Project 1987 Citroen BX - The Wafflewagon

[Noel Tidybeard]

eleventy-twelvety bonus points for "brand noo wheel trim"

[dean36014]

Brilliant work, so looking forward to seeing this back on the road. I really did enjoy driving it as it was so rewarding.

[Meter rat]

I was in Looms today, robbing bit of that BX for mine. There are a few bits of trim left on it, most are on mine now. All the trim is black. The seats are very good considering, but are black and red velour, so would not be any good for Vulgalour. That car could have been saved when it first came into the yard. It was for sale, but they wanted £450 for it and wouldn’t accept the £150 I offered them. It has suffered a lot more damage from moving around the yard. There was a decent ZX in there as well, but it has been crushed now.

[Talbot]

Another spot to check for rot while you've got the welder and grinder to hand is under the two winscreen wash bottles. They go here at the slightly complex join of the bulkhead upper, the bulkhead lower and the "forward" bulkhead that forms the bit where the washer bottles sit. It's never a huge hole, just an irritating one.

 

Have a look on the "trevor the scruffy 1.6BX" thread, and you'll see where I welded that one.

[oldcars]

Super work on the bx. I do love a freshly painted trim.

[somewhatfoolish]

How strange to see a BX, Montego, P6 and Maestro all together in a modern scrapyard, it's like a hiccup in time.

 

And an XJ40; it's like I've woken up and it's 1996 again.

[Tadhg Tiogar]

.....That car could have been saved when it first came into the yard. It was for sale, but they wanted £450 for it and wouldn’t accept the £150 I offered them....

 

That's a shame. There's often a gulf between the price asked by a business, and what people want to pay, and a usable car goes to waste because of it. 

[vulgalour]

Talbot: already checked, which is partly why both bottles aren't in their proper place, and all seems good in that area.  From what I remember, Dean said it'd had work done to the bulkhead and windscreen surround and it looks like on the passenger side it's had a little bit of work under the bottle and is now nice and solid so I suspect it was done at the same time.

 

I'm itching to get out for a proper drive so it's a little frustrating I can't at the moment.  The list of work required is very short:

 

Welding

Crossmember closing panel/fillet between headlight bracket and crossmember, passenger side.  Looks like this has been done before but has since rotted out again due to insufficient protection

Crossmember vertical outer strengtheners need repairing, small hole needs a blob of weld behind passenger side one

Driver's side inner wing, various patches

Thumb-sized patch required on top of passenger sill in the door shut near the B pillar

 

Paint

Door and window surrounds to re-black

Front wiper arm to re-black

Investigate minor bubbling on sill-to-body seams and address so it can't develop into proper rust.  This shouldn't require welding, just clean up and treating, it doesn't look to have got into the seams themselves.

Wheel trims and wheels to repaint silver

 

Mechanical

Timing belt and waterpump.  Only because of the lack of history and the mileage, better to be safe than sorry.

Replace the two original steel front-to-back pipes with coppernickle as per Dean's work with the other two.

Clean up and/or replace driver's side hard brake lines to eliminate surface corrosion

 

Interior

Re-dye faded vinyl where possible, replace where not

Attempt to find a non-faded grey cloth interior and a better condition front seat base to replace the slightly threadbare one

Re-dye parcel shelf and side trims, or replace

Find rubber front mats with appropriate Citroen branding

Re-dye/paint any worn/faded switches

Replace blown dash bulbs (couple in the instrument cluster, TADTS)

 

I'm not sure the wheelbrace is the correct one for the car.  It's a bit too long for the cubby in the boot and I'm sure it should be grey, not black, so I wonder if it's from a Xantia.  I might just chop the end off it so it fits and repaint it, it works fine as a wheel brace for this particular car so I don't really need to replace it, just modify it a tiny bit so I can stow it properly.

[dean36014]

The bulkhead has been repaired both sides, not by me, but at a specialists prior to me owning. I can't say its a fantastic job as they plated over rust without cutting it out but looks neat enough. I cleaned up as much as I could and rust treated, painted and sealed so hopefully it will be good for a few years yet.

[Tadhg Tiogar]

....Replace blown dash bulbs (couple in the instrument cluster, TADTS)..

 

...and whilst you're inside the cluster, see the condition of the other bulbs. The glass in each one might be darkening. Possibly an excuse to replace with LED equivalents?

[dean36014]

I spent ages when I changed the dashboard checking every single bulb and connection. Fitted the dashboard and within a week a few gave up, I gave in lol. If you want a complete black/red set of seats you can have them for free, appreciate they are the wrong colour but at least it would save any more wear on the originals. Don't forget the Stop light only seems to work on low fluid level, unless by any chance the removal of the connection to the pressure switch when grading the entry sorted that issue out. Also I've remembered I fitted a new air filter recently but forgot to oil it, so that's a little easy messy job to do. 

[vulgalour]

Normally I'd say yes to anything black and red but I'm trying very hard to be very good and keep this car original.  Breakers still pop up now and then, there's a couple on eBay at the moment, and grey interiors aren't exactly desirable so I'm hoping one pops up eventually that isn't too pricey.  If all else fails, I'll see if I can source some of the original fabric, or a very close match, and retrim it myself.  The seats look a fairly simple construction on that front so I should be able to do a nice job of it if I have to.

 

I'll find out if the STOP light is working properly when I get it LHM-tight again.  At the moment it's just on all the time, for obvious reasons, so I don't know if it turns on and off normally.  One other thing I noticed was the rear driver's tyer has slightly more wear on the inside edge, I didn't know if you knew about this, it was only really obvious when it was up in the air.  Could that be a sign of worn bushes on the back?

[dean36014]

I know the nearside rear arm is ok as i had that out to replace the suspension pipe. The tyres and wheels came off the tzd estate i had as they were good tread on them. They've only been on bleriot for about 1000 miles or so. The wear on them is probably from the estate as i can confirm the arms were knackered on that. As you've got it on a ramp will be easy to check them for play but I'm pretty sure they are ok. No mention at last mot and its done less than a thousand miles since then. 

There was someone on the facebook group who found the original material available still in France. I'll have a search and see if I can find it for you.

[dean36014]

A quick search showed this source.

http://www.cx-basis.de/shop/innenausstattung.html?p=5

[Eddie Honda]

who found the original material available still in France.

(As a non-FB-er) Would this be the site? http://www.roby-collection.fr/ I'm sure they have other stuff not on their site too.

[dean36014]

Using eddie's link above, is it this one?

https://www.roby-collection.fr/tissus-citroen/11-tissu-travers-blond.html

or maybe this one

https://www.roby-collection.fr/tissus-citroen/23-tissu-travers-bleu-macadam.html

There's another that looks very similar too

[vulgalour]

Good work chaps!  I'll double check a bit of car against the site, but it looks like it's the "Tissu Travers Blond" sample.  I'll have to work out how many metres I'd need, it shouldn't be a huge amount so the cost probably wouldn't be as bad as it first seems.

 

I'm going to assume that slight wear is from the estate too and just keep an eye on them because nothing on the back end seemed particularly worn or loose when I was doing the initial on-the-ramp inspection.  I'll keep an eye on it but mostly ignore for now.

[Burnside]

I was in Looms today, robbing bit of that BX for mine. There are a few bits of trim left on it, most are on mine now. All the trim is black. The seats are very good considering, but are black and red velour, so would not be any good for Vulgalour. That car could have been saved when it first came into the yard. It was for sale, but they wanted £450 for it and wouldn’t accept the £150 I offered them. It has suffered a lot more damage from moving around the yard. There was a decent ZX in there as well, but it has been crushed now.

Think I remember someone clutching a few pieces of trim when I was there. Chap with glasses and a Orange Hi-Viz?

 

Shame to hear it was for sale before and it couldn't be saved. Least hopefully by spreading the word it can help keep others on the road. Think the Montego was for sale last year for £450. Though someone must have wanted the Perkins out of it instead as that gone.

 

There was a 99 I think year Kia Pride 5dr in that was waiting to be drained of fluids etc. Only done 35k as my Dad checked while I was removing something as it was nearly closing time. Bloody waste.

[Meter rat]

Think I remember someone clutching a few pieces of trim when I was there. Chap with glasses and a Orange Hi-Viz?

 

Aye, That would be me then. You must have been the two gentlemen walking past?

[Burnside]

Yes I was the one who was likely grinning like a village idiot. The other person was my Dad.

[vulgalour]

Had a few free hours today, plenty of time to get that repaired inner wing cleaned up, painted, and undersealed.  The cleaning up bit went really well right up until I found some more rust to repair.  So I changed tack, and instead decided to repair the rust that was there instead, starting with the closing panel between the headlights and crossmember.  This was difficult because I couldn't get any tools in to make a really tidy job so I have to admit I cleaned up the rust, chopped back what I could, and then overplated it instead.  The other option would have been to cut the crossmember front face down and weld it back on and I didn't really want to go that extreme on this repair.  It's not seen so after welding some really ugly blobs I smothered the whole thing in paint and sealant on both sides to hopefully keep the rust at bay for a good while longer.  It's all hidden by the bumper too, so the finish here is less vital than in other areas.

 

 

 

On cleaning out the arch, the bit under the washer bottle I thought was solid turned out not to be.  It has indeed already been repaired, the problem was the metal to one side of the repair had rotted out, possibly in part because the drain hole wasn't as clear as I thought it was.  Luckily, I had access to a sort of long thin wire brush attachment that was exactly the right size to clean the drain hole out.  Again, fairly ugly welding on top of ugly welding in an area I simply don't have the right sort of tools to clean up so it got a good smear of goop to keep it presentable and weather proof.  As with the repair above, this area is never seen, so it needn't be pretty.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then it was time to tackle the remaining repairs required.  When I started cleaning the arch out what I thought had been just cracked underseal ended up being rot and I needed to cut a long thin strip out, clean everything up, and rebuild it.  This has been repaired before, it just seems this bottom edge had blown on the seam.  There was also a small spot that opened up when I was cleaning up the washer bottle area, right between the big repair I'd done, and an older small repair, so a square had to be let in there too.

 

 

 

 

I had enough time left to get it all seam sealed and a splosh of white paint on.  It's now ready for the work I went in to do at the start of the day, so at least that gives me something other than welding to do this weekend.

 

While I was doing all this I noticed the towing eye was bent.

 

So I went to straighten it and...

 

Super.  That'll be a bit more rust to remove and repair then.  All the welding is these annoying little squares on edges, none of it takes particularly long to do individually, it's just a lot of faff. Still, I am glad I decided to deal with this now and nip these problems in the bud.  The car is far from rotbox status, which is good, it's just a little tedious to sort through.

[Talbot]

I can't count the number of times I've clanged the front towing eye on things. Almost every BX I've had they've been bent quite badly, so I just cut them off and repair the structure behind.

[egg]

Impressive and fast work as ever.

 

Just where do you get your energy and enthusiasm from at this time of year!

 

11/10.

[vulgalour]

Chronic workaholic.

[They_all_do_that_sir]

The towing eye breaking was a blessing in disguise, better breaking now than on a cold dark night when you are trying to use it for its intended purpose lol

 

Sent from my TA-1012 using Tapatalk

[vulgalour]

Absolutely!

[Talbot]

Just where do you get your energy and enthusiasm from at this time of year!

That workshop and vehicle lift would give me plenty of enthusiasm for getting on with projects! Working in a tent on muddy ground is sapping mine faster than I can replenish it. What I wouldn't give for a decent size workshop.

[vulgalour]

That's probably also the other bit.  Even though it's poorly lit, miles from home, and unheated, the unit is still preferable to rolling around on the floor outside trying not to kneel on that one sharp stone that's always there and yet impossible to find.

[dean36014]

That area by the washer bottle is annoying as a previous owner paid a small fortune for that all to be repaired a few years ago. Cracking work though

[vulgalour]

The problem seems to just be a lack of protection on the repaired areas.  The bit under the washer bottle looks to have been welded, then sealed, then sprayed with black goop.  Perhaps because it's an unseen area it wasn't considered necessary to do more work to it.  The bit I did on the front closing panel was similarly solidly repaired, just with almost no protection applied to keep it sound, and that seems to be the root cause of the damage around the repairs.

 

I'm not doing this to professional restoration standard by any means, so my repairs aren't something I'm proud to show off.  Even so, I am taking care to add protection as much as I can and to try and eliminate as much rust as possible before the repairs are done.  I just don't think that's always been the case.

 

Also, I think this corner has had light parking damage at some point.  The wing on this side has bad paint on the top, there's a weird sort of reaction on one spot as though it wasn't keyed properly and the paint didn't level.  The inner wing has lots of little dents like someone has tried straightening it out and there's a few spots of welding on seams that doesn't look factory, or like patches have been let in, more like someone has stitched panels back together.  I don't believe it's serious damage, it's more like someone reversed into the wing in a 4x4 or something like that.  I do think it could explain why the rust is so much worse on this particular part of the car compared to the rest.  By the looks of it, the damage must have happened a long time ago, just from the build up of dirt if nothing else, and it's not a concern, just a curiosity.