[Paul Burridge]

Colin Smith wrote:

Hi Paul
Can you shed a little more light on how you converted the lamps from white to yellow – pun intended.
This is something I would be interested in doing myself.

Hi Colin
As you know – but others may not – this relates to the smaller long range/ swivelling lights on a DS. First thing to say is that my lights are Cibies. I’ve got a pair of Marchal yellow domes and they fit in the Marchal reflectors in exactly the same way. I haven’t tested to see if they would fit a Cibie reflector. you can buy yellow H1s that fit straight into a standard light unit, which saves all this messing about but i wanted to use yellow glass domes as originally fitted to my car.

This is how I went about it.the bulb mounts are pressed into the back end of the reflector. I removed the plain mount for the H1 bulbs, and replaced them with mounts that have yellow glass domes over them (that i already had on my old rusted lights). That way, you still just fit a white H1 bulb but get yellow light.

The bulb mount has a tab that locates in a slot around the edge of the reflector body – that is to correctly orientate the rotational position of the mount (and so H1 bulb) relative to the reflector.

To stop the mount pulling out of the back of the reflector, the factory press three or four small sharp ‘dinks’ in around the circumference of the mount/ reflector join. These essentially pin the two together using their own metal. With a combination of tab and dinks, they cant twist and they won’t fall out.

To get the old mounts out, i used needle nose pliers with very pinched ends that came to a tip to compress and so loosen the dinks. it’s barely effective but works well enough to loosen the grip so that you can then wiggle the mount straight out of the back of the reflector. I found that getting a thin blade in the gap between reflector and mount helped to lever them out a little and break the grip of the dinks.

With the old mount removed, the yellow dome mount just pushed on/ in: I lined up the tab with the slot, put it mount side down and tn gently pressed down on the reflector glass to push the mount home and there was enough grip left in the dinks to hold the mount in the reflector.

The real challenge is finding the yellow domes in the first place. The yellow glass is as thin as the glass on a bulb. One of my yellow glasses was cracked and i bought several tatty Cibie lights off Facebook simply because i could see they had the yellow domes on them. Even then, there is a risk of finding the glass is cracked. they sometimes pop up on the sasses site, otherwise someone like Mark Rueneuf is a better bet but even he rarely has them.

When seen on the front of the car, the yellow bulb holders make the car look 6.2% ‘more French’ but probably reduce the effectiveness of the lights by 6.3% 🙂

[Paul Burridge]

Thank you. I hope you won’t be disappointed. It won’t be concourse.That was never the plan.

[Paul Burridge]

Thank you. the gaps were great after the car was painted. Then I took off the doors and bonnet to build them up…. The gaps are still generally good but need sorting.

I’ve just spent a day fitting the Pallas door trim, then discovered it catches on the doors and wings because of the gap size. so I’ve just spent ANOTHER day taking itt off and repositioning it – including shifting one of the doors.

I’ll put ‘gapping’ down on my ‘to do’ list.

[Paul Burridge]

Thank you. I took lots of reference photos to help my rebuild and accessed a few blogs – then put the two together and started my own blog. If I thought my blog had encouraged and helped a few people (as those other blogs encouraged me) to get stuck in and tackle jobs on their own cars then I’d be doubly pleased.

[Paul Burridge]

Thank you Julian. That’s embarrassingly generous of you.
I’ve often said that my aim has never been to re-create a concourse car by simply shoving on loads of repro parts. The car will go downhill. All i’ve tried to do is to raise it to an initial position/ standard that makes that a longer decline 🙂 I have fag-burnt carpets, dents on the sills and on the bumper and cracked leather. but i feel a car that’s nearly 60 is entitled to those battle scars and – if I may say so – looks like the historical vehicle the log book says it is.

From my perspective, there are people out there quietly doing some great work on Ds. Perhaps i only come into focus because i write a blog about the journey. And maybe because i’m just an owner-driver, not a mechanic. Anyway, the proof of the pudding will be in the driving and i’m really looking forward to that.

Here’s an under-bonnet photo from September 2026, and a link to one of my posts with a video of how it was went i first went back to it in September 2014.

https://ds-restoration.blogspot.com/2018/04/resurrection_1.html

[Paul Burridge]

Hi
I did this job a couple of weeks ago. This parts drawing might help.

This is what you should have under each plastic light pod.

The ends of the long and short wires/ cables you can see when you take the spare wheel out, clip into the slots of the brackets under the lights. The spring in the photo (one one each pod, provide some resistance and limit to the turning motion. the actual turning is controlled by the stiff hooked rod connected to the steering relay at the rack. Possibly the rod you’re referring to? (Parts 4,5,12 and 13 in the drawing above?)

[Paul Burridge]

Thanks Colin. I converted them from ‘white light’ to yellow. They still take standard white light H4s, but the lamps have yellow covers inside them.

[Paul Burridge]

Thank you Chris. There were times when i looked at the car in it’s worst state and could not ever imagine getting it back on the road. I seemed to spend years removing, cleaning, fixing and painting parts but then one day i found i was starting to put bits back on – and that gave me a lift.

[Paul Burridge]

If they are new to your car, then if it’s convenient (if you can find a tyre place that can handle centre hole wheels) i would get them checkout out for peace of mind. Partly to make sure they’re balanced and partly to make sure they run true.

[Paul Burridge]

Short term it will be fine but worth getting it looked at. Some people add ‘dyna-beads’ inside the inner tubes instead.

Have you just started to get vibrations? Have you checked the tyres for splits or bulging? Wheel nuts tight? You could try taking the wheels off and either swapping sides or rotating them to a different position – if only to see if there is a difference. I had a high speed front wheel blow out in a DS. Quite scary (though a D is probably one of the best cars to be having that kind of emergency in). Left me with a damaged wing, lost hubcap and urine stain on the drivers seat 🙂

[Paul Burridge]

Hi Steve.

I recently bought some Michelins for my DS at Longstones. Longstones are up between leeds and Sheffield. from where I am, that’s pretty north, if a little east. I’m sure they’d balance your wheels even if the tyre’s weren’t from them.

Alternatively, contact the CCCs Northern section. Colin Smith is Chair and a DS owner and may see this thread. if not, his phone number will be in the back of the Citroenian. Also in the back of the Citroenian is a number for David Joyce of the North West Group. If he’s not a DS driver, he can maybe put you in touch with other local DS owners.

[Paul Burridge]

Sure. if you are still thinking of doing it, get the job all planned out and get your supplies in and it shouldn’t take long at all.

[Paul Burridge]

No, I can’t see how you can use them on their own. The big, heavy body of the kit provides the stop that the die presses against as well as clamping the die body down. If you are thinking of using a vice to compress the die parts, there would not be any obvious route/ channel for the pipe to sit and nothing holding the die body down in the correct position.

You can borrow my tool and dies (4.5mm and 6.35mm). It would need to be a short term loan of a few weeks as i may find I need to use the tool once my car is back on the road. It’s heavy: 5kg. And you’d need/ want postage that has insurance for the value (as you say – about £250+). I’m going along to the Chevron’s rally at little Horwood in September. I could take it there? If you’re going, that would at least save you postage costs in one direction.

[Paul Burridge]

Thanks for the update.

If you had the luxury of choice, it would be good learning to put it back together with the original seal design. Could you try that and then – if it doesn’t seal – strip it again and think about an alternative seal?

[Paul Burridge]

I avoided it on Aussiefrogs but gave it a go here. I got about a minute in. It really is some of the sloppiest slop i think i’ve ever chanced across.

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