Citroën 2CV Restoration, the chassis

I unbolted the two suspension tubes running along the chassis (see below for an exploded view) and started cleaning the chassis. It turned out not to be as good as I thought. Below the drivers feet were several rotted spots running along the seam of the pedal plate. I decided to replace the first section of the chassis. I opened the folded strips running alongside the chassis connecting the side section with this plate. In order to do this you do need to drill the spotwelds away as indicated on the photo below.

chassis As can be seen there are also two vertical stiffeners inside the chassis and a tube running across to mount the suspension cilinders and bodywork on. This constructions gives a lot of extra strength. The chassis however is so light I could move it around myself by hand.

A new plate was prepared (1 mm thick) to be welded into the gap. Before doing this the bottom of the opened chassis was inspected, cleaned and treated with WAXoil thouroughly. Then the new plate was welded in as follows:

Along the white lines drawn on the photo a continues weld was made.
The spot welds running along the sides of the chassis were made (simulated) with plug welding the plate to the side plates.
After that the sides were folded in the correct original position and spot welded at a few points.
The spot welds connecting the internal vertical plates with the new plate were made by welding though the top plate. With a MIG/CO2 welder this can be done by selecting a high current and low wire speed and pressing the plates together using the welders handle.
Grinding the welds finished the job.

Now it was time to start working on the suspension cilinders.

suspension cilinder I took them apart by removing the top and bottom weld. That way I was able to get the to cilinder ends off the cilinder. I had to do this because both cilinders were heavily rusted and had to be replaced with new ones.. Inside the horror was even bigger! I had to replace a broken front spring (which is not so easy to get since the spring lenght and diameter changed throughout the years, that is what makes Citroen cars so special). I obtained one from the club stock. Furthermore one 'piston' lost the sealing. This one was also replaced. The cilinders were again re-assembled. Pay attention to the length of the pull bars and springs, for the front and back end, since they are different and should be mounted correctly. Otherwise the suspension will never work the way it was designed to..

On the right hand bottom corner also the 'batteur' is displayed. Check its functioning by shaking it up and down. You should be able to feel (and hear) the weight inside moving up and down.

This suspension makes these older 2CVs special from any other car in the world. Therefor it is worth paying a lot of attention to get it right over-all. The reward will be a unique feeling when driving such a car. It did cost Citroën an awfull lot of money to come to this design. The design could not really handle the higher speeds obtained by the more powerfull engines but for the 9, 12 and 18 horse power engines it gives great comfort.

After this the chassis re-assembly was started.