1955 Traction 11B "Barn Find" Project

That’ all very well Dave but noise in the cabin is part of owning a classic, or should be as is heat and cold.
Regarding heat in the summer heat shielding is OK if you never drive your cars in the winter but I do (I have 3). So in my opinion open the windscreen and door windows in the summer if necessary and during the winter give the rear passengers a blanket (again these were always found in cars in the 40’s and 50’s). Not every one can find a period heater.

Den, it doesn’t eliminate the noise, just reduces it to a level whereby you can drive at 55-60 and talk to passengers.

As for heat in the winter, I have the original air feed from the radiator fitted which takes the edge off things in the winter, but the car is not uncomfortable to ride in and yes I use mine year round as well.

I have finally got the dirtiest job out of the way. The cleaning, rust treatment and painting of the rear underside of the car. This was disgusting covered in years of mud and crap. I wired wheeled the lot with the rear suspension system still in place as I didn’t want to take this out for now, although it made the job ten times harder and there just a few places I need to get too once the car is off the lift.

But I think I am getting there and it seems the thick layer of mud has preserved the steel as new 😀 with absolutely now rust at all.

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The torsion bar adjuster looks a little different now and it also has the ability to adjust now (and not rusted solid)

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You’ll need velvet ropes too, to keep the hoi-polloi at bay.

I have fitted the new brake pipes to the rear axle too. They seem easy to fit at first but getting that last little bend int hem proves quite tough specially when there is always the threat of a kink, and they are too expensive to do that 😮

I have one single pipe to fit and that is the front to back pipe but that will happen after I have replaced the front floor panel.

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I made up the specialist tools for the brake shoe alignment after collating a lot of different documents together on the subject, thanks for all the help on this. I was lucky though as the rear centering tool is exactly the same as the 2CV tool so fitted perfectly over the rear axle 😀

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Your doing a great job, keep up the good work.

On the brake pipes, I came across a small pipe bending tool in Aldi which does 6, 8 and 10mm pipes which was so cheap I just had to buy it………..

I have not had to use it yet, but no doubt it will come in useful one day 😆

Tough day today, I started on the floor replacement.

Firstly I had to heat up and scrape the bitumen mess from the front bulkhead, what a crappy job that was and quite awkward getting in there too 🙁 But most of it came off leaving just a shimmer of black that will be covered with the Fatmat sound/heat proofer http://www.fatmat.com . It may not be original but I bet citroen would have used something similar if it was available at the time and not that sticky tar stuff that is all over the car 😯

I then cut out the front floor section and air hammered the spot welds off the surrounding ledge. That was a job and a half and I fell like I am getting into the touch restoration work now…. grinding and welding….man work 😆

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I bought the replacement front floor panel from José Franssen in Belgium. It was a good price but now I know why. How can a manufacturer not get the pattern right for the triangular sections underneath. It is not hard. And if the original cars are all so individual, then leave the bloody things off and leave the purchaser weld them on…. 👿 👿

See how much they are out of line (the thin strip is a piece I cut from the floor and that welding…. that is how it came)

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So I had to remove the outer two sections and place them in line with the existing section on the car and reeled them. A job that takes time which would be better spent drinking tea.

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