Zel's Motoring Adventures...Volvo, Renault, Rover, Trabant, Invacar & A Sinclair C5 - Updated 13/11.

[Zelandeth]

Fsking editor... Let's try this again.

Fairly productive day today.  Main task was to hit the BX (not literally) with the polish and wax.

I'd been hovering over whether to remove the dealer decals for a while, though as they were in pretty poor condition was leaning towards removing them.

The fact that they pretty much started to disintegrate once the polishing started sealed the deal really. 

Off they came.

Then a couple of hours of elbow grease followed.  The result was worth it though.

The bonnet and roof still have a bit of a haze to them so could probably do with going over again, but overall I think she's looking a huge amount more presentable.  Far better for having lost the random stickers and badge from the bootlid I think.

I'm waiting on some proper 3M double sided foam tape so I can redo all the rubbing strips (two are coming away in addition to the two missing on the front wings), which will be a good opportunity to deal with the ingrained grime right next to them I just couldn't get to today.  The bootlid badges look to be metal rather than plastic, so removing to clean behind them shouldn't be a problem.

Getting the missing bit of rubbing strip back on the front wings will help a lot I think as your eye is drawn to the gap there immediately.

Once I was satisfied with my progress there I decided to finish up wiring in the new instruments in TPA.  This took longer than it really should have mostly thanks to poor process planning on my part but we got nearly there in the end, and the voltmeter now works.  I just need to hook up the permanent live for the clock at the battery end and tidy up my wiring a bit.

What ended up taking the longest was tying into the existing dash lighting circuit and sorting out the grounds - as we had a mish-mash between the gauges of common grounds for the gauge and lighting, grounded through the case and totally separate connections - and I was trying to keep the spaghetti to a minimum.  Got there though.

Probably going to add some filters so that everything is green as the illumination mismatch bugs me!

Finishing off the clock wiring tomorrow should only be a ten minute job.  Only took a while because I've got a battery isolator switch fitted so need a dedicated live for it run all the way back to the battery itself (via a 2A fuse of course, right at the battery side).  That adds a lot of extra work as the wiring all has to run underneath the car.  Nice to be still getting things ticked off though.

Really happy with how the BX is looking now.  I was right that the colour was really going to look the part once it had a good shine to it, really does suit the car I think - even though I'd never have thought to choose beige at the showroom, I do like it.

[LightBulbFun]

Lovely stuff on the BX (and glad to see the Autoshite sticker survived the ordeal, still really want to get/find one of those for REV LOL, if anyone does have any extras lying around please do give me a shout!)

 

did not realise the bulb in TPA's speedo had been replaced with an LED one it looks far too cold and ghastly, I hope your planning on fitting an incandescent lamp again or a warm white LED if nothing else at some point  

funnily enough the clock in my Model 70 is green when lit up, but I plan to just take the clock apart and remove the green filter rather than add green filters to everything else

(as I find the unfiltered tungsten glow matches the general atheistic/age of the Model 70 much better then the Green which makes me think of the 1980's more)

[Mr Pastry]

What is the source of the dash light?  Sure I have seen it somewhere but can't place it, and I need exactly that thing for a job.

[LightBulbFun]

6 minutes ago, Mr Pastry said:

What is the source of the dash light?  Sure I have seen it somewhere but can't place it, and I need exactly that thing for a job.

not sure what else used it but if its any help its listed in the parts you should get from normal trade channels part of the parts manual as, a "Hella or any approved replacement" "HELLA  No 30/3"

tis surprisingly effective

[Mr Pastry]

Just now, LightBulbFun said:

not sure what else used it but if its any help its listed in the parts you should get from normal trade channels part of the parts manual as, a "Hella or any approved replacement" "HELLA  No 30/3"

Thank you.  Certainly looks like Hella now you mention it - will report back with any findings.

[R1152]

@LightBulbFun has picked up on something I noticed - pleeeeeaaaase get rid of that horrible cold LED in the speedo, Mr. Zel!

The beige of that BX is just so... suitable. It really looks the part and especially now it's all polished up. Heavens, if I had an outside tap I'd wash the BM in celebration, but as it hasn't had a wash for 15 months now why ruin it?

[timolloyd]

I think that beige has come full circle. I see it sometimes on modern Fiat 500s and other cool* cars. 
 

I expect it’s called Cappucino now or something.

Anyway, keep up the great work! Love seeing it come back to life.

[Zelandeth]

There's no LEDs anywhere in TPA.  The original lamp is still there, there's a blue filter built into the speedometer surround - can be seen here when I had the one from KPL apart to remove all the spiders.

That's it at about 11 o'clock in the above photo.

De-greening the fuel gauge would be difficult given that it's crimped together... getting into it without destroying it would be the challenge.

[mat_the_cat]

It's been a while since I had a BX hatchback, but am pretty sure the 'spoiler' is part of the hatch moulding.

[LightBulbFun]

2 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

There's no LEDs anywhere in TPA.  The original lamp is still there, there's a blue filter built into the speedometer surround - can be seen here when I had the one from KPL apart to remove all the spiders.

That's it at about 11 o'clock in the above photo.

thats interesting! never realised the Pre March 1976 Model 70 speedo's  had a blue filter in them, would be interesting to see what it looks like in person

but if the photo is anything to go by it does not look very nice so id elect to remove it 

 

gonna have to double check what Large Speedo Model 70's have now! (REV being a private example and knowing her previous keepers means I know I should check double, see for example her warning lights being re-arranged/re-assigned)

[R1152]

1 hour ago, Zelandeth said:

There's no LEDs anywhere in TPA.  The original lamp is still there, there's a blue filter built into the speedometer surround - can be seen here when I had the one from KPL apart to remove all the spiders.

That has really surprised me - it looked to have all that horrible coldness of a 6500K LED to its light. Perhaps then, as I think you've suggested, all the instruments need to go green to match the fuel gauge: I still, 47+ years on, remember the surprise of going from the white illumination of Dad's FB Victor to the green of the Zodiac - and then back to white for my 16...

[R1152]

2 hours ago, LightBulbFun said:

(as I find the unfiltered tungsten glow matches the general atheistic/age of the Model 70 much better then the Green which makes me think of the 1980's more)

As mentioned elsewhere, I remember Dad's 1970 Zodiac had green illumination for its instruments.

[dollywobbler]

Can confirm that the dash gauges in the Invacar definitely do not colour match. It's how they are, so no biggy. I may have to dismantle TWC's speedometer though as it's full of dead spiders as well, and the bulb only illuminates the 70 and 80 part of the speedo...

[Zelandeth]

Resting battery voltage looks a bit healthier when I've not been faffing about with the headlights for half an hour.

The clock now works too.

I keep forgetting how well this thing picks up when you've got a decently long stretch of road on the level.  Think the folks in the convertible Golf were slightly baffled when I came hurtling past them on the dual carriageway earlier. 

Unfortunately one of my old gremlins resurfaced later in the day when the throttle cable came away from the retainer in the twist grip.  I initially thought it had snapped, but it's just pulled out.  That's the third time this has happened.

Getting the rest of the way home required a little ingenuity.

Think it's time to get a new twist grip ordered that doesn't rely on an odd sized mounting peg that I have to improvise.  Be nice to get one that's not just hard plastic anyway as it gets horrible and sweaty after half an hour or so.

[GeorgeB]

11 hours ago, dollywobbler said:

 the bulb only illuminates the 70 and 80 part of the speedo...

The only bit you need.

[Zelandeth]

On 2/28/2021 at 8:56 PM, mat_the_cat said:

It's been a while since I had a BX hatchback, but am pretty sure the 'spoiler' is part of the hatch moulding.

You're of course totally correct.  The edge which looked like it was a join was actually the edge of the black paint where it was originally masked.

Really do want to get the black paint sorted as that will really transform the car I reckon.

Need to get off my lazy tail and get the spheres ordered as they're the main thing* preventing it from being able to actually get to an MOT testing station as far as I can tell at this point.

* Note: I've not examined the condition of the hydraulic lines under the car yet - if any of those turn out to be at all suspect the car won't be going anywhere until they're changed.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't really looking forward to driving it.

Just hoping I don't find any horrible crunchy bits under there - I'm slightly nervous of poking at a few areas of the nearside sill.  Not sure if the underseal is hiding historic repairs or burying rust in the hope an MOT tester won't spot it!  I don't mind sorting the little hole by the nearside rear door as I can do that in relative comfort...but welding laying on your back underneath a car is another story entirely.

Do wish I had a proper vehicle lift in the garage!

[R1152]

A mate of mine had an F-plate BX. I hope your hydraulic lines are better than his - are the Xantia's really much worse than a BX to deal with? He seemed to think so.

[Zelandeth]

6 minutes ago, R1152 said:

A mate of mine had an F-plate BX. I hope your hydraulic lines are better than his - are the Xantia's really much worse than a BX to deal with? He seemed to think so.

From what I've found with the Xantia isn't really that bad to work on - you just NEED to do your research first.  There's generally a very specific order you need to do things and things you need to remove first - trying to save time by skipping steps never seems to work.  The only things which are an utter pain are anything involving the turbo on the TCT engine because you can't even see it down the back of the engine.  Oh.  Or changing a heater matrix.

I can't really vouch for working on the BX yet as I've really not done much mechanically aside from changing a fuel pump and faff around with the carb a bit.  I was impressed by how easy it was to get the instrument panel out though, I've worked on cars where that's an entire day's job in itself.

[R1152]

1 hour ago, Zelandeth said:

I can't really vouch for working on the BX yet as I've really not done much mechanically aside from changing a fuel pump and faff around with the carb a bit.  I was impressed by how easy it was to get the instrument panel out though, I've worked on cars where that's an entire day's job in itself.

Wasn't the catch line for the BX "loves driving, hates garages"? I seem to recall they were deliberately made easy to sort out.

[vulgalour]

Most things on the BX really aren't that horrendous to do, unlike the Xantia.  Like Zel says, try to cut corners, especially in the engine bay, and the Xantia will punish you for it.  With the BX you can generally persuade things to be done out of order if it makes life easier.  Perhaps the nicest thing about BXs when it comes to maintenance is that most of the common rot spots are flat pieces and so very easy to fabricate and replace.  Clever that, Citroen always were very good at finding solutions to problems you didn't know existed yet.

[R1152]

58 minutes ago, vulgalour said:

Most things on the BX really aren't that horrendous to do, unlike the Xantia.  Like Zel says, try to cut corners, especially in the engine bay, and the Xantia will punish you for it.  With the BX you can generally persuade things to be done out of order if it makes life easier.  Perhaps the nicest thing about BXs when it comes to maintenance is that most of the common rot spots are flat pieces and so very easy to fabricate and replace.  Clever that, Citroen always were very good at finding solutions to problems you didn't know existed yet.

Interesting, because said mate reckons the HP lines were such a pain to replace on a Xantia they often led to the car being scrapped because the bill was so high. On a related Xantia point, my brother had an L-reg one and apparently they had an 'issue' that could be expensive to resolve at the back end or something?

I have a secret hankering for a Xantia estate. I thought they looked fantastic.

You can probably tell there's a greater love of Citroen developing here.

[vulgalour]

Technically, the Xantia is the better car, and it's certainly better built... but I'd choose a BX every time because they're just more fun and the seats are more comfortable.  Except for crashes, BXs have all the crash protection of a pram.

[R1152]

A mate of mine just e-mailed me about something he didn't expect to hear on Radio 3 - which was "Journey Of The Sorcerer" by The Eagles. In turn, that led me to the late Tim Souster, whom I recall from music lessons at school, and then this:

Apparently this was used in a Citroen advert for the BX.

[Zelandeth]

The hydraulic lines rotting on the rear of a Xantia can easily write the car off economically if you're not doing the work yourself - simply because of the amount of dismantling you need to do to get at them (fuel tank, exhaust & rear subframe from memory) and how many there are.  The fact that they're hidden from view up above said fuel tank and subframe means that corrosion there is often unnoticed until something let's go.

Compared to the BX the Xantia feels like it's hewn out of a solid block of granite, though some of that is down to weight having been kept down by design.   That's purely a subjective opinion though based on sitting in the BX and moving it all of about ten feet...further assessment will have to wait until I can actually drive it somewhere!

[R1152]

1 hour ago, Zelandeth said:

The hydraulic lines rotting on the rear of a Xantia can easily write the car off economically if you're not doing the work yourself - simply because of the amount of dismantling you need to do to get at them (fuel tank, exhaust & rear subframe from memory) and how many there are.  The fact that they're hidden from view up above said fuel tank and subframe means that corrosion there is often unnoticed until something let's go.

Compared to the BX the Xantia feels like it's hewn out of a solid block of granite, though some of that is down to weight having been kept down by design.   That's purely a subjective opinion though based on sitting in the BX and moving it all of about ten feet...further assessment will have to wait until I can actually drive it somewhere!

I think that's what he said - there was simply so much to take off the car before you could even get to the pipes.

Regarding the BX, light weight was a big 'thing' in the early 80s - much was made of how light the AX GT was (ISTR the power/weight ratio was mentioned), I think similar was said of my detuned Renault 18GTL and many other cars in order to improve their economy. That they might have crumpled like a modern beer can if something hit them was conveniently forgotten.

[LightBulbFun]

@Zelandeth you have finally been spotted sort of! 

still quite surprised you have not been papped more often, but I guess the fast 50-70Mph roads of Milton Keynes are less conducive to papping then the stop start roads in the centre of sheffield where the owner of MPH759P gets papped all the time in LOL

makes me wonder how often REV will get papped when I finally am able to bring her home  

[Zelandeth]

Well doesn't that sound happier?

 

I'd known something was way off with the carb setup from square one given that the idle speed was very high and I could tell with my nose from fifty feet away that she was running stinking rich.  I decided to actually investigate that this afternoon and it didn't take long to work it out.  The idle mixture screw was wound all the way in and firmly seated...So the carb idle circuit was doing precisely nothing.  The only reason the car was idling at all was because the idle speed screw had been wound so far open that the throttle was held about 10% open and she was actually running from the main jet rather than the idle system.

Winding that open a couple of turns and backing off the idle speed adjustment (as that immediately shot up to about 3500rpm once I started to open the idle circuit up) soon got things much closer to where they're meant to be.  I'll hook the CO meter to get it vaguely close to the book value when the rain stops.  Now she's not running horrendously rich I'm glad to report that the intermittent but frequent miss at idle has vanished as well.  Not expecting to get it absolutely perfect as I've no idea how stale a lot of the fuel in the tank is, but I don't reckon things are a million miles off now.

The even bigger positive of this than a smooth idle though is that apparently backing that adjustment screw out has resolved the issue I had with the accelerator pump being blocked off - that's now working properly it looks like.

Just wish the rain had held off for another hour or two.

Particularly annoying as the oil filter I'd been waiting for arrived this morning, so I really wanted to get the oil and filter changed today.  Guess that's a job for later in the week now.

Nevertheless, it did give me an opportunity to get some gratuitous water beading photos on the freshly waxed paintwork...Imagine it's been a few years since this happened!

Feels like having the carb largely co-operating is quite a big step towards the car being actually drivable now.

[R1152]

Oooh, feeling the beige BX love here.

What're those lights that flash when you rev it up, Mr. Zel? Are they like the traffic-light 'econometer' my R18 had?

[Zelandeth]

5 minutes ago, R1152 said:

Oooh, feeling the beige BX love here.

What're those lights that flash when you rev it up, Mr. Zel? Are they like the traffic-light 'econometer' my R18 had?

It's referred to as the "Econoscope" in the wiring diagrams - Exact way it functions I'm not sure yet as it appeared to have disappeared by 1985 when the handbook I've got is from, and it makes no mention of it.  Basically a bunch of blinky lights tied to a vacuum pressure sensor.

[R1152]

4 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

It's referred to as the "Econoscope" in the wiring diagrams - Exact way it functions I'm not sure yet as it appeared to have disappeared by 1985 when the handbook I've got is from, and it makes no mention of it.  Basically a bunch of blinky lights tied to a vacuum pressure sensor.

That's how it worked on my 1982 Renault 18GTL - from the vacuum sensor. There was a switch on the gearbox that closed when 5th gear was engaged to prevent the red LED illuminating. On my 18 the plug had already come off the switch because Renault had made the connection so tight you could have played a tune on it. Refitting it fixed it so that if you hoofed it in 5th, apart from the bloody thing pinking like mad you only got the yellow LED on at worst.