The Darracq has always leaked copious amounts of oil from the rear main, particularly after a good run usually depositing a 6 to 8 inch puddle on someone’s pristine driveway.
So today as I’ve already put one car off the road and the weather is a bit shitty I might as well disable another.
Darracq has Paris and London on the badge so the London part would explain the multitude of bolts holding on the sump and still not managing to stop the oil weeping out. Otherwise the sump came off easily and everything looks ok. The “slinger” is in good nick however I don’t know what the clearance is supposed to be between it and the sump/crankcase so will have to do a bit of research. Something that I could not see with the naked eye but shows in the photo is a bit of maybe gasket material in the groove between the slinger and the flywheel flange. Whatever it is didn’t work.
After consulting Andrew I might try a mod where I will drill a hole in the oil pan at the back of where the slinger bears diagonally into the sump to act as a drain.

Top hole or Bottom hole that is the question

Fred Deusenberg originated hydraulic brakes on his 1914 racing cars, so says Wikipedia. Unfortunately Louis Coatalen had other things on his mind so stuck with mechanical brakes in 1925.  He also had so little faith in those new fangled front brakes that they are smaller the rears.

As you can see from the picture I have choices, this is the link from the brake pedal to a relay lever.  Under hard braking the pedal would hit the floor so I had to pick the top hole giving me less leverage.  There is another like this with 3 choices for the rear brakes, given that the rear brakes are 100mm larger should they be given more or less leverage?

Today I attempted to balance the brakes firstly by using a chunk of wood that I jam between the brake pedal and the seat moving the pedal by about an inch. Then I jacked the car up, the RF wheel was hard to move so I adjusted the LF to match and then did the same with the rears but not quite so. Drove the car up and down in front of the garage in the gravel jamming the brakes on….the LR Wheel locks so I back it off and try again, this goes on for a while until I finally go out on the road do an emergency stop and again the LR wheel locks, with smoke this time. I think it’s back to the drawing board for this one.

Also today I took the Citroen SM out for a run and it’s developed a rattle somewhere, which is worrying as I just had the engine rebuilt so that’s up on the hoist getting an oil change while I think of what the hell that noise is.