Hello my name is Michael, and I have a Citroen SM. I'm addicted to Citroens and this is my confession. A blog about restoring a Citroen SM.
Although I have owned this car for a few years, I was not setup to fix it. Since late 2009, I finally got the facilities to pursue this interest and got started. I also have had a Citroen DS for many years, so I was already quite enamored with the Citroen style and quirks, with its soul.
It's an interesting tidbit that the name Citroen is derived from Dutch Citron meaning lemon. Coincidentally, this is how many people in Europe and here in North America feel about this Marque and this model.
I have dreamed of owning an SM ever since the early eighties, when I first heard of them. Back then, they were just considered exotic, at least in my mind. Unlike many others, I'm not really crazy about its looks, or at least not its side profile. The rear end is not my favorite; I much prefer the lines of the Citroen DS, the Godess. Also, the fit and detail finish of the car is not very impressive, just compare to a Mercedes. And there are these reliability issues. However, despite these short comings, the large Citroens are just mad cool, original and avant garde in so many ways.
Anyway, while I will share some ideas and muse, this blog is mainly about the restoration of this car and I'm not off to a good start in either regard. This is my first post and the project has already been in progress close to a year. I will try to catch up to current time with a series of photos from my archive accompanied by suitable narratives.
This is what my car looked like when I got it:
As the picture indicates, the body is in quite good condition. It has been repainted poorly once and has had minor collision damage. The good news is there's absolutely no corrosion on this car and it may not have done more than 42K in its life. But as is the case with many other SMs, the engine was kaput. Fortunately, I bought it with a replacement engine stuffed into the trunk. The seller intimated that the "trunk engine", a desirable 3L, was in good condition and just had to be installed.
I know what you be thinking and you was right. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. However, there were boxes of various parts making it look like there was more than one car in there. And oh yes, this was a doppelganger deal, i.e there was another 72, engineless, same color, partial,parts car that had clearly suffered through an engine room fire, included.
Gepetto's Workshop. This is me in my workshop with the doppelgangers, tearing down the "trunk" engine. As you can see I'm still smiling . . . No sign of the trunk monkey yet.
Here are some images from the engine after tear down in October 2009
Crankshaft looks pretty good with just one score on the big end bearing.
Oh, oh! Cracks around the oil pump drive shaft in the main chain sprocket.
Bad news . . Engine must have been standing for a while allowing water in. Some rust in liners, piston rings corroded stuck . . .
A little good news. The chain tensioner is a later model, a much sought after modification . . .
More good news!. Lifters/followers look undamaged with good shine, except for 2 small rust marks.
With the engine tear down completed and a somewhat clearer picture of my needs emerged, I got a quote for spares from the reputable SM Specialist, David Hume, in Midway, KY.
I was glad I wasn't faint of heart. Even with the parts I had on hand such as head gaskets and water pump seals, it would be above $3,200 in parts and services. Of course that assumes there would be no surprises. In my estimation even the best laid plans have surprises and changes . . .
After some consideration, I bought a used, rebuilt engine from him. It was not one of David's own rebuilds, but he knew the guy who had and had driven the car before removing it. He was fairly confident in the quality of the rebuild, though it did not have the best quality chains mounted. With the weakest point on the Maserati V6 design being the chains, I wanted the very best.
After some consideration, I bought a used, rebuilt engine from him. It was not one of David's own rebuilds, but he knew the guy who had and had driven the car before removing it. He was fairly confident in the quality of the rebuild, though it did not have the best quality chains mounted. With the weakest point on the Maserati V6 design being the chains, I wanted the very best.
SM Engine cut open with 2 of 3 chains showing at 7 and 14.
I had David install all new Reynolds Synergy chains. In the process, he discovered the shoe of the tensioner was hardened with age, 2 lifters had marks and 2 exhaust cams were worn. These parts were all replaced with good used ones. The carburetors were also drilled out, cleaned and operation verified.
This added considerable cost to the engine, but it is now verified to be a rebuild in very good condition. I'm happy but poor! I was quickly confirming my original thought that restoring a Citroen SM is not a pass time for cheap skates, non-perfectionists or anyone on a tight budget. Like I said earlier, surprises are part and parcel of restoring a 40 year old car to its former glory.
As David was working on the engine in KY, I was busy cleaning and disassembling the many components and parts of the engine bay in NC. Another SM owner, I can't remember whom, had described the SM engine bay as "the dark hole where time begun". I can verify this to be an absolute truth! Removing the front under pan from the car, I scraped off at least 1/2" layer of oil, dirt and who knows what. This condition persisted throughout the front end of the car. As the saying goes, there are two sides to a coin. That oil-dirt melee was a perfect protective layer and corrosion could not rear its ugly head, even if it wanted to.
As I was disassembling the parts, I realized any complete car is the perfect way to store, protect and organize all its parts. My initially spacious and clean workshop was getting smaller and smaller and increasingly disorganized. I only had so much time to dedicate to this project in a given week and too much time was consumed by packaging and organizing, making any real progress painfully slow and discouraging. I think David was well aware of this from his long experience. He has probably seen many a optimistic, well healed restorer become discouraged, and join the food stamp line. I think he had one of those moments when I told him I could not put the engine in "the dark hole where time begun", without first painting the engine bay. He went all quiet and eventually said something like " that's going to slow you down a bit"
Fabulous car. I owned two drivers, one with some side impact damage that never got fixed. The other was "somewhat" rusty but I had it painted in what I think was a great two-tone scheme of a dark red metallic above the light line (hood, roof, upper tail and hatch) and a near-match to the original gold below (fenders, doors) drove it for several years as my daily driver. I and others who saw it thought the dark upper and light lower reduced the "bulbous" look of the car's shape in the rear.
ReplyDeleteThe clutch went out on my last driver and I parked it as the trans needed "freshening up": the usual whining front lower pinion/secondary shaft thrust bearing and a few other things such as the big pinion roller radial bearing, which was slightly loose radially.
While I was out of town on an extended journey the next door neighbor filed a complaint on me for the car, which was parked behind my home. A relative came and hauled it off and supposedly stored it and my other cars at a friend's farm but would never take me to the place, so I suspect he sold all my cars for scrap.
Burglars broke in and stole my tools, including many special Citroën tools, both bought and homemade. Got the aluminum hood, the rear hatch, Mas. engine (not too bad a loss - the old non-beveled crankshaft and the block known for head screw socket screw pull-out), brandnew clutch pressure plate, three 5 sp. transaxles, many other parts. Scrappers most likely, dropped their glass meth pipe in the front yard.
"... the fit and detail finish of the car is not very impressive ..." They were assembled on the same lines ('70-'73) as the Ds by the same people with the same attention. Perhaps you got a Monday or Friday car?
Too bad the P-R-V V6 was not ready until 1974. The SM could have been an all-French car and the P-R-V engine would not have been nearly as expensive as the Mas, even though it was a rather pricey one in its own right.
I had one of the Mas. chain tensioners like the one in your picture. I had the lower crankcase drilled for it. Somewhere I read that the silly lightening holes had been the cause of some breakage of the arm. No personal knowledge. Surely David H. would know of such if true.
Uh, the chains are Renold (www.renold.com). Reynolds (UK) (reynoldstechnology.biz) is a tubing company known for its bicycle tubing.
"... The rear end is not my favorite ..." Yeah, IMO the huge stainless eyebrow with horns would look better painted to match the body. It makes the rear look too heavy. The shape is the "Kamm" truncated teardrop tail with even the recessed rear panel to break up the air flow from curling around and hitting the rear panel. The mini spoiler is the master touch, giving just enough downforce to cancel the lift from the fastback roof and hatch. If this overall design was done today, with hidden rain gutters, flush front hood joint, roll-down rear quarter windows and a few other refinements, the SM would look thoroughly "modern." The hideous tacky wheel covers ought to be replaced with modern low profile (50% AR) tires and suitable wheels. Up-to-date computerized engine controls to get better than the 16 mpg I got with both of my cars would take care of emissions requirements, and lots more power, too.
Andre-Gustave Citroën, the great gear, artillery shell and automotive engineer and manufacturer, was the son of a Dutch Jewish diamond merchant, Levie Citroën, and grandson of a Dutch Jewish lemon seller, from which comes the family name. When he moved from Amsterdam to Paris, Citron added the "e" with umlaut or diaeresis (ë) as an affectation; it doesn't really belong. His name to spell to please himself.:-)
I bought my first SM from a Jewish furniture dealer, a really nice fellow. The second from an Iranian in Chicago. Al Grayson, graysonrvtech@google.com
I have bought a house with a '73 SM left in the barn and would like to know how to move with a defunct engine. The body is down flat so just towing it would not seem an option over the barn door threshold which is a hump about 9" high to keep out rainwater - pretty please..
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