| Greg's car repair woes |
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This is a partial extract of my paper diary for 1969. It illustrates one of the worst cases of car repair I have ever experienced. As I now know, the car needed the contact breaker replaced, something that should take about 30 minutes. But the manufacturer's agent, Criterion Garages of Southampton UK, now defunct or trading under a different name, was not prepared to look at it in less than 2 weeks. I tried myself, looking in all the wrong places, but in the end had to leave it with them. They then caused me to make a fruitless journey to Southampton, claiming that the car was ready when in fact it wasn't, and generally treated me like dirt. They returned the car to me with loose cylinder heads and stripped bolts on the inlet manifolds, and claimed that the poor performance was nothing unusual. I didn't find out the true problems until 3 June 1969, a month after the problems came to a head. Thank God times have changed.
| Sunday, 4 May 1969 | Today's diary | top | next | last |
... Then Bev back, and Sonny an I went across a foggy moor to Newton Abbot, where we slept until 1030. Then to Netherton House, after getting some petrol in the nick of time——only had a float chamber full left—and was told that Mr. Evans was not prepared to consider letting anything for October yet, and that was that. Schluß.
Then off back to Southampton, car misfiring worse than ever. Got some more petrol at Exeter, then on to the A35 and A31, going very slowly indeed—could hardly get any revs up. Stopped at an AA service centre at one point, and the fellow had a look at it, thought valve trouble, and suggested I adjust the mixture, which was rich. On to Southampton, faring little better, and got there about 1440, which, under the circumstances, was not too bad a time. Inside to say hello to a despondent Jim, and then out again to remove my fan and have a look at the contact breaker. I think, though, that it is unlikely to be this or the condenser—it seems almost impossible that anything so simple could go wrong. Put the fan back on, and started up the engine, and was rewarded bu the sight of an enormous cone of flame spurt 3 ft out of my carb, which made me decide not to go back to Tun. Wells, but to stay here until I got it fixed. Could not get Criterion [Citroën agent] on the AA emergency service, and so somebody else came along and started looking round the gearbox area for what he could see of a distributor, but could not and so went again.
The car didn't have a distributor. It had two cylinders and a dual-ported coil.
Sunny and Jim went [back to Tunbridge Wells] by train, and I went back with the McGibbons and spent the evening watching TV about the transatlantic air race—the world speed record was broken today: Empire State building to Post Office tower in 5 hrs 30 min 24 secs. Somehow late to bed.
| Monday, 5 May 1969 | Today's diary | top | previous | next | last |
... and then went out to start up the car, which just about made it, and spluttered off in the direction of Criterion Garages, and the had a rather agonising wait around, the brunt of which was that they might be able to look at the thing in a couple of weeks time. I rang up the AA, who told me of a place in Eastleigh where I might be able to get it done, so spluttered out there, and then they told me that the place was only for doing lubes and such like, so into Eastleigh to buy some decoking stuff, and then back to Greenacres, where Mrs McGibbon was prepared to let me do the decoke.
Accordinly set to removing the bodywork, in the middle of the most difficult part of which Sonny rang to tell me of events... Cogitated that while removing cooling, inlet and exhaust manifolds and subsequently the heads, which was interrupted by a trip into town, and then back to examine to [sic] heads and remove some of the largest valves I have ever seen—40 mm diameter inlet valves. They were covered in coke, so spent a couple of hours cleaning everything up, in the middle of which arrived the McRaes... Finished off my head cleaning and valve grinding, then had the problem of looking after a decidedly drowsy Mr. and Mrs McRae...
| Tuesday, 6 May 1969 | Today's diary | top | previous | next | last |
Then out again and put the cylinder heads back on, itself not without difficulties, mainly associated with seeing that the pushrod tubes were seating properly in their neoprene seals. Then had an unbelievable amount of trouble with the manifolding, and before I knew where I was I had stripped the thread of one of the bolts which held the inlet manifold in place. The metal of heads is extremely soft, far too soft for the job it is intended to do. Then drilled out the hole for the bolt and put a bolt with a nut right through, and then changed my mind and put the cooling sheath on, and then again the manifolding. With a bit of persuasion the engine started, making an almighty aeroplane-like noise, and spat back several times through the carb. Eventually it got tired of this, and I put the exhaust pipes back in place, and started it up again, only to discover that it was (apparently) blowing by the starboard cylinder head seal, so took the whole bloody lot off again, after which it was extremely reluctant to go back on again. Eventually got it to go on, though I don't know if it was square, and then had an equally impossible time getting the manifolding back on again, and in the end I gave up in despair, cursing the S.A. Citroën-Berliet-Panhard from here to kingdom come for ever having designed so badly an engine. Called the AA, who said they would send round a tow vehicle sometime and have the thing towed to Criterions, ...
| Monday, 12 May 1969 | Today's diary | top | previous | next | last |
... rang up Criterion garages, who said they could not be too sure how long it would take, but they would ring me back. ... After a while, had the rather startling news from Criterion that my car would be ready in in half an hour, so arranged to go down there tomorrow and rang Mum [in London] to this effect. She suggested I rang tomorrow on the way to Southampton, ...
| Tuesday, 13 May 1969 | Today's diary | top | previous | next | last |
... quickly down to the station and caught a train which I thought would get me to London, but it tuned out that the thing was only going to Tonbridge, so had to wait 10 minutes and then go to Cannon St., and by tube to Waterloo, where I had time to get hold of some money... Then down by train to Southampton and by foot to Criterion garages, where I was told that they were very sorry, but they had made a mistake, and work would not start on my car until Thursday. There was little I could do about it, of course, and so off round the front to see if I could by a Goddess, and had a log of umming and ahing, the bloke wanted to see my trad-in, and said it was in lousy condition and he could not possibly offer more than £500 for it. Arranged a test drive, and then off for lunch... Back to Criterion after lunch, and they told me that they had changed their minds, and that they were no longer interested din my Ami 6, and doubted that anybody else would be, and thus assumed that I was no longer interested in the DS19 I had been looking at (75000 miles, 19965, £565, 3 months guarantee), which rather annoyed me. Asked them to let me test drive it, and they said yes, wait an hour or so, then changed their minds and (rather surprisingly) said they would send it up to Tun. Wells for me to test drive it here. Odd way to go about things, but I did not mind.
And apparently I didn't smell a rat, either.
| Friday, 23 May 1969 | Today's diary | top | previous | next | last |
At Southampton, caught a taxi to Criterion, and there found my car completed, albeit making the same popping noises as before, which annoyed me considerably, as did the fact that the thing would not idle; they said some bullshit about the thing being cold, and I took it out and it went well enough, though it still would not ideal—attributed it to a dirty jet, and set off...
| Tuesday, 3 June 1969 | Today's diary | top | previous | next | last |
Then set to checking my compression—most heartening thing that I have done in a long while: compression of 110 lb in⁻² is considered excellent, as opposed to 50 poor, but mine was 175, which would seem to indicate a cr. [compression ratio] of about 12,5:1. I am still trying to puzzle this one out, but think it might have been the temperature. Then set to torque the heads down—as I suspected, they had not touched them. Torqued them both down to 2,5 mkg, and then started the thing up—was somewhat astonished to find that the thing did not blow by, though of course it was the obvious cause. Also found that they had stripped the thread of one of the inlet manifold bolts, which is an equally obvious reason why the thing had been stalling—must do something about that soon.
Looking at this month-long tale of woe, I'm left wondering what Criterion did to the car. I delivered it to them with the engine partially dismantled, and about all they did was to stop it from spitting back through the carburettor, presumably by changing the contact breaker and condenser. But that took them 2½ weeks!
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