Citroen DS aluminium boot lid

All these years I have owned the DS I assumed the boot lid was fibreglass.   Fibreglass reproductions are available in Europe for those who want a cheap way of replacing rusted or damaged body panels.

However, the DS19 had an aluminium boot lid until May 1957.    The previous owner mentioned it was Aluminium, but since these boot lids are so rare I didn’t believe it.    However, on the removal of the trim, it looks pretty clear it is in fact Aluminium.

For the repainting I am removing all the badges, seals etc to ensure a good job.   It is clear that they were not removed the last time the car was painted.    This is not surprising given the quality of the job.

It also looks like a previous owner used some generic foam pieces in place of the normal seal.    I may simply purchase the proper seal instead of trying to re-use this.   In addition, the seal underneath the boot button looks in poor condition.    Generally reproduction rubber on a DS is not very good quality, so where I can reuse it I will.   In this case, I don’t think I will.

The picture above shows how poor the last paint job was, with major over spray on the boot seal.    The model insignia shared this fate and has been removed.   Unfortunately one of the posts on the ‘2’ was damaged so not sure if I will be able to re-use it or not.   It might just be long enough as only the very tip broke off.

I am individually labelling and bagging everything removed from the car to make sure that I have minimal problems on re-assembly.