simcaclub Posted February 21, 2012 Share Posted February 21, 2012 Hi, In July 2011 we picked up a 1970 Simca Station wagon in Auckland. We bought the Simca of TM, or actually, I bought the car for my son Quinn (12). Before we immigrated from Holland 3 years ago, I said to my boys: If we are in New Zealand I buy you a car when you become 16. But this Simca, we couldn't let it go, now it's his. I was a Simca enthusiastic in Holland, and I have had a similar model over there. But anyway, we left at 4.00AM from Napier, and we arrived at 8.00PM back in Napier. Colin a friend was so kind to lend his truck to tow the car trailer. Our main goal is to get the Simca on the road. A quick view learned that the jack point were rotten (common with Simca) and the breaks need a overhaul, at least they were jamming. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smitty Posted August 9, 2015 Share Posted August 9, 2015 Hi everyone. Link to discussion Just updating my dad's thread, since he never bothered to. Here's what we've done to the car since we've bought it: - We fixed the brakes. The brakes were rusted badly. We had the brake discs grinded and we put in all new brake lines. The master cylinder has also been redone. I read in the rules to put 5-6 images per post to speed up loading so more pics in the next post. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smitty Posted August 9, 2015 Share Posted August 9, 2015 -We also renewed the jackpoints. At some point in the car's life someone had put the jack in the wrong place and broken the jackpoints, and they were very rusted. No before pic. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smitty Posted August 9, 2015 Share Posted August 9, 2015 - We've also fixed some minor rust problems on one of the fenders. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smitty Posted August 9, 2015 Share Posted August 9, 2015 -We also had to fix the back of the roof as it was very rusted and cost us the WOF. 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smitty Posted August 9, 2015 Share Posted August 9, 2015 More recently nothing much has happened. Dad opened up the transmission and fixed the sticking clutch about half a year ago. Right now the car is road legal but sits in the garage and we only really drive it to shows. I bought some new wing mirrors from ebay and we put them on last week. I also bought some new hubcaps but don't have any good pics. The next thing on the list will be to replace the speedo that has miles on it with the speedo that has kilometres on it that I got from Holland. Tomorrow I'll take the car outside for some updated pictures. Cheers. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smitty Posted September 2, 2015 Share Posted September 2, 2015 Hubcaps! I've also got a real FDM spec (Like JDM, but for French cars) speedometer that has Kilometers instead of miles, but doesn't come with a daycounter, so we're still thinking about how to fix this. Sharing the garage with my dad's car. I've also started compressing the images to 30% of the original size, all this loading images is making me crazy. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smitty Posted November 5, 2015 Share Posted November 5, 2015 So not much has happened at all to the car over the last few months. I photoshopped what the car would look like if I went crazy and wasn't scared about getting murdered by Simca club members: And stock: I have also been creating the car in 3d but progress is slow because I am a lazy bum and I procrastinate at every turn I can: Anyway, I have been coming across actual problems though. The rear window is winding up one one side more than the other. I'm thinking this is rust related because it only started after I accidentally left the car out in the pouring rain for 4 days. Yesterday's rain also got to the car and it seems I have a leak. The passenger side carpet was soaked through yesterday after the rain, but luckily we found the plug and it should be mostly fine. Another problem is where the roof was fixed a few years ago. We never actually painted over the new fixed part, other than with zinc and now we are seeing more rust showing on what was fixed. 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smitty Posted November 30, 2015 Share Posted November 30, 2015 Lowering attempt number 2 has become a failure. I installed a shorter suspension part (arm? I'm horrible with these types of names) and then the stiffer springs which I tried to use earlier to lower it but raised the car by a centimetre: As of now the lowered side sits 2 centimetres higher than the non-lowered side. This is due to the stiffer springs which came from a sedan 1501 and on that sedan the car did actually sit lower but that was likely due to the heavier 2 litre fiat engine that was in it. We put in the stiffer springs to stop the car from rubbing against the wheel during corners but I guess I'll just have to hope that doesn't happen when I change the springs. Sadly though, just changing the springs won't completely fix the problem, well, it will fix the problem but there is another problem at hand. The lowered suspension part (and I've got spares, than god for that) is rubbing against the inside of the tire as seen here: This leaves me with the options of either grinding down the suspension part, which seems kind of risky, or putting in wheel spacers which could probably work. The guy I bought the car from up in Auckland has a white sedan where he had the wheels widened so for that to not hit the suspension he probably had to use spacers or something as well now that i think about it. Unless of course the widening was done into the other direction like with this 1501 wagon: Although that car was actually sold with those dish wheels, they are very rare, I love them. Sorry that this comment may be a bit incomprehensible apparently I am getting worse at English over time. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smitty Posted January 4, 2016 Share Posted January 4, 2016 Old springs are back on. Likely won't cut springs or try wheel spacers because cutting springs is dodgey and spacers need to be certed and that costs money. On another note, my dad has a Simca now too, he may or may not make a thread: 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smitty Posted January 27, 2016 Share Posted January 27, 2016 This is amazing, I've never seen any of these Simcas before. Bravo for the original standard look! I am like, 90% sure that when you make a comment you are meant to make it in the Discussion section (Which I have in my signature) On another note, to not make this post obsolete once the mods will probably delete NZCarFreak's comment, here is my wagon with my friend's wagon: I personally prefer the look of mine, being more original and all. But I drove his yesterday and it's like new, which makes sense, because he did a complete restoration. It's so quiet inside, it's unbelievable. Better angle of his: 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smitty Posted February 9, 2016 Share Posted February 9, 2016 Do you want to build a snowman race car? Also a while back I also had an exhaust leak where the manifold met the exhaust, leaky seal. It was a bitch to get off and even more off a bitch to get back on, with me using a seal that doesn't actually belong on the car. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smitty Posted May 23, 2016 Share Posted May 23, 2016 Failed the WOF Ayyoo! Loose inner steering ball joints were an easy fix, friend with the gold wagon recently came along a stash of spares from 3 different 1501 sedans.Still have to fix a hole in the tailgate that has been there since I bought the car and the lights for the rear licence plate. I also went to the international Simca Meeting while I was in Holland visiting family a few weeks ago. Managed to pick up some parts, mostly badges and light stuff, would've bought more if I knew that we would still have 30kg left when we were at the airport... Met a guy from Germany with a lovely restored grey 1500 wagon who might be willing to sell me his roofrack, seeing as he has a larger one on his wagon to put his kids bikes on. There was also a Belgian with a whole lot of stock who might have some synchromesh rings for my gearbox as when I shift to 2nd there is a loud crack. Earlier I made a comment about getting my wheels widened like the guy with the red 1501 wagon. Spoke to him there too, turns out the aren't stock. They are actually stock Fiat 124 coupe wheels. The wheels fit on a 1501, 98x4 or 100x4 or something, but so do the 1501 hubcaps. Pics for those who are interested, not mine, but a Dutch guy's: https://www.flickr.com/photos/140983117@N08/shares/hz85YD 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smitty Posted December 5, 2016 Share Posted December 5, 2016 Ahh shit, my car's been vandalised: 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smitty Posted November 3, 2021 Share Posted November 3, 2021 Not a lot of pics, dropped the box last week since the clutch has started slipping. Looking at sending the clutch away to get replated and what not by bnt since I am not exactly having any luck finding a new clutch in the country. Also planning to replace the synchros in the box since it grinds into second. Synchros have already been flipped before and 2nd and 4th have also been swapped already. Maybe I should just get better at rev-matching... Anyone have any idea where to go once I have the synchros out to see if I can find something in the country? I know the box is Porsche designed and have been told that some Peugeots have the same synchros too so they must be out there. Anyway that's the update, its still chugging along happily for most the time (when the box is in), a good daily when I somehow manage to get my other cars out of order. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smitty Posted November 5, 2021 Share Posted November 5, 2021 Got the box in bits and have got the synchros out. No luck so far finding any suppliers inside NZ. Will see what my overseas sources say, have found a part number for the peugeot synchro that is meant to fit and have found porsche synchros which might fit but will see as those aren't exactly favourable prices. The rest of the box looks fine, needs a clean on the outside, and the lower selector bush thing has given up so need to rig up something like that but that is a job that won't be too hard to home fab up. More suggestions for potential synchro sources would be much appreciated, have got them measured up with the calipers so hopefully that makes things easier. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smitty Posted July 30, 2022 Share Posted July 30, 2022 Oh god what have I started 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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