2016

A man on a mission: I was back up at the barn two weeks later. This time with Richard. With his help the DX2 engine and gearbox were split.

By now most of the peripherals and hydraulic pipes were already at home. I took lots of reference photos of the various different bolt shapes and lengths and their locations, as many of them are double-ended to accommodate other brackets and clips. The engine and gearbox came apart surprisingly easily.

As before the engine - and this time also the gearbox -  were loaded in the Zafira for the journey home.

Piece of Cake - 25 September 2016

"Teas Up Richard!"

It had been another productive day. Now all I had to do was retrieve my DS..........

Getting organised (Part 1) - Workshop and Access

Although the plan had been to work on the car and replace the engine up at the barn, the previous 18 months had shown me that this was just unrealistic. Although my car was stored there, I lacked a suitable workspace. Well - not enough space and resources to do what I would need to do.

Car in the Barn - 8 May 2015

AND it was an hour from home. There was no way I was going to be able to put in the hours that would be necessary to fix the car at the barn.  With my trips to the barn infrequent, I would sometimes arrive to find my DS had been moved further back in the barn and sometimes completely boxed in by other cars. Sometimes it had things stacked against it. Not only was there no room to work, there was also a very real danger of the car ending up back in the corner again!

Unusually Empty Barn - 7 June 2015

Luckily that problem was resolving itself with our move to a house with a double garage. I just needed to make sure I got the car out of the barn as soon as I possibly could. That meant getting the garage at home ready.

Adjoining the garage was something I assume had been intended as a 'summer room' or early idea of a conservatory. It wasn't directly accessible from the main house, but did back on to the garage and had already become a workshop of sorts - complete with a couple of cupboards and a wood working bench.

When Gayle and I had first viewed the house, I'd made a mental note of the potential to have a door going directly from the garage to the workshop at the back.  That would be a messy job, so needed doing before the car came home.

In August 2016  I re-topped the workshop cupboards and workbenches I had inherited with 9" x 2" roof joists, held in place by hex-headed screws/ bolts recessed into the surface. As well as giving a rock-solid surface, this also raised the working height to something more suited to my 6'3" frame. I refitted the wood-working vice I had also inherited. This has proved surprisingly useful, opening, as it does to 13".

Richard came to visit, and we did a 'test fit' of the garage with his DS.

'Test Fit' With Richards DS - 3 September 2016

I also borrowed from Richard a HUGE and scary angle grinder and cut a doorway in the back wall of the garage straight into the workshop. Cutting the door was one of the messiest things I think I've ever done as the grinder turns the brick to heavy, cloying dust: cutting it, fitting a lintel and lining it took a couple of weeks. Hoovering the dust up took months! The results, however, gave me a really workable space. 

New Secret Doorway to Workshop

The ability to flit from car to a working space in a matter of seconds was a significant step on the journey towards getting my car back together and worlds away from the two hour trip to the barn and back.

House Move!

The big day finally came. Friday 27 May 2016 - and we moved house. The kids were both nervous and excited. The plan was that they went to school leaving the only home they had ever known, but came back home from school to a different house. Would mum and dad be there? Was this an elaborate plan to get rid of them?

Goodbye Old House.......

We'd invested a lot of time and effort in our current home  and our family had grown up there. I wasn't actively looking to move but was fairly open-minded about it. We'd been talking about a house move for several years and had even got as far as putting in offers on another house. The impetus to move was coming from my wife Gayle: with a growing family, wanting a bigger garden and thinking ahead to queues for the bathroom. With no off-road parking and my head full of all things -DS,  I'd told Gayle that if she could find a house with a suitable garage, I'd be 'in'.

............Hello New Home

Although the new house had little 'kerb appeal', my wife had the vision to see beyond that. The house move was about 'quality of life' and this house was going to deliver in spades. Good call Gayle xx. From my perspective this was a winner because, as well as ticking all the families boxes, it also had a double garage long enough for a DS and a small brick workshop behind.

As you can imagine, those first days and weeks in the new house were spent finding our feet: working out taps and fuses, getting keys cut, organising a phone, changing address with utilities. High on the agenda was a trampoline in the garden for the kids and building a guinea pig hutch: if a garage was my part of the house move deal, then a trampoline and pets were the kids.

Through all this, thoughts of getting my DS organised were never far away. In the run up to the move I'd emptied most of my DS bits out of the garden shed and back into my lock up. I'd left this as late as possible as I was worried about a break in at the lock up. I left a few sealed boxes in the shed but loose crates of bits and sloppy buckets of zinc plating acid and electrolyte were all taken to the lock up over a couple of days.

Initially the garage at our new house was full of boxes and furniture waiting for a spot in the house. As bits and pieces were unpacked, the garage as instead filled with empty boxes and the unwanted things our things replaced: old lamp shades, curtains and things destined for recycling and the tip. A couple of huge pine wardrobes we'd brought with us were sold on eBay and finally collected. As we began to find our feet, and starting with the boxes I'd moved from my garden shed, I started to trickle my DS things out of the lock up and into the new garage. Small bits went in the workshop.......

New Workshop - August 2016

......bigger bits went into the garage

New Garage - August 2016

Boy, there was a lot of it.....

Richard came to visit and we did a 'test fit' with his DS. Well, you would, wouldn't you?

"Back A Bit More" - 3 September 2016

The garage even had a car port with enough height to get a DS bonnet fully open and a wheelie bin to put your tea on. That was going to be very handy.

Interlude: CCC - D Section Rally 2016

Well. Another enjoyable rally. here's what I wrote on the D Section forum of the CCCs website:

Just back and settled after this years D rally at Little Horwood. Kids are bathed and tent is drying out in the garage.

Saturday weather was kind to us with more than 30 Ds making the convoy run to Waddesdon Manor where we took over a corner of the car park in the sun and talked all things DS. Some took advantage of the option of a packed lunch from Little Horwood and stayed there to picnic. Back to site and the weather held for the rest of the day with fresh coffee and treats on tap from an H van barista and the promise of fresh oven baked pizzas at the end of the afternoon. The rain only began at 10pm - telling us it was time to turn in for the day.


Sunday was wetter with drizzle through much of the morning but this didn't dampen spirits and the Ds soon began to roll in. Again there were more than 30 Ds on the field ranging from humble 1962 models through to the end and top of the line - including a couple of Decaps. Breakfasts and lunch were well organised and devoured hungrily. Citroen Classics were on site for those all important big and small bits a few people were offering the usual temptations of salvaged oily bits at give away prices.


As ever, another enjoyable D Rally. Maybe a little muted by the weather but it was clear to see that those that made it there both appreciated it, and had a thoroughly good time. My thanks to all those that made it happen.

I think that sums it up nicely. My kids loved it. They got filthy dirty and spent most of the weekend with Darrin and Kris' boys. 

I'm sure I recall a rally circa 2001 with more than 100 Ds on the field at the same time. My memory could be playing tricks. I'm sure the rally stats will have been reported in the Citroenian at some point. I must go and check.

Interlude: Citromobile 2016

Well, another successful rally raid to Citromobile in Haarlem, Holland. You can find details here: http://www.citromobile.nl/indexen.html.

It's a large auto jumble. There are also vehicles on sale. I was going to write that it is Citroen-specific. that's nearly true, but you will also see some lovely Panhards on display - and maybe for sale. 

Not a Citroen: Panhard PL17? Possibly circa 1964?

As per last year, Richard drove: Friday night ferry over. Drive up to the exhibition centre early Saturday morning. Browse and buy. Camp on Saturday night. More browsing on Sunday. Drive back to Hook of Holland. Night ferry home. Very straightforward and enjoyable.

I'd been drawing up a shopping list for the last couple of months, starting with those things on last years list that I couldn't find. I tend to make the list long, reasoning that I'm bound to then find some of the things on it. Once again it's paid off, though in terms of stalls it was a quieter affair than last year. Richard and I considered why. Might have something to do with the ICCCR coming up in Holland later this summer. Traders need to pay for their pitch at these kind of events, so maybe some are holding back for the ICCCR. Anyway, I'm happy with what I was able to find and love the weekend away generally. Here's the haul.

Booty: Citromobile 2016

• Split accumulator sphere
• Door shims of various sizes
• Re-zinced lifting bracket
• Window winder backplates for     my Pallas winders
• Flexi pipe support bracket
• Radiator bracing bar with the 'eye' in the right place
• Water heater feed pipe with a kinked end
• Air horns - for the correct mounting bracket for my car (I took a template with me)
• Starter motor for a DX engine
• Various dashboard knobs
• Knob for the -15 heating 

Simplex 'Niemanns" - Citromobile 2016

I'm particularly pleased to have found a NOS boxed Simplex "Niemanns" (steering lock) with both keys, and the long cluster of five pipes that run from the gear brain to the gearbox. Mine ruptured when I was moving the car in March 2015. Later ones seem to be wrapped in plastic tape. Mine is covered in moulded plastic along it's entire length - making any repair on the rupture all the more difficult without tearing the whole lot apart. The one I found at Citromobile is also moulded, so will be a straight swap.

Thank you Richard. Roll-on Citromobile 2017!