FatHarris' Citroen BX - SLIGHTLY LESS BROKEN ***UPDATED 10/6 - MINOR UPDATE AND PICTURES***

[fatharris]

 

...six.

 

 

 

 

Sorry, no collection pictures, it was a spur of the moment thing. This came up for sale on FB at £NotMuch a week and a half ago, and I missed it back then.

 

Came back up for sale today at £SlightlyHigherButStillPrettyLow, so a friend and I went halves on it this afternoon. It's a 1.6 Petrol manual.

 

It drives pretty damn nicely, carb needs tweaking and there's a weird cut into the chassis rail that needs welding up (nothing serious, just weird) and a little bit more fettling to see an MOT but we're dead chuffed with it.

 

More pictures to follow when the weather is better and I get time to give it a proper scrub. The interior is immaculate though. Plan is to clean it up, get it running bang on and keep it as a treat

 

As you can expect, MrsH was fucking thrilled that I kept my promise and reduced my car count over 2019.

 

 

 

 

[320touring]

Good man, saved me having to buy it!

 

 

[Jim Bell]

There's loads of 2019 left yet to shift cars man. Well bought!

[billy_bunter]

Very impressive Pollard.

 

ATCNBE

 

[500tops]

You're Steve McDonald AICMFP

 

Nice Bee Arks

[brownnova]

Purchasage c’est super!! 

[dieselassist]

c'est ca!! ...six is an acceptable no; same as myself (I think!), tho I have a few 'halves' which are either car bodies/shells so I don't count them... I try to stay away from 'odd number of cars' as it creates 'storage anomalies ' so I aim for the even numbers; rarely sell one but a new purchase gets me into the even numbers again- you have to have a system as harry hill says...

[fatharris]

Naturally, I gave it a wash today. Digging around the glovebox uncovered this awesome little freebie!

 

A tie pin of indeterminate age. Keeping it in the car for luck now  there was also a Citroen touch up pen in the glovebox, but I'm not entirely convinced it's a good match....

I have come across a small pool of water in the boot around the area of a previous welding repair. The water was being retained by a sponge pad glued to the boot floor, so that's been scraped off and the area left to dry.

The wheel trims have been launched into the fucking bin because they're shit. Actual BX ones inbound courtesy of Jim Bell, the little bloody legend he is.

So, who wants loads of wanky artsy photos of a BX? Full write up below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The fleet all in one photo (Including the garage if you squint!

 

So, it's a Citroen BX 16 TXS. It's a 1.6 petrol manual with 88k on the clock. Spec includes central locking, electric front windows and electric sunroof. ALL BLOODY WORK TOO.

There's an LHM weep on the OSR unit and the carb isn't in the rudest of health, but it seems like a lovely little honest car. Since joining the BX club on FB this afternoon, I've already spoken to one previous owner, and possibly another (he had pictures of it back in the day, so hopefully he knows more about it!) Had a cambelt in 2012. Weirdly, it only had 37k on the clock in '12, now 7 years later, it's shot up to 88k!

The stereos been taken out in the past and it's had the GTi alloys swapped out for steels, but I'm not that bothered (it had two new tyres on the front in the beginning of the year).

So, downsides? Mainly cosmetic.

 

 

 

 

 

Also this delightful little bodge on the carb. No wonder he's a bit of a prick to start sometimes.

 

 

It's also got a really weird cut in the chassis rail. Looks like someone has literally just cut into it with an angle grinder in a straight line and left it. It's easily weldable, just puzzling.

So there you have it. I'll update this as it progresses. If anyone has any contacts for spare parts suppliers, I'm always all ears for that.

Cheers!

[rantingYoof]

I personally think the fleet shot there is calendar worthy just for diversity alone!

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[fatharris]

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[fatharris]

Been very quiet with this as work and other stuff has got in the way.

Dan put it through an MOT the other day:



And we (him mostly) have been chipping away at it, with some help from Phill to get the carb running better. A bit tricky, as it isn't the original and the previous owner has bastardised a bracket for all the cables.

I popped in today and got given the job of the duff rear fog light. 'Not a problem!' I thought, changing the bulb.

Nah.

Further investigation revealed the telltale switch light was illuminating very dimly, with no voltage to the bulb contact. Changed the fuse to nil effect too. Then we looked at the wiring diagram and delved into Phill's spares. Luckily, he had a spare foglight switch, but that was not the cause. Eventually, we tracked the faulty component, the headlight switch.

Unbelievably, the date stamp proved to be a recent replacement:



Once again we dived back into the spares pile and miraculously, Phill had a headlight switch! A quick functional test revealed that all was working once again.

As a bonus, we discovered the cause of no instrument backlighting - the dimming switch had become disconnected, which was promptly plugged back in and we now had backlighting!

Once reassembled, we tested it again, and discovered the indicators and hazards suddenly weren't working. Phill had a spare hazard switch which was much smoother in operation so that was fitted, before I realised I dislodged the fuse when re-seating the fusebox back in its cubby.

Finally, I fitted the rear number plate. Back in for retest tomorrow, fingers crossed!

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[Jim Bell]

French electric does what it wants to do. 

[Tomtation]

Mk1 Laguna and a BX? U R winning at life! Lush BX trims too.

BM looks menacing, what's in the garage?

[fatharris]

Mk1 Laguna and a BX? U R winning at life! Lush BX trims too.
BM looks menacing, what's in the garage?

A '92 Honda Beat and a '91 Mini, the other shitbags in my life.

Both very firmly in the "Project" category requiring a LOT of welding. As usual, life/time/lack of skill has forced them into the garage for many years, but at least they're dry and not going anywhere

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[Tomtation]

Honda Beat looks cool, didn't even know they existed - now I want one! Just had a little search, they're not cheap either!

[fatharris]

Honda Beat looks cool, didn't even know they existed - now I want one! Just had a little search, they're not cheap either!

This one was very cheap, hence my total shock* when I put my finger through 90% of it.

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[fatharris]

A momentous week saw us finally insure and tax this old girl and start gently breaking her in.

 

First things first, pez shot.

 

 

Turns out the filler neck is a bit crusty.

 

 

Driving back home from the petrol station, I ran through a puddle and it started misfiring badly. Luckily, the drive home was downhill so it got back no dramas.

 

Didn't take long to see the fault. Whilst it looked connected from the outside, the king lead was barely hanging on. Took it off to inspect and noted it was heavily corroded.

 

 

Thankfully, there's no shortage of NOS items on eBay, so I've got a new coil, dizzy cap, rotor arm and HT leads for £38. They'll get fitted when it all arrives.

 

Reseated the king lead connector and it was fine. The car is running rich, the idle is 1500rpm, and it's a bit of a sluggish starter, but when running and driving, it is lovely.

 

Even used it to do the lunch run.

 

 

The stereo loom adapter loom arrived so I fitted the stereo whilst waiting for the speakers to arrive.

 

Whilst scrabbling around, I noticed the tyres looked a bit....retro.

 

 

 

For those who can't see, that's a date code of '441'. Which makes it TWENTY NINE YEARS OLD. This was clearly the spare wheel once upon a time.

 

The other rear tyre wasn't much better.

 

 

 

That was only 19 years old!

 

So, naturally, carrying the wife and boy in this current configuration wasn't desirable.

 

Luckily, the spare set of wheels on the Laguna had the correct tyre sizes.

 

So, it was time to get to work.

 

 

 

 

Quite pleased with this, as I haven't changed a tyre in a wheel in nearly fifteen years when I did a week's work experience in a Honda garage

 

Once that was done, the front door cards were removed to clean and lubricate the door handle and lock linkages as the front handles were stiff, which didn't bode well for the thin and flimsy 28 year old door handles.

 

 

Now, they're smooth as silk. Happy days!

 

Finally, the old girl was let out...

 

 

And taken home, where there were a fresh set of speakers waiting to go in. Sadly, the original grilles don't fit over them so the speakers will be changed again for ones that fit. For now, it's nice to have music in the car again.

 

Lastly, the car was quickly washed and vacuumed before handing it over to Dan to enjoy it for the weekend.

 

 

And that's your lot! There are a few big jobs coming up soon including an LHM pump change so fingers crossed it goes smoothly I'd clocked up 160 miles this week and had a blast doing so

 

 

 

 

 

 

[fatharris]

This has been under my wing again for a while as I'm still working during this lockdown and it seemed silly to let it stand doing nothing.

It's still a pig to start but it's definitely the manual choke conversion that has been botched. If anyone has any good pictures/information, I'll be very grateful! 

The ignition system has had a bit of an overhaul including new dry coil, HT leads, distributor cap and rotor arm, which were all past their best. I'll get around to checking the timing when the weather improves.

One thing that will be getting changed soon are the front tyres. They were replaced by one of the previous owners and are all but new, but they're a dogshit brand (Debica) and whilst they may be the original size, they're just too narrow. The tyres I liberated from the Laguna's alloys to replaced the incredibly ancient rear tyres fitted the wheels nicely and were much wider, so I'll investigate replacing the fronts with the same size as the rears.

Aside from that, it's been a very pleasant car to drive. During the first week after the MOT, the orange coolant temperature light would come on after 11 miles of driving.  The coolant level was checked and found to be low so that was topped up with no discernible loss thereafter. This week, I removed the front grilled and cooling fan to check the front of the radiator to find the bottom half of it absolutely plastered with dead leaves and other debris.

That's been cleaned up now so hopefully that'll be all right for a bit, Needs a full coolant flush/change though as I'm beginning to suspect there isn't actually any coolant in it at all.

Finally, last week I got some better photos of the BX at work - there's another set ready to go, but they're waiting for a little while for a good reason

 

Cheers for reading  

[barrett]

Great photos, the car looks really smart. Well done, too, for fitting the best wheeltrims in the world to it. Worth more than the car, probably. This is a great spec car, I think those 1.6 engines are really sweet and pretty refined for an old carb lump. It pains me to say, but they probably suit the BX's wafty nature better than an XUD.

I really, really, really, really must get my BX on the road before I die/petrol runs out/the world ends/ it rots away

 

edit: can you please get a replacement number plate for the front, now, and replace that stupid 'euro' thing

[fatharris]

So, with the sun shining, and Grand Emperor Johnson decreeing that we can go outside, we loaded up in the BX to go get some strawberries and eat them on the beach!



First time we had been out in the car together for weeks, sun shining:





What could go wrong?



Yep, she did FTP, with the tacho suddenly dropping to zero and losing power to the engine. It kept going off and on, and we eventually limped it to a car park to investigate. All connections seemed secure and after a few minutes, it started up.

MrsH had decided that the car had it's only chance and told me to turn around and try and get us home. At least it couldn't get worse, eh?



Oh balls.

Still, without wanting to ruin the vibe of the day, we abandoned the BX on the driveway, hopped into Herman:



And enjoyed our strawberries and cream on the beach





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[hairnet]

ya shoulda let mini harris fix it 

 

[fatharris]

Now back home, it was time to do some fault investigation. I had two faults to look into - the overheating, and the cutting out.

Typically, I was unable to recreate the cutting out fault on the driveway despite leaving it idling for an hour to aid diagnosis of the overheating snag. I chose to ignore it as it was probably a flash in the pan type of fault.

So, the overheating snag. First thing I observed was the total lack of cooling fan. I already knew from the last time I was working in the area that it wasn't siezed. But would it spin with 12v applied?

Step forth, my trusty bit of 3 core:



This, applied to a separate battery proved successful, as the fan span into life. Through various continuity and voltage checks, transposing relays for serviceability checks as well as some advice from[mention=17246]twosmoke300[/mention], I eventually bridged the coolant temp fan switch, as well as the cooling fan slow speed resistor, which was successful.



Inspecting the body of the resistor proved I didn't need to search any further:



A quick check with the multimeter revealed an open loop, meaning this thing was well and truly arseholed.

Naturally, this meant the car was staying off the road whilst parts were ordered/delivered.

So, a visit to Phill produced some very much needed spares (thanks mate) to tide up some bits around the car and fix some other issues I was having, namely the wing mirror trim, headlight switch (ours was rubbish on applying full beam), a pair of front indicators, a parcel shelf and a pair of orange rear lights.

Inspired by the same change I made on my Xantia many years ago:



I thought I'd give it a go on the BX.

Opinions?





I'm still torn, I do love orange lights on a grey car but it also really suited the original smoked lights. Ah well, they don't need any tools to swap over so it's no hassle to flit between the two

Next up, the parcel shelf - a rarity in itself. Sadly, I am not a BX expert - made all the more apparent when I picked up an estate shelf!



Luckily, those industrious chaps at Citroen made it so you could modify an estate shelf into a hatchback one with minimal work.

Naturally, due to years of being in storage, it was in need of a clean. This was promptly hoovered:



And pressure washed/scrubbed with detergent and a scrubbing brush, before pressure washing it and leaving it to bake dry in the car.



Even the retractable sunvisors for the scrubbing treatment!



Whilst that was done, I wanted to test out the theory that you could spray paint carpets etc, to match your interior colour. As lovely as the shelf was, it was the wrong colour. Luckily, there was a spare bit of parcel shelf left over from changing it to a hatchback one, so I cracked out a can of black for a test bit:



This was left to dry in the blazing sun for 30 minutes before being scrubbed with a stiff bristle brush to free up some of the fibres.

Colour match isn't too bad at all!



Next time I'm out, I'll be grabbing a couple of cans of black and doing the parcel shelf. Watch this space.

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[fatharris]

Shortly after the parcel shelf shenanigans, I got two parcels.



One turned out to be totally unrelated (phone charger), but the other one made me very happy:



The cooling fan slow speed resistor, and another treat, the fuel filler neck retainer, which had all but rotted away on our example. All in all, about £70 spent.

So, easiest one first, the resistor. Plugged straight in, ran and left it running, until eventually cooling fans kicked in. Happy days. Front fascia panel put back on.



Next, the filler neck retainer. Was expecting it to be a bastard to come off, was very pleasantly surprised.



Was rotten as hell though. My advice? Buy the fitting kit it is advertised alongside. The rubber seal I had from the car was not in good nick, but it has an o-ring to seal properly. Top tip for that, a smear of vaseline (I use vicks vaporub ) on the o-ring will keep it in place and stop it falling off whilst assembling.



And it was a piece of cake.

So, onto today then. I purchased something on eBay and it finally arrived:



This would be the answer to my prayers as the car is a bit of a prick to start when cold, courtesy of this delightful* removal of the autochoke system by a previous owner.

Notice anything up with it?



That's right, operating the choke only operates the choke flap and has no interation with the throttle at all.

Sadly, this kit requires the housing for the auto choke, which was removed, so that'll have to wait for another day.

Quick check of the air filter. Date stamp was 2015 so well overdue.



Bit grotty too.



Finally, a bit of ignition timing with the assistance of MrsH, found it was retarded by several degrees, which would explain the lacklustre performance.



Finally, with all this work done, I was confident this car was a good runner once more...



Ah, fuck it.

Basically, it cut out again as I was reversing out of the driveway. Me being me, I assumed it was a choke issue (despite the engine still being warm from the timing, I am a dumbass) so sat there turning it over for an eternity until it eventually started again.

I got halfway up the hill out of the village, marvelling at how much extra power the timing change had brought about when it cut out again, this time nothing I could do would coax it back into life. More awkwardly, I was on the wrong side of the road as I was overtaking a cyclist at the time.

Sadly, this meant I popped it into neutral and rolled it backwards down the hill, towards the house. My driveway is uphill, so that was never going to happen, so I worked on it where it stopped.

First thing I did was check all connections were fine. Then I took No.1 plug out to check for a spark, with none forthcoming. Thankfully, when I changed a load of ignition bits with NOS parts (coil, rotor arm, dizzy cap and HT leads), I kept the old ones, so I swapped out the rotor arm and the old girl fired into action once more.

The drive up to my destination was a rousing success, so I naturally thought I cracked it. This proved to be not the case at all on the dual carriageway home where it cut out for a good 15 seconds, making loads of poo come out. Mercifully, it started working again and I got it home where it conked out again on the way up the driveway.

Suspecting a coil breakdown when it's hot, I've stripped the coil connector to clean it up and refitted the old coil. A test drive in the next couple of days will reveal if that has proven to be successful.

And you're up to date with the BX it'll be getting some more maintenance in the not too distant future when it gets handed over to Dan for a bit.

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[jon.k]

I know what you mean about the orange lights usually but the smoked lights look great on your dark car and add to its suave and subtly sporty appearance.

[Skizzer]

My BX did that. It was a 14RE so not necessarily the same problem.

I eventually solved* it by giving it away to my sister, who as a result didn’t speak to me for years after but we’re good now. Never did find out what was wrong with the BX. It’s long dead now.

[hairnet]

gingercators are usually ALL TEH TIME

but on that theyre ok as thats whats supposed to be there :)

 

[Asimo]

 

      ☹️

 

    ?

[somewhatfoolish]

Gingercators are for winners.

[sdkrc]

That Xantia with gingercators is the sexiest thing I've ever seen

[UltraWomble]

I like the smoked ones, but thats just me. They were cool in the 80's.