October 21, 2024: The Citroën ID20 (1970, DSuper5) Oord 2-door convertible is finally completely finished!

After all the external and internal technical finishing was done, I applied the gray upholstery in the car today.

The exterior had been ready for a while, yet it still took a few weeks to get the interior ready in every detail as well.

The details:

Still working on some minor stuff like: a) DONE: upholstering the top of the front window’s frame & the A-pillar’s inside and b) DONE: cleaning the dash better, c) cleaning the engine bay, d) fitting the detachable pulling rod, e) DONE: gluing the upholstering of the roof’s hood, f) DONE: Placing the Pioneer subwoofer to the right side under the dash, g) Placing new seals on the valve stems (maintenance precaution), h) Ordered and received: Replacing the gas dampeners of the roof frame, i) Processing: Polishing the car.

Original ID20 chairs for the convertible are very hard to find, especially lately.

Fortunately, I have a complete set on stock with the front chairs side handle to fold the back forward, both left and right in the original brown leather version.

Also, I have the rear bench and back from the same donor ID (1965).  The rear bench don’t fit in my 1970 ID20 convertible but the front chairs will fit nicely.  I will get the car tomorrow out of the winter storage …erm, this will be done a little later,,,  But- they will first be refurbished with black leather,  The appointment is made for 2nd week of September  (2021).  Will see when they are ready!  Then, finally, I can take the temporary Volvo C70 chairs out.  But only after all of the remaining issues are handled.

The issue list contains a full outside overhaul of the body, the coming fall and winter.  Everything will be taken out and off- bumpers, mirrors, lights, windows et cetera.  Then- sanding it down and making the body nice again.

Then, the inside will be done. A lot of work is needed on the inside of the doors and on the side panels of the rear of the car. These panels are a combination of the donor panels from the Aui80 and some metal sheeting that I glued on these panels to fit the longer car.  These need to become integrated side panels, and they need to be covered with black leather.

After that, a new paint job is foreseen for spring 2022.

Then, the car will be put together again and the new carpets, A-, B- pillar covers and so on for the interior will be put in.

And then, finally, the refurbished (old) front chairs will be put in where they belong!

Update October 22nd 2024: The black ID19 chairs fit very well BUT I refitted the C70 convertible chairs back into the car, as the exchange is easily done and I like the C70 chairs much more than the old ID/DS chairs.

BUT- I have installed the C70 cabrio chairs, after painting them black since I find these chairs a much better fit to the car. And the comfort is a lot better than the old ID chairs.  That’s a matter of opinion, though.

Pff… Still worked on the Citroën ID20 convertible for 5 months, an average of 4 6-hour days a week to get the exterior tight, painted and everything fitted that belongs on it.

Now the inside remains to be done. Fortunately, I have everything ready to go..-)

Upholstery will be original grey, the original ID seats from a convertible with tilt mechanism will come in, with black leather upholstery.

And matching door panels, upholstered in the same leather as on the seats

The temporarily installed Volvo C70 (1st version) seats with electric controls are going out, they are comfortable but obviously do not belong in this car at all.

By the way, the C70 convertible seats are for sale. Creme leather, used but OK.

The rear sides will also be redone and covered with black upholstery.

The rear bench belongs to the Audi80 roof and is fine. It will stay as is.

I am still in doubt about safety belts but all the mounting points are there for 2-point belts, maybe 3-point belts at the front and rear are also possible so I will probably put them in anyway.

And the roof… there will be a new lining. What is on it now is fine quality, with new Sonneland lining but I made it myself and this has clearly not been my best performance. Completely waterproof though.

The roof frame comes from an Audi 80 convertible and is completely original at the back, at the front the roof extends a few centimetres in width and about 20 cm in length because the ID20 has a wider window frame and is further away from the roof flap than the Audi 80 convertible. Moreover, the ID20 windscreen stands much straighter and is much shorter than the windscreen of the Audi80 convertible. This is why there is no ready-made roof for sale. Having it made at a real convertible roof maker is the only solution, I think.

After a long period of doing other things, I finally went and got the Citroën DS (ID20) Convertible to get it finished.  The last thing I did was putting the final primer on the car.  Now- the car will get a complete snad-down with P400 and then, I will spraypaint it silver metallic.  First the metallic silver, and then a couple of 2K clearcoat layers.

Due to the fact that my garage is not wide enough, I will have to do the sanding and spraypainting in two phases: First the hood and left side and after that is fully cured, I will reverse the car and do the trunklid and right hand side.

Getting the car from the winter storage and sanding the FRONT and LEFT:

Still to do: Taking off the rear bumper because it’s in the way of sanding the body, lowering the rear windows and taking off the roof cover. And touching up a few imperfections: 1) At the bottom of the left rear fender, a piece of primer has come loose and 2) In the right door a small crack has appeared in the top coat at the position of the weld of the door’s lower repair part and 3) I made a dent myself on the edge of the right rear fender, barely visible but I’ll get that out.

I’ll spray paint the boulder catcher later, when I finish the right side. Then I will put the boulder catcher inside the car and take this part right away. I’ll do the same with a few other parts that need to be painted silver gray, including the rear light bar/ license plate holder and the front license plate holder.

Update 27 juni 2024: Parked the car in reverse in the garage, raised it up and bucked under it on the left side. Lowered, wheels off and then took off the rear bumper. Front Left indicator out, side mirror off and then first sanded everything with 180 grit dry contrast.  After repairs and so on, I sanded all with grit 400.  For my purpose, this is good enough to spray paint the car.

There are still some bumps here and there. I grinded these out down to the bare steel and filled them with fibreglass filler so that this cannot come loose from the steel.

Then flattening. For this I use a 1cm thick square wooden stick that can follow the contours of the Citroën IDS20 very well. If you hold a light under it, you can see exactly where the body still needs some flattening or thickening.

Especially at the rear, where the rear door is welded to the rear screen by the convertible builder, some work is still needed.

Where necessary, I stripped the body bare and started working on the sheet metal again.

Flatten, put the inside in rust protector and tighten the outside with a little filler, check with the stick over the contour of the car and so on.

All in all, I spent 3 full days working after which everything was tight as far as possible.

What also turned out was that the rounding of the rear screen at the bottom had a different radius than the front screen and door. I changed that by brushing a thin layer of glass fibre reinforced filler exactly in that corner with a home-made precision spatula. This made that corner the right shape right away.

Before setting this up, I roughened that whole length to the steel.

So all in all, it turned out to be a lot more work than I expected.

A lot of rough welding was done on the car during the conversion by the convertible builder, super strong and good but definitely not tightly finished.

That was also the deal at the time, so it’s no surprise that there is still a lot of work on the car. And, of course, I’m just a squealer.

I am going to spray the car on the left side as it stands. In my experience, that gives the best results in terms of coverage and evenness.

When everything has hardened completely, the wheels go on and I turn the car around so I can do the right side. After the right side is painted, I make the car ready for driving again with the rear bumper back on, but this time the extended convertible bumper comes on right away.

The original rear plate with the convertible lighting also comes back on.

The front air tunnels are finally fitted.

Then I will fit the front indicators, mount the mirrors and then the car can leave the garage.

Then I can disassemble part by part from the car and paint the inside part by part.  This will be done for both front fenders and both doors.

I will then tape off the outside of the sheet metal completely so there will be no damage to it but, of course, above all, there should be no extra paint on it.

Ordered in England, via Ebay: 2 pieces of chrome steel air vents for in the front fenders of my ID19.

I hope this will allow me to exhaust more hot air from the engine compartment. The last time in a traffic jam before the Gothard tunnel, the car became very hot. The thermometer went well over 120 degrees and that was not very nice. Moreover, in summer it takes a very long time for the engine to cool down when you are in the sun.

Despite the new 3-row radiator, new thermostat, new water pump, new belts and so on, when it is above 30 degrees outside, the car gets very hot when stopped. When we just drive it all goes fine but when standing still all the heat stays in the engine compartment and the radiator and engine do not get enough fresh air.

Hence the solution to make a hole in the front fenders, just like in the old DSs, so that the hot air can get out and fresh air can flow from outside through the cooling tunnel to the radiator and the engine.

Under both grilles will be a plastic tray that will catch any rain and drain it neatly down through a drain hose. The collection tray is larger than the air grille and comes 5cm below the grille so air can just get out at the above vents.

I’ve make another nice 3d design for this vent cover to be mounted under the grilles.

Due to other priorities like the windmill on my roof, the new windows in our house and so on, I moved the Citroën ID20 convertible to the remote storage in September 2022.

Meaning, I now (May, 2023) have the old Citroën Traction Avant 11BN occupying space in my garage. The Traction Avant is ready to drive, and with the 4-gear gearbox, in combination with the ID19 engine, this car is quite roadworthy.

I should really drive this car more, it is almost always just sitting in the garage…

One side ready:

Drying:

Waiting for new paint, needs 15 minutes after mixing..

Taped and cleaned:

The old one is obviously no longer shaped liket it should be.

I just bought me a new one, and the differences are clearly visable.

The curves above the  air vent inlets are complete gone in the old one, whereas they are quite prominent in the new one.

I suspect that someone reworked the old one without knowing what it should look like…

I am not going to reshape the old one, maybe sell it someday.

I just bought me the new one which was very expensive, by the way.

And I will get it cleaned to the steel, before rapainting it.

2021-09-24: This morning my new sheet metal ordered from Cit’art for the left door of my DIY Citroën ID/DS 1970 convertible was delivered: A half door plate and a 3-piece inner tray.

For my ID Berline, I’ve previously fitted doors with new half outer plates and door trays a few times so by now I know roughly how to go about this.  Because the Citroën ID/DS has not been very dimensionally stable over the years (understatement!), there is one thing you should always remember: Always fit the tray and then the door plate AT THE CAR and don’t make it all pretty on the workbench only to find out later that the door doesn’t fit!

I might be going a bit far as most people assemble the door body on the workbench and then place the half door plate on the car, but I first align the door body properly using the removed plate as a jig and then weld the new door body in place with a few dots.  Then fit it to the car, possibly aligning it with the hinge points attached to door and car so that the top and side top and middle are perfectly between front screen and rear door/ Perfect means here: In the same place as BEFORE this action.

If everything is as desired, also try it on with the door plate.  If something doesn’t fit, measure the difference in height or depth and remove the door.   On the workbench: Loosen the welds where necessary and correct what is needed. Place the door back in the car and repeat previous steps until everything fits perfectly.

Another important tip: The side pieces of the turret can be placed in different ways: On the intermediate plate, under the intermediate plate or partially under and over it.  I now choose to make the side pieces fit exactly to the door and NOT weld any plate at these side pieces on top of each other.  That means you won’t see a transition when you open the door.  I like that better and it gives less chance of rotting in the future between the places where sheet overlaps.  There’s always going to be moisture in between there.  By the way, I did have the half door plate and the tray intermediate piece cross over where these plates are welded to the old door.  This also has to do with sturdiness, but it is also almost impossible to finish neatly when you don’t want the overlap.  Moreover, you can easily seal this overlap with special seam sealer.

The pictures speak for themselves!

UPDATE 1-2022:

I finally made time to complete the welding on the left door mid of January, 2022.  First, I put the electric heaters in the garage on for a couple of hours, and then I welded the inside part of the new plating fully to the inside of the door.  I also welded tags every 3 cm on the seem in the inner part of the door. After this, I grinded all down so it will later be invisible, at least on the inside of the door since this will not be covered by anything.

Then, I put the door back in the car, put a lock in and set the door at the correct height- and depth.  Then, I fitted the outer plate on the door and adjusted the cutout and the inner angle of the plate I earlier welded on the inside.  Also- the sides were adjusted and I ended up cutting some 4mm from the rear plate’s lower horizontal part.  The outer parts was just too low for about 4mm. I also had to get 4mm off the cutout of the existing door plate.

I took all parts off that were in the way or made the new plate stick up.  Then, I spotwelded the new plate at its final position.  After this, I took the door with spotwelded plate out, put it on the welding table and used spotwelds every 5cm (2inch) at first, cooling the welded work with compressed air and moved on to slowly weld around until everything was closed.  Then, I tapped the edges at the bottom, left end right around until it almost closed (used thin sheeting to prevent them from getting too tight).  Grinded the weds nicely off, all aound and putthe sinc spray everywhere, including inside the door.

Remounted the door and it all fits beautifuly.

Some mudworks still to do, but that’s all for later!

Welding tip: I use a Gebora 160 MIG machine with 0.6mm wire and mixed gas.  I use the following settings for spotwelding: wire speed to 6 and power is set at 2, that is the 2nd position of max 6.  I found that spotwelding sheet metal when oe of the sheets is around 0.6-0.8 mm,, the setting of power 1 is just not enough to get a spotweld that sinks a bit in, I always get uplifted welds, also if I lessen the wire speed.  But- at power 2, all goes well.  Welding the Citroen’s plating can, however, NOT be done at position 2.  That burns right through the thin plating.

Actually, that is the main reason I always use a bit thicker repair plate so I can at least make decent connecting welds.  You do have to start the spotweld from the thick plate and then move gently just towards the thin palte and stop.   There’s just no other way to do this, imho.

Now, the welding is done. I also welded the connecting hooks of the front fenders already with new connecting pieces for mounting onto the chassis and that also turned out OK.  Next chapter will be the finishing towards 2K primer, sanding and hopefully also painting!

In this section all the info and photos about the installation, assembly, finishing will be presented:

This post is available in Dutch (switch to Dutch to read the article in Dutch)

Interior paneling
Spraypaint jobs
Carpeting the chairs, sofa, door panels
Exterior strips
Bumpers
Lighting
Gear shift controls
Handbrake
Wheels, tires and wheel covers
License plate holders
License plates
Hood tie
Speakers, radio and antenna
roof lining
roof lock
roof cover lining
Etc.