Exceeding BXpectations - Now With Added Renault 4

[vulgalour]

You're all reprobates.  Just for added lols, paint the dead spheres black and write BOMB on them in white.

[bub2006]

With string?

[New POD]

 Barnoldswick

 

driving up there for bits is an excellent display of the good kind of mentalism.

 

I once went to a scrap yard in that particular place, and got a bumper and a rear light for a mk2 cavalier. My excuse? I worked in Burnley, and Lived Near Settle, so it was on the way home.

 

Then I went into the village centre, and parked in a disabled space, which you are allowed to do if you only have 8 fingers, 2 thumbs and 10 toes, unlike the locals where MORE is standard, as is being married to your cousin, who will also be your sister and aunt.

 

It's not like there's inbreeding, just not many people from other places want to "mate" with the locals, who never leave. I mean it's another world the other side of them hills.

[New POD]

 Eventually one of the people we visited managed to put a call in to a relative at a garage in the nearest town, who agreed to nab a Lucas solenoid from work and bring it down when he'd finished.

 

Whilst working on the Lucas Smart Solenoid Project in 1995-1998, I was involved heavily in Keighley and Lucas control systems products (Now NSF Controls)  in the design team for the replacement of the earlier not at all smart solenoid which was assembled and tested at Lucas Deisel in La Rochel on the West Coast of France, and shipped to their factory in Blois.

 

As the customer the French decided we had to use Viton. We removed 1 of the 3 seals in our redesign, saving 2.2p in each solenoid.  The 1 week redesign workshop involved 10 people and saved a Total of  £1.523  which given that the peak production was 28,000 a week in about 2000.  was a fuck load of money.

 

2.2p for the seal. If you buy 2.5 million a year.

[strangeangel]

This thread is great and everything, but what would be really outstanding is if someone figured out a way to fix a non-functioning BX tacho...

 

[Eddie Honda]

^^^^ Pez or dizzle?

[Cleon-Fonte]

On 7/31/2016 at 10:24 AM, strangeangel said:

This thread is great and everything, but what would be really outstanding is if someone figured out a way to fix a non-functioning BX tacho...

 

 

Here's one I did earlier.

 

I can't remember quite what I said in the post on the old new forum, but I probably said the following:

 

-My rev counter only worked when the engine was cold.

-Lots of other people with XUD-powered chod were found to have suffered the same problem when I searched 'Peugeot rev counter' on Google.

-None of them had actually fixed the problem, traceable to the TDC sensor. Few seem to know where said sensor is located (and Haynes manuals don't even mention it at all outside the wiring diagrams).

-I decided to fix the problem when humidity levels would have been more familar to residents of Hong Kong or Macau than Derbyshire.

 

 

So, the first stage of locating the sensor was finding the brown connector plug. Removal of the battery allowed me to find this, then it was a case of following the wire to the sensor itself. Sadly the trail went cold when the wire snaked off behind the hydraulic pump.

 

 

The jack and axle stands were duly brought out.

 

 

And eventually the sensor was found here, on the offside of the gearbox bellhousing near the flywheel, secured in by a bracket and 10mm bolt. Qradruple-jointed hands are an advantage when trying to gain access to the bolt with a spanner.

 

 

It was then found that Stockport's finest* Citroen specialist had routed the wire for the sensor in such a way that I couldn't remove it without cutting off either the sensor or the connector plug, so I gave it a whizz with contact cleaner in situ.

 

Whilst I hoped cleaning the prodigious amounts of sludge off the sensor would work, ultimately it was found to be goosed as the problem hasn't gone away, but £28(!) later and a new one has been sourced and is ready to fit when I'm next underneath the BX. All in all, a fairly simple job once you know what you're doing.

[Eddie Honda]

-My rev counter only worked when the engine was cold.

-Lots of other people with XUD-powered chod were found to have suffered the same problem when I searched 'Peugeot rev counter' on Google.

-None of them had actually fixed the problem, traceable to the TDC sensor. Few seem to know where said sensor is located (and Haynes manuals don't even mention it at all outside the wiring diagrams).

Youse were looking in the wrong place. http://www.bxclub.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=561

 

The all* fixed the problem and they all knew* where the sensor was and they all knew* not to shove it in the hole too far, etc. They even threw the part number out there.

[mat_the_cat]

Youse were looking in the wrong place. http://www.bxclub.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=561

 

A blast from the past for me there! And coincidentally mine has started to fail again since I replaced it in 2004, only occurred once so far but it's not going to get better. First one lasted 95k miles; the current one 140k. It would be interesting to know whether a pattern part would fail sooner - was the £28 replacement from Citroen? I did a quick search but genuine ones seemed to be £50+.

[Cleon-Fonte]

Youse were looking in the wrong place. http://www.bxclub.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=561

 

The all* fixed the problem and they all knew* where the sensor was and they all knew* not to shove it in the hole too far, etc. They even threw the part number out there.

 

Seeing that thread could have saved me a fair bit of time following wires etc. It's also made me grateful I didn't take my dash apart and blow all the bulbs in the process.

 

I'm glad it's not just my speedo needle that wobbles.

 

It would be interesting to know whether a pattern part would fail sooner - was the £28 replacement from Citroen?

 

It's a genuine PSA item, but bought from Dean Hunter at Ferrybridge. I think he has a drawer full of them somewhere in his office.

[mat_the_cat]

Thanks for that, will purchase one Best price I've found for an OE one and my local dealer is about as disinterested as it's possible to be. I was after a pair of drop links a couple of years back, and was told there were "No longer listed, sorry, goodbye." It was only after I got them to do a dealer search ("Oh, nobody will have anything for a car that old") that it turned out they had one in stock themselves!

 

As for the wobbly needle, the problem is partly down to the RHD conversion they did - still using the LHD speedo cable with an extended section. Two solutions I've heard (never done either) are to get a custom cable made, all in one piece; or to cut a small piece of cable inner to sit between the two section of cable at the joining section, thereby stopping the in/out motion of the cable.

[Eddie Honda]

Seeing that thread could have saved me a fair bit of time following wires etc.

Sorry, must have been napping when it was asked. As you can see from the posting date and low topic count it's as old as the hills. The BXC did have a DIY page on it, but that disappeared when they did away with the title and webpages and the URL just steers straight to the forum.

[Cleon-Fonte]

So today I went to change the BX's oil, which on the face of it is an extremely simple job even for a non-mechanically minded moron such as myself. The first snag occurred when I tried to loosen the sump plug only to find that it had been completely rounded off (yet still somehow re-inserted after the last oil change). After unsuccessfully spending a rather long time trying a few removal methods suggested by the internet I eventually ended up having to take a drill to the thing.

 

Only slightly perturbed, with oil happily pouring out of the sump I turned my attention to the filter, quickly finding out that it had been put on rather more than finger tight. After some futile acrobatics with a chain wrench, I decided I needed more leverage so decided to tie the floppy radiator of unknown origin out of the way to provide better access. And it was at this point I heard a pronounced cracking noise, followed by the sound of the radiator's contents draining onto the street.

 

The upshot of all this is that the BX is now incapacitated as the radiator has a fairly severe hairline crack and won't hold anything put into it. Finding a new one is not going to be a quick process because, as seasoned BX botherers will know, new turbodiesel radiators are pretty much non-existent.  Replacement had been on my to do list, but I had been hoping that the current one would at least last until I found another. But I will put out feelers at some point to see what, if anything, is available.

[stripped fred]

Oh dear, that didn't go well did it! Sounds like some of my previous attempts to 'fix' things.

[Cleon-Fonte]

It'll certainly go down as one of my more depressing mechanical exploits. Although I take mild comfort from the fact that I merely hastened the floppy radiator's demise rather than killing it outright.

[Junkman]

http://www.autopiecesdelouest.com/boutique/produit/radiateur-de-refroidissement-moteur-citroen-bx-diesel-turbo-diesel/

[Cleon-Fonte]

It's perfect, except they'll only post it to somewhere in France. Although if a French-based shiter could take it in and post it on...

[kee616]

I just did the oil filter on my 406 and even with a oil wrench it felt like it had been welded on!

[Richard]

I tore a ligament in my thumb trying (unsuccessfully) to remove the oil filter from my diesel Escort. Two months to heal.

 

I am a convert to vacuum extraction. The oil in my 850 is cleaner a couple of thousand miles after a Pela change than it usually is immediately after a conventional drain and refill.

[omegod]

It's ridiculous how tight people do things up, I serviced my sister in laws fiesta last week and the plugs had been tightened by Arnie, I used the rule of sphincter when undoing them and plug number 3 is staying firmly where it is as it was likely going to snap, she wasn't impressed at my leaving it in but explaining it could write off the car soon changed her opinion  

[dollywobbler]

Speak to Barrett. His silver BX turbo diesel has just reached the end of the road I think.

[phil_lihp]

Some people do seem to like cranking up filters and plugs ludicrously tight.  I completely failed to undo the sump plug on the Jag and Nyphur had to resort to a breaker bar and an almighty amount of force to crack it off - although the filter was hand-tight.  I've had similar troubles with my 940.  I usually resort to the old favourite of hammering a screwdriver through reluctant oil filters, usually ones that have been on the car for years after they've been off the road.  My old Nova and my latest 214SEi have both needed this treatment, I find it usually works but can be very messy!

[dollywobbler]

I never go down the screwdriver route, just because I have heard of filters STILL not shifting, by which time you're pretty much screwed.

 

I did once have to borrow a strap wrench designed for a truck to shift a very stubborn filter. That did the job with no trouble at all. 

[Inspector Morose]

Top tip.

 

Take one 1/2" large spark plug spanner that you don't ever need and slot it along the length of the spark plug bit with a cutting disc on an angle grinder.

Then scour the roads until you find a large nylon strap that failed to hold heavy things on lorries. The roads are littered with them. Cut a good section off so that a loop of it will go round an oil filter.

Put the two ends together and feed into slot.

 

Hey presto! One industrial strength oil filter strap. I've had my three foot breaker bar on mine and it hasn't given up yet. The trick is to allow a bit more length on the straps so it winds around the socket a bit. The more force you exert, the more it'll try to squeeze the slot closed and so grip the strap.

[Cleon-Fonte]

Success!

 

 

Unfortunately there were casualties: my nice new good quality chain wrench is wrecked and my thumb is the colour of beetroot. But the BX now has a fresh sump of oil and a new non-overtightened filter.

 

The radiator situation is a bit weird, I let it flop back to its preferred position and it seemed to hold coolant fine, but put it where it should go and it leaks dramatically. I don't know if I've just worsened a pre-existing problem, but either way the car will see no use until it's replaced. I'll try and scout around for a new one (and new coolant hoses) tonight. If unsuccessful enquiries will be made about the one from Barrett's TXD.

[Eddie Honda]

as seasoned BX botherers will know, new turbodiesel radiators are pretty much non-existent.

Translation: New turbo diesel radiators are available, but not for a tenner.

[Eddie Honda]

Tool tip:

 

IMG_20150920_243549_417 by E Honda, on Flickr

 

Use French wrench while shrugging, sticking your bottom lip out and puffing on an untipped Gauloise. Or just lob it down Midas

 

[Cleon-Fonte]

Translation: New turbo diesel radiators are available, but not for a tenner.

 

Where are they available? People have asked on the BX Forum/Facebook group and received 'haha rocking horse shit, mate' type responses for as long as I've been on there.

[Junkman]

https://www.amazon.co.uk/NRF-58678-Radiator-engine-cooling/dp/B00DZQTJOY

 

I ever so slightly begin to despair a little.

If I had a bloody BX turbodiesel in need of a new radiator, it'd have a fucking new radiator for ages by now, ffs.

[Eddie Honda]

In fairness Junkman, you link to a 33mm thick rad with sidetank bottle.

 

Now I don't have my Citroen Service account anymore (booted off during one of their purges), but I think the 1.7 turbot [sic] dizzler has a big fat 45mm thick core. CITROEN 95635181

 

 

I don't think they're unobtainium. I just think the price of them is rather salty.