The search for a DX engine (Part 1)

MY DS had originally been fitted with a red tag 'DX' engine but, somewhere along the way - and while it retained it's original ancillaries such as starter, carb and alternator - it had acquired a 'DX2 engine block and cylinder* I'd come to realise this soon after I acquired the car, but never got to the bottom of it. I'd always wanted to reinstall a DX engine in my car, but while I was driving it around and enjoying it, it simply wasn't a priority. Now that the current engine was out of the car well, that was a different matter, and a 'DX' engine went up my priority list again - especially as I now suspected my current DX2 engine was tired and badly worn.

In October 2015 I started to track down a 'DX' engine. They were only fitted for a few years, so were relatively scarce compared to the DX2. After several false leads, I discovered that Adie Pease (Peacock Engineering) over in Norfolk had one. It was a little rough but was fairly complete. It lacked the ancillaries, but I would swap these over from my current engine. 

Very early one rainy Saturday in November, I drove westward to Winslow in my Zafira to meet Richard. Picking up an old pine table top from his firewood store, we drove on to the barn to pick up additional pallets and cushions to pad out and protect the back of the Zafira from the engine I planned to pick up that day. In driving rain we set off on the long trek east to Norfolk to meet Adie with a view to a potential purchase.

When we arrived, Adie's barn workshop resonated to the sounds of choral music. Now it wouldn't normally be my kind of thing, but I could instantly see how it was great background music when working on cars in such a big open space. Adie already had the DX engine up on an engine stand and had started stripping it down. The block was caked in mud, rust and oil, but under the rocker cover the rockers and spring assembly looked clean an tidy (not tar-covered as  they were on my current engine), and the tappets were shiny and smooth. Adie showed me others in his workshop to  demonstrate what 'bad' looked like. The engine wouldn't turn and one of the pots looked dry and crusty. It received a liberal squirt of WD40 and I had instructions to repeat the exercise for several  more weeks. Two bolts had been sheared when removing the head and Adie showed me and Richard how these could be removed by welding a nut to the end. The sudden burst of heat is thought to 'shock' the frozen metals, allowing the broken stud to be gently loosened and teased out.

I told Adie I was going to have a go at rebuilding an engine - my first. I tested my rudimentary knowledge on him and he gave me some further pointers and the offer off telephone help if I got stuck. Money changed hands and Adie helped load the booty in the back of the Zafira with an engine crane. Richard and I began the long drive back to the barn, arriving at teatime in darkness. We backed my Zafira into the barn and, using Doug's engine crane, carefully placed the 'DX' engine down in a quiet corner with a squirt of WD40 and threw the cushions back in a corner before heading home. It had been a long day, but very satisfying.

DX Engine - Small Barn, 21 November 2015

* I still have the original "Certificate De Conformite" that came with my DS when it rolled out of the Quai De Javel in early 1968. This lists both the cars chassis number and its corresponding engine number. In 2014, when updating my V5 with my new Bedford address, I was amazed to find that not only was the engine number on the V5 different to that on the "Certificate De Conformite" but it was also significantly different to the engine actually now fitted to my car. So it looks as though the engine had been changed at least twice before the car reached me!