Andy's awful autos: White shitening

[Andyrew]

1 hour ago, DeanH said:

Those patches are amazing, really well formed. I wouldn't have a chance at making such a nice job of that.

Cheers!

The shrinker and stretcher tools are used to form the front double curve of that panel then I welded it to a flat bit and dressed the welds back. They are very handy tools to have. First thing I made with them was an oversized gingerbread man cutter.

 

[Andyrew]

Some satin black, then the awful job of underseal. I hate underseal but as the car already had it it makes sense to give it a coat. 

undersealed and exhaust refitted and we are done (appart from the mudflap once the underseal has dried)

[beko1987]

3 hours ago, Andyrew said:

Cheers!

The shrinker and stretcher tools are used to form the front double curve of that panel then I welded it to a flat bit and dressed the welds back. They are very handy tools to have. First thing I made with them was an oversized gingerbread man cutter.

 

Correct sized* gingerbread cutter 👌

[Popsicle]

Some gorgeous fabrication repair skills on show here - very impressive.

[Andyrew]

To BXpected

Put this up on here

We appear to be leaking in a few places. 2 fairly sizable leaks. One from the rear height thingy. And one is leaking on the nearside and dripping from the subframe. 

Doesn't this just look like the stuff of nightmares!

its also leaking diesel, oil, engine and gearbox and possibly a tiny bit of coolant. 

screenwash looks fine tho, so thats a win!

 

[Floatylight]

Great to see you've found your shite fettling mojo @Andyrew

[grogee]

2 hours ago, Andyrew said:

leaking diesel, oil, engine and gearbox and possibly a tiny bit of coolant

Attention seeking mare (the car, not you) 

[artdjones]

12 hours ago, Andyrew said:

To BXpected

Put this up on here

We appear to be leaking in a few places. 2 fairly sizable leaks. One from the rear height thingy. And one is leaking on the nearside and dripping from the subframe. 

Doesn't this just look like the stuff of nightmares!

its also leaking diesel, oil, engine and gearbox and possibly a tiny bit of coolant. 

screenwash looks fine tho, so thats a win!

 

Yum.

The height corrector has a return connection check that first. If it's not that, repair kits are available.

https://shop.citroenclassics.co.uk/height-corrector-repair-kit---lhm-253-p.asp

If any metal pipe joints are leaking don't try and cure them by tightening (if they are reasonably tight already). It's not the tightness that makes the seal. Always use a flare spanner, the unions are fairly thin tubes, easily rounded off. New seals are less than £1.

 

[Andyrew]

Today the wee trabby left

Decided to take a look under the BX. It had left its mark overnight. Quite substantial it must be said.

Found a damaged low pressure return? 

Chucked some random clear pipe that was the right size on for now and will check if it's fixed it for now. 

 

[Andyrew]

Today i Also learned that even if the cars on the deck there's alot of pressure maintained in the lines at the rear. 

Me earlier after undoing said line.

[Sigmund Fraud]

1 hour ago, Andyrew said:

Today i Also learned that even if the cars on the deck there's alot of pressure maintained in the lines at the rear.

Did you undo the pressure release valve bolt on the pressure regulator ?

[Andyrew]

37 minutes ago, Sigmund Fraud said:

Did you undo the pressure release valve bolt on the pressure regulator ?

A union that's into the height corrector valve thingy

[Sigmund Fraud]

48 minutes ago, Andyrew said:

A union that's into the height corrector valve thingy

What I meant is that there's a way to release the hydraulic pressure by undoing a bolt on the pressure regulator (by the accumulator sphere, in the engine bay). That could have helped avoid your impromptu LHM shower !

[Andyrew]

Rear end seepage

With the bucket having a large amount of LHM in it this morning I figured I'd have a look at the rear end leak too. The culprit appearing to be this height corrector unit. 

Exhaust removed, 8mm flare nut spanner  and a short sharp love tap got the unions released nicely. As said above, releasing said pipe then caused me to be showered in LHM. 

Unit removed, end caps popped off and grime cleaned off.

Everything Cleaned, refitted to the car and nipped up. The split end boot got a smear of polyurethane sealant over the slit.

Ran the car and cycled the suspension multiple times and so far . . . 

Even if it does leak overnight I'll be happy if it's slowed the volume. Also I wanted to make sure the unit was in good enough shape to come appart.

 

[Talbot]

7 hours ago, Sigmund Fraud said:

Did you undo the pressure release valve bolt on the pressure regulator ?

 

7 hours ago, Andyrew said:

A union that's into the height corrector valve thingy

Before working on any of the pressurised LHM systems on hydro-citroens, you should always undo the release bolt on the pressure regulator.  It's a 12mm head bolt that faces the offside wing on the pressure regulator (bolted to the front of the gearbox).  Doing so releases pressure back to the reservoir.  Also, putting the height control in "low" releases all the pressure in the suspension systems back to the reservoir.. you can get all the pressure out before releasing any unions.  Important, as the running pressure of the system is dangerously high.

[Stinkwheel]

10 hours ago, Talbot said:

 

Before working on any of the pressurised LHM systems on hydro-citroens, you should always undo the release bolt on the pressure regulator.  It's a 12mm head bolt that faces the offside wing on the pressure regulator (bolted to the front of the gearbox).  Doing so releases pressure back to the reservoir.  Also, putting the height control in "low" releases all the pressure in the suspension systems back to the reservoir.. you can get all the pressure out before releasing any unions.  Important, as the running pressure of the system is dangerously high.

VERY much agree, must release pressure first on all hydraulic Citroens.

When i was a young and stupid CX GTI Turbo 1 Series 2 owner of 20 years old I failed to appreciate this and very nearly took my own head off whilst undoing an accumulator sphere to change it. Seriously, it would have killed me dead if my head had been a further 10cm over to where it was.

Citroen Hydraulic fluid at pressure is likely to either forcibly enter your body or maybe even cut off body parts like a water jet cutter.

Having said that, I'm glad the BX is getting some love and I apologise for putting the wind up anyone working on LHM circuits

[Talbot]

1 hour ago, Stinkwheel said:

I apologise for putting the wind up anyone working on LHM circuits

It's no different to working on Diesel injection systems.  They are dangerous under certain circumstances and you just have to take the right care.

[Talbot]

17 hours ago, Andyrew said:

Rear end seepage

 

[RayMK]

10 hours ago, Talbot said:

It's no different to working on Diesel injection systems.  They are dangerous under certain circumstances and you just have to take the right care.

Totally agree.  In fact, much nicer to work on than coil springs and spring clamps.  They have given me a close call (Renault 12TS front spring.  One of the clamps slipped round the coil and the spring explosively went banana shaped, damaging the body work and just missing my head.  The rest of the removal was conducted using a long pole to prod the damned thing to make sure it was a stable banana- after a change in clothing.  I then gingerly laced it with rope and more clamps to make it less aggressive. I have not touched front coils since).

[LightBulbFun]

6 minutes ago, RayMK said:

Totally agree.  In fact, much nicer to work on than coil springs and spring clamps.  They have given me a close call (Renault 12TS front spring.  One of the clamps slipped round the coil and the spring explosively went banana shaped, damaging the body work and just missing my head.  The rest of the removal was conducted using a long pole to prod the damned thing to make sure it was a stable banana- after a change in clothing.  I then gingerly laced it with rope and more clamps to make it less aggressive. I have not touched front coils since).

im sorry It certainly sounds like it was quite terrifying, but the way you described "went explosively banana shaped" and "make sure it was a stable banana" that made me laugh quite a bit  (theres a joke about a weapons grade/nuclear banana in there somewhere)

(I dont have any direct experience of coil springs but I do remember that when the broken spring on @Six-cylinder's Astra van was being replaced, how half of everyone at the FoD made a sudden hasty retreat the moment the spring compressor came out "runaway!")

 

[Zelandeth]

14 hours ago, LightBulbFun said:

im sorry It certainly sounds like it was quite terrifying, but the way you described "went explosively banana shaped" and "make sure it was a stable banana" that made me laugh quite a bit  (theres a joke about a weapons grade/nuclear banana in there somewhere)

(I dont have any direct experience of coil springs but I do remember that when the broken spring on @Six-cylinder's Astra van was being replaced, how half of everyone at the FoD made a sudden hasty retreat the moment the spring compressor came out "runaway!")

 

My experience of how much stored energy is in an even seemingly extended spring was given to me in Sharpewood Spares yard just outside Huntly.  Sadly no longer there - was a good yard, even if their prices could be a bit steep sometimes.

We were after a rear suspension arm for a Nissan Sunny.  We found one already on its side and set about removing things.  We were young and stupid and assumed that most of the tension must be off the spring in that state.  Nevertheless we weren't catastrophically stupid so we're staying well out the line of fire when the last bolt was removed, and as we weren't entirely sure how much energy was involved, made sure there was nobody downrange.  When the last bolt holding it together (I can't remember which one - I this is 20+ years ago) was knocked out there was an almighty bang which left our ears ringing, the car we were working on vanished in a cloud of dust and both the suspension arm and spring as far as we could tell simply dematerialised.  We did eventually find the arm - embedded in the ground 50' plus away from the site of the incident - never found the spring though!  I reckon it's probably still somewhere in orbit.

That could have ended up FAR worse if we'd been even a fraction more stupid.  Ever since then I've simply flat refused to mess with coil springs.  Beyond removing a broken (and actually totally de-tensioned to the point it could be moved around on the seat by hand) one from a 306 so we could roll it without tearing the tyre up anyway.  Citroen hydraulics don't scare me, you just need to respect them.  Springs, just nope.  That's a job for someone else.

[Andyrew]

On 07/07/2024 at 22:19, Andyrew said:

New shoes!

Today the tyre machine once again proved its worth and the silver Astra recieved the third full set of boots under my ownership. 

First were uniroyal rain experts which were great but only seem to get maybe 12k out of them. With a liking to try other things the following set i went for were falken sinceras. Which i found made more road noise than the unis but have done 20k ish so overall they were good. Theres not many but a few miles left in them so the will be headed off to go on the @Six-cylinder royale before heading in the bin. 

This time around i went for kumhos

The mid range choice in this tyre size is getting thin now. Its mostly top range or proper budget. While cheapo tyres have a place. I do sometimes press on and chuck the car about so like to know that something semi decent is on the ground. 

 

 

Well an update in these tyres.  Shite

All 4 are splitting in under a year.

 

 

[SiC]

27 minutes ago, Andyrew said:

Well an update in these tyres.  Shite

All 4 are splitting in under a year.

 

 

The Bridgestones on Mrs SiC Civic were splitting much worse than that on the sidewalls after only 2yrs 😐

[Andyrew]

11 minutes ago, SiC said:

The Bridgestones on Mrs SiC Civic were splitting much worse than that on the sidewalls after only 2yrs 😐

Will ring camskill on Tuesday and see what the warranty is on them. Sub a year and maybe even under 10k is pretty shite. 

[juular]

2 hours ago, Andyrew said:

Well an update in these tyres.  Shite

All 4 are splitting in under a year.

 

 

Mostly only had good things to say about Kumhos except the horrendously high rate of wear.  I suppose having a very soft compound is how they manage to be grippy.

That cracking isn't acceptable at all, hopefully you get those refunded or swapped.

[Andyrew]

15 hours ago, juular said:

Mostly only had good things to say about Kumhos except the horrendously high rate of wear.  I suppose having a very soft compound is how they manage to be grippy.

That cracking isn't acceptable at all, hopefully you get those refunded or swapped.

Fitted another model of kumho tyre on the mondeo featured here prior to fitting mine. that's a short journey car, bigger and heavy. Tyres seem to be just fine on that. 

Hopefully camskill will be helpful 

[Andyrew]

Rattle can resprays

Today a friend popped over with this chunk of laser goodness having been off the road many years. He's done a top job of welding and fixing it all himself on a driveway over the past few years. Now rocking a fresh MOT

After he sent a photo of the boot in primer just as the rain had started and a bird had shit on it I suggested he bring it over today and use the workshop. The finish was meh but will be good enough after a flat and polish and not look out of place on this worn  wagon. Do like a capri, scruffier the better. 

[Matty]

On 18/04/2025 at 16:02, SiC said:

The Bridgestones on Mrs SiC Civic were splitting much worse than that on the sidewalls after only 2yrs 😐

I've got hankooks on all 3 cars at the moment and they seem to be up to it. Worryingly I've just had Kumhos put on them new alloys for the Spit as there wasn't any Hankooks in the right size in the country at the moment.  

I had a similar experience of cracking with Avons. Used to swear bt them but a pair went like that in about 18 months.

[Andyrew]

Talking of tyres, let's fit some shall we. 

Old off

New on

A pair of Goodride budgets. Seem nicely made but time will tell, sadly my balancer is having some issues so im not 100% confident on the balancing, ill ask the my friend to let me know if any steering wheel wobble occurs. 

[Andyrew]

Right then, will you run well enough to get on the lift today you sack of turds?