Citroën rear suspension (2):
monogramme Acadiane Brekina

Page created on 11/01/2024; updated on 18/01/2024.

As with the AMI6 Atlas, I wanted to fit independent rear wheels to the Acadiane Brekina. Here, the situation is rather different: the model is made of plastic rather than metal, and the price is considerably higher. The aim is to avoid making too big a mistake…

Operations

Dismantling

As mentioned on the presentation page of this car, disassembly is easy, by gently pulling out the rear bumper, then freeing the tenon located under the bonnet. Warning: this tenon is quite fragile, and it broke on my model. One more thing to do!

View of the dismantled car

To access the axles, the interior has to be separated from the chassis, which is no problem at all.

Machining the chassis

We’ll see later that suspension arms, about 4 mm long, will be fitted in place of the original axle. We therefore need to re-drill an axle passage 4 mm in front of the previous one, and higher up. To do this, we first have to mill the wing return. I use a ⌀ 2 milling bit. All the difficulty of the operations, from now on, is to wedge the chassis properly without damaging it (front wing flaps, exhaust outlet).

Milling the wing returns

Click on the photo for a closer view.

The next operation is to drill the new axle hole, with a diameter of 0.8 mm. It is almost impossible to drill perfectly perpendicular to the axis of the car. This is why it’s better to drill at too small a diameter, to see if the opening on the other side is well located, then to repeat the operation, correcting it if necessary to a diameter of 1 mm.

Milling the wing returns

Click on the photo for a closer view.

The last machining operation involves levelling the old axle supports, which is the main purpose of the modification. I admit I did it a bit roughly… It would probably have been better to saw before milling.

Milling the old axle supports

Click on the photo for a closer view.

New cranked axle

I start by bending a ⌀ 1 bar of nickel silver into the shape of a crank, to check that the wheel will be in the correct position.

Testing the cranked axle

Click on the photo for a closer view.

The second end is bent in turn, and the axle is burnished.

Finished cranked axle

The axle is fitted in place. But how did I get it to fit? I simply cut open the wing returns where shown in the closer view.

Cranked axle in place

Click on the photo for a closer view.

Bottom view with the wheels fitted to check their position and ensure that they will fit between the sides of the body.

Cranked axle in place with wheels fitted

Note the ⌀ 1.5 drilling at the front of the chassis, with a ⌀ 2 countersink to a depth of 0.5 mm, at the location of the broken tenon, with the aim of replacing it with a screw fastening (see below). Looking at this photo, I’m thinking it would be nice to reduce the importance of the front axle mount too…

Fitting the parts and reassembling the car

Once everything has been checked by a blank assembly, the new axle is glued with Kristal Klear, the flexibility of which will allow a certain amount of suspension height adjustment.

For the front attachment, the mortise that received the broken tenon is reamed very gradually, tenth by tenth of a millimetre, from ⌀ 1.7 to ⌀ 2.1, to insert a piece of tube ⌀ 2 × 1, itself re-bored to ⌀ 1.2. This tube comes from a can of WD40… The screw used is a P-tite ⌀ 1.4 × 3.

Front screw fixing

Click on the photo for a closer view.

Here’s the car reassembled, with details of the ends. The screw fixing is quite discreet, isn’t it?

Reassembled car, bottom view

Reassembled car, bottom view, rear detail

Reassembled car, bottom view, front detail

Finally, here’s a photo of the car from the rear, for comparison with the original. The bumper tube could be thinner…

Citroën Acadiane 1978, vue arrièreCitroën Acadiane 1978, rear view

Click on the photo to enlarge.

It lost its mirrors in the operations (I had glued them with Kristal Klear, it didn’t hold). Fortunately, Brekina supplied two pairs. However, I’m thinking of fitting thinner ones.

1.4 × 3 P-tite screw, black steel
€0.15 each, €12 per 100 - price 2024
at micro-modele