"-15 Degrees" Heating System (Part 1) - The Cravats

Another interesting parcel! All the way from the USA!

This time it’s bits for a “-15 degrees heating system”. Neither of my Ds - my previous 1969 ID19b, nor my current 1968 Ds21  - were fitted with electric rear screen demister elements. I think they were introduced in 1969?  From 1963 (?) right through to 1975 however, Citroen had offered the option of a -15 degree heating system.

The set-up is intended to improve driving in colder climates. As well as a blind (a flap) in the aluminium air chute (to prevent the radiator from pulling in cold air, and so causing the engine to heat up faster)……

Part 5 is the lever of the 'blind' in the chute. Part 4 is the control cable

…….it also included a coolant fed, hot air blower in the rear of the car. Luxury!

Rear heater. In particular, note the part numbered "15" there......

The blower fed warm air to the rear passenger area but also up and onto the rear screen to de-mist.  It’s an extension of the conventional heating system and circuit. Rubber coolant hoses pass through the bulkhead from the engine bay into the cabin. They run along inside, and then outside, the sills to the rear of the car, then under the rear seat to where the heater and blower are located.

Coolant hoses under the rear seat
(Copyright "Nuancier" website)

It isn't obvious from the exploded diagram in the workshop manuals, but the main heater matrix, blower and tubing is situated behind the rear seat back – extending slightly into the boot.

Rear heater unit mounted behind the rear seat
(Copyright "Nuancier" website)

The rear seat  base is different to a standard seat to allow room for water hoses and warm air ducting. (sometime ago I put some photos of this up on the ‘Useful Information’ tab of this blog for somebody).

This optional heater system was intended/ expected to be used on cars in colder climates – UK, Scandinavia and Canada for example, but was also an option in France. Many years ago, maybe 1995, I’d bought one of these -15 degree heater system from Mick Groombridge over at the now defunct ‘Doctor Chevron’ near Soham. I think I’d seen it fitted to one of the scrapped cars languishing in his yard: a (black?) RHD, 1969 DS Pallas with a lovely slopey dash. It was somewhere over there.

That could just be my fanciful imagination of course. ANYWAY, the car eventually disappeared and (whether it was from that car or not……) a heater system was salvaged by Mick. £30 changed hands.

There was a big pile of bits. Back then I wasn't sure how this jigsaw puzzle went together. On a trip to 'Retromobile' over in Battersea, I asked whether any of their cars for sale might have a heater fitted - so that I could take a look. There was nothing on site, but one of their customers cars - at that time over at the bodyshop they used - DID have a heater. A phonecall of introduction was made  on my behalf and, grateful, I  arranged to nip over and take a few photos. The car was a blue, right hand drive frogeye with a 'natural' leather interior. It had a wonderful "used and appreciated" feel to it. I often wonder whether it's still on the road. Here's a few of the blurry photos I took that day:

"-15" system - under-bonnet coolant hose routing

feed hose pass behind the engine........

....and a black pipe carries the hose through the bulkhead.
Can you see it?

Back home I did a stocktake. I’d got just about all the parts. Including, crucially, the bit that most people fail to salvage - the special-shaped rear seat. The only bits unaccounted-for were the short black metal ‘S’ pipe that carries the hose through the bulkhead behind the exhaust manifold (rubber hose would melt and/ or perish in that location)........

A better photo of that black 'S' pipe
(Photo courtesy of Graham Hersey)

.......and two covers, or tunnels, for the hoses where they emerge from the sills in the back of the cabin. I had the carpet covers for them just not the metal tunnels themselves…..

Coolant hose to rear, without cover
(Copyright "Nuancier" website)

Coolant hose to rear, with cover. Much nicer
(Copyright "Nuancier" website)

The parts catalogue calls the covers DS 642-18 "Protecteur des tubes de detour d'eau et alimentation"........which (Google) translates as "Protector of water detour tubes and food". The “Nuancier” webite simply calls them ‘cravates’. 

Now when you hear 'cravat', you probably instantly think of Jason King..... 

The very wonderful Peter Wyngarde (RIP)

I know - we all do. But of course 'cravates'.........

........translates into English as 'neckties"........ You can see why Nuancier would call them that, as they do look a bit like neckties.

A necktie

A protecteur des tubes de detour d'eau et alimentation

Back in the 90s I’d simply used domestic 15mm copper water pipe to replicate the black pipe through the bulkhead, and had fitted the system in my DS21. I followed the workshop manual circuit diagram to wire in the appropriate switch for the blower. Both the heating and de-misting worked very well. I'd all but forgotten that I’d had someone make me two covers/ tunnels for the hoses. It had been guesswork based on the shape of the carpet covers. 

Fast forward to 2014. With a restoration underway, I’d been looking for the proper parts – particularly the tunnels - but they are hard to track down and in demand. While browsing I’d seen some on a table at Citromobile in 2018 and dived on them. 

'On sale' at Citromobile 2018 - two cravats from a "-15" set up.......

Only to find that they had already been sold (together with some other incomplete and tatty condition heater parts) for 600 Euros! So why were they on the table then.....

Sold at Citromobile 2018 - tatty rear heater of a "-15" set up.......(upside down)

At the start of this year another CCC member, with a recently acquired car, had said he was minded to pull out his unwanted and incomplete heater system. From what he told me, his heater seems to have been ‘hard-plumbed’ with runs of copper pipe instead of hoses. I was interested, but it turned out that his system already lacked several pieces – including the ones that I needed. Anyway, he has since decided it’s simpler to leave in place, with a view to maybe getting it working one day.

I had another near miss in Spring this year. I noticed that a car on Facebook and being scrapped in Canada(!) had the telltale signs of a -15 heater system: additional rubber coolant hoses under the bonnet. The car sold. I got in touch with the buyer. Unfortunately  the parts I was after were the same parts he wanted to salvage for his own car(!) – so no sale.

Telltale signs: the hose from heater goes back towards the bulkhead 

Soon after, a stroke of good luck. Again on Facebook, John Nielsen over in the US was offering a mixed bag of bits and pieces for sale. I wouldn’t normally have bothered looking (the parts were in the US!), but it was a Sunday night and I was bored. I’m glad looked. 

The advert didn't look very promising.......

I clicked through a couple of photos and up popped an image of some "-15" heater parts!! Not many at all but, crucially, they included the bits I was interested in.

Mixed bag of heater bits......

John was hoping to sell all the heater parts together, but I only really needed a couple of the bits. The cost of purchase and postage to the UK for the lot would have been prohibitive- especially for bits i didn't need.. After a day or so, and with the parts being incomplete and with no other better offers, John agreed to split the bits he did have and a sale was made. Getting them to the UK wasn’t cheap. As well as the cost of the parts, there was postage, duty and then VAT on top of the whole lot! Plus Parcelforce then charged me for the privilege of collecting the tax owed.

So anyway, at long last, here they are.

Not much to look at are they.....? 

The black pipe doesn’t look anything special, but it’s the pucker part.

Pipe dreams.....

Interestingly (well I think so!). It’s internal diameter is a little different to the two short ‘gris rose’ coloured metal tubes used elsewhere in the "-15" system. Not sure why that would be.....Thicker walls = stronger part for under the bonnet?

A whopping 0.5mm difference in internal diameter

But the real prize was the pair of Protecteurs des tubes de detour d'eau et alimentation''. As recently as June 2019 I'd been having conversations with Jamie at DS Workshop about getting a pair made up from a single example that he kept as a template. Here’s a comparison between the ones I originally had made back in 1995, based on guesswork and the real deal.

Original cover (bottom) and my early attempt at a copy (top)

Not bad length-wise. I got the profile of the end on the right hand side of my photo just about right as I was able to have a good feel of that on the other car back in 1995........

Copping a feel: top end of the hose cover in the rear footwell

But you can see that the real covers have a wider, flatter, and pointed lower end - presumably because they need to cover the large opening in the sill behind the drivers seat. Anyway, as a result, they DO look remarkably like neckties......or cravates.

For the moment I’m just going to stick these in a box with the rest of the "-15" heater bits. I’m sure I’ll write more about the “-15 “ system when I get to that stage of the rebuild.

Ducellier 7530A Alternator - Strip Down and Overhaul

Another alternator rebuild!

Ducellier 7530A all cleaned up

I know - I've already rebuilt the Ducellier 7558B alternator that was fitted to my car when I bought it (in fact I rebuilt it twice!). I covered that in my 2 June 2017 post. However that alternator was actually original equipment on a 73/74 car and I was always on the look out for a Ducellier 7530A for a 1968 car. Why not? The 7530A was the first Ducellier alternator fitted to Ds after Citroen made the switch from generators in late 1967 and they continued in use until 1970. There was also a Paris-Rhone equivalent.

Late in 2018, the very helpful Paul at Pallas Autos had remembered my 2014 search for a distributor and contacted me about a a distributor they had: it turned out that was a DV010, so not what I'd been looking for but, as part of the conversation, he generously offered me some unwanted parts - including a 6182A starter. More recently he turned up a Ducellier 'DX05' distributor (see my post of 15 August 2019) which I bought from him and he threw-in a Ducellier 7530A alternator that had turned up. I picked them up at the D rally last month. 

As gratefully received

Many perfectly good older alternators are removed from cars. It's quite common when a car has a voltage regulator problem, to replace the alternator for a newer one that has the voltage regulator built in to it. It's a cure for a DS and makes a lot of sense. Paul told me this particular alternator had only been removed from the car because it was to be replaced with modern one as part of a restoration. Someone had painted 'OK' on the side of the alternator at some point - so I was optimistic it was in working order. Mind you, they'd also written 'BEARS' on it as well, so perhaps it was worth getting checked out......

I had the alternator tested by my local auto-electrician. they really need to be tested under running conditions. They fit them up to a jig and run them from the pulley. I was told that (without the benefit of a regulator attached to limit voltage) this alternator was pushing out 16 volts at increasing revs - at which point the tester pronounced it had passed and wound it down again.

With that sorted, I began stripping it. As a design, the 75xx series of alternators were used on several different Ds over the years, however (and although the working principles are the same) the layout and construction of the earlier 7530A is a little different from the 7558, and even the 7530B that was used between them. In fact the 7530B is more like a 7551 and 7558 than it is a 7530A. The casing and layout of the 7530B is the same as the 7551 and 7558 (rather than the 7530A), however the 7530B has a shorter rotor shaft, "in-y" pulley nut and larger pulley - like the 7530A,. In contrast, the 7558 which has a longer shaft, "out-y" nut on a longer shaft and smaller diameter pulley. The point here being that not many bits are interchangeable......

Bottom: 7530A, middle: 7530B, top: 7558B

The mounting bracket was removed. I planned to zinc-plate that. The pulley nut was removed by gripping the pulley in a vice. alternators are heavy and i didn't want it to slip out of the vice, so wedged my knee against it. 

Gripping the pulley to remove the nut

I made a careful note of the order of the washers and was careful not to lose the half-moon key. 

Key, fan, shims, pulley and nut.....

The cooling fan behind the pulley was made of plastic - another difference from the 7558. At least it meant one fewer parts to zinc plate.

The brush holder cassette was removed via the two screws at the back. Not the one on the top......If you undo that one before the complete holder is removed, a tiny nut behind it drops inside the alternator, potentially jamming the rotor. Don't ask me how I know.......

The two end screws hold the brush carrier in place

The third screw just holds one of the brushes in place
 and has a nut hidden behind it.

The location and cover arrangement for the rectifier is different from the later 7530B and 7558B alternators. 

Removing the rectifier cover

It was surprisingly mucky inside. Unlike the 7558B, the wires ended in ring terminals, so there was nothing to unsolder this time.

Stator and diode wires on the rectifier

I split the case and remove the stator coil and rotor.

I set about removing the rectifier. This is held to the body by the M6 and M5 terminal bolts.

I made a note of the arrangement of plastic insulating spacers and washers. The rectifier is completely different to that on the 7558B.

The main body was now in pieces.

I cleaned the loose rust off the stator and repainted it in the original lime green colour.

I examined then cleaned up the slip ring. It wasn't badly worn at all. 

Slip ring looked in good condition

Fitting this 7530 to my car meant I wouldn't have to worry about the excessive wear i'd found on my 7558B back in June 2017. The next photo is from a Paris-Rhone alternator. This is what 'worn' can look like!

Excessively worn slip ring.......

I stripped down the rectifier to clean it. This involved bending back the tabs of three locking plates on the screws used to hold the wire ring ends, so that they could be turned. 

Locking tab on the rectifier terminal bolt

The rectifier - split

The diodes have contact wires soldered directly to them and the diodes themselves are pressed into the rectifier body. The diodes didn't seem to want to budge and so I left them in situ - carefully cleaning around them instead. The wire sleeves were also colour-coded red and black. At least that meant I couldn't muddle them up when re-assembling.......

Diode wires colour-coded red

I replaced the two main terminal bolts and put it all back together. It looked a lot better.

When I took apart the main alternator body, the bearing at the tail end came out on the rotor shaft. It seemed to be on there quite firmly so I left it in place. The bearing at the nose end remained held in place behind a cover plate.

Using a socket of an appropriate size, I carefully tapped the bearing out from the outside-in.

Using a socket to push out the bearing

Works like a charm

There was a dust shield ring on the casing side of the bearing.

Dust shield washer

Unlike the 7558B, the bearing also seemed to be held in place by a rubber 'o' ring in a groove. I don't think it's meant to be water-tight. I don't think it has any purpose other than to gently hold the bearing in place? The bearings were filthy but otherwise okay. Rather than look to replace, I simply re-packed the grease.

Filthy bearing......

In the case of the bearing not on the shaft, I doused it in isopropanol alcohol to remove all the old grease and dirt.

........clean bearing

I pressed a paper-towel 'bib' over the rotor shaft and slotted the bearing back on as a stand. I  gently heated some light grease it a metal pot. and similarly warmed the bearing to aid flow. (I had to be careful as one side of the bearing had a plastic seal and  didn't want to melt that.) I poured the melted oil into the bearing and gave it a gentle spin to encourage the grease to penetrate. I warmed the bearing again to facilitate.  I poured on more melted grease and repeated the process until the bearing was saturated/ full.

Re-packing a bearing

I did something similar with the other bearing, but as it was stuck firmly on the shaft I just cleaned it out with a rag before 'topping it up'.

Re-greasing the rear bearing

The pulley and pulley bolt were cleaned and repainted black. The pulley is a different  diameter to that of the later 7558 alternator. 

Pulley repainted. Note the keyway slot

All the other bolts were cleaned and the plastic parts soaked and scrubbed.

I planned to have the body vapour blasted to clean it and was keen to preserve the little "Ducellier" identity plate. It wouldn't survive a blasting and I didn't want to bend and/ or break it by levering it off. I was thinking about drilling it out from the inside, when I I found two tiny holes already inside the case - through which I was able to push out the minute rivets that held it in place. 

A little research confirmed that the correct replacement brushes are a "UX 67-68" set. The usual parts suppliers didn't seem to readily list these and I ordered a set from Ebay France....... 

1968 DS21 and 7530 - those will do!

.......and ordered up a couple of long replacement bolts to go through the rectifier. Then I went on holiday - back to the very same place where my adventure had begun back in summer 2014.....

Back from holiday I picked up the vapour-blasted casing and, with the post delivered, I was just about ready to go.

All ready to go

With everything cleaned and prep-ed, it went back together quickly.

After first seating the dust seal, I refitted the bearing to the nose of the front casing half.

Dust seal back in place.......

There is usually a hiccup along the way. In this case I found that the three small ‘M4’ sized bolts that secure the plate over the bearing were reluctant to begin screwing home into the casing. I could have applied a bit of brute force but, with the casing being alloy, I risked stripping the threads. I’d experienced something similar before – when bolting the engine, bell housing and gearbox together. Having had the alloy parts vapour blasted, minute particles of media remained in the tapped threads – getting in the way of the bolts.

As then, the solution was to use a tap to gently clean out the thread. The important things to remember were (1) to use the right size of tap – I ran a nut over the M4 bolt, then over the tap to make sure it was the same size as I needed and (2) to not to force things and end up cutting a new and different thread!

Nose bearing secured behind plate......

I mounted the reassembled rectifier in the rear half of the casing.

Rectifier mounted.....

I aligned the stator ring to the casing, firstly such that the long bolts would pass through both casing halves and the stator, and secondly ensuring that the wires from the rotor aligned with the rectifier terminals.

Aligning bolt holes on the stator and casing.
Stator not quite seated

I put a modest bed of grease in the recess for the end bearing and fitted the bearing and rotor shaft through the stator, pushing it home. I bedded the stator in it’s groove as far as it would go and then slipped the front casing half, with it’s bearing, over the rotor shaft.

With a bit of fiddling I got the casing halves and green stator ring aligned and squeezed them together. If the stator ring is not squarely seated in the grooves of the two halves, it will be slightly out of alignment and the rotor will catch it as it rotates. 

Casing halves brought together.
Now the stator is seated!

With a bit of persuasion (ignore that hammer in the photo!) I got the parts aligned and seated, and slipped the long bolts through their holes. Tightening these also helped to ensure the parts sat ‘true’.

Casing bolted back together

I gave the shaft a spin to make sure it ran smoothly and without catching the rotor. Satisfied, I connected up the rotor-to-rectifier wires and refitted the dust cover over the rectifier. 

After......

......Before

It was starting to look like an alternator again now!

The alternator mounting bracket was refitted. While I'm on the subject, a couple of my alternators (the earlier ones: this 7530A and the 7530B) have got a little strut welded onto the side of the bracket.

Strut welded on the bracket

When the alternator is fitted, this has the effect of limiting the upright fitting angle of the alternator. 

The 'limiter' rests neatly against a 'step' on the block

What it also means, of course, is that it defines the minimum length of drive belts that can be used. Perhaps that's no bad thing, but I am finding the 1162mm belts a bit of a tight squeeze given these 'limiters'. I bought some (very slightly longer) 1175mm belts but these were actually still supplied as 1162mm belts.

Moving on........I used some graphite powder to lubricate the inner channels of the brush holder and then fitted the new brushes I’d bought from France - checking that the brushes moved smoothly in their channels. 

Fitting the new brushes

When fitted, the brushes contact the two tracks of the slip ring on the rotor.

Just visible: slip ring on the rotor

And when it was fitted, it looked like this:

Before.......

......after

The key for the pulley shaft was greased a little to hold it in it’s groove and the plastic cooling fan and various shim washers were refitted, followed by the pulley.

Being careful not to crush the plastic cooling fan, I gripped the pulley in a vice (again supporting the weight of the alternator with my knee) and tightened the nut on the pulley shaft. This inevitably marked the paint on the pulley and I’d always planned to do a touch up on completion.

Pulley nut fitted.....

The makers name plate was refitted. I didn’t want to risk the tiny rivets being too loose in their holes so mixed up a little Araldite and used a cocktail stick to introduce a small amount to the rivet holes. With the plate in place, the rivets were tapped home.

The makers plate is a nice period detail

That was it. At the moment I have removed the 7558B from the engine so that I can have better access to fit the radiator and especially that tricky bottom radiator-to-pump hoses. When it's time for re-assembly, I'll drop this 7530A on instead. In the meantime it's gone back in a box.