Exceeding BXpectations - Now With Added Renault 4

[dean36014]

Yes, would much prefer not to have one, but as the car was only 150 quid beggars can't be choosers! Thankfully my other one hasn't got one, although I did spend a week welding up the screen surround and A posts on that one! still bloody dribbles in from somewhere too, just left the floor bung out now!

[Junkman]

Whoever cuts a hole in the roof of a motorcar should be executed in public after a good shoeing.

[Cleon-Fonte]

Am I the only one who loves sunroofs? It's the best bit about the car, right up until the moment it has to be removed and dismantled.

[strangeangel]

I like sunroofs, but I like the CJ better.

 

EDIT: I wonder if djimbob has a picture of his old Robin after we skilfully* installed the sunroof from a CX in it

[Junkman]

Am I the only one who loves sunroofs? It's the best bit about the car, right up until the moment it has to be removed and dismantled.

 

No you aren't.

That's the sad reason why so many cars have been destroyed by someone cutting a hole in the roof, who should be executed in public after a good shoeing.

Sometimes customer wishes should simply be ignored.

[SierraMikeHotel]

Am I the only one who loves sunroofs? It's the best bit about the car, right up until the moment it has to be removed and dismantled.

 

I like them when it's a beautiful day and they're working properly, but in my experience those days have been far outnumbered by the days that they've been jammed open/jammed shut/leaking.  Or (and I confess I never saw this happen with my own eyes so it could have been a tall story) opening of their own accord when it rains.

[Cleon-Fonte]

In fairness to this sunroof it did give me two years of trouble free service without doing anything strange, except a dodgy earth on the motor that temporarily killed all my electrics (electrical foibles are all part of the French car experience though). Just a shame it decided to grenade itself in winter, really.

 

The high points are still worth the lows though, there's nothing better in summer than driving along with no roof, the sound of grass swaying in the wind, birds in the trees and an XUD growling away up front.

[Junkman]

I'd rather have no car at all.

[txe4]

Sorry can't add a lot to the thread except "thanks" and "GR9 CAR M8".

 

I had a TZD a *long* time ago, in black - J226 TKV. I loved it but it was a shocking money pit. Please keep the updates and photos coming.

[mat_the_cat]

Am I the only one who loves sunroofs?

 

No. But I am the first to admit I have questionable taste.

 

I'm disappointed that the estate was never offered with a sunroof, and even considered fitting one. Not sure I'd dare make the first cut though!

[themildbunch]

A day in the life at Chez Cleon-Fonte:

 

P1030521.JPG

 

Finally managed to get the headlining/sunroof tray out of the BX yesterday (warning: not a job for the faint hearted) and today took it apart. All I can say is it's pretty much all completely gubbed, the nearside front drain tube was backed up with dirt and the sealant on the corresponding corner of the sunroof mechanism had failed, with inevitable brown, crusty consequences. Whilst a lot of the components aren't too bad and just need a good clean up, there's enough that's fucked to make me think a whole new sunroof assembly is necessary as finding individual parts will no doubt prove a bit of a nightmare.

 

This snapped cable that operates the nearside of the sunroof is the ultimate reason it wouldn't close, though. Its counterpart on the offside is still resolutely in one piece which is why that side still moved freely (despite the snapped drive rail).

 

P1030525.JPG

 

So anyway, now to the joyous task of finding a new sunroof assembly. Isn't life with old French cars fun?

 

 

 

I have a whole BX sunroof in the garage... been sitting around for years as a spare I've never used and I seem to have spare BX's at the moment..  Which bits do you need? IIRC the metal frame looks a bit crusty but it's complete..

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

I was just thinking of your BX last night while driving home in the rain. I got dripped on by my leaky sunroof. 

[Cleon-Fonte]

I have a whole BX sunroof in the garage... been sitting around for years as a spare I've never used and I seem to have spare BX's at the moment..  Which bits do you need? IIRC the metal frame looks a bit crusty but it's complete..

 

Many thanks for the offer. It seems a lot of people have dismantled BX sunroofs lying around, so I've managed to sort out the bits I need to restore mine from someone (relatively) nearby. If that falls through I'll be in touch.

 

I was just thinking of your BX last night while driving home in the rain. I got dripped on by my leaky sunroof. 

 

I feel your pain! I imagine Mini sunroofs can't be much of a bastard to sort out, though?

[Cleon-Fonte]

Life's slightly got in the way of forum posting of late so let's rectify that. My summer in shite has been busy so it may take a few posts...

 

I finally managed to get the BX sunroof sorted after a ridiculous couple of months of trying to find parts. Whilst many people in the BX Club had the parts to rebuild my sunroof and were very keen to offer them to me, when it actually came to the point of exchanging money for them they simply disappeared and stopped replying to my messages. In addition to being pissed around by a couple of Citroen specialists (who also said they had the parts) this became something of a depressing experience as it kept the BX off the road far longer than it needed to be.

 

Eventually a rather more helpful Citroen specialist passed me the details of a chap called Alan, who owns a bit of farmland just outside Peterborough that he's entirely filled with old cars in varying states of decay, mostly Citroens ranging from DSs to Saxos but also other stuff, Renaults, Dutch Volvos and R8 Rovers in particular. Of the Citroens the bulk are BXs (I lost count of them once I got into the mid-20s), the upshot being that he's got absolutely everything one could possibly need for a BX, which means I now have a reliable source of parts which should make life much easier in future. The only disadvantage is that he won't post things, which meant I had to go to him. Having no working car, this meant I had to hire this fine bit of machinery.

 

 

I even wrote an in-depth review of it here. Sufffice to say 30 years of progress have not yielded much improvement in the repmobile class, the Insignia was undoubtedly quieter at speed and would be better in a crash than the BX but I can't think of a single other area in which the Vauxhall was superior.

 

Anyway, the BX now has a rebuilt, working sunroof and a reassembled interior. The sunroof assembly was cleaned up, absolutely packed with grease and sealed off with lots of underwater sealant so I'm hoping never to have to endure the ordeal of taking it apart again.

 

 

As far as interior trim goes, remarkably the only broken bit is the nearside A-pillar trim which resisted any attempt at removal. A new one's on its way but at least I'm able to easily visually check the drain tube's functioning for the moment.

 

 

After this my friend, who happens to be something of a dab hand at dent removal (as we'll see in a subsequent post) eventually became so fed up with the accident damaged front offside wheelarch that he got to work with a rubber mallet and undid most of the dentiness, with the more stubborn bits requiring a small skim of filler at some point. Sadly this does mean the Citroen sports a rather unsightly primer coloured wheelarch until the rest of the work can be done, but it's hardly like the arch was pretty before.

 

 

 

Not for the first time I managed to get the BX together just as we were about to take it on holiday, the Citroen finding itself loaded onto a ferry (which looks better in black and white) bound for Delft in the Netherlands, which turned out to be an absolute goldmine of shite. Have some selected highlights.

 

 

 

This delightfully boggo basic BX was sadly the only one we saw, even in the Netherlands it seems they're rare.

 

 

Xantias on the other hand are bloody everywhere. They bore me at the best of times so I only photographed this one.

 

 

Audi 80s are also everywhere, however this was the only one that didn't look like a total shed.

 

 

 

 

 

What happens when you get the Ami 6's stylists to design a commercial vehicle? The Citroen Belphégor.

 

 

 

DO NOT PAINT

 

Sadly, a week or two after our return I began to notice alarmingly large LHM puddles appearing underneath the BX. Investigation revealed these hoses to be at fault, unfortunately they're part of the horrid nest of hydraulic return pipes known as the octopus, which in itself wouldn't be too difficult to sort had Citroen not inserted the octopus into the engine bay before the engine. As I've found when trying to remove it with the engine in situ (with the offside driveshaft removed) it's impossible to access so that means that, with much regret, the engine's going to have to be removed, the only bright side of which is that I'll get the chance to do all those jobs I was putting off because of lack of access.

 

 

And so the Citroen now sits on my friend's driveway awaiting its turn in the workshop, once all the A-series and Rover engines cluttering the place up are returned to their rightful homes.

 

 

More to follow...

[Dirk Diggler]

That's an Audi 100 estate above, lovely bx

 

End pedant mode

 

Eta maybe its an early a6

[chaseracer]

Welcome back, Michael.  Good to see you at Chumblebumley.

[Split_Pin]

Always enjoy an update on Members' BXs, good to see an update.

[Noel Tidybeard]

was that green 306 estate in the alfa pic actually an van?

[Tadhg Tiogar]

That's an Audi 100 estate above, lovely bx

End pedant mode

Eta maybe its an early a6

What I like is how their drivers park close to the canal without actually falling in when they open the driver's door....

[mat_the_cat]

The octopus *can* be done with the engine on-site, and the driveshaft too, if you don't have large hands. I'd recommend taking the shaft out for the small amount of extra work it takes though.

Depending on where it had failed, you may be able to get a little more life out of it by cutting the end(s) back a touch and re-attatching.

[Junkman]

What I like is how their drivers park close to the canal without actually falling in when they open the driver's door....

 

Yes, abroad people actually manage not to fall into canals, even if there aren't railings and signs every five fucking yards saying

'Safety Advice - Please refrain from falling into canal'. The fascinating bit here is how some people then still manage to fall into canals regardless.

[chodweaver]

Being on a 0.5G connection atm, i am missing out on pictorial detail of your BX sunroof labours. I shall in due course be examining them to see if it shares the same drive 'chain' arrangement with the XM - and if it adds up to a suitable replacement - I have little desire to remove the XM's entire sunroof cassette if I can replace the chain in situ because:

 

I TOO LIKE A SUNROOF.

 

Failing 25 year old electric ones have not yet dissuaded me from this opinion, as so much of my early years of driving were in near-povo-spec Vauxhalls without AC but having the windy-keep-fit glass tilt-slide devices that worked brilliantly and never leaked. Ever. (If i had my way, they would never, ever be motorised). In fact the same device graces the vomit coloured Corsa and still works brilliantly. They are invaluable for removing smoke and other smells* from the interior, increasing airflow but without drying my eyes out on long journeys like AC does. Any sunroof without a shade can FRO however. If I wanted to be roasted by infra red, I'd have bought a second hand carvery unit from a closed down Harvester 'restaurant'...

 

Full marks for your summer chodbothering activities and documenting them here. Looking forward to updates.

[Cleon-Fonte]

So my mission to update this thread went well*, let's finally bring things up to date.

 

We begin with a tribute to a fallen shitter. My Daihatsu Sirion, which provided me with three and a half years of reliable service, finally met its end in August. As it approached 80,000 miles a number of foibles began to develop which should in theory have been cheap and easy to fix. This illusion was soon shattered when I took the radiator out and sent it off to a specialist for re-coring, which hit a stumbling block when it was found that the correct size core was only obtainable from Daihatsu themselves, who wanted well over £200 or over double that for a whole radiator. Disturbed by this, I decided to price up the rest of the parts I'd need and it went well into four figure territory. Coupled with the fact rust was beginning to break out on all the bits I hadn't had welded (apart from the sills, bizarrely) continuing with the poor thing just wasn't viable. It was the hardest decision of my motoring life, but probably the right one.

 

Farewell PN02 MVK, you are much missed.

 

 

Obviously with the BX pissing out LHM and resultantly lacking an MoT I needed a working vehicle. So I decided to save my works van, a Vauxhall Corsa C 1.3 CDTi that I'd spent most evenings driving for the last few months. I'll probably give it its own thread at some point, but I'll briefly introduce it here. It was about to be scrapped over a minor cooling leak and I stepped in to save it at the last minute. It was cleaned up (it really did look like scrap fodder when I first acquired it), the massive dent in the nearside was knocked out at that month's Northern Powerhouse meet, I fixed the coolant leak (traced to the clip on the top hose being in the wrong place), gave it a service and then set about using it. I really did love this little van, which is why I was especially disappointed when after a month it shat its clutch slave cylinder, a gearbox and subframe out job to fix.

 

 

I still have it, currently waiting for the attention of a local mechanic to fix it when he has the time, with the ultimate plan being to fix its other little issues then sell it on.

 

 

 

[Cleon-Fonte]

Then this happened.

 

 

For a while I'd been feverishly searching online for a decent Renault Supercinq, having always had something of a thing for them. My eBay searching eventually led me to stumble upon a Renault 4 in Leeds, listed with a starting price of £1500 but with no bids and as I was in the area anyway on SD1 business I thought I'd take a look out of morbid curiosity. Given the pictures made it look like a total no-hoper you can imagine my amazement when I arrived and found that - whilst aesthetically challenged - the little Renault was in remarkably good nick: the chassis was found to be in very good condition, as was the body, with the rust mostly confined to bolt-on panels. Even the rear suspension mounts appear to still exist. It proved to be mechanically sound for the most part, too, aside from a few 'characterful' bodges that will no doubt provide plenty of material for this thread in due course.

The seller, who'd been using the Renault every day to commute around West Yorkshire, was keen to be rid of it as it could no longer accommodate his growing number of grandchildren and he'd already sourced its replacement (an LDV Pilot minibus, what a hero). Coupled with the complete lack of interest from anyone else - probably due to the aforementioned pictures - this meant I was able to make a lowball offer which was then accepted and I suddenly found myself a Renault 4 owner.

 

 

Sorry about the Kia.

 

It's a 1984 GTL, which means it features the big 1108cc Cleon motor (as you can tell from my username I'm something of a fan of these engines), opening rear windows and the grey plastic body addenda (grille, bumpers, side skirts) none of which is an aesthetic improvement over lesser models. This one has the later dashboard and front disc brakes.

 

 

POWERHOUSE

 

I'll do a full writeup about the R4 driving experience another time, but impressions so far are all good. For the majority of the driving I do it's perfect with its small size, excellent handling and soft, loping suspension. Like all the Renault GTL models it conforms to Renault's late-70s/early-80s obsession with high torque and high gearing, which makes it surprisingly useful on Peak District hills and allows it to perform remarkably well on the open road. In fact, provided you don't do lots of motorway driving it's all the car you could ever need.

 

 

Another surprise is just how practical it is. Despite being small on the outside it's huge on the inside and is shaped like a big shed on wheels. Couple that with the fact it has that extremely useful rear hatch and the rear seats can be easily folded away or even removed. Who needs an estate?

 

 

Not only are the seats great at carrying people, they're great for carrying bread and tomatoes too.

 

The seats are just as comfortable as the BX and there's probably just as much space, too, with the flat, intrusion-free floor. Use the umbrella handle gearchange and you'll wonder why other cars make you grope around on the floor with a conventional lever.

 

Naturally there are no decadent winding windows, just lovely, simple slidey ones (with added moss).

 

 

We also have the tiniest windscreen wipers known to man.

 

 

Naturally being a cheap Renault 4 there are some issues, perhaps the biggest being the absolutely appalling cheap blowover it's had in that rather tedium-inducing shade of silver. In fact I don't think I've seen such a bad paintjob in a long time. Look at the interior shots and you'll notice the original colour was completely different (and substantially better), at some point it'll be returned to that shade.

 

Thankfully the hideous blue and red racing stripes it came with have been banished to the bin (thanks Ghosty!).

 

 

Let's take a look at some of the other bad bits.

 

The only major bit of grot on the bodyshell is here at the corner of the boot floor. The half-arsed filler job doesn't really improve matters.

 

 

Speaking of half-arsed filler jobs, this bit on the rear wing is a work of art. More worrying is that someone found that filler cap in any way an acceptable fitment.

 

 

The filler isn't the biggest problem with the rear wing, though.

 

 

Those bits aside, the only areas of grot seem to be one of the front wheelarches and the bonnet, which is luckily still repairable.

 

So, plans? All the little Renault really needs is a bit of TLC, rustproofing and paint, so that's what it'll get. Fundamentally it's a sound basis for a good car, which is remarkable given how little I paid for it. Otherwise my plans are simply to use it and enjoy it, which should be easy given how much fun it is.

[Datsuncog]

Well bought, that man!

 

Haven't seen a R4 in yonks, and there seems to be a fundamentally sound car beneath all the cosmetic horror.

 

I have much jealous.

 

Excellent work.

[artdjones]

Nice, it's also got the conventional handbrake lever between the seats,rather than the Heath Robinson under-dash one,which is murder to fit cables to.Although the old type is fun to use.Cant say I like the colour either, although I think the 4 is a car that is much better in solid colours anyway.Metallic doesn't suit the R4 vibe.

[Cleon-Fonte]

Well bought, that man!

 

Haven't seen a R4 in yonks, and there seems to be a fundamentally sound car beneath all the cosmetic horror.

 

I have much jealous.

 

Excellent work.

 

I'm frankly amazed by how good it is, any money spent on it seems to have been to keep it sound rather than pretty.

 

Nice, it's also got the conventional handbrake lever between the seats,rather than the Heath Robinson under-dash one,which is murder to fit cables to.Although the old type is fun to use.Cant say I like the colour either, although I think the 4 is a car that is much better in solid colours anyway.Metallic doesn't suit the R4 vibe.

 

I think all the disc brake ones had the conventional handbrake lever, which is less fun but probably more practical.

 

I'm not too sure about colours, what I'd really like to do is paint it a nice solid yellow or orange. But then I really quite like the original metallic blue colour (which I can still savour when sat inside), which would probably be easier to return to as I'd only then have to have the exterior painted. It's not really in the spirit of the R4 but I have a weakness for 80s metallic paintjobs.

[wuvvum]

Nicely bought!  I had a GTL, but an older model with drums and the fly-off handbrake (and the older dash).  Paid 50 quid for it with about 4 months' test, although it had little hope of passing another.  Never let me down in the time I had it though.  I loved that car.

[bigstraight6]

I had an A plate one of these some 25 years ago, ran it for about 3 years and did many trouble free miles and loved it, wish I’d kept it...

[Broadsword]

Fantastic buy. I don't remember seeing one on the roads in the UK for at least 5 years. So is it a monocoque, how easy would it be to replace the grotty bits on top?