Project BX17RD - the further adventures of PBO

[dollywobbler]

Might be worth having a close look at the pedal box (always fun!). They're a sod for snapping. As you may recall...

Could be a dry cable though. The routing is not kind on RHD.

[vulgalour]

It's not the pedal box, thankfully, it's more of a dry pivot sort of noise.  Not a plasticy noise, or a screechy metally noise either.  I don't think it's the cable either because the pedal isn't stiff, or at least not stiff for a RHD PSA product.  I mean, you can put your foot to the floor and nothing happens but that's because it's a slow old diesel, not because the pedal box is folding out of the way like on the estate ;)

[dean36014]

As for the front end creak it might be worth lubricating the struts. There's a way of doing it on the bx forum

[stuboy]

15 hours ago, vulgalour said:

Gave the BX a wash today, and a wax, for the first time in a few weeks because of the weather being a bit rubbish.  I've a couple of niggles I should address at some point:

Central locking
I'm not sure what's broken on this, central locking is not my forté.  If you unlock the driver's door, all the doors unlock except the passenger door.  If you unlock the passenger door all the doors unlock.  If you have unlocked the passenger door and attempt to lock the driver's door, the locks bounce back up to unlock position.  This is true if you've used the key in the passenger door, or if you use the pull knob inside the car.  I can't get my head around how the system would manifest this fault, I would have expected the passenger door to work, or not work, on the central locking, not this odd sort-of-both sort-of-neither thing it's doing.

Clutch pedal
I have an intermittently creaky/squeaky pedal.  I've tried oiling the pivot points I can get to and it makes no difference.  Some days it's really creaky, others it's quiet, and I can't find any regular factor that determines what it's going to do from one drive to the next.

Weather stripping
Interior weather stripping on the front door cards likes to roll over on itself when you put the front windows down, with the passenger side being much worse than the drivers side.  I've tried cleaning, polish, even WD40, to no avail.  Every time you put the front windows down the weather strip inside the car just rolls over and tries to jam up the window.  The rubber is still quite pliable and the windows are as clean as I can get them so I'm wondering if perhaps there should be some flocking or low-friction coating on the rubber that's just rubbed off over the years so it's now grabbing the glass too effectively.  The rear doors don't have this issue.

Mystery Creak
Somewhere at the front, sometimes, there's a creak.  It seems to be driver's side.  I can find absolutely nothing amiss and, annoyingly, when I go to investigate the issue the issue is never there.  Usually it appears on the first lift of the day and disappears before you've driven a mile.  It might just be a Citroen thing.

Exhaust
Sometimes it likes to play the bongos on first start up.  I cannot find what it's banging on and nothing appears amiss on the hangers.  I'm aware it's not sitting quite right at the back so this could just be that the back box needs finegling to get it just so.  This is another intermittent issue, some days it doesn't do it and some days it's really bad.

its a citreon bx, TADTS..

 

3 mates mum had would have random foibles ,

[vulgalour]

Today the foam arrived for the rear reflector panel so I could get that fitted.  First sight to greet me was some lovely post-rain beading all over the car, I guess I did a reasonable job with the wax to get that.

This would come back to bite me.  I'd already filled the extraneous holes in the rear panel using more Gorilla epoxy, because it's pretty good stuff for the application.  I now needed to do the same on the tailgate for reasons of strength on the panel.  I had got some longer screws to accomodate the extra thickness of the foam I'd fitted to the panel and, annoyingly, one of the holes stripped the thread and broke the surface of the panel so to fix that I needed to fill and redrill the hole.  A simple matter of putting tape on the reverse of the panel and filling with glue from the front, then leaving the tailgate open (disconnecting the boot light) for as long as it took the epoxy to set.

There's been a lot of holes drilled in this panel over the years.  I'd already done the same to the rear panel, then fitted the new self-adhesive foam sheet to try and elimate the risk of damaging the trim panel and cut down on the rattling it made when the tailgate was closed.  I had planned to make a tape template from the rear panel to make drilling the holes easier, however because I'd waxed the rear panel, the tape just fell off.  So it was the tried and tested method of measuring carefully and drilling the holes... then finding you'd managed to somehow cock up the measuring and drill the holes in the correct place.

With that all ready to go, I drilled out the epoxy-filled holes on the tailgate in the appropriate place and screwed the trim panel down.  The foam does help a lot and makes the delicate reflective panel feel less delicate while also keeping that nice thunk that the BX tailgate has due to it weighing a lot.

Unfortunately, as I was tightening the screw that had previously stripped the thread on the hole I'd filled, very carefully I might add, I found a soft spot on the epoxy that hadn't cured (presumably because it's too cold outside for this job) so now one side is a little loose and I can't do anything about that until tomorrow when the epoxy should be fully cured.  Oh well, that's how these jobs go sometimes.  Of interest is that the original tailgate lock solenoid is still in the tailgate, presumably broken since someone fitted a manual lock to the tailgate.  If I can get hold of a proper BX button and the correct solenoid, I'd like to return this to standard so all the locks work off the central locking properly.

I have to agree with popular opinion on the rear panel, the car does look just that bit more finished at the back with it fitted.  Tomorrow I'll redo the epoxy that hasn't quite gone right and all should be good. I've also got an experiment to fix the front window weatherstrips that are rolling under because the flocking has gone on the top edge.  This experiment involves glue, and velvet ribbon and a trial run highlighted that it has promise as a solution.

[Broadsword]

Agreed. That finishes off the rear end nicely.

[500tops]

I love this thread

[dean36014]

According to one of the previous owners it always had a keyed boot lock. Seems strange but that's why I never changed it.

[vulgalour]

If it's always had a keyed lock, why is there a solenoid in there?

[dean36014]

No idea, I'd never removed that panel. I'm only passing on what I was told.  Maybe the hatch has been changed from original? 

[MorrisItalSLX]

That does look grand with the tailblazer.

Would it be worth attaching the whole lot with a couple nuts and bolts rather than screws for some added strength?

[richardmorris]

21 hours ago, vulgalour said:

If it's always had a keyed lock, why is there a solenoid in there?

If it's like the CX then you use the key in the lock to isolate it from the car central locking. 

[vulgalour]

The solenoid doesn't operate at all at the moment, it doesn't seem to even be connected to anything, it's just there.  The manual lock doesn't have anything to do with it so far as I can tell.

[richardmorris]

An RD spec would have had central locking all round- all my dad’s ones did.

[mat_the_cat]

5 hours ago, richardmorris said:

If it's like the CX then you use the key in the lock to isolate it from the car central locking. 

The BXs were different  - if you have central locking you have no keyhole on the boot lid. Bit of an inconvenience sometimes, if you only want to get in the boot. It's a puzzle why you have both a keyhole, and the solenoid. And if all the locks match the key, it suggests the tailgate is original to the car, but as stated, RD spec should have central locking and no boot keyhole...

[stuboy]

needs a red back flash rear window sticker

[vulgalour]

The key for the tailgate is different to the one for all the other locks which work off the single Citroen key.  The tailgate doesn't look to be a replacement either, it too closely matches the rest of the car for me to think it's ever been off so I guess a previous owner installed the lock because it was cheaper than getting a replacement solenoid for the tailgate.

[vulgalour]

Right, I'm a little bit confused about something on the BX today.  I have a cold (I'm dying!) but I soldiered on (I'm not long for this world!) and checked the Milliput I'd used yesterday had now set.  I decided to go this route because I really didn't trust the rear panel and the Gorilla epoxy to hold the weight of the back panel through two screws since it wasn't a great thickness of material for the screw threads to bite into.  Knowing how strong Milliput is, and the fact it's in a very sheltered location, I'm confident this will be a good strong lasting repair and allow me to more easily fit and remove the rear panel whenever the whim takes me.  It's easy stuff to work with, very cheap, but has a very long cure time of several hours which is even longer if you're leaving it to cure on something outdoors, so overnight it was.  Drilled a 3mm hole which is small than the threads on the screws and let the screws cut their own thread, and now the panel is lovely and secure once more.

While I had access to the tailgate solenoid it seemed rude not to test it.  I could see a plug hanging loose so simply plugged that in and, with the parcel shelf removed just in case, closed the tailgate and tested the central locking.  It works!  So that leads to even more confusion as to why it was unplugged and a key-lock put in there in the first place.  I tested it a few times and it reliably worked locking and unlocking as it ought.  I can only assume it either has an intermittent fault which will manifest at some point in the future, or a previous owner didn't like having to unlock the entire car to get in the boot, so retrofitted the manual lock.  Either way, I'm very pleased it now works properly.  When I'm not full of snot and coughing up a lung, I'll take the passenger door card off and see if the fault there is similarly easy to fix or if I actually need a new solenoid.

Refitted the tailgate panel, pushing the annoying fir tree clips home since that's how Citroen do this, and then enjoyed the pleasing thunk of the tailgate now that the rear panel has that foam layer fitted.  The rear panel also feels much less fragile than it did and doesn't rattle, so I'm very happy with that.

Now just to find a replacement black button for the tailgate so it looks right.

[vulgalour]

After the success of the tailgate central locking - which has been working perfectly fine with no issues so far - I determined to investigate the inoperative passenger door solenoid.  I strongly suspect I'm the first person to be in here since the door was sealed up with the moisture membrane since the solenoid I pulled out was made in West Germany, which hasn't existed for quite some time.  Annoyingly, while the door seal on the same door isn't leaking anywhere near like it was, it is still leaking, so I'll be getting a fresh generic door seal to sort that out because I cannot be doing with water getting into my cars.

I hoped to open the case and find broken plastics or similar inside.  Instead, I found that the case was almost impossible to open.  I got there in the end with a model making saw, some screwdrivers, and a couple of trapped finger tips when the plastic snapped shut on them.  Once inside, there was nothing obvious amiss, I'd managed to break a wire with a screwdriver, but I knew if that was the fault it could be repaired if needed. Nothing visually broken or missing inside once opened, and everything free moving as it should be, where it should be, so far as I could tell.

Now I know what the inside of the door solenoids look like and have a rudimentary understanding of how it all works.  Further inspection revealed the little electric motor was jammed and, after a little patience to free it up, it was found to be dead.  I expect it's worn out brushes inside and even though it's potentially repairable and I could put the case back together and refit it to the car, new replacement solenoids are very easy to acquire, and affordable.  So I've ordered a replacement, which isn't identical but matches where it matters, and has been a successful replacement for other BXers with this problem.

I can't go further with that until the new part arrives, probably early next week, so since the passenger door card was off for this I decided to try out the experiment.  The reason, I believe, that the inner weather strips are rolling when the window goes down is that a lot of the fuzzy flocking is missing, so the plain rubber is grabbing the glass.  Now, you can no doubt get this weatherstripping new online somewhere but I'm a little concerned at how fragile the door cards are so don't want to be fighting the clips off to remove the existing strip, and I fancied giving this experiment a go just in case it does work and can be used on future projects.  The following picture is fuzzier than the the thing I'm trying to illustrate.

After scouring shops - because I'm stubbornly trying to buy things in actual shops still - I secured some velvet ribbon of a suitable width and some hopefully suitable glue.  If this was the exterior weather strip I wouldn't try this experiment because it's exposed to so much more sun and moisture, I hope being the interior strip it wouldn't receive quite as much punishment.  The gecko on the packet is simply an added bonus and not the reason I went for this particular brand.  It seemed more appropriate than a lot of the other offerings on the shelf.

Applied the glue to the weather strip, carefully align the ribbon, and then apply a bajillion tiny bulldog clips to keep everything as secure as possible while the glue sets.  I did check to see if the velvet has a directional pile as it sometimes does, and this one seems to be on the length of the ribbon rather than the width, so it shouldn't bind up against the glass.

When I get the new solenoid fitted, I'll reinstall this panel and we'll see whether or not the experiment is successful.  If it is, I'll do the driver's side too and we'll see how long it lasts.

[vulgalour]

Today has been a busy day and, hopefully, a productive one as a result.  The first thing to arrive was the new door seal, ordered from https://www.carbuilder.com/uk  and I have to say I have absolutely no problem with their service or product so consider them recommended.  After failing to cut the corners on the Princess door seals in the way I wanted to, someone suggested using a mitre saw... I don't have one of those but I do have a model making saw, which is suitable for the task and allowed me to make a nice 45 degree cut.

I'd already measured the door hole and found it needed 3.5 metres of seal for the front door, which meant having to order 4 metres which came out at about £25.  Fitting is very easy, I loosened the screws on the door trims but didn't remove them because that way I can still fit the seal without having to try and re-find the screw holes.  Seal went on lovely and fit really snug, I was very happy.

Then I saw the mistake I didn't know I'd made.  The old seal has a fatter profile than this one so while this one fits on the door rail perfectly as it should, it doesn't get squashed to give a nice seal.  This isn't a fault of the supplier, this is entirely my fault for fudging up the measurements on the old seal because I hadn't compensated for how squashed it was.  This means you could see through the top corner of the door and, presumably, all the water would get in through there too.  Putting the old door seal back on was not an option, since it seems intent on funneling water into the car through the damaged section of it.

My solution, since I'm out of cash until I get paid again, was to make use of the left over foam sheet I bought for the tailgate panel and make some strips of foam to take up the gap and squash the door seal down.  This is such a giffer fix that I'll be off to collect my bus pass shortly since I clearly now qualify.  I used the same foam to replace the bit around the door lock too so the pin doesn't rattle in the door.  You can also see the new membrane I fitted here, because the new door solenoid arrived today.

Happily, the giffer fix did seal the gap and the door has that nice fresh seal resistance when you try and shut it.  I'll probably leave this as is if it keeps the weather out and save up to get all four door seals replaced with new since the old ones are clearly very tired, I just need to find an edge seal that's fat enough.

The other job I did today was the door lock solenoid.  The replacement isn't a direct fit, I did know this from other BXer's threads.  Before getting the drill out, I tested the new solenoid to be sure it was a mechanical failure of the old unit, and not a problem with the wiring.  Happily, the new solenoid works as it should.  To fit, I knew from other BXer threads this wasn't going to be entirely straightforward.  The first problem is that the bolt holes are in different places and the throw on the new solenoid is longer than on the old solenoid.  My initial plan of using one existing hole and drilling a second one for the other bolt hole had to be changed to drilling two fresh holes to compensate for the 10mm extra throw.  Once  that was sorted, I then had to bend the lock rod end around 90 degrees because the new solenoid requires that.  Putting the new solenoid in the vise I could at least use the original bolts to tap threads into the bolt holes in the casing so I didn't have to rummage about for replacement bolts.  All done, it was fitted in the door and while it's a little noisier than the other solenoids, I'm pleased to report it works perfectly and I now, for the first time in my life, have a car where the central locking works on all the doors properly.  Feels dead posh does that.

Working locks, door all sealed up, hopefully a waterproof door seal, the last thing to do was refitting all the door furniture and trying out that velvet ribbon experiment.  I'm calling this a partial success.  Initially the window did not like going down but after a few ups and downs, it worked as well as it used to.  The door seal does still try to roll under and get stuck but nowhere near as bad as before the ribbon treatment, and the window goes up much nicer now than it did.  With a bit of use, the ribbon will probably wear down a bit and might even stop rolling the tiny amount it does in that one spot, but I'll be buying some new weather stripping instead and fixing this properly, in the future.  It'll do for now.

So there you go, that's today's antics up to date.  Oh, and water is still getting in on the driver's side somewhere.  I think I know where, it just means broggling about behind the sound deadening panel in the engine bay and getting my head in the wheelarch, and that's going to have to wait for a day when I have more time.

[mat_the_cat]

Kudos for attempting a nice mitred joint - I've just folded mine round, which seems to work although not original looking.

[vulgalour]

BX had been a bit grumpy about starting first thing lately, and since the weather has been getting a bit colder that probably means the glow plugs need doing.  I've done glow plugs on my old 1.9 non-turbo BX, and on my old 1.9 turbo Xantia, and neither were particularly joyous experiences.  I was expecting this to be similarly unpleasant.  I needn't have worried, it was fiddly on the two outer plugs because of access with the pump and air filter, but was otherwise very straightforward.

I don't know how you diagnose the condition of glowplugs so I have no idea if the old ones are knackered or not by looking at them.  There was goop of some sort on all the threads on the old ones, it looks to have been put there on purpose, there's no signs of diesel or oil leaking down from further up the engine, so I'm going to assume it's some sort of anti-seize and, if it is, that it did what it was supposed to do.  I didn't have any anti-seize, so just put the plugs straight in the holes.

After doing that, the car didn't really start any better or worse but then, it was still warm from driving around.  I'll know if it's improved things tomorrow morning.  The other good bit of news is that the passenger door seal appears to have stopped letting water in and the carpet is drying out nicely.  We've not had much more than a short shower since I fitted the new seal so I'll wait and see what happens when we have a proper downpour before considering it actually fixed.

 

[vulgalour]

As the saying goes; out with the new, in with the old.  The car came to me with a Clarion DXZ388RUSB head unit.  It does radio, CD, and has a USB port.  It's also impossible to use on the move because the buttons are too small and laid out in a way that makes it near impossible to build any sort of muscle memory.  It looks smart enough, and sounds okay, but it was so difficult to use I'd taken to not using it at all.  I'll probably stick it on eBay or something.

The replacement was kindly sent to me by @Steve79 and is a Clarion 918HP radio-cassette with that very period function of having a handle so you can pull it out of your dashboard so it doesn't get nicked.  Plugged it all in and it all works fine, including the tape deck, though I did take a while to figure out the eject button because my manual for this head unit doesn't have an English section.  I now know espulsione is Italian for eject.  Turns out you press the fast forward and rewind buttons together and it becomes the eject button.  I actually prefer the sound quality from this older head unit, it matches the speakers in the car much better, sounds richer and less tinny than the head unit I removed.  I also much prefer the feel of the controls on the old head unit, everything has distinct shapes and locations, so I don't have to look at it to figure out what I'm doing.  Absolute doddle to fit because the wiring in the car hasn't been butchered by anyone so it was simply a case of unplugging one unit and plugging the new one in, along with a little bit of fettling to swap the cages around.

[Ben_O]

How much would you want for the clarion? I think it would suit my Merc

Cheers

Ben

[MorrisItalSLX]

Modern head units can get in the sea.

AM, FM & Cassette. Job done.

[vulgalour]

@Ben_O: Fiver plus postage sound okay?  Saves me the faff of eBay.  Postage should be around the £6-10 mark, depending how it's sent.  Chuck me a PM if this is agreeable.

[Steve79]

3 hours ago, vulgalour said:

As the saying goes; out with the new, in with the old.  The car came to me with a Clarion DXZ388RUSB head unit.  It does radio, CD, and has a USB port.  It's also impossible to use on the move because the buttons are too small and laid out in a way that makes it near impossible to build any sort of muscle memory.  It looks smart enough, and sounds okay, but it was so difficult to use I'd taken to not using it at all.  I'll probably stick it on eBay or something.

The replacement was kindly sent to me by @Steve79 and is a Clarion 918HP radio-cassette with that very period function of having a handle so you can pull it out of your dashboard so it doesn't get nicked.  Plugged it all in and it all works fine, including the tape deck, though I did take a while to figure out the eject button because my manual for this head unit doesn't have an English section.  I now know espulsione is Italian for eject.  Turns out you press the fast forward and rewind buttons together and it becomes the eject button.  I actually prefer the sound quality from this older head unit, it matches the speakers in the car much better, sounds richer and less tinny than the head unit I removed.  I also much prefer the feel of the controls on the old head unit, everything has distinct shapes and locations, so I don't have to look at it to figure out what I'm doing.  Absolute doddle to fit because the wiring in the car hasn't been butchered by anyone so it was simply a case of unplugging one unit and plugging the new one in, along with a little bit of fettling to swap the cages around.

Glad you got it ok Angyl. It was the original unit from a BX TZD I had in 2013 hence the lack of wiring bodgery. The owners manual pack I sent you a while back including the head unit instructions came from the same car as this headunit. 

Here's the poor old bugger in question

[mat_the_cat]

7 hours ago, vulgalour said:

I also much prefer the feel of the controls on the old head unit, everything has distinct shapes and locations, so I don't have to look at it to figure out what I'm doing.

I can't like this enough! If you can't do it by feel alone, it's badly designed IMO, which is why I think touchscreens in cars are a terrible idea.

[stuboy]

On 10/23/2019 at 7:08 PM, vulgalour said:

don't know how you diagnose the condition of glowplugs so I have no idea if the old ones are knackered or not by looking at them.  

jump leads on battery, negative to body of glow plug, and positive  to were nut is and itll light up bright orange/red/white

[mat_the_cat]

Not while they're in your hand, they get warm surprisingly quickly :-o