Classic cars forum & vehicle restoration.

[Wizardofaus]

(not sure if this is the right forum, but here goes...)

I'm Simon, born in London, grew up (as much as any 50ish bloke grows up) in Australia, and now living in France.

I own a pair of Citroen Traction Avants (Light 15s to UK types). Both are black 11b normales.

Our first was Célestine, a 1953 car discovered in a barn in the early noughties and restored by a garage owner. She is extremely well behaved, except for having an appetite for gearboxes. We did a couple in rapid sucession, both metal fatigue. One involved cracking the gearbox case from end to end, (http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PLwI6oxCTyE/TtdXmnxJ4uI/AAAAAAAAI2I/LVlA4DBx4u8/s1600/celestine%2B3.jpg)the other was shearing a bearing mount where the axles exit.

Our second is Claudette, who had a complete engine rebuild in 2009, and brakes added in 2013 (when we collected her she had no brakes except for a nasty grab on the nearside wheel in the last mm of brake pedal travel. Fun in the rain...)

During summer we do custom tours of Loire Valley Chateaux using the Tractions, and during winter I trawl Streetview trying to see if we have been spotted. Even though we do over 10,000 km a year in the Tractions, as far as I know we havent been seen.

Trawling the interwebs I have been surprised at how many pre '75 cars there are in daily use, and I started making notes. This has turned into a way over-ambitious blog to record all of them worldwide. So far I have 1800, but I dount if that is more than 5%. The blog is here: http://classiccarsv.blogspot.com/. We also have another blog about life in general here :http://daysontheclaise.blogspot.fr

As far as cars goes, Mrs Wiz wants a 2cv van and a renault 4cv, and I'd have two of anything low, sleek and 30's
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1953 Citroen Traction Avant
1956 Citroen Traction Avant

[Rick]

Hi, good to have you on board, but please - no more posting of your links.

RJ
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Rick - Admin
Home:https://www.oldclassiccar.co.uk
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[peter scott]

Hi Wizardofaus,

Welcome to the forum.

That's certainly a spectacular gearbox failure!



What do you think caused it?

Peter
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https://www.nostalgiatech.co.uk
1939 SS Jaguar 2 1/2 litre saloon

[Wizardofaus]

The gearbox case is an aluminium casing, and the design was very rushed. One of the things you shouldnt do with them is push start the car. I suspect that over 60 years she'd been push started a few times. The case cracked half way around a corner - hence the longitudinal split. To give her due, I was able to drive a couple of hundred metres with the case like that to get her off the road.
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1953 Citroen Traction Avant
1956 Citroen Traction Avant

[Phil - Nottingham]

Welcome - hardly a design fault if it lasted 60 years! Most cars are lucky to last 15 years new ones included
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Rover P2
Rover P4
Rover P5 & P5B
Land Rover S2 & S3
Morris Mini Traveller Mk2

[Wizardofaus]

It was an expensive repair - had to source a casing in good condition, not easy with 60 y/o cars.

I didn't, however, let the side down: before starting work I did ask the mechanoc if it would buff out.

At the moment I am trying to source a casing in perfect condition, because I have a good CAD man on my side. If we can get the design right, with webbing and some 3D printing in titanium, I should never have an issue again.
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1953 Citroen Traction Avant
1956 Citroen Traction Avant

[Dipster]

In my understanding gearboxes are strained most when they are asked to transmit max torque. I saw proof of this years ago. A local contractor had an old Commer with a 6 cylinder Perkins diesel that was quite capable of delivering oodles of torque. We maintained it and it was in good condition. The truck rarely carried much weight and so it should not have had to work too hard.
However the owner driver was averse to changing gear too often and so used to lug along in high gears, perhaps to save fuel.
I happened to be behind this character one day when I saw the remains of his gearbox fall on to the road! A lug too far.......

Any economies on fuel he may have made over the years suddenly went on expensive repairs!

[Ashley]

Too true that dipster. Austin Westminsters and Healey 3000s had a very low first and second, then a big jump to third, but first was prone to wear and losing teeth. Typical for BMC they lifted the ratio of first so it was almost the same as second and left second too low. Triumph hade much better ratios and overdrive on second too.

Volvo did the same on the Amazons