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Color Codes August 22, 2005 - Body, exterior: "Sable métallisé" AC 318 - Body, base color: gray AC 092 (mine is now "Gris rosé" AC 136) - Hydraulic devices: green AC 502 - Grill: "Gris nacré" AC 095 - Various metal sheet parts: "Brun chocolat" RAL 8017 (industrial paint reference) or simply black

The Workshop and Garage, from the Beginnings May 5, 2006 Here in Canada, almost all individual house has a basement. This basement is often used as a storage area, play room for kids or workshop before it's converted in actual rooms when, for example, family grows. In my case, this is the place where I store all the SM parts and where I work on these parts with a lot more space than in my little garage. Fortunately, there is space I try to keep everything organized and clean After replacing my old PC, I used the old one here to view the SM documentation, mainly the parts catalogs Perhaps the best investment I made, a sandblasting cabinet, which makes a good work My painting room ;-) The parts storage area I don't have enough shelves, so there are parts everywhere There is more and more parts ready for reassembling, this is encouraging! My garage is not very big, but it's obviously essential for my restoration and maintenance tasks. I try to keep it in good shape. Here are some pictures taken in August 2005, after a makeover I made while it was empty. I put new paint on the floor and I also painted the lower part of the walls, which where still in rough concrete on one side and wood on the other The water outlet and drain are extremely useful, especially during winter This is a laboratory! But it will not stay as clean for long ;-) I recently installed an automated door opening mechanism. Again, some long work hours to install it correctly

October 14, 2007 On September 2007, I have the opportunity to salvage some shelves at the company I work for. So it's the occasion to reorganize the storage area in the basement. Two shelf lines replace the temporary tables I used before I save a lot of space But this way, it's not as impressing as the tables full of zinc-plated parts ;-) Behind the shelves, the "mess" area ;-)     Now with saved space, I can use the tables elsewhere, to take care of the seats for example

The Workshop and Garage, Today September 5, 2011 In December 2010 everything changes because I found a house ideal for my automotive adventures. The house includes a workshop and a garage suitable to store and work on multiple cars. This is simply the house of my dreams ;-) Let's start with the workshop section that was a machine shop before. It's big and pretty well equipped, with a good lighting, a compressed air network and even a washroom. A lot of cleaning was needed, everything was greasy, even walls and windows. The SM section     The parts section     On the other side, this is the double garage, for the SM IE and the Jag. This is really fantastic to have all my cars at home The previous owner is a fan of the "Monster Garage" TV show, I have to find a way to remove what he wrote on one of the garage doors   There is storage space everywhere, that's great I really have a good setup now, that's simply fantastic.

Some Things I'll have to Think About... Summer 2003 - Cleaning and inspection of the resin rims and the (steel) spare rim. For the moment, a first cleaning session shows that the resin rims are in excellent condition. Good news! The car can actually use these rims, this is not the case of all SM models (specific front and rear axle plates have been designed for them), but the rear axles of my new body have been modified accordingly. For the front axles (transmissions), no modification is needed because I'll reuse the original ones. - Tires are very old so they will need to be replaced. I don't plan to find the original ones, because their price is very high. This SM model is supposed to use 195/70-15 tires but on the Michelin's website, I only found 205/70-15 tires. This width of 205 is normally used for fuel injection SMs. I will probably use this kind of tire.

Air Conditioning Summer 2003 I'll have to check the air conditioning system and find a specialist able to recharge the cooling gas circuit. The circuit will need a modification to use the new R1234 gas instead of the original R12. I already know that the condenser and the drying cartridge will have to be replaced, but they are in very bad shape anyway.

Missing Parts April 10, 2007 - A few parts of the front lights steering and leveling mechanism are missing (mainly the "delay device" on the left fender and the hydraulic steering pipes). I don't plan to search for these parts immediately, it will be one of the details to fix later - Some air filtration parts are missing (big cylindrical filtering box and associated pipes, mainly the pipe going to the air box on top of the carburetors). A solution chosen by some SM owners is to use separate filters, for each carburetor, replacing the original filtering system. I'll try to find the original parts and if I can't, I'll chose the separate filters solution - The spare tire cover was missing but a friendly visitor of this site sent me one. Thanks a lot Xavier for this gift

Zinc-plating July 13, 2005 When you spend hours browsing over web sites from amateurs or professional car restorers, you get some very useful information. One of this information is about zinc-plating. Many parts are originally "yellow" zinc-plated on the SM, even if on my particular car, the yellow color has been replaced by a "rust" one ;-) So, following examples like Othello (check his website here, but in french only), I decide to have parts zinc-plated, the ones that were originally plated, and also some others, to protect them better than with paint. Here is how it looks like, presented the Othello way. Should I say that it took a lot of time to obtain such a result? To get good results, everything has to be cleaned, some times sandblasted and always brushed. The result of the four first batches of parts brought to zinc-plating The fifth (big) batch. The plating quality, which is not always consistent from one batch to another, is perfect here I also had zinc-plated bigger parts, like the engine flying wheel here OK, I admit, I had zinc-plated parts that were originally painted in black, like the engine oil filling pipe. In fact, I thought that a good plating will be a lot better than simply using a paint can, and it should be nicer too. But I'll perhaps have too much yellow parts, so I'll paint some of them back in black color, which will protect them even more.

January 20, 2007 Here is, in January 2007, my "display" of plated parts, after receiving a fresh new batch. It's the result of 6 or 7 batches, I think I sent back some parts for re-plating because the result was not very good or because of oxidation That's nice! The latest batch, mainly parts coming from the doors

Paint December 22, 2005 By the end of 2005, after months of cleaning, brushing and sandblasting many parts, I finally begin painting. After preparation, I begin by two coats of primer I store parts after primer. There are multiple primer colors but that's not my decision, it's only because of color availability in the store Then I apply three coats of paint One week for drying, at least, and then storage again. Paint is fun because progress is clearly visible ;-) I use paint in can, it's not the best solution but using a real paint gun would be difficult in my basement and I don't know how to use this kind of device. The result is ok but a very long drying time is necessary before touching the painted parts (one week minimum). I selected, without real reflection, gloss paint, but now I wonder if it will be too shiny. For special colors, I asked a Sikkens paint distributor to make special cans for me. Even here in Canada, they are able to create the original Citroën colors if I give them the color code. That's good news!   Here are some hydraulic parts, with the AC 502 green Here, some steel sheet parts, with the RAL 8017 brown

New Parts January 20, 2007 Here is my stock of new parts, ordered mainly from the french SM Club and from Western Hemispheres, an american supplier specialized in parts for old european cars. Some parts have also been bought during the Saratoga Springs Rendezvous in 2006. I didn't have many parts... ...but by January 2007 I receive a big order, it's Christmas ;-) A lot of steel sheet and rubber parts Now I have to find space to store everything!

Ultrasonic Cleaning Tank March 17, 2009 After some shelves and tables, I had the opportunity to get an ultrasonic cleaning tank at the company I work for. So thank you very much Essilor to reorganize the production workshops on a regular basis ;-) In this case it was an ultrasonic cleaning machine that was sent for recycling. Of course, I proposed to salvage one of the cleaning tanks and the ultrasonic generator that goes with it. Here is the tank as removed from the machine Here is the ultrasonic generator, it's brand new And here is a little cart that I'm going to use as a rolling base I start by making a wood chassis The tank has a good size Here is the final result, with unneeded connections closed and the electrical wiring done There is a heating resistance on each side, I just had to install a regulator and a temperature sensor This kind of equipment is not mandatory, but it was an opportunity I didn't want to miss and it's fun ;-)