You have a French lump of metal in the workshop, you know it's a 2CV engine, but whether the thing is running or not can only be said with certainty if the machine is built into a duck and an attempt is made to start it. The frustration is great when the engine rattles and stutters after a long period of hard work or does not start at all. That can be fixed.

I built myself a device to test engines solo, outside of the duck. For this you first need a broken gear box, which is disassembled so that the front gearbox part falls off. This is equipped with a starter. With the starter screw connection, a battery ground cable is screwed in. When connecting the starter, an analog plus cable. A cable with a plug on the other side is screwed onto the connection screw of the positive cable for the battery to be inserted into the plus connection of the coil.

Now insert a coil with ignition cables on the plugs and cable on the motor from the crusher contact to the minus of the coil. With the motor starter described above, which is clamped to the magnetic switch on one side and the positive connection of the starter on the other, we can play with the ignition lock. The petrol hose is extended with a piece of new hose and put in a petrol can. An oil pressure control light is now very noble, which is simply connected between the cable on the motor and the plus to the starter. All these machines are now simply screwed onto the respective motor, two nuts are enough to test, one at the top right and one at the bottom left or vice versa...

Given that the engine has certainly been standing for a while, it makes sense to first flood the carburetor and the fuel pump with gasoline with the help of a syringe. And then see if the spark plugs are still there and under certain circumstances adjust or even renew the contacts and valves. Oh - oops - see if there's any oil left in the engine. Now connect a battery to the cable and ready. Put the battery and the petrol can in front of the engine, because the exhaust is practically the heat exchanger and the flames can be thrown out...

Before starting the engine for the first time, unscrew the motor from the coil with the positive cable and check for oil pressure, hence the oil pressure indicator light. If there is oil pressure, the machine can now be started online, i.e. with the plus connected to the coil. Makes a lot of noise, so don't necessarily keep this action on the Sunday before going to church. When the engine is running, check that both cylinders are running optimally. Once you can check this by holding your hands to the right and left of the exhaust (which is actually not there) and seeing if the pressure on both sides is the same (note: hot + possibly flames!).

If the machine has been running for a while, you can also test the parallelity of the heat on the heat exchangers and valve covers. If both sides are the same, these are good conditions for a good machine. The rattling of curlers or piston pins can also be heard in this riot, I have organized a stethoscope with a long stick. As a result, you can hear specifically defective crankshafts, piston pins or simply rattling valves to the sound. It is now also possible to test the compression of the machine in disassembled condition; You can't get real values with the pendulum.