Project BX17RD - the further adventures of PBO

[vulgalour]

I've been thinking about what the problem is with the bumper and I'm sure it's not something that needs more fixings.  All the various holes are where they should be, and all the blocks on the front bumper are where they should be.  The issue is that the sides of the bumper can't push in quite far enough on both sides because the arch liner - which is surprisingly rigid - is holding the edges out.  So, in theory, I reckon I should move the arch liner out of the way, engage the bumper into the slots, and then cram the arch liner back in.  The resulting tension should, I suspect, help keep everything aligned and sealed well.  The blocks are only about 1-2mm off locating, if the arch liner wasn't there I could get them in without any trouble.  Pushing the liners home once the bumper is seated is going to be another war, I'm sure, but it will also mean a good seal all around and help keep the weather out of the vulnerable inner arch areas I've repaired.  This use of flexible plastics and tension is quite clever, and also incredibly annoying, like most things Citroen really.

[dean36014]

I had loads of problems trying to align that bumper. It didn't help that the hole for the mounting block had rotted out on passenger side. I shoved it in place and cable ties it to stop it moving back out. I thing that passenger side inner arch liner needs a light trim off the outside edge to allow bumper to sit right. According to email today your pipe should be at mine Thurs or Friday. I'll get them flared up over weekend and in post on Monday if that's the cases

[Steve79]

Expect a parcel containing informative content in the next few days

[vulgalour]

Dean:  BXpert, Tim Leech, suggests the front bumpers are a massive pain to fit so it's not just this car.  I'll rope Mike into helping me, he loves* helping out on my weird old cars.

 

Steve: will do!  Seem to have a few things arriving this week so it's just as well I'm chained to my desk for all of it.

[dean36014]

I can't get the bumper to stay in place on shonky either, will have another go at it this spring.

[dean36014]

The next part of the puzzle is winging it's way to you. If anyone else needs 3.5mm or 4.5mm Citroen lhm pipes flaring I'm happy to do this as long as you send me parts required and cover postage back to yourselves. Should be a lot easier to fit them with the car on a ramp too.

 

Sent from my TA-1012 using Tapatalk

[Tadhg Tiogar]

The next part of the puzzle is winging it's way to you. If anyone else needs 3.5mm or 4.5mm Citroen lhm pipes flaring I'm happy to do this as long as you send me parts required and cover postage back to yourselves. Should be a lot easier to fit them with the car on a ramp too.

 

 

*makes mental note for CX purposes*

[beko1987]

*could you just make every single pipe a CX has?*

[beko1987]

Saying that, and (without being too rude, but knowing your health issues), would that not be a nice little earner? Find the lengths and specs of every pipe for each hydro cit, and make replacement kits, with every end fitted that it needs and flog them? Shitters discount, then ebay for £££?

 

Or is it not that easy?

[Matty]

Great work again. Love reading about this, shame i cannot do welding. If i have the time and money i would learn.

£200 a level at night school (single discipline welding no fab). Now you've no excuse!!????

Edit - I wonder if night school do emoji courses as the smiley face I put on the end is a line of feckin question marks yet again!

[dean36014]

Saying that, and (without being too rude, but knowing your health issues), would that not be a nice little earner? Find the lengths and specs of every pipe for each hydro cit, and make replacement kits, with every end fitted that it needs and flog them? Shitters discount, then ebay for £££?

 

Or is it not that easy?

It's reasonably easy making the pipes, the hardest bit is measuring them out then winding them into a coil around a paint can so you can post. I'm happy to do it for free as long as no one takes the piss. I don't think there's much money to be made, not that many old Citroens left!

[Tadhg Tiogar]

....I don't think there's much money to be made, not that many old Citroens left!

No, but an infinitely variable number of leaks.....

[Steve79]

Vulg, you can haz this choonz machine if required. Came from the same car as the handbooks.

[vulgalour]

Sweet!  That'd look loads better than what's fitted.

[vulgalour]

Finally got some time available to some work on the BX and Mike was available to help too.  The new pipes from Dean were just the job and it was surprisingly easy to feed them through the gap between the body and the rear axle, it was actually more difficult getting them to route tidily at the front than at the back.  They were very easy to locate in the clips on the inner sill.  We did get the broken pipe out of the front union with the application of heat, because we got a bit desperate.  As far as we can tell there's no harm done but we'll know for certain when the LHM goes in.  For the other union that I'd rounded off, cutting the pipe short and using a hex socket was just possible, though I did have to use a short pry bar to brace between the block the union goes into and the axle tube to stop the whole thing moving as I tried to undo the union.  Got there in the end, no harm done.  New pipes were refitted with the proper little rubber tubes.

 

 

 

On looking around the back end for leaks, it looks like it could be something to do with the boot on the rear sphere on the passenger side, it's difficult to tell without dismantling everything, but the LHM doesn't seem to be coming from any of the hard lines.  I don't regret replacing the two lines we did, they definitely needed doing sooner rather than later.  I'm not sure whether to dismantle the suspension on the back now or fill with LHM and see what happens.

 

There was a minor hiccup after reconnecting the battery in that at first, things behaved like no battery was connected.  I'm sure Dean had mentioned the cut-off switch on the positive clamp being a bit dicky sometimes and since I'm not planning on using it, we removed it.  That cured the lack of power.  Next was the lack of glowplug light.  At first I thought it might just be a blown bulb so to be sure, Mike got the multimeter out and we found there was no power going to the glowplugs.  A wiggle of the relay on the inner wing and power was restored.  It's probably either corrosion on the relay connections or a less than perfect earth since this is the area I'd done lots of bodywork in.  Something to keep an eye on for the future.  With that sorted, the BX could escape the unit, slowly, and loudly, because there's no working footbrake and the backbox hasn't been refitted yet.  I'll put the backbox back on once I know nothing is leaking at the back, it makes access a lot easier since there's somewhere for my head to go when I'm looking at stuff.

 

Next challenge is to try and figure out where this clamp/bracket goes.  I'm pretty sure it's to hold up the end of the beige air intake tube, I just can't figure out where exactly it's supposed to mount.  You can see from the engine bay shot where the beige tube is supposed to run, which would suggest the clamp should fit to one of the front wing bolts, it just doesn't seem to be quite right when I try that.  Ideas welcome.

 

 

Importantly, the boot interior light works.

 

Annoyingly, the bonnet now seems to be slightly warped and I have no idea why.  It's not the bump stop or the headlight making it look like it's sticking up on the driver's side here, that whole corner of the bonnet now actually bends up slightly.  The bonnet was stored well away from heat and welding and kept safe until it was ready to go back on the car so either I didn't notice this before, or it's magically done it all on its own, which is entirely plausible for French plastics.  Ideas on how to fix this also welcome.

 

Finally, I got some shots of the BX with the Princess because I like to do that and it's conclusive proof that when it comes to cars, I've got a type.

 

 

[Guest georgexs]

Next challenge is to try and figure out where this clamp/bracket goes.  I'm pretty sure it's to hold up the end of the beige air intake tube, I just can't figure out where exactly it's supposed to mount.  You can see from the engine bay shot where the beige tube is supposed to run, which would suggest the clamp should fit to one of the front wing bolts, it just doesn't seem to be quite right when I try that.  Ideas welcome.

201902-29.jpg

 

201902-30.jpg

 

Having just removed this on my BX on Saturday I can help you! It does indeed hold up the beige tube, the two bent loops at the ends of the metal loop pass bolts through which go into the inner wing. It's tucked right in behind the headlight, awkward spot, might need the headlight out to access properly (mine was already out so I'm not 100%)

 

Hope that makes sense, if not I'll grab a picture of mine for you.

[vulgalour]

Perfect timing!  Removing the headlight not a problem, piece of proverbial on these.

[Guest georgexs]

Indeed it is! 

 

Perfect timing!  Removing the headlight not a problem, piece of proverbial on these.

[mat_the_cat]

The bonnet alignment, with me it's normally because I've left a screwdriver on the wing channel...

[Noel Tidybeard]

wonky bonnet becos french poking fun at a princess which has had hydrasag!

[vulgalour]

Maybe it's not a Citroen BX, maybe it's a NOREV BX.  Should get Egg/Junkman to confirm.

[Steve79]

Vulg, you can haz this choonz machine if required. Came from the same car as the handbooks.

Choonz are functional, you has pm

[vulgalour]

The other day I acquired a box of hose connectors.  It was significantly cheaper per unit than ordering the one I needed separately and I'm sure they'll be useful in the future.

 

Reason being, I wanted to get that return line repaired.  This was nice and straight forward.  I just finished the cut I accidentally started with the angle grinder, using decent clippers this time, and then gently warmed the snipped ends of the plastic line before insert a double-ended barbed connector.  A nice clean repair and is also quite effective.  To help it seal, I wafted the heat gun over the whole thing afterwards so the pipe conformed closer to the shape of the connector

 

That was important to do so I could fill the car up with LHM.  The bonnet is sorting itself out, slowly, and even though I've had a fiddle with what little alignment is available I've come to the conclusion it's definitely the bonnet itself at fault, not the surrounding bits and pieces.  Shown here is after a few days in regular weather, I did notice at the end of today's efforts with some temperature in the engine, it had improved further.  I'm hopeful a few hot engine cycles will persuade the panel back to a better alignment.

 

Another minor issue was one of dirt.  The glow plug light hadn't come on and it turned out that all the bodywork I'd been doing had ended up getting quite a bit of dust into the connection for the glow plug relay.  It's the one next to the blue box.  Disconnected, cleaned out the socket and plug, reconnected and all systems normal again.  Additionally, there appears to be no drain on the battery even with the car sat idle for long periods, so that's reassuring.

 

Today, the LHM arrived.  I was eager to get that done to find out if replacing those pipes really had cured the leak.  On putting the LHM in not a lot really happened, the brake pedal improved but the car was unwilling to rise and the brakes themselves didn't really do a great deal of anything.  It's been a few years since I did anything with LHM so Mike and I had a look through the HBoL to see if there were pointers and there was; bleed valve on the accumulator sphere.  It's the bolt to the radiator side of the sphere, obscured slightly by that rusty bracket.  After following the instructions the system was successfully bled, except for one instruction...

 

... we did it with the car on high.  I had been a bit puzzled at how much LHM it was drinking and put it down to having empty lines.  So we put the car on low, as per the instructions we didn't read the first time and predictably enough the car barfed LHM everywhere.

 

 

I'd put about a litre too much in.  Luckily I'd made use of a GSF sale to grab 5 litres of Total brand LHM stock they were clearing at about £5 per litre, so it wasn't like I flushed too much LHM and I suppose it'll be good rust proofing for that corner.  Happily the STOP light functions correctly, lighting and extinguishing when it should.

 

I remembered to knock out the wooden spacer blocks at the back before going for a test drive around the yard.  The brakes surprised me, even though I was expecting them to be sharp, the steering feels very nice, the car is very comfortable.  I'm incredibly happy.  Most important of all, we had to find out if the car goes up and down.

 

 

 

 

It is a very silly car, I like it very much.

[LightBulbFun]

Yay! glad to see the LHM repairs where successful and she once more has working suspension, not long until she hits the road is it?

[Rocket88]

Mr Vuig's next project

 

 

[i know that's a CX, but you catch my drift..]

[vulgalour]

Andy Saunders' Indecision in... second incarnation?  I'm sure it was silver or lilac at one point.

[dean36014]

Fantastic, great to see him back up in the air again. That bloody relay box on the inner wing caused me many a problem due to back connections. I cleaned it up with a needle file last time and the glow plugs were working fine. If when you turn the ignition on and you don't here the relay clunk you know the glow plugs haven't fired up. A check over and mot next then! That hole in the brake line must have been minute then if you didn't spot it. The pipe I did was obviously holed and easy to spot. I always thought he was a nice drive, once moving you never noticed the lack of power steering at all.

[Rocket88]

Andy Saunders' Indecision in... second incarnation?  I'm sure it was silver or lilac at one point.

 

 

 

Yup............the guy's a genius [iMHO]

[vulgalour]

It must have been a tiny hole, I was expecting quite a large hole for the amount of LHM it dumped, not something so small I couldn't find it.  Maybe it was a porous section or something like that?  I'm just glad it really was the pipes at fault and not something else.

 

I've got to refit the bumper properly, get that little piece on the sill done, find out why one of the brake lights isn't working and give it a wash to get all the dirt off it I've put on from the work that was being done and yeah, we should be good for MoT.  Might not be for a few months though because Princess MoT is due at the start of April and I do prefer to have MoTs staggered if I can.  I'm also wanting to save up to do insurance and road tax in one lump and that'll take a bit of time too.  Still, it's all very exciting, and I'm so happy I got to drive it all the way up to third gear today, it's bringing back lots of happy experiences with the ex-DW estate.

[vulgalour]

colc:  I'm a big Andy Saunders fan, he's one of the first real influences on my taste in cars and modifications.  It's at least partly his fault the Princess looks the way it does because of his attitude that any car can be anything you want it to be and sod anyone that tells you otherwise.  Man's a hero, tbqh.