72 Ds19 Us Spec Wont Start

[SunDown]

Hi all. I have aquired a 72 citroen ds19 us spec and it is in need of repair but is in overall very good condition. The car ran 5 years ago and won a couple of car shows. I have it now and want to get it back the way it was. The first step is getting it running. The battery is long dead but when i jumper it to a running car to jump start it the car does turn over. All the idiot lights on the dash light up and the car does turn over. Problem is I dont have anything (spark) from the coil. I'm not sure how to test it but what i did is hold the main coil wire that runs to the distributor cap from the coil near a ground point on the engine block and could not get any spark. No energy tranfer.

 

Now could this be becasue of some saftey system that is built into the electronics on this car, low battery no juice to the coil? Or is it more likely that the coil is dead? How does a coil die? I checked all the hookups to the coil and all seems to be ok. Any ideas on where to start or how to tackle this?

 

Oh and is seems this is a picasso forum, any DS specific forums around that are active?

 

I appreciate the help,

 

jason

[wozza]

Not sure about DS specific but this forum is a general citroen forum the picasso only one is another forum. Althoguh this is probably mainly the berlingo c4 and c3 forums more than anything currently.

 

Not so sure where to go for some help on getting the ds back to normal though to be honest. Just have to use google and see what you can find.

 

Found this site on restoring them.

 

http://www.citroen-restoration.co.uk/ds/index.php

[citronut]

hi Jason

first thing to do is clean and gap the contact breakers (points) and clean the distributor cap,if the points are tarnished or closed up they wont excite the coil into life,i hope you have got conventional points and not casset ponit as the later are harder to check the gap

regards malcolm

[tronboy]

is it a manual box or hydraulic (Citromatic) ?

[SunDown]

update:

 

 

alright, well maybe I'm a idiot....well not maybe I know its for sure....

 

I got this idea, instead of trying to jump start the car from another car, how about swapping out batteries. BINGO, the ds fired right up.

 

BUT, now I have revealed a hydraulic leak. one of the lines that run under the drivers side of the car. I have the access panels off and I have the line identified but I need to trace the line up through the front firewall so I can dissconect it and find a replacement line.

 

good news, it runs, bad news, its got a new problem for me to track down!

oh well..

[SunDown]

is it a manual box or hydraulic (Citromatic) ?

oh its a 4 spd manual