For sale: BX Meteor

[Noel Tidybeard]

Just now, Fabergé Greggs said:

Thanks- I've some of the proper clamp type ready to go on! 

it was always the answer to questions to Dr Diesel about air bubbles in Diesel car magazine in the '90s

[Fabergé Greggs]

I only ever get an hour here or there to look at this, and always in the dark after work. 

 

So the immobiliser chip doesn't have a box or anything, it's just spliced into various things in the fusebox, and when you put the key in, it completes the circuits again. BASIC! 

 

I've tested it's function with a multimeter and made the corresponding corrective splices in the wiring harness. Something ain't right though: 

 

• The solenoid loses 12v after a second or two. 
• Shorting the solenoid to positive allows the engine to run, but also activates the glow plug relay. 
• Somehow, these 2 circuits are linked in a way they shouldn't be. 

so...

• Can anyone show me how the solenoid should be wired in the engine bay? Mine has definitely been fiddled with as it has a shonky connector to a non-OE wire. 
• Can anyone provide some clarity on fusebox/relay layout? 
• Basically I'd just like to trace the wiring to make sure all is order. 

This is the solenoid wire in near the battery tray. Note the abundance of that green cable which doesn't look kosher. 

Are these OE? Coming from the + terminal. I'm guessing glow plug 12v feed? 

I reckon this must be the glow plug relay and maybe solenoid relay. Abundance of green wires arouses suspicion. There's another relay behind the headlight in a little plastic waterproof sleeve.. anyone else got this? 

 

[Mr Pastry]

Basic I know, but is there a good earth from the engine to the body?  Try it with a jump lead from engine block direct to battery negative?

[Fabergé Greggs]

1 minute ago, Mr Pastry said:

Basic I know, but is there a good earth from the engine to the body?  Try it with a jump lead from engine block direct to battery negative?

Good shout, I haven't tested that, though I'm not sure it would explain the glow plugs coming on with the solenoid shorted? 

[Mr Pastry]

It just might.  If there is a bad earth from the engine, the power tries to find another return route and you can get some odd effects.  Good that you sorted the immobiliser - progress! 

[Tepper]

18 minutes ago, Fabergé Greggs said:

That's the glow plug relay below - good luck getting it sorted! You could try just running a new wire from a switched live to the stop solenoid to see if it behaves itself?

 

 

Edited January 12, 2020 by Tepper
Edit: see you've already tried that with 12v to the solenoid. Never mind!

[mat_the_cat]

The blue box is the glow plug relay, yes. None of the wiring looks non-standard - Citroen seemingly had a surplus of green, yellow and brown wires.

[Tadhg Tiogar]

13 hours ago, mat_the_cat said:

....Citroen seemingly had a surplus of green, yellow and brown wires.

^^

This. Absolutely this.

[Zelandeth]

8 hours ago, Tadhg Tiogar said:

^^

This. Absolutely this.

Better than the one Lada Niva I had where the *entire* loom was pink. 

One thing I do not miss about that thing is doing anything involving wiring.  It gained a heck of a lot of labels in key locations during my ownership!

[Fabergé Greggs]

Sadly not the earth strap. 

 

I've got a bit more info now about the relay wiring in the engine bay, so hopefully I can make it work somehow or other, even if it's just running a new switched live to the solenoid. 

[Fabergé Greggs]

This whole thing is very strange. 

The immobiliser is completely removed.

The wiring diagram tells me that the position 2 ignition switch feeds the glowplug timer, and that same feed also should feed a relay for the stop solenoid. There wasn't a relay so I put one in. 

Whats really curious is that 12v feed loses power for just a fraction of a second, long enough to cut the engine. Putting the relay in has made it work about 50% of the time, and sometimes the engine has enough momentum to overcome the momentary loss of 12v to the solenoid. 

WTF!!!?? I just don't understand this weird cutting out just after starting. You can hear what sounds like a few relays click when it cuts.

The wiring diagram tells me that this is the only thing fed from position 2- I could easily wire the relay from something on position 1 but that doesn't seem right. 

I almost suspect a dodgy ignition switch- what I might do next is take a feed directly from the position 2 wire.. can anyone enlighten me to where I can pick up on that? @mat_the_cat maybe? 

[Mr Pastry]

26 minutes ago, Fabergé Greggs said:

I almost suspect a dodgy ignition switch- what I might do next is take a feed directly from the position 2 wire.. can anyone enlighten me to where I can pick up on that? @mat_the_cat maybe? 

That sounds logical.  Temporary link between positions 1 and 2?

[Fabergé Greggs]

Overcame what I suspect is a dodgy ignition switch with a switch on the dash that can override the occasional loss of power to solenoid when starting. I hate to treat a fault in this way, but hey, there’s lots of blanks in the dash, and it’s got a neat little light to tell you it’s engaged. Starts like a champ every time now. 
 

I celebrated by bringing it home from the work car park. All of this effort tracking down electrical gremlins made me forget that it sometimes stalls after ages sitting idling in D. Not fun in stationary traffic in the Rotherhithe tunnel... 

 

 

[barrett]

Sounds terminal. I've give you a oner for it. 

[Fabergé Greggs]

Took this for a blast out to the beach today and it performed admirably. It’ll happily cruise at 80 without being strained, it just takes a while to get there. I need to do a 0-60 test but I’m guessing around 20 seconds. 
 
Suspension wise, it feels bloody brilliant. A total delight over undulating B roads. 
 

Now that the battery is properly charged it hasn’t had any starting gremlins whatsoever, so that kind of solves that whole mystery ?‍♂️. 
 

There are still some bubbles returning from the pump into the clear fuel hose once it’s turned off, even after replacing the clips with proper hose clamps (they were mega cheap eBay ones though, didn’t feel too strong). It’s not affecting running though, and there’s still a fair chunk of veg in the tank, so I’ll run it to near empty and fill it full of diesel to see if that makes a difference.

 

I reckon it’s ready for a London- Scotland trip pretty soon. I’m interested to figure out the MPG’s on such a mission.  

[Tadhg Tiogar]

13 minutes ago, Fabergé Greggs said:

......I reckon it’s ready for a London- Scotland trip pretty soon. I’m interested to figure out the MPG’s on such a mission. ...

Reckon 60mpg might be possible?

[Fabergé Greggs]

8 minutes ago, Tadhg Tiogar said:

Reckon 60mpg might be possible?

Yeah I reckon if I stuck to 65mph... wonder how much it would tail off with impatience... 

[dean36014]

Broke 60mpg a few times with mine. I think my best has been 65mpg on a drive to Paris.

[Tadhg Tiogar]

5 minutes ago, Fabergé Greggs said:

Yeah I reckon if I stuck to 65mph... wonder how much it would tail off with impatience... 

Last time I drove London-Edinburgh many years ago, I used the A1(M) which was alright for leisurely driving. Even got 35mpg out of 635CSi by not going over 65mph and using all the momentum.

[Fabergé Greggs]

On 12/12/2019 at 10:27 PM, vulgalour said:

I'm not getting any bubbles going into or out of the filter housing, the bubbles appear out of the pump fuel inlet when you turn the engine off.  I assume this points to pump rather than filter housing as the cause.

Any progress on this, Vulg? 

[vulgalour]

The problem went away of its own accord so... *Gallic shrug*

[Cleon-Fonte]

Bear in mind that those pumps are designed to vent themselves and bubbling from the pump does not necessarily mean that's where the air is coming from, merely that it's making it to the pump and being expelled.

If it's not causing any running issues I'd leave it, but if it does the first thing I'd look to do is bin the utterly, tragically shit filter housing that will always let air in and replace it with an inline filter from a E46 BMW 320d. It cured all my mystery air ingress issues, even though by that point I no longer suspected the (newly rebuilt) filter housing as the culprit.

[Fabergé Greggs]

3 hours ago, Cleon-Fonte said:

Bear in mind that those pumps are designed to vent themselves and bubbling from the pump does not necessarily mean that's where the air is coming from, merely that it's making it to the pump and being expelled.

If it's not causing any running issues I'd leave it, but if it does the first thing I'd look to do is bin the utterly, tragically shit filter housing that will always let air in and replace it with an inline filter from a E46 BMW 320d. It cured all my mystery air ingress issues, even though by that point I no longer suspected the (newly rebuilt) filter housing as the culprit.

Interesting.. I'm using one of these filter housings: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/264446960963?ul_noapp=true 

Are they the ones you reckon are tragically shit or were you meaning the old lucas one ? 

[Fabergé Greggs]

Maybe it’s too early to tell, but after lobbing 30 litres of dizzle into the tank it seems a bit less fluffy in traffic and less bubbles in the hose. 
 

Maybe my veg adventures are over until the weather warms up a bit at least... 

[vulgalour]

I had a remember!  When I had the old BX estate I was running that on veg but I found that it wasn't always happy, being a bit 'off' idling, particularly after a motorway slog.  Pinned it down eventually to one of the oil types I was using not being to its preference, I think it was Tesco Sunflower that it liked while it got the mards on if you put Vegetable or Rapeseed in... or the other way around.  Either way, it was happy on one kind of oil above the others and as long as you didn't mix it with anything other than diesel it continued to be happy.  It also seemed to prefer filtered used oil over fresh unused oil, though I'm not sure why that would be.

[New POD]

Maybe the cooking breaks the molecular chain in some way? So it's half combusted already? 

[New POD]

Or maybe the cooking removed any h20? So it's more oil and less water 

[New POD]

I shall ask a scientist later. 

[New POD]

I shall ask a scientist later. 

[New POD]

Would the viscosity change with cooking or type of oil. ?