The dynamo is proving to be a pain in the neck. Tests on the bits off the car seem to indicate that she it should be working, but tests on the car reveal no charging activity. JJ (with whom she currently resides) must therefore either get his man to come out to her, or get her (on the trailer) round to his workshop. Like everyone else, JJ is currently fairly busy on other things, like going with a gang of other 2CV owners to the Cliftonville car show near Folkestone.

Ah well, I expect we'll get there soon. Meanwhile I am still waiting for the 2CVGB website to wake its blogging bit back up. Our Mademoiselle-ing activities were so intense through the winter, from November on, right round to April, that I was able to put something new up almost daily, and it made for quite an interesting blog. Now, frustratingly, I can no longer get at it.

I've been away on hols (narrow boating on the Leeds and Liverpool Canal), but JJ tells me he's been busy while I've been gone. He's our main body-work man and has been playing with filler, sanding and spray paint. He's also touched in some of Mademoiselle's heraldic coats of arms, and has, I gather, added a small red pin-stripe along the length of her, though I've yet to see that.

Frustrated though, by finding thet the old girl's old-fashioned dynamo (mounted at the front of the crank) is not putting out any current, so needs removing and the special tool needed for this is was not to hand. (Ian has it, we think). Once that is off, JJ can take it to his old-car-electrics expert to get it diagnosed, and if necessary, re-wound or re-commutatored. This guy is a whizz, and has impressed us with his repairs of JJ's 1920's Citroen CV5.

As is the way of these things, now that Mademoiselle is all but cosmetically finished, we must date her, register her and get an MOT, hence Andy sends off a request to top date-specialist in the club, Pete, as follows

"Sent: Tuesday, July 08, 2008 10:02 AM
Subject: Dating letter request


Hi Pete,


Hope you and Bev are well. Could we kindly ask you for a dating letter please? You've probably heard of Mademoiselle, the AZ with unusual local history that four of us Kentish Hoppers have been restoring. Although there's quite a lot of fettling and cosmetics still to do, we're more-or-less at the MOT and registration stage.


As you may have read, she's a bit of a hotch-potch but here are the main details:

a.. Chassis no. 469851 (I believe this dates at 1959 - but you will know!), actual chassis itself was replaced long ago, looks like a late 60s/early 70s one
b.. Bodyshell: originally speedo-driven wipers but no bracket for ripple bonnet stay, therefore must be 1961-64 approx; paint (date) code on bulkhead was recently revealed, 16 K 1 (16th Nov 1961) which confirms this!
c.. Mid/late 60s 18hp engine now fitted (she came with an early Dyane 4 engine!)
d.. Original (late 50s/early 60s) gearbox & suspension throughout, & most other features
e.. Later parts fitted - 6V electric wipers, 60s bumpers & 'paperclip' overriders, probably some other things I can't think of at present but nothing else major.

Our own feeling is that although it's a mixture, the real identity is 1961 - up to you, however!


Could we please trouble you to address the letter to John J, Ian C, Matt C and Andy B - technically she belongs jointly to the four of us and we're not sure which name to register her in (DVLA won't allow a joint registration unless we're a company as such). Address is etc etc

Thanks very much and all the best,

Andy "

Wish us luck

Yup - I am finally through the web design course taken in the evenings at Queen Elizabeth Grammar School (Yay Henry Stanton! - good luck in Venezuela!), and, like all the rest of "us" I have the embryo of a website - go see it at

http://www.kentishhoppers.org.uk

It is still very much a work in progress, especially this blog bit, and I'll keep adding to it, but it is finally formally registered as a domain and hosted on weebly's server, registered by www.easily.com, all of which organisations I can reccommend.

This one is an attempt to include a picture, so I am hoping that there is now a pic of the car, with 2 of my dogs, at a recent Kentish Hoppers camp in Preston, near Winghjam, Canterbury. More to follow, if I can suss it out. Also, what is that "categories" thing all about?

Those who know me at all have discovered (or quickly will discover), that as well as an interest in restoring the one "old girl" Mademoiselle, I am also involved in restoring and even older girl, the Thamses Sailing Barge, S.B. Cambria

http://www.cambriatrust.org.uk/cambria_barge_history/history2.htm

I am just a volunteer on this one - the real work is being done by Tim Goldsack's team of skilled ship-wrights and expert restoreres of wooden boats, who tendered for, and won, the contract once the Heritage Lottery Fund had earmarked £990,000 for "us"

The link gets you to the Cambria website, maintained by good friend and fellow volunteer, Dave Walsh

Gah! Still frustrated by the failure (possibly my failure) to translate this website into my own domain. As is the way of these things, it will still be hosted on the Weebly website where it is being built, but it would be nice if it could be called @kentishhoppers.ork.uk

I wonder whether some progress is being made. On the main Weebly site, where the site was showing no traffic at all, I suddenly have a graph - OK only 2 views yesterday and 1 today, but it's a start

If you need to see my other blog, try

http://deefer-dawg.blogspot.com

Cheers

Matt



 

As I write this the car, almost complete, is now in the careful hands of JJ in Walmer. JJ used to be a sign-writer in his working life, and likes to turn his hand to the bodywork, so that he's almost claimed this as his own territory. the rest of the team (Andy, Ian and myself plus occasionally, Shed-the-Welder) are all very busy at present, so we've allowed this to happen on the "Let him get on with it" basis.

He has a bit of sanding to do, especially around the "A" panels (just in front of the A pillars) which were bent about a bit in our attempts to cut away the lower bulkhead. These are now well wadded out with filler, and badly in need of sanding. Some fillering and sanding too needed in the rear-lights dept. the old French number-plate, in its two halves, nestle in wells above the bumper, below the boot, illuminated by the central tiny lamp on a ridge. This all needs re-creating to cope around a UK number plate, with holes drilled to take our replacement light clusters.

More soon, when I know this is working. Right now, I'm not at all sure I have successfully hosted it on my hoped for domain (@kentishhoppers.org.uk)

It's a disaster. The Official 2CVGB website has fallen over about 5 weeks ago, and lying dead in the rubble for now are my first 140-odd posts of the restoration by our club, of our project 2CV. The "club" is the Kent local group ("Kentish Hoppers") of the National 2CVGB organisation (links etc shortly, but at present little point in giving you the web site address, as it's parked as a default page).

The car is a 2CV from the late 50's and early 60's (bit of a dog's breakfast mixture) originally donated by the French town of La Chapelle d'Armentieres, to the Kent town of Birchington as part of their twinning link in the 80's. Since then the car has been housed at Dover Transport Museum, but in October last year they offered it to the "Hoppers" to do a full restoration on.

This we started in November 2007, and my blog on 2CVGB (were you able to see it) contains almost daily postings with lovely photo's of our progress. You'd know more about bodywork welding, seat upholstery, interior trim, batteurs and frotteurs, chassis's and dynamos than it is probably healthy for anyone to know.

It's been a blast. I was intending to download all this to my PC, print it in Word, laminate the pages and keep it as a nice diary of the events to go with the finished car to shows, and had downloaded the first 50 pages when it all crashed and burned.

Now I am a frustrated blogger, and the 2CV is all being done in secrecy, although you do get occasional references on our other blog, that done (allegedly) by our westie pup Deefer on

http://deefer-dawg.blogspot.com

But enough of this for now. I need to find out to include pics in this blog.