Project BX17RD - the further adventures of PBO

[vulgalour]

It's probably my driving style, which is somewhat enthusiastic at times.

[vulgalour]

A small silent video of some of the trip home.  I'll probably do a walkaround at some point.

 

[dean36014]

Fantastic news, that's a bloody good car that should serve you well.

[vulgalour]

I did see what you meant properly today about it driving really nicely.  I think the tyres are letting it down a bit, so I've ordered a new set of those thanks to some eBay items going for rather more than expected.  It does feel like a really good starting point and will hopefully be easy to keep nice with minimal input.  Just have to keep a close eye on the rustbugs and make sure they don't get too energetic.

[stuboy]

i used to drive my mates 17d and 19td bx, very comfortable

[vulgalour]

Downtime today coincided with a pleasantly overcast day which meant it was ideal for doing claybar work.  Anyone that's tried to clean a white car outside will know how annoying it is to do if it's a sunny day, overcast is far better.

The roof was much dirtier than I expected especially since the car had mostly been under a cover.  I couldn't do the whole car today, I didn't have time, so I just focused on the top half and the driver's side half and I'll do the rest over the weekend when I have more time.

Top of the doors were also surprisingly dirty.

One great thing about the claybar is that it will, with persistance, get rid of that sort of dirt tidemark you get around badges.  Before, during, and after shots.  It takes a while, but it does eventually clean off all those stubborn marks.

 

The bonnet was much the same story as the roof.  The bumper I treated to Cillit Bang degreaser and a scrubbing brush which got a lot of the oily dirty off, now I have to go at it with Cif bathroom cream cleaner to get the ingrained dirt out and bring the plastic back to its original colour.

Paint on the roof is reasonable.  I know there's a section of repaint at the front from windscreen repairs before I got the car, it could do with some very fine wet and dry and a polish just to blend it out nicely.  There was a lot of grinder spray across the roof where it hadn't been repainted and this seemed to be the bulk of the dirt.  However, once cleaned back and given a coat of wax, the paint was looking and feeling much nicer.  It's more obvious in person than on camera.

At the back I did the driver's side of the tailgate and tried out my chrome pen on the Citroen badge, which worked pretty well.  I'll give the badge a second coat with the chrome pen and then I may mask it off and give it a coat of satin varnish just to make it look more like it was when new and take the edge of the chrome shine.

BX was on shopping duty today, which it did without complaint as you'd expect.  Filled it up too, and was surprised how small the fuel tank is.  I hope the weather is nice this weekend so I can carry on with the deep clean.

 

[dean36014]

Looking good! The grinding marks in the paint was on it when i got it. I used some stuff called iron-x which got rid of the actual metal in the paint and stopped all the rusty marks appearing every time it rained. I think whilst it was at a garage getting repairs before I got it the poor thing got abused. I think there are still grinding marks in the drivers door glass too.  Looking forward to seeing the ongoing adventures now it's up and running again. I've just waved goodbye to the St tropez, I don't think it's going to be as lucky as bleriot was with his new owner.

[vulgalour]

Surprised that you parted with the St Tropez.  I could do with a replacement driver's door glass really, there's no metal in the glass, just the pocks from where the metal was, and it was the same story on the roof, there's some very minor scarring left from the grinding dust but there doesn't seem to be any actual metal left, so the Iron-X likely did the trick there.  The paint is actually quite nice once clayed for the most part and being white it's pretty forgiving of the minor blemishes here and there.  I'll be keeping an eye out for slightly better bits and pieces here and there on the car, just so I can get everything as nice as possible.

Mostly, I'm going to have it on light duties while I iron out any bugs it might have developed from not being used very much over the last year or so and then it'll be pressed into more regular work alongside the Princess.  Timing belt will be the next big spend, I've got the parts sourced and priced up, I just need to order them later this month, and I'll do all the fluids (except the LHM) at the same time.  Certainly no intention of parting with it, I'm just as excited and happy with it today as I was the day I collected it, perhaps even a little more so since I can actually drive it whenever I want to now.

[dean36014]

Only parted as health is to hell in a handcart. Bad enough with a knackered spine but six months of chronic fatigue has finished me off. I'm seriously had enough of everything atm.

[vulgalour]

That's rotten news, Dean.  All I can say is that I hope things get better for you, or at least no worse.

[dean36014]

I take solace in the fact bleriot is in good hands and the XM is Mr 6cyl vehicle of choice atm?

[vulgalour]

Was supposed to be recuperating today, but got a bit cabin fevery, so took my time getting through a bit more work on the BX.  Namely, I wanted to get the bumpers looking good again.  As before, I just used Cif bathroom cream cleaner, it's just abrasive enough to clean up texture plastic like this without doing any harm and when used in conjunction with a bit of water and a nail brush and toothbrush, the results are pretty good.  Afterwards, I give the plastics a wipe down with Autoglym Vinyl & Rubber care to prevent fading and keep them clean.  It's quite a rewarding job, especially on the white 'body coloured' bumpers the BX has.

I got the other top half of the car clayed, which required a lot more work than I was expecting.  Then I T-Cut everything down to the bodyline just above the door handles, and then waxed the lot.  T-Cut is ideal on the solid paint on the BX and dealt with some of the marks that the claybar couldn't remove, leaving the bodywork very smooth afterwards.  I did it all by hand, there's no need to get into machine polishers until I've got everything cleaned right back and waxed so I can see what I'm dealing with.

Since it was a nice enough day I thought I'd go to the spot I took some shots of the Rover when I'd given it the deep clean treatment.  The location is quiet and the lighting there shows the car in a fairly honest way.  The one thing it doesn't do is show just how much of a difference in the colour on the car there is between the bits I've cleaned and the bits I haven't, the lower portion of the bodywork is quite yellow in comparison to the top.

One thing that was bugging me on the way back home was the sunvisor clip jiggling a bit.  I knew this was broken when I collected the car from Dean and hadn't investigated further.  Fortunately, all that had broken was the spacer column and the break itself was clean.  A black sealant of some sort had been used to attempt a repair which hadn't held but that meant it was really easy to clean back and repair more properly.

Once set, I put it back in the car and now the sunvisors aren't jiggly any more.  It feels quite solid and I hope it lasts.  I tacked the two pieces together with superglue first to get them located, and then filled the void in the back of the piece with the epoxy, since I had some epoxy left over I put it in the good side too since it wouldn't hurt for that to have a bit of extra strength as well.

[vulgalour]

Also, since about one person asked, I did a walkaround video.

 

 

[vulgalour]

I forgot to mention, the blower fan in the cabin now works properly.  It decided yesterday that it wanted to give me all the speeds and I'm not complaining about that.  I guess it's just another slightly duff connection from lack of use.

[MorrisItalSLX]

5 hours ago, vulgalour said:

The one thing it doesn't do is show just how much of a difference in the colour on the car there is between the bits I've cleaned and the bits I haven't, the lower portion of the bodywork is quite yellow in comparison to the top.

Two tone, innit?

It is amazing how much of a difference there is between the cleaned and uncleand section. It is going to look fantastic when you finish it.

[Meter rat]

No excuse now for not coming to Wetherby. There will be plenty of other Citroen’s to look at. The camping is quite good as is the evening entertainment. 

 

[vulgalour]

Well, except for work getting in the way of weekends and the fact I don't do tenting.  I can only do the Sunday, so hopefully that's viable.

[captain_70s]

I like the way you seemingly filmed the walkaround on a video camera from about 1995, makes for a period watching experience. ?

[Broadsword]

Thanks for the walkaround  video. Very impressed with the way the car has come up, well done!

[vulgalour]

I'm not sure that's what Fujifilm were going for when they released the XP30 in 2011.  Video quality aside, I will say it's an astonishingly robust camera and has survived falling on the floor, bouncing off things, disappearing into engine bays and generally living in environments that would kill lesser cameras and the picture quality is usually reasonable.  It only started having problems when the latch for the side door broke in a way that couldn't be repaired so now Stuff can get inside with the card and the battery.  I should really get a new camera.  My presenting skills, unlike the camera, are not quite so robust, I'm like a budget Hubnut.

[captain_70s]

The photos it takes seem fine, but like most photo cameras I suppose video isn't really their main forte. New smartphones seem to be optimised towards both as the video I get from my Moto G4 is arguably superior to what I get from my Nikon 1J5 although the Nikon can turn almost anything into a good photo seemingly by magic despite my complete lack of ability... The Nikon also overheats and cuts out when filming for extended periods on a hot day in a Triumph Dolomite...

[vulgalour]

All of the outside of the car is now clayed, polished, and waxed and all of the exterior plastics have been scrubbed and given a coat of vinyl care.  The car is smoother than a smooth thing that's been through a smoothening machine now.

There was a lot of tar spots on the lower portion of the doors, all of which came off pretty easily, and quite a bit of dirt lurking in the bump strip.  I had a good go at the adhesive under the door handles where there used to be scratch protectors fitted, whatever the glue/tape was that had been used to fix them would only budge with careful application of a razor blade and even now there's still remnants clinging on that are going to take some time to completely shift.  when I did the bumpers I'd forgotten to do the rear arch trims, mostly because on my estate these were painted and I'd assumed they were on this car too.  Specification clearly too low to warrant painting the trims.  Scrubbed up pretty well, all the same.

Now that the outside is properly clean it allows me to get familair with what work needs doing to the paint to make it tip top.  I could honestly leave it exactly as it is and not worry about it because it really does look exceptional as it stands.  I'd like to make it just a little bit better all the same, so here's the minor blemishes I need to attend to somehow.  The most glaring one is the scuff on the bonnet, right in the middle.  It looks almost like someone has polished or sanded this back too far at some point now that I've cleaned it and given the wear through in a few other places, it could be that someone has just been over enthusiastic with a polishing machine.

Front passenger wing has been repainted in the past.  There was definitely some sort of contamination with the paint.  Before I cleaned this I thought maybe it had been damaged by tape being stuck on and pulled off, after cleaning it's clear that it's basically fisheyed as you'd get if there was contaminant on the panel and/or you put the paint on too heavy in one go.  The wing is easy enough to repaint at home, so I'll do that.

Another bit of damage on this side is, I think, new.  When it threw the wheeltrim off it looks like it skidded across the body and too some paint off the edge of the arch and a little bit on the door just on the panel crease below the bumpstrip.  That's a bit annoying.

There's some over enthusiastic polishing under the passenger side door handle.  Hopefully I can get a little bit of fresh paint on here without it looking too obvious.

The front driver's side door has had some paintwork and a really ugly reglue of the bump strip.  Since both small section of bumpstrip on the front wings are slightly banana'd, I'm considering pulling them all off, cleaning everything up, and reglueing them to resolve this. The paint on the driver's door near the yellow glue is very thick and has runs in it too, though it only seems to be the bottom half of the one door.

The rear wing on the driver's side has some spiderwebs in the paint.  I knew about this bit when I got the car.  I'm pretty sure when I clean this back it's going to need some welding.  I'm used to seeing this sort of damage on the exhaust side of a BX, this is the non-exhaust side.

The lower portion of the same wing has had a respray like the front door this side.  Again, it's quite thick paint with runs.  Hopefully it's not hiding anything, the wing itself feels and looks like fairly normal metal rather than filler so I'm hoping it's just a clumsy respray to hide some rust staining.

The last bit of paintwork of note that I remembered to photograph was the polish-through on the top of the tailgate.  Shouldn't be too tricky to rectify and, since the tailgate is composite plastic, I can just leave it as is since there's no fear of rust.  There's a few rust blemishes on the sills, a couple on the bottom of the driver's front door, and a bit on the passenger rear arch, nothing serious.

Inside I gave the dashboard another scrub, this time with the Cif bathroom cream cleaner.  Only did the passenger half for now and after giving it some Autoglym Vinyl & Rubber Care it's actually looking pretty good now, I've even managed to bring the original colour out and eliminate the brown burnt look it had.

I didn't notice until today that the control dials aren't all the same colour.  I assume they're all supposed to be grey.  I've got two black, one grey fitted, and one grey spare.

Cleaning up the connectors really does seem to have sorted out the warning lights.  Only the ones that should illuminate do now, and they extinguish when they should too.

I'm on the lookout for a replacement set of door drop glass in the same tint, I'm just not sure if the tint on this glass is smoke or blue.  Reason for replacement is welder splatter and grinder spark damage from work that was done before Dean had the car.  Perhaps this stamp can help identify what's fitted somehow?  The quarter lights have escaped damage and while there is a little damage on the rear screen it's not noticeable enough to be a problem.

Finally, I'm going to remove this old sticker from the rear screen but I'm curious as to what it might have originally looked like as I would be open to fitting a reproduction version, it looks like it was a nice design originally.

 

[Meter rat]

It looks like a Citroen Car Club sticker. Like this.

[vulgalour]

So it does!  That'll be easy to replace then.

[loserone]

Please tell me that isn't the clay bar I posted you eight years ago.

 

BX looks ace, very jealous.

[vulgalour]

Haha, no!  Last car I used that on was probably the Ledbury.  This claybar is a new one... well new-ish.  It's not had a lot of use at any rate and that grey lump is the bit I'd split off the main bar since I find it easier to use about a quarter of it at a go.  I doubt I'll have to buy another bar for some time if my current buying and selling habits are anything to go by, I did run it over the Princess a while ago but it wasn't really necessary, I probably wash my cars too much.

[Noel Tidybeard]

i do believe your car has got its original clocks as i'm sure my old mans petril bx had the same warning light with the hot pasty & hair dryer symbol yours has- there was a lot of "one size fits all" in those times

[EssDeeWon]

That's a nice original looking BX!  Reminds me late 80s when the local farmer over Wakering where my nan lived had a red B reg then later a white E reg in 88/89 ish.  I can still remember my nan pointing out John's new car and this white BX drives past us.  Random rubbish story but I had forgotten that until I opened this thread and saw your one in white on an E plate.

[barrett]

Looks really nice. Dibs?

[vulgalour]

If (and it's a very big if) I move it on I'll be sure to let you know after Dean.  I want to keep this one, it's nice.

Today the new boots arrived.  The old Michelin deathrings are now in the bin, where they belong.

Uniroyal Rain Expert 3, which aren't cheap but are very good.  They have not disappointed today, the car felt much more planted and predictable.  I wanted better grip and predictability more than shiny wheels so that's why the steels still look scabby.  Very welcome to be driving around on these today, especially given what the weather's been like.

It's a super thing to waft about in, got compliments on it from the tyre fitting place and the chap that delivered the tyres today.  I'm also liking the anonymity it affords because some days the Princess attracts more attention than I really want.  I've also ordered some proper diffused glass festoon bulbs for the interior since one has blown, they're a bit of a nuisance to get.  I have tried clear festoon bulbs in the interior lights and they're just a bit too direct and bright, the diffused ones are much nicer because of where the interior lights are located in the BX.