A Citroën SM from Québec
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presented by Stéphane Palumbo

HydrAUliCS DRIVETRAIN BODY IntEriOr MISC
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Body
April 29, 2007

In me driveway, she makes the neighbors curious ;-)

Sometimes, pedestrians stop to ask me what this car is

She's impressive!

There is no front licence plate in Québec

I put the rear plate onto the original french one...

... to avoid making new holes, there already are 6 of them!

The RR wheels are in excellent shape and fit very well

It shines because it's clean and I'm not a good photographer ;-)

Nice rims and tires, it's hot!

Cleaning and polishing the bolt covers has been a long and meticulous job

In the back, my "everyday's" car who temporary lost its space in the driveway

The windshield upper trim must be repositioned correctly

The body panels alignment is not perfect...

... but it's not too bad

Big scratches unfortunately temper the right side (rear fender and door)

It's frustrating, I'll have to do something about that one day

Under Body
July 19, 2008

The front side, from under, not too bad after a little cleaning

Here the rear side, not too bad either, but tar could hide bad surprises

Some work on a lift gave an opportunity to see more details

I'll need to do something here, it's not nice

Under the engine, this is quite oily of course

The side portions...

... nice, I believe

Servicing Program
April 29, 2007

- Installation of lower buffers on the rear suspension
- Repositioning of the windshield upper trim
- Painting of the front grill that begins rusting
- Elimination of the right side scratches

I don't plan to immediately deal with the scratches on the right door and rear fender. I'll see that later because it will probably require quite a big body work.

Front Grill Painting
December 15, 2008

Big interventions immobilizing the car are better to be done during winter, so I start working on the front grill because she needs a new paint.

I start by removing both front fenders

Then it's the grill's turn, and it's the opportunity to remove the front bumper too because I plan to have it repolished

The grill was quite easy to remove, no jammed nuts (there are plenty underneath the grill)

Here is one of the visible defects

Another one, this is quite common on the SM

Underneath, this is not nice either

It was time to do something I think...

... before rust goes everywhere

I have to gather all the parts to be painted. This is the grill of course but also the steel plates holding the glass covers. It will be the opportunity to also paint the plates from my other SM (its grill has already been painted).

July 18, 2009

A few months later, here is the new paint result and reinstallation of the grill. The paint is nice but the body shop had to do it twice because the result of the first try was not acceptable. Then, reinstallation has not been easy, and I put the grill back after the front fenders, it's not the easiest way.

Here is the grill back from paint

This (second) time, there are no more sanding marks and unpainted areas

I asked the body shop to fill some holes and keep only the used ones

The color is the "gris nacré" AC095, it should be the original color

The filled holes are still visible from the back side

Beginning of the seals installation, they are new and quite difficult to glue on the grill

The side seals are the most problematic

I used soap to help positioning the glass covers, because the new seals stick too much to the glass

Here is the final result

 

 

This operation gave a visible result, that's quite unusual among all the things I did on this car recently. I'm happy with the final result but the reassembling took me way too much time, as usual ;-)

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