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Thread: Citroen DS

  1. #46
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    Quote Originally Posted by Matra et Alpine
    Sills were the common worst as they moved to momocoque from chassis strength
    Have you ever examined a DS? I think you are confusing it with the CX, or perhaps the Traction Avant? The DS is not a monocoque. It is of unitary construction, much like the original Espace or Avantime. The body panels are not really prone to rust. The roof rails are if the roof seal goes (which it will, after many years). The lower box sections are vulnerable if used in salty environments. The rear suspension mount points are also vulnerable if the boot seal is gone and the car stored outside. This is not "stupid engineering" it is carelessness on the part of the owners.

    Did you READ my comments on my Matras, Alpines, Renaults ? I am a person who is able to be open and honest about the plus AND NEGATIVES of all things I own and believe.
    This is the second or third time you have implied that I am dishonest in my description. You are either trolling or picking me up wrong. Where, exactly, have I been dishonest? In fact, you know what? Forget it. I'll ignore you, you ignore me and we can stop boring the mammary glands off people with this pointless tit-for-tat (pardon the pun).

  2. #47
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    Quote Originally Posted by ds20prefecture
    Have you ever examined a DS? I think you are confusing it with the CX, or perhaps the Traction Avant? The DS is not a monocoque. It is of unitary construction, much like the original Espace or Avantime. The body panels are not really prone to rust. The roof rails are if the roof seal goes (which it will, after many years). The lower box sections are vulnerable if used in salty environments. The rear suspension mount points are also vulnerable if the boot seal is gone and the car stored outside. This is not "stupid engineering" it is carelessness on the part of the owners.
    You blame the owners ?
    Didn't realise Citroen only sodl cars driven in summer and garaged in winter. fine

    This is the second or third time you have implied that I am dishonest in my description. You are either trolling or picking me up wrong. Where, exactly, have I been dishonest? In fact, you know what? Forget it. I'll ignore you, you ignore me and we can stop boring the mammary glands off people with this pointless tit-for-tat (pardon the pun).
    JUST to correct that MY RESPONSE was just showing you MY APPROACH. If you are lying it is for you to define. if you are mistaken it is also mainly for you to define. All *I* said was I am totally honest about the cars. THAT you take the implication of DIShonesty rather than "bias" is for you to have chosen.

    I'll take the "tat" ..... if you take the rest

    PS: Where do you draw the distinction between monocoque and unitary ? Neither have a seperate chassis which was my point. Many cars shared the nomenclature. "unitary-body" was sometimes used to differentiate those which had bolt on wings etc etc, but they are still NOT seperate chassis and genreally was the problem as early designers didnt' take stresses on seams into account creating rust problems combined with the MUCH thinner steel voila rust problems -- it never mattered that an 8-guage chassis rail would rust it did to a 14-guage folded sheet The DS is not a seperate chassis of much heavier guage is it ? I'm sure it's monocoque with stresses in teh multi-layer sills and floor pan. Which is it -- lets just take this one TECHNICAL point forward ....
    Last edited by Matra et Alpine; 02-21-2006 at 06:15 AM.
    "A woman without curves is like a road without bends, you might get to your destination quicker but the ride is boring as hell'

  3. #48
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    Gentlemen,

    I don't like the way the discussion is going here a wee bit. Why is it not possible to discuss material stuff like cars with a non-detached attitude, that will not immediately result in antagonising statements that lead to nothing, in fact may lead to a hostile environment that nobody wants to be in.
    If 5 exhanges of posts already result in "ignore" statements then there is something seriously wrong. If such a situation would occur in the a political thread it might be understandable, but when it happens in a thread on a specific car, I am really getting worried. Hope you two can sort things out and continue to live happily ever after.
    "I find the whole business of religion profoundly interesting, but it does mystify me that otherwise intelligent people take it seriously." Douglas Adams

  4. #49
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    I apologise if my comments appear antagonistic, that is certainly not their intent. However I do reserve the right to ignore those who pedantically disagree with every sentence of my posts while littering their posts with smileys and then challenge me to get a sense of humour. Such arguments are pointless, unfulfilling and very irritating. If ignoring a "super-mod" makes me unwelcome then I will take my leave, with regret.

    @Matra-et-Alpine - feel free to take the last word in whatever way fulfills you. To answer your question, my understanding of monocoque is that the body panels are load bearing, where as in separate chassis or "body on frame" type construction methods the body panels are not. No doubt I am wrong...

  5. #50
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    Quote Originally Posted by ds20prefecture
    If ignoring a "super-mod" makes me unwelcome then I will take my leave, with regret.

    It sure doesn't make you unwelcome. It's a discussion between two members, and a moderator is always just a member. Please don't leave or restrain yourself from writting your opinions. Whatever the way this conversation took, we (and I think Matra is with me on this) always need and aprecciate people with the skills, knowledge and manners to argument and keep up an adult conversation. Not all of them work out as we wish though, no matter the reasons.

    If my word serves a purpose here, I hope it is for convincing you to keep around.
    Money can't buy you friends, but you do get a better class of enemy.

  6. #51
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    Quote Originally Posted by ds20prefecture
    I apologise if my comments appear antagonistic, that is certainly not their intent. However I do reserve the right to ignore those who pedantically disagree with every sentence of my posts while littering their posts with smileys and then challenge me to get a sense of humour. Such arguments are pointless, unfulfilling and very irritating. If ignoring a "super-mod" makes me unwelcome then I will take my leave, with regret.
    Persons who show their true knowledge of cars by providing specified information and discussing in a very good manor in which case the other person in the discussion is being left in his value, deserve my respect, and are very welcome on the forums. I'd love to see more posts of you.


    btw, to keep the smiley percentage in this thread up to date, which seems to be needed even in serious discussions i'll fullfill my post percentage right here

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  7. #52
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    Quote Originally Posted by ds20prefecture
    @Matra-et-Alpine - feel free to take the last word in whatever way fulfills you. To answer your question, my understanding of monocoque is that the body panels are load bearing, where as in separate chassis or "body on frame" type construction methods the body panels are not. No doubt I am wrong...
    Well what IS it in teh DS.
    My understanding was they were all unitary construction ( ie one part ) and that part by definition is then a monocoque body.
    As you say a "body on frame" is different.
    I further tried to clarify that SOME use the term "UNITARY BODY" to differntiate those with bolt on wings that were not load sharing BUT that the core compartments were monocoque ie unitary.
    The reason this was raised is only to bring the history of the problems the industry faced and that some movign from seperate chassis to unitary forgot that by going for lighter guage steel and folded and seamed parts for stenght that these were an inherent weakness and needed attention in design adn build. Somethign MANY didnt' realise in the 50/60s and some did.

    I'm still not sure, does the DS have a seperate CHASSIS that the suspension is connected to from the main body ( not the add on parts of the body like outer wings ) ?

    I will no longer comment on French engineering other than wioth respect to the 5 cars in teh past and 4 cars I currently own where it is as I had said But those are MY cars and I'm entitled to comment truthfully on them and only upset me ( which BTW, every Alpine and Matra owner agrees ) come over to our forums some time and see
    Last edited by Matra et Alpine; 02-21-2006 at 12:12 PM.
    "A woman without curves is like a road without bends, you might get to your destination quicker but the ride is boring as hell'

  8. #53
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    Quote Originally Posted by Matra et Alpine
    Well what IS it in teh DS.
    The DS is a body-on-frame type, which I understand is called unitary construction, but I could well be wrong in this. You can drive a DS without any panel with little or no loss of rigidity. Apparently it is the only way to get a decent turn of speed from it

    I still don't really understand your question. Here is a picture of a "naked" DS frame, maybe it will answer it.

    Wouldn't it be wonderful if the frame was as galvanised as this one seems to be

  9. #54
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    Quote Originally Posted by ds20prefecture
    I still don't really understand your question. Here is a picture of a "naked" DS frame, maybe it will answer it.
    WOw, that picture just confuses things doesn't it
    I would have been tempted to call that bottom part the chassis and the top the body. I've only ever seen pics with it as one and assumed it to be all once piece. Can understand the difficulty in deciding what to call it. It has the hallmarks of a monocoque/unitary construction with chassis streng via folded steel cross sections in teh sills and across the floor. But then they bolt on the top
    Now I understand the confusion and uncertainty
    I guess the deciding factor would be is the car mechanically stable without the top section fitted ?
    Wouldn't it be wonderful if the frame was as galvanised as this one seems to be
    for sure .... I am lucky and managed to find one of the Bagheera chassis they put through to test the new Murena galvanisation production line
    "A woman without curves is like a road without bends, you might get to your destination quicker but the ride is boring as hell'

  10. #55
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    Quote Originally Posted by Matra et Alpine
    But then they bolt on the top
    I think it is welded. I hope it is welded, as I haven't seen any bolts on mine!

    What material does the Bagheera use for the body panels? Is it GRP? The DS mixed this up a bit, with the bonnet in aluminium, the roof in either aluminium or fibreglass (depending on market and colour) and the boot on the earliest cars in alu again. I believe the front valence was briefly manufactured in glassfibre too. The doors and wings were steel (no idea what thickness, but not very thick). I believe the thinking was to keep the centre of gravity low by lightening the weight of the elevated components - see the thinness of the roof rails for example.

    This attention to detail seems to have gone out the window with the engine - with a heavy, tall iron lump with an alloy head. As Henk4 posted at the beginning of this thread, Walter Becchia (2cv, Talbot Lago) had designed and prototyped an aircooled flat 6 that would sit above and in front of the front axle - hence the comparatively long front overhang. As I understand it, they basically ran out of time to develop this properly. It really is a shame, as the engine lacks the sophistication of the rest of the car.

    One slight benefit of the compromise is that the DS is effectively mid engined, with the 4 cylinder sitting completely within the wheel base. I believe this is what lends it surprisingly neutral handling characteristics at the limit. Another (unintentional) benefit is the huge crumple zone at the front of the car - about 3 foot between bumper and gearbox!

    Apart from the coarseness of the engine, the draw back is the intrustion into the cabin space and awkwardness of access to some pieces. The timing chain is an engine-out job (like so many modern cars, but their belts need changing so much more often). You'd need to be an octopus-orangutan cross to set the left engine mount on a left hand drive car (but it is possible). Ditto the accumulator/pressure regulator.

  11. #56
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    Quote Originally Posted by ds20prefecture
    I think it is welded. I hope it is welded, as I haven't seen any bolts on mine!
    ah right that kidn of makes sense as I only ever recall seeing it as one chassis.
    If welded then it's unitary or monocoque. The outer wings not taking any stresses is pretty normal. But the DS was probably the first to "bolt" them on as most "spot welded" them back then.

    Quote Originally Posted by ds20prefecture
    What material does the Bagheera use for the body panels? Is it GRP?
    Yes. a formulation Matra became very proficient in. Early cars were typical gel coat but later they had much higher plastic content making them very "flexible".
    Last edited by McReis; 02-22-2006 at 05:16 AM.
    "A woman without curves is like a road without bends, you might get to your destination quicker but the ride is boring as hell'

  12. #57
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    Congrats to you, bringing this thread back to order
    I wals already thinking that we had arrived at some religious battle, which in a certain way could be explained by the fact that we are talking about the only car that was called : "Goddess" and rightly so.

    Some more pics then, the "opened" car is from Retromobile 2005.
    Attached Images Attached Images
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  13. #58
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    What is the big cylinder at the front?

    Is that the fluid resivour for the suspension?
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  14. #59
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    Quote Originally Posted by Cyco
    What is the big cylinder at the front?

    Is that the fluid resivour for the suspension?
    Nope its probably one of these

    http://cantstopthebomb.ytmnd.com/

  15. #60
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    argh,,,

    Don't know what it is, it takes the place of the spare. I did not check it at the time, but may the cut-away model has some operating features whic a being controlled via this contraption
    "I find the whole business of religion profoundly interesting, but it does mystify me that otherwise intelligent people take it seriously." Douglas Adams

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