Note for all Murena owners.

The way the gas struts for the rear glass carry the electric current for the heater rear window is that the centre chrome part of the strut is connected to a metallic piston inside the larger black cylinder of the strut, with metal ring seals just like an engine piston ring and seals. (except much smaller obviously!)  These ring seals transfer the electrical contact to the inside of the metal cylinder of the gas strut, and from there via the electrical tag to the H.R.W. element.  At the base the electrical wire from the loom connects to the lower part of the strut BUT the positive side (on the right) must be insulated from the chassis otherwise you get a direct short to earth.  So the pivot at that end must be plastic and not metallic!  There was a period when struts were being supplied with a metallic pivot at that end - DO NOT try to connect the H.R.W. supply on the right if you have a strut with a metallic pivot that side.  The left side strut bottom pivot can be metallic as that is going to earth anyway.

In the U.K. I get the stuts re-gassed and unless the seals are totally shot, they are as good as new.  The pressure must be 210 Newtons, no more otherwise the glass will shoot up and slam against the top stop and eventually something will get damaged.  I have seen struts with 220N and 240N and they are no good, but even if that is what they were originally (probably meant for another car, not the Murena) you can ask for them to be repressurised to 210N and remarked.  In fact the company that do mine, mark them with the pressure and the date the work was done.  They actually retain them 24 hours after re-gassing to check if they are holding pressure.

The cost is much less than new struts even if you can get new ones!

One tip, I always remove the pivots and electrical tags from both ends, before I give the struts to the company for re-gassing as they don't need them, and if they don't have them they can't loose or damage them!  They easily unscrew off and back on.  I simply refit them upon return.  Also if the contact seems poor or none at all, try rotating the chrome strut so the piston rings inside rotate to get a better contact.

Roy

The Talbot NOS ones should be much better, AFIK. The root of the problem is likely that that the softeners they used in the rubber in the old days were better, but are now banned.

I bought the same ones. Unfortunately, they feel very hard even when new. Let's see how long they last.

Thanks Herman.

Roy

You can still find the original 'proper rubber' steering rack gaiters if you search for them. I found two in Germany recently and bought them.

Roy

I had a set of universal that mad contact with the chassis by full turn.
Original size is still available from several brands.

https://spareto.com/products/delphi-bellow-set-steering/tbr3072

I made a notification in our whatsapp groep.

At this time nothing has been decided.  I am in consultation with Piper, who as a long time camshaft specialist, know how to produce a fast road cam, so I have supplied them with the Holbay specifications that were given to me at the time, and I will leave the rest to them as I trust them to know what they are doing, just as they did when producing the 3777 cams for us.  I gave them the details of what we wished for from those high performance new cams, and what they produced has been spectacular, both in power output and the sound they produce. (although I know that the exhaust has a bearing on the sound too)

I don't know what that 'Simca Challenge 74' specification is, but it sounds like a racing series engine, so do you know what the power output and details are exactly?  Obviously it would be for the Chrysler Type 180 engine but probably the 1812 or 1981cc engines as the 2156cc engine did not exist at that time.  Is it suitable as a fast road car engine cam with absolutely no other modifications required, or is it a peaky cam which needs some carburation and/or other engine changes?

Most cam manufacturers or engine tuners consider their work secret and won't release full details of their work as they are in competition with other engine tuners, so I'm surprised if you got all the profile details for that Challenge 74 cam, but well done if you did.

Have you had yours reground and it's back in your car now?  How does it perform?

If you have not had it done yet, is it already planned to do soon?

Contact me by direct email please for more on this, thanks.

Roy

This is a job that I just finished. Reprofiling the camshaft is not the issue, but figuring out what profile to use is.
After some research, calculating and talking to people that worked on these engines in the 70s, I settled for a camshaft profile that follows the "Simca Challenge 74" Specifications.

To what specifications will these camshafts be ground?

I know there's a bunch of 2.2 owners in the Netherlands who are in some sort of a Matra sports club WhatsApp group. I never really used WhatsApp so I don't know if anyone can just join and how but you probably will find more interested parties through there as well.