Lautrette Air Cleaner Refurb

I would say that when you lift the bonnet on a later DS (anything post 1965), two of the most defining features that strike you other than pipes snaking here and there are (1) the large LHM reservoir - especially if it is painted AC502 'vert' - and (2) the flat, circular, 'gris rose' coloured  air cleaner with it's long elegant trumpet intake.

Miofiltre Air Cleaner and Label

So if you're doing a restoration, you paint the air cleaner gris rose - right? Well you can if you want to of course, but if you want period accuracy, then it's not that straightforward. Not all cars had the LHM reservoir painted green and not all had the 'gris rose' air cleaner. 

Just as they did with electrical components (Ducellier and Paris-Rhone) Citroen also had two suppliers of air cleaners: Miofiltre - suppliers of the 'gris rose' version -  but also a second company called 'Lautrette'. The air filters from both companies have very similar designs and do the same job.......except, most noticeably, the Lautrette air cleaner is painted black. Instead of the cleaning instructions being a gold label on the trumpet, they were written around the circular top face of the air cleaner lid, in several languages, and in bright yellow.

Tatty Air Cleaner - 2000

My car has one of these black 'Lautrette' air cleaners. It was already looking a bit rough when I got the car - with rusting chip marks and a few letters and words knocked off here and there. The fact is that, when you're working under the bonnet, the flat, dished tops of these air cleaners - both the Miofiltre and Lautrette -  are just so handy for popping loose nuts and bolts into. In this way they are scratched and chipped. The main culprits are the spark plugs with their crisp hex heads and sharp edges.

Deteriorated - 12 November 2014

When I went to recover my DS from the barn in 2014, I was shocked at how much more my air cleaner had deteriorated. I wasn't simply going to be able to wipe this over with an oily rag. Though I did try that first......

I knew straightaway that the big problem in stripping and repainting would be losing the lettering on the top. It was what gave the air cleaner it's soul. The Lautrette may not have the under-bonnet appeal of it's deadly rival - the Miofiltre, but it's what my car had - so that's what I was aiming to restore.....I just needed to think about how. 

I studied the air cleaner carefully. In some cases the letters had flaked off, leaving black underneath. The lettering wasn't an adhesive label as there was no obvious edge to the lettering. It was very delicate and hardly seemed to be raised above the surface of the black at all.

Spring 2015 and I had a production line going, stripping parts and prep-ing them for repainting. This was going to include the air cleaner, so the paint and lettering was going to have to come off. At about this time I found that the parts suppliers were selling replacement clear 'donut' labels for Lautrettes! 

Reproduction Adhesive Label for a Lautrette L1459

Unfortunately these were marked 'L1459' and were for the later style of Lautrette air cleaner with the square trumpet (and summer/ winter lever). Mine was marked 'L1165'. There was another problem. At the Citromobile meeting in May 2015 I saw a DS with one of these repro stickers and, well, it looked like a sticker: it was made of quite thick plastic so had a very obvious lip edge. Although printed on clear plastic, once applied to a black surface, the adhesive on the reverse made the black paint underneath look grey. As a last resort it was one step above simply painting it black, but I really wanted to try to do better than that.

Scanned - 22 March 2015

I had the makings of a plan: remembering my days making Airfix model kits, I reasoned that the lettering was possibly some form of waterslide transfer and I resolved to get one printed - or maybe make my own. Using the flatbed scanner at home, I took a digital scan of the wording on the top. Even if I couldn't find a way to restore it to my satisfaction, at least I'd have a record of what it used to look like.... 

I'm no graphic designer but, using Adobe Photoshop (and latterly 'Gimp'), I managed to 'extract' the yellow lettering from my scan and place it on a transparent background. Using this as a bottom layer template, I then replicated the lettering in another layer on top - using the template to check spelling, font spacing and alignment. 

I went back to this job on and off through 2015. Research was showing that printing at home on an inkjet printer was not going to work as the colours would run. Overspraying the print to protect and fix it was self-defeating as I needed the paper to get wet! Printing on a laser printer was the way to go: the printer would heat-bond the ink to the transfer paper - so no ink runs. Luckily I could run a few sheets off on the big laser printer at work. 

By October  2015 I had a satisfactory template. I did some test prints of my new transfer onto clear film and then laid this over my air cleaner to check for size and general look. I would have to make it in two halves because of the constraints of A4 printing, but I didn't see that as an issue.

Experimenting - November 2015

Things were going to plan and I duly sourced some transparent waterslide paper that was suitable for a laser printer. But by February 2016 my plan hit another snag.....

Printers tend to rely on the fact that the majority of printing is done on white paper, or seen against, a white background. The ink technology relies on this. I came to realise that since I planned to apply my transfer to a black background, the colours needed to be strong and thick if they were to show up. To get the effect I was seeing on my computer screen, my yellow lettering needed a white background - a pre-print in white perhaps? Unfortunately, unlike print shop printing, office printers do not generally have a white toner cartridge. I might be able to make and apply a transfer, but the lettering would be very faint and not have the intended impact. I needed to do some more head-scratching.

While I was thinking about a printing solution I removed the aluminium pins from the hinges of the air filter body so that they could be re-zinc-ed and would not get oversprayed when the body was eventually painted black. As I'd not managed to find a machine shop near me, one of the engineers at a local model railway society very kindly made me a few replacements up.

Sizing Up The Hinge Pins - April 2016

In May 2016,  reading an old thread about a restoration project on 'Aussiefrogs' and searching for inspiration, a message about repro factory marks on parts caught my eye. It read:

The Chausson 4A on the header tank is a computer cut spray mask (paint header tank, then using the mask spray white), very nice correct detail - these would have been stamped originally interested?


This guy clearly knew what he was on about. I joined Aussiefrogs and contacted the author Chris (aka 'Greenblood') for advice. Chris offered to look at creating a screen printed waterslide transfer for me, however he suspected that originally the text would have been printed directly onto the black body. Chris said this might also be a possible way to go but it was unlikely I would find a company that could/ would do this for me. Chris worked on tidying my design and putting it into a file format that a local printer here in the UK might be able to deal with.

Things went quiet until January 2017 when Chris got back in touch: his daughter, Charlotte,  was London-based and was going back to Oz for a break in April that year. Charlotte could take my air cleaner with her. He would have a go at printing directly onto the black painted surface  as a one-off. A proof of concept. What a fantastic and generous offer! I nearly fell over backwards. This really was an example of the worldwide Citroen community in action. With the air cleaner already stripped, all I had to do over the next 10 weeks was to get it painted black and get it down to London........

I mulled over what paint to use. I didn't want it to be high, modern two-pack black. I didn't want it to be matt black. I didn't want it to be satin black. I wanted it to be, well, original......Time seemed to get away from me. I went to the cupboard to find my 'go-to' paint for this job: Eastwood's 'Underhood Black' only to find I'd run out! The supplier, Frosts, were also out of stock. With April fast approaching I dug out the cheap air gun I'd bought the year before and bought some 60% black from a local supplier. In late March 2017 I set to. The results were adequate, rather than spectacular, but would have to do.

Ready for the journey - 8 April 2017

Charlotte was flying out of London in mid April and, with just a few days to spare, I arranged to drop the part of at her flat in South London. To beat the traffic I left ridiculously early in the morning, but really enjoyed the drive through the dozing city. Charlotte and her partner were lovely and very tolerant of yet another mad Citroen person. I thanked then profusely and left my air cleaner to its fate. 

A choice of air cleaner labels - Holland, May 2017

Charlotte and the part arrived safely, but Chris contacted me to say that he, too, was having ink supply problems. Charlotte would be coming home without the air cleaner and he would be back in touch.

In mid May there was one of those strange twists of fate: at the 2017 Citromobile meeting in Holland, someone was selling two different types of clear Lautrette sticky labels - some marked "L1459" as before, but now also others marked "L1165" - the type I needed. Unsure of how successful Chris would be, I bought one - just in case....

Arriving back in England, I compared the sticker to the transparent mock-ups I had made from my original. As well as having the problems with the adhesive backing showing through it was, at best, a passing copy of an original. If push came to shove however, it just might have to do.

Chris In Action - early August 2017

10 August 2017 and Chris was back in touch. Mission accomplished! He had printed on my air cleaner! Although a little self-critical of his own work, the photo of the results looked better than I could ever have hoped. But how to get it home? 

Fate stepped in again: another Aussiefrogger - John Albanis - was travelling to Europe shortly and would be in London at the end of the month. John offered to bring my air cleaner back. How lucky was I!

John's stop over in the UK coincided with my wedding anniversary, my daughters birthday (same day) and an associated theatre trip. Although that was down in London, our location and itinerary didn't give me the chance to slip away to meet up with John. Once again, Charlotte - Chris' daughter - came to the rescue, meeting with John on my behalf and it wasn't until mid October that I could make that early morning dash down to London to collect my air cleaner. If i'd been pleased with the photo Chris sent me, the results in the flesh were even more stunning than I expected.

Home from the journey. Restored - 13 October 2017

To recap: my air cleaner has literally been to the other side of the world and back. Had I know how good the results would be, I'd have paid the freight costs without blinking. As it turns out, I have a result better than I could ever have dreamed of AND it has cost me next to nothing thanks to the generosity of others. This is surely a testament to the worldwide community of Citroen and I am genuinely humbled by it. Chris, Charlotte and John - you are treasures.