Workshop Manuals

If you are going to embark on a restoration, then you should be prepared to do plenty of research. Citroen published many official workshop manuals and technical notes to enable their retail and service agents to be able to maintain and repair DS models and variants.

Reference Material

Printed copies are hard to come by these days. Thankfully, many of these are now available in digital form and are available - FOR FREE! You should not need to part with cash for a CD from Ebay. Not only is it false economy, but you won't necessarily get the best copy or most complete version of the manual you are buying. At the bottom of this page I will include links to the main sites from which these manuals can be downloaded.

For a DS with the later five bearing engine, here are my top tips for the manuals that you will find useful:

PARTS MANUALS
These include detailed exploded diagrams of cars and the various parts that make them up and, in some cases includes useful size information. They tend to be multiple language and the majority include English.

519 - covers vehicles 1966 to September 1967. But only available in French
562 - covers vehicles 1966 to 1969. The digital download is a single file covering both volumes
598 - covers vehicles 1966 to 1969, ~It's basically the same as 562 but has additional language translations.Two volumes need to be downloaded
577 - covers vehicles as at April 1970. Two volumes as a single download
604 - covers vehicles 1970 to 1971. Two volumes need to be downloaded
611 - Covers vehicles 1971 to 1972. Two volumes as a single download
648 - covers models 1971 onwards. Published in 1974. Two volumes as a single download

You may also like.......
645 - standard parts and sizes/ dimensions

Why am I recommending you get hold of multiple versions of parts manuals? Because parts changed in subtle ways. Having access to earlier/ later parts manuals helps you to identify when something changed (and maybe work out why) and  'pin down' the correct part for your vehicle. However a word of warning: the later parts manuals sometimes use images from the earlier manuals and so what you see under the bonnet may not be what you see on the printed page! Another good reason for getting hold of multiple manuals.


REPAIR MANUALS
You will often hear people talking about the procedure described in the "Brooklands" book, the "Autobooks" manual or "OWM742". These were/ are available for the public to buy and are invariably heavily based on the Factory manuals. 

The Brooklands manual aka OWM742

My advice is to go to source and get hold of the Factory repair manuals. Sometimes it doesn't hurt to also be able to refer to the Brooklands though.

518 - covers DS21 vehicles as at 1966. Available to download in French or in English
814 - covers vehicles after 1965. Two volumes to download.

Why am I recommending that you get hold of 518 in addition to 814? Well, you will find that 518 has Operations (procedures) in it that were not later published in 814 - although Tony Jackson is doing sterling work pulling information from 528 and other sources into a definitive version of '814' (which is why you need to always look out for the latest versions).

You may also like......
471 - Body Repair Manual. This covers dismantling and re-welding techniques. Although dating from 1964, it holds good for much of the chassis and structure for later cars.

583 - covers vehicles after 1965. Five volumes French only. Published in the 1970s
586-4 - technical data and measurements for 1970 vehicles.

589-6 - technical data and measurements for 1971 efi vehicles.

614-5 - technical data and measurements for 1972 vehicles.

639-6 - technical data and measurements for 1972 DS23 efi vehicles.

Manual 471 - Body Repair manual. A thing of beauty

TECHNICAL BULLETINS
The were the Factory 'memos' distributed to dealerships and workshops with instructions of work-arounds, fixes, changes and additional information. So they cover things like fixing leaky roofs, fitting hazard lights and a whole range of DS-related topics.

Too many to list here, These can be found on a couple of sites listed at the bottom of this page:

BK23 (see "Notes d'Informations")
HD19 (See "Notes Destinee Aux Agents")



HYDRAULICS
If you're going to have a DS, having an understanding of how it works is probably going to be a good thing.

844 - hydraulics training or reference document for Citroen workshops. Covers the DS, GS and CX.
843 - similar to 844 except that, in addition to the DS, it covers the Citroen SM . Available as web pages. Downloadable version not available yet.

You may also like.......
No ref. number - hydraulic seals and parts as at September 1966. The full version is only available as a black and white copy and in Dutch. A colour version of the majority of the manual with English annotations is available from the "Caddyflaps" website.


USEFUL WEBSITES
The following websites make some or all of the above documents available for free download. Visit the sites and explore. They are periodically updated with additional or improved scans:

Jint Nijman, Tony Jackson, et al: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/tv0b25gpmd5ux8e/e-HYMQrA3e


"Technique" page of HD19 La Passion CITROEN: http://www.hd19.net/accueil_evo.htm


BK23: http://bk23.free.fr/index.htm


Tony Jackson's Citroen publication list: https://sites.google.com/site/citroenpublicationslist/


Jint Nijman's Citroen-DS-ID.com: http://www.citroen-ds-id.com/index.html?ds/DS_Manuals.html


Citroen Car Club, D Section Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/CCCUK.D.Section/


Mark Bardenwerper Snr's site: 'Caddyfabric' Resource pages

http://www.citrogsa.com