BXcellent- tech prob need advice pls

[Shep Shepherd]

GR11 car! It reminds me of the metallic grey 1990 16TZS auto that my mother owned in the early 2000s*, which looked very similar to yours, although its paint was a couple of shades lighter. It had transparent upper rear quarters, too

 

 

 

*I drove it quite often. As a consequence, I have liked BXs ever since

[KruJoe]

Shep in "Likes something other than Volvos" shocker! *

 

 

 

That is indeed B-EXcellent. I do like those crazy wheel trims. I love the way Citroen so often have ignored the fashions governing the rest of the market. Why must a wheel trim try to look like a alloy wheel? Nah - do something interesting!

 

Lovely write-up Rich.

After reading your thoughts on the benefits of a BX16, I'm sure you'd have loved my 1.4 Preview if we pulled off the p/x deal for your 850AWD.

But that wasn't to be, I have grown to love my BX14 this summer. And guess what? I think it needs an alternator re-build! I'll be taking advantage of all that space in the engine bay, and maybe plumbing the depths of your expertise...

 

 

*Shep, we love you and know you're as open minded as anyone. Go Shep! (850s rule btw.)

[Shep Shepherd]

 

Although I adore Volvos, I have time for most other cars*, pre-Mondeo era Fords of all types, big Rovers, big Vauxhalls, Saabs, pre-1990s Audis and hydro-pneumatic Citroens in particular

 

*Except for the BMW 0.5 Series/BINI that is...

 

Pawnote: I seriously considered adding the aforementioned BX to my fleet, but the rust at the base of the B pillar put me off

[mnde]

While awaiting further pics from Scooters, here's a teaser pic: one I took on the night before it left

 

 

 

Mark.

[scooters]

Well, BX has been my daily for the last 3 weeks and I must say I really enjoy driving this car. Mark has been very helpful in reminding me about the various jobs a BX needs to keep it running smoothly.

 

Being a 20 year old Citroen some things can be a bit tempermental - eg - the sunroof needs the occasional prod and the heater blower works when it wants to I'll need to get round the leccy with the cleaner and a toothbrush and som.e WD40 as it is the damp.

 

Round town it is lovely to drive - glides over the speed bumps and is very nimble - a wee bit of pinking if you put the power on too quickly but no Tdi brutal turbo lag.

 

For those of you who haven't driven a BX or CX one of the best things about them is the sunroofs - they are fully retractable and are very wide - in some cars - Japanese ones for instance the sunroof seems to be for the benefit of all the passengers - in one of these low roofed citroens the sunroof is there for the front seats and the width and proximity to your head does give the car an open top feel when you are driving it- ie you feel the wind on your napper.

 

 

I still need to fit the new cooling fan switch and I'll probably change the oil soon. Timing belt I will leave to the spring as I am unlikely to do more than 3000 miles in that time

 

I took it for a burn round Fife for the first time this morning - on the open road it is fantastic - nimble, light, corners well and the 1.6 is very pokey if fed properly with the throttle - I got chased by an A6 on a B road and left him for dead - he couldn't get round the corners as quickly - mind you he proably couldn't see round the corners! When we got to the end of the road he pulled up for a chat and mentioned that he had had a meteor about 15 years ago and how much fun they were in the country. Funny thing is that in the 3 weeks I have had it I have not seen one other BX on the road - they have all gone in the last few years - I suspect the scrapage scheme was carnage for them.

 

oh - and of course I've fitted Yellow Headlamps

[mnde]

^^

Excellent

 

 

I have to say I removed them after a while, but they did look uber cool. I've still got a pair in the GSA

 

M.

[KruJoe]

More good writing Rich, thank you! I dare say it may be a while longer before you see another on the road... In the time I've had mine, since March I think, I have only seen ONE other in the wild! It was a grey estate, piloted by an old bearded chap, with his wife alongside. They must have thought "WTF", as I flashed my lights and waved like a loon! I made sure they saw me

[scooters]

brrrrrrr...the intermittent heater blower motor has now packed in completely - dodgey wiring is the chief suspect - too blimmin cold to do anything about it today and I have a stinking cold as well. mnde briefed me on this one before I took it on - looks like a toothbrush and a can of electrical contact cleaner is the way forward!

 

easy enough to keep warm when moving but traffic jams are bad news!

[barefoot]

Excellent - as they say in Lincolnshire, 'the job's a caret'

[scooters]

well, a busy BX week so far.

 

Wednesday I decided to tackle the heater blower problem - now the obvious is to check the blower motor and connections - this lurks under the panel betwen the winscreen and the bonnet - being a BX it isobviously plasti and required the removal of the pael, a plastic shield and the wiper arm - unfortunately strong current was measured at all contacts - so no quick fis - I jumped the motor and it blew strongly so no faults there either.

 

inside the cabin, dashboard stripped back, steering wheel off - relay ok so next suspect was the vent control panel - being a citroen this has to be removed very carefully to make sure none of the 'we put zizs sprin zere to pizz of le rosbif with 'our gallic noncelance' bots disappear into the bowls of the dash. Anyway - turns out the PCB behind the knobs was not earthing properly - a PCB fault fixed by bridging a cople of the terminals jub done but then

 

DOH - I went and cracked the flippin PCB right across the resistor track - fan works but is never less than half on as it cannot work beyond the breake - the excellent chaps at the BX Project have sourced me a spare.

 

I then replaced the vacum advance hose with an old washer pipe - the original one tends to disintegrate and this was causing rough running.

 

Yesterday I had to drive to Aberdeen and back, it's about 125 miles from Edinburgh - The BX performed admirably using well under half a tank to get their and back (about 20lts) - I didn't boot it - it's not that sort of road but a nice 65-70 seemed to suit the car very well indeed and it glided along. The 1.6 is more than adequate for modern roads and whilst it doesn't have the torque of the TDi is less brutal on the windy bits.

 

Being a BX, obviously somthing had to break and the sunroof motor has now stopped working, - I'll have a tinker this weekend.

 

I did use a fair bit of oil but it is leaking rather tan burning - refitting the vacuum advance led to discovering a large amount of fresh oil sitting ontop of the cltch housing under the dizzy - not sure where this is coming from but it will need to be looked at - it's pooling rather than droping out the bottom of the car so despite Mark's warning that there was a weep there I've ignored it as the road is clean - this will need looked at!

 

Great bargain performer on the open road though and once again - I have not seen another BX since taking ownership !! they have all vanished

[mnde]

Nice write up, but where, prithee, are the pics?

 

I suggest you try disengaging the sunroof motor (i.e. move the lever) and try winding the sunroof back and forth a bit with the winder key. I did find sometimes it would get stuck.

 

Re. the oil leak - I suspected it was the dizzy O ring seal, so should be an easy job to fit. I certainly had a leak there and replaced the seal - but suspect it has perished as it wasn't a new one.

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

[scooters]

some pics taken today

 

 

 

 

[scooters]

Well, I need to be in Engerlund next week for a few days - specifically Herts, Essex and that there London...whistle stop so no curry with Torsten this time sadly, which is just as well as he has been dangling morsels from the DUNGEON OF DELIGHTS my way and I am having to resist with every fibre in my body. Turning up in Edinburgh with a Maxi/Maestro/Lada a week before Xmas would be the last straw for the Finance Director and the soldering iron would be applied to my japs eye tout suit.

 

So I decided to make the BX a little more civilised for a long road trip.

 

Firstly, I have ordered a load of 12V LED bulbs for the dash as I am fed up of peering to see how little gas I have left and in Scotland at this time of year that basically means from 1500-1030. I will be skinning mY knuckles this weekend inserting the blighters.

 

As you know I have been on the quest for a stereo and have got a wonderful period Clarion tape player from Mat and have got a nice Sony from Max coming in the next week or so (well when Paypal are finally convinced I am not a member of the Dalgety Bay branch of the Albanian Casa Nostra (shtëpinë tonë in Albanian apparantly). This is just as well as the Finance Director is in a grump about the lack of MP3 compatability in the new Scoob so soe cunning soldering will be used to mount the new Sony behind the scoob facia.

 

I was getting rather cheesed off with the tinnyness of the OEM speakers - in the Meteor (which is a mid range secial edition - there are no rear speakers (the TZD estates used to have micro speakers in the trim under the rear boot side windows - can't see how to to this in the hatch other than to cut horrible holes in the parcel shelf - I don't really want to do that). So 15 minutes on Gumtree and I located a bird who was selling a pair of 5.5 inch Alpine speakers for £20 - brand new unwanted present. I collected them - can't remember what the designation was but they are £50 in Halfrauds so probably £25.00 everywhere else.

 

Last night I sorted out my tool and parts cupboard - I have a few items I will put up for sale/grabs...anyway I found a brand new Silvercrest MP3/CD/USB/Bluetooth stereo still in its box

 

For those of you who don't know then Silvercrest is Lidl's own brand electronics lable - usually made in Romania or Hungary for the German market - this one:

 

http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/silver- ... ith-561712

 

was retailing in Lidl for £51 in 2009. Superb housing scheme spec - should be in a Hilux really

 

I bought it but never fitted it to the CX I had at the time as it had a rather nice Kenwood (Mk2 CX's always need the type of stereo where you have to drop the head unit face to fnd the CD slot - this is because, being Citroen the stereo is mounted vertically next to the handbrake in the centre consel - the daftest place EVA as crisps, ash, dust, coins, important tiny screws etc all end up falling into the CD slot and screwing up the stereo) already mounted.

 

Anyroad - this morning I picked up the Alpine Speakers and then headed for Halfrauds where I bought two connecting looms (£14 each!!!!) some new washer tubing and a couple of joining plugs for them. And a load of new screw connectors.

 

First off was the speakers - the Citroen ones were well fubared - the cones were literally disintergrating on me - the good news is that the insides of the doors are bone dry and have a nice layre of rustproofint wax - these are ones from Marks old Meteor and are in good nick.

 

Then the stereo - I removed the bodged in one I had installed as a stop gap last week and took the wiring all the way back to the proper Citroen connectors. I then installed quick remove ISO female and made up 2 looms - one for the Silvercrest and one for Mat's old Clarion - I also installed a brand new cradle which I have fastened securely in place - this now means that I can swap from the Silvercrest to the Clarion easily. The Silvercrest is not a looker (I did wire it into the dimmer controls to make the lights a bit less obvious) but the Silvercrest is really there for when I am doing long journeys and need the phone. I was quite proud of the mictophone location - using skill and a flathead I was able to route the microphone cable down the A pillar trim without having to remove anything.

 

For such a cheap stereo I really cannot fault the Silvercrest - perfectly adequate quality for my needs - could do with abother 6 radio presets but it is easy to set up and tune and best of all the phone interface is first class and simple - it doesn't try to offer any phone controls other than a mute, answer, volume/hang up - everything else is controlled by the phone handset.

 

CD is fine, MP3 discs work very well and the USB/AUX sockets are on the front - you can also rip CDs on it and load them as MP3s on to an SD card (has a slot for one as well). The Alpines make a hell of a difference.

 

So the next two jobs before Monday are to get the new LED bulbs into the dash board and to remove the heater control PCB and solder in the KRAKATOA MOD - which allows the blower motor to work at maximum revs rather than the rather lazy rate it bumbles along at.

 

Quite looking forward to the road trip next week the BX is running brilliantly just now.

[scooters]

Poor old BX -

 

This morning I was doing my usual commute from Edinburgh to Dalsweaty Bay - as I pulled out of town and hit the A90 I moved into the outside lane to overtake a tanker - fouth gear - steepish dual carraigeway hill foot down and chaos -

missfiring, cutting out, warning lights all over the place...so hit the hazards to ward the car behind me who dropped back to allow me to pull in. I dropped the revs and gently drove the car to the office.

 

Set up is as follows:

 

1.6 XU5 Petrol engine with twin barrel solex carb and autochoke system which takes its lead from the coolant temperature.

 

car starts on the 2nd turn at this time of year

needs some throttle welly on starting to 'catch' when cold and will stall if foot removed from throttle for the first 15 seconds or so

Car is prone to pinking at high speeds when engine is put under further load especially when throttle quickly applied or quickly removed

I have noticed that this problem is definately worse when the quality of the fuel is pov spec but both myself and Mark have run the car on octane boosters and on posh petrol and have noticed the issue even then on occasion.

 

on Wednesday during my 1100 mile drive I noticed hesitency on the bigger hills on the M6/M74 and missfiring if too much load applied.

 

I had originally thought that this could have been coil related - the missfiring when warm being a symntom of a coil on the way out with other cars I have owned BUT I now feel that the issue is definately fuel related and is now at catastrophic phase when flooring and going up a reasonably steep hill. I suspect the fuel pump or maybe the lifter - I have noticed, for the record, that downhill the car is working very well indeed, indeed it was downhill on the M74 when I squeezed 106 out of her.

 

All this is rather annoying as I really didn't want to press the BX into the sort of Scooters vehicle abuse but was forced to do so. I'm going to locate a cheap luxobarge as per my other thread to take on the long range work hacks.

 

I do have a spare Solex carb which Mark had brilliantly soaked in petrol for several weeks and is nice and shiney, I need to order a rebuild kit from germany so it will be several weeks before I can replace it.

 

I'll also check the fuel lines for damage - I recall a similar fault with the Yugo which I traced to a brittle fuel line which had a crack being stressed on cornering and the leak and missfire only occuring when turning left at speed.

 

Any ideas? and before anyone suggests it the alternator is fine!

[scooters]

Poor old BX -

 

This morning I was doing my usual commute from Edinburgh to Dalsweaty Bay - as I pulled out of town and hit the A90 I moved into the outside lane to overtake a tanker - fouth gear - steepish dual carraigeway hill foot down and chaos -

missfiring, cutting out, warning lights all over the place...so hit the hazards to ward the car behind me who dropped back to allow me to pull in. I dropped the revs and gently drove the car to the office.

 

Set up is as follows:

 

1.6 XU5 Petrol engine with twin barrel solex carb and autochoke system which takes its lead from the coolant temperature.

 

car starts on the 2nd turn at this time of year

needs some throttle welly on starting to 'catch' when cold and will stall if foot removed from throttle for the first 15 seconds or so

Car is prone to pinking at high speeds when engine is put under further load especially when throttle quickly applied or quickly removed

I have noticed that this problem is definately worse when the quality of the fuel is pov spec but both myself and Mark have run the car on octane boosters and on posh petrol and have noticed the issue even then on occasion.

 

on Wednesday during my 1100 mile drive I noticed hesitency on the bigger hills on the M6/M74 and missfiring if too much load applied.

 

I had originally thought that this could have been coil related - the missfiring when warm being a symntom of a coil on the way out with other cars I have owned BUT I now feel that the issue is definately fuel related and is now at catastrophic phase when flooring and going up a reasonably steep hill. I suspect the fuel pump or maybe the lifter - I have noticed, for the record, that downhill the car is working very well indeed, indeed it was downhill on the M74 when I squeezed 106 out of her.

 

All this is rather annoying as I really didn't want to press the BX into the sort of Scooters vehicle abuse but was forced to do so. I'm going to locate a cheap luxobarge as per my other thread to take on the long range work hacks.

 

I do have a spare Solex carb which Mark had brilliantly soaked in petrol for several weeks and is nice and shiney, I need to order a rebuild kit from germany so it will be several weeks before I can replace it.

 

I'll also check the fuel lines for damage - I recall a similar fault with the Yugo which I traced to a brittle fuel line which had a crack being stressed on cornering and the leak and missfire only occuring when turning left at speed.

 

Any ideas? and before anyone suggests it the alternator is fine!

[mnde]

Ah okay - well I did have a terrible phase with the BX when it was really bad with misfiring under load, especially on hills.

 

Then once we were travelling back on the A3 from Portsmouth, tried overtaking a lorry on an uphill stretch and the car cut out completely - had to get out of the manoeuvre, hazards, coast onto hard shoulder, wouldn't restart. Lucy wasn't amused!

 

It turned out when I investigated back at home the autochoke mechanism was sticking, ergo the car was dying because of an over-rich mixture on load. (EDIT: because the choke flap wasn't opening fully, restricted by this sticking mechanism)

 

Take a look at that carbie extract from the Haynes Solex/Weber manual I sent you. You'll see if you remove the black box on the side of the carb there's a thin spring loaded rod that's part of the pull down mechanism. When you start the engine from cold, a vacuum acts on a diaphragm in the chamber on the back of the carb (a squared off black box, with a vacuum pipe pushed on the top), which pulls the rod, which starts the opening of the choke flap (otherwise the engine dies quickly with an over-rich mixture)... a process which is continued by the waxstat which is gradually heated by the coolant.

 

Anyway I found that the pull-down rod was seriously lacking in lubricant, so I sprayed it with WD40 and cleaned it up, followed by a dose of spray grease, and if you grasp the rod with some needle nosed pliers, you can gently move it back and forth (if you take the elbow off the carb, you can see how this action affects the choke flap). This was a miraculous (and free!) cure and the car was instantly much better! I used to do the above procedure regularly afterwards as part of routine maintenance... but it's possible it's got gummed up!

 

Other possibility of course is inadequate pull-down vacuum (check the little pipe and the diaphragm in the chamber). Also as I have said, the vacuum advance capsule could be faulty (i.e. split diaphragm) - I think if you pull off the hose at the carb end you can do a "suck test" on it... I think there's info on BXClub somewhere on that. Let me know what you find! I did tend to find the car rewarded gentle driving, which avoided the misfire, but of course on the steepest hills, you need to push the accelerator further so you enter the "misfire zone"... I had terrible trouble with it cutting out in winter when it wasn't yet warmed up, which I cured by readjusting the timing - it was too retarded. Something like 5 degrees BTDC. The manual states it should be 10 degrees BTDC, but I always found it pinked too much, even on 98 RON, so I would retard it slightly until I could get full acceleration in 2nd/3rd gear (testing with the advance hose removed) without pinking... so it was more like roughly 8-9 degrees BTDC. I was convinced though that there was some other issue behind the fact I had to do this slight retardation.. i.e. that this was to alleviate an underlying problem. The timing also influences how good/bad it is at cold starts. I increased the cold "fast idle" setting to try and alleviate things - hence the high revs you might have noticed until it warms up... One of those things where you need the carb off to set it properly as it's measured as the opening gap at 20 degrees C of the primary throttle butterfly (detailed in the PDF I sent you). Like I said on BXProject, I wanted to use Colortune on it (didn't get round to buying the right adapter for it as it comes with the 14mm attachment as standard - no good for BX) to finetune the mixture, get a tacho to set the idle properly, get it on a rolling road to test mixture/timing advance etc. under load. And of course I was meaning to rebuild the spare carb and set it up to spec etc.....

 

Let me know how you get on!

 

Mark.

[mnde]

Another thought - I also never got a chance to check the accelerator pump diaphragm/operation in case there was a problem with not enough fuel being supplied under sudden heavy load.... I didn't ever test the fuel pump...

 

I found the other thing that instantly improved the cold start was when I changed the coolant a couple of years back- obviously making sure it is properly bled is important because the coolant hoses that supply hot coolant to the autochoke waxstat are at the highest point in the system, above the height of the radiator. I was going to try bleeding it again to see if that helped, this time using an improvised header tank (2L coke bottle with the bottom cut off and shoved into the rad filler with blutack as a seal, then filled to the top with coolant) to help force any air out better.

 

Mark.

[The Moog]

I think that I might have a colourtune knocking about you can have scooters. Don't think I am ever going to use it.

 

Let me know if it is any use.

[scooters]

Ah okay - well I did have a terrible phase with the BX when it was really bad with misfiring under load, especially on hills.

 

Then once we were travelling back on the A3 from Portsmouth, tried overtaking a lorry on an uphill stretch and the car cut out completely - had to get out of the manoeuvre, hazards, coast onto hard shoulder, wouldn't restart. Lucy wasn't amused!

 

It turned out when I investigated back at home the autochoke mechanism was sticking, ergo the car was dying because of an over-rich mixture on load. (EDIT: because the choke flap wasn't opening fully, restricted by this sticking mechanism)

 

Take a look at that carbie extract from the Haynes Solex/Weber manual I sent you. You'll see if you remove the black box on the side of the carb there's a thin spring loaded rod that's part of the pull down mechanism. When you start the engine from cold, a vacuum acts on a diaphragm in the chamber on the back of the carb (a squared off black box, with a vacuum pipe pushed on the top), which pulls the rod, which starts the opening of the choke flap (otherwise the engine dies quickly with an over-rich mixture)... a process which is continued by the waxstat which is gradually heated by the coolant.

 

Anyway I found that the pull-down rod was seriously lacking in lubricant, so I sprayed it with WD40 and cleaned it up, followed by a dose of spray grease, and if you grasp the rod with some needle nosed pliers, you can gently move it back and forth (if you take the elbow off the carb, you can see how this action affects the choke flap). This was a miraculous (and free!) cure and the car was instantly much better! I used to do the above procedure regularly afterwards as part of routine maintenance... but it's possible it's got gummed up!

 

Other possibility of course is inadequate pull-down vacuum (check the little pipe and the diaphragm in the chamber). Also as I have said, the vacuum advance capsule could be faulty (i.e. split diaphragm) - I think if you pull off the hose at the carb end you can do a "suck test" on it... I think there's info on BXClub somewhere on that. Let me know what you find! I did tend to find the car rewarded gentle driving, which avoided the misfire, but of course on the steepest hills, you need to push the accelerator further so you enter the "misfire zone"... I had terrible trouble with it cutting out in winter when it wasn't yet warmed up, which I cured by readjusting the timing - it was too retarded. Something like 5 degrees BTDC. The manual states it should be 10 degrees BTDC, but I always found it pinked too much, even on 98 RON, so I would retard it slightly until I could get full acceleration in 2nd/3rd gear (testing with the advance hose removed) without pinking... so it was more like roughly 8-9 degrees BTDC. I was convinced though that there was some other issue behind the fact I had to do this slight retardation.. i.e. that this was to alleviate an underlying problem. The timing also influences how good/bad it is at cold starts. I increased the cold "fast idle" setting to try and alleviate things - hence the high revs you might have noticed until it warms up... One of those things where you need the carb off to set it properly as it's measured as the opening gap at 20 degrees C of the primary throttle butterfly (detailed in the PDF I sent you). Like I said on BXProject, I wanted to use Colortune on it (didn't get round to buying the right adapter for it as it comes with the 14mm attachment as standard - no good for BX) to finetune the mixture, get a tacho to set the idle properly, get it on a rolling road to test mixture/timing advance etc. under load. And of course I was meaning to rebuild the spare carb and set it up to spec etc.....

 

Let me know how you get on!

 

Mark.

 

 

Toptips Mark,

I did as you suggested and removed the autochoke cover mechanism and gave the whole affair a good squirt of silicon spray and then gave the rod a shoggle with the pointy pliers (fnaar fnarr) - what a difference that made! like a new car - horribly lurchy fo rthe first 100 yards or so but once that LUBE got to work on the HOLE the ROD was allowing the gas to SQUIRT considerably better. Car is now running brilliantly again and no full throttle or load shenannigans anymore! Thanks mate, I wouldn't have thought of this cure.

 

I do need to get yon fan switch fitted so have told Mrs S to pick up some bluetak from Sainsburies and not to throw out the 3lt IRNBRU bottle - I'll do a coolant flush at the same time.