This Is One Of The Weirder Breakdowns And Quick Fixes I’ve Had In My Citroën 2CV So Far

You know how some things just sort of…disappear? Like their existence is a tenuous thing, based on the flimsiest of handshake agreements with reality, and managed by a forgetful custodian. Common things in this category are Tupperware lids, socks, 10mm sockets, that sort of thing. Today I learned that this category also seems to include some important parts of my shift linkage?

I had just started driving my Citroën 2CV, backed it out of the driveway, drove it around the corner, when all of a sudden the gearshift went all floppy in my hand. Luckily, I was in neutral when it happened, and so wasn’t stuck in any gear, because I could feel exactly what happened. This wasn’t some gearshift erectile issue; this was a broken linkage.

I’ve encountered broken shift linkages before, maybe most memorably when I fixed a broken linkage in my old Yugo with two hose clamps and a rock:

On the way home from the zoo, the Yugo decided that trouble-free operation felt too weird so the shift linkage vanished. I bodged up a fix with 2 hose clamps and a rock and we made it home. pic.twitter.com/25PWyfq4fn

— Jason Torchinsky (@JasonTorchinsky) November 27, 2021

…but in that case, at least it happened because a part broke, and didn’t just, you know, disappear.

I realize I’m saying a part disappeared, so I should probably back that up with some evidence. First, let me show you where the shift linkage is in a 2CV, because it’s a little odd. When you shift a 2CV, you use this funny little bent handle on the dashboard that is essentially like shifting with your arm stuck through the dashboard:

So, there’s a stick sprouting out of the transmission like you’d expect, it’s just that the stick is actually in the engine compartment and you’re in the body of the car. So to shift, you move the actual gearstick with a little other gearstick, and they’re connected by a simple linkage made of a twisted bit of flat metal stock and some bushings and cotter pins. You can see the shift linkage here:

Hold on, let me zoom in a bit. Computer! Enlarge and enhance section 4,3! Execute!

See that? That’s what my shift linkage looked like when it was working fine and I wasn’t thinking about it. Here’s a video showing what a perfect one should look like:

Okay, that seems close enough to what I had? Maybe minus that top washer? Anyway, let’s look at what I saw when the shifter got all floppy:

Actually, this is actually a little better than what I saw, as when I saw it the parts weren’t even in contact with one another; I set it up like this so I could at least shift it enough to get it off the road. But as you can see, the whole bushing/pin thing on the dash shift handle end is just…gone.

Where the hell did it go? It was just there! It had been trouble-free as long as I’ve had this car, and now it just decided call in non-existent? It left the chat? Why? and how?

I looked all over the car for the pieces but found nothing. Well, that’s not entirely true; I did find a cotter pin that I think was from this, which I used instead of the bent nail I had been readying for the job.

Using some crap I had laying on my workbench (specifically that little rubber boot thing that I’m not sure where origin of but I think maybe was an electrical plug insulator thing that, up until this point, I’ve mostly been chewing on) and the found cotter pin, I was able to very quickly create this ersatz version of the shift linkage.

I tried it out, rowed through all the gears, including reverse, and it works just fine. I don’t even feel any difference at all, if I’m honest. This is one of the things I really love about the 2CV – sure, stuff can break sometimes, but it’s all so crude, clever, and simple that you can almost always just see what went wrong, comprehend it, and fix it with whatever you happen to have handy.

How many other cars have shift linkages you can fix without having to lay down under the car, too? I’m sure there’s some, but this is the first one I’ve owned that’s like this!

Seriously, though, where the hell did that little part go? Did it just fly off? How? Kleptomaniacal gnomes? Smurfs? What the hell happened?