My bodged Citroen BX 16v

[bigkeeko]

Read the whole thread from the start. Good stuff and cool old car. Shame about the bell end having a pop at the last. Nothing like being used and a complete lack of respect. Still, every cloud as you rightly stated. She's up and running.

[GC8]

drewos said:

I get the love for these. A mate of mine had a phase 2 16 valve around 2000. At the same time I had a mk2 golf gti 8 valve but the BX was in a different league performance wise. Had a drive of it a couple of times and as a previous post mentioned, the grip was fantastic and so comfortable. The chairs were some of the best ever fitted IMO and really held you in place hammering around corners. We took it out not long after the head had been rebuilt due to a snapped cambelt and nearly touched 150 mph, mind you that was worked out by the mph per rpm in 5th gear as the speedo had given up working a long while back!

Closer to 130mph. I cant be sure what mine did because I didn't get a GPS receiver until 1996.

[drewos]

GC8 said:

Closer to 130mph. I cant be sure what mine did because I didn't get a GPS receiver until 1996.

No, this car was not standard.

[RemyMartin]

I only came into say your car is fking magnificent and this celebrity is clearly a dick.

[mooseracer]

Great fun read, I admire your love of the old(ish) fast Citroens and echo what's been said about the 'celebrity'

[problemchild1976]

When in my 20s (late 90's) I used to drive an H-Reg BX Meteor 1.6 in grey - loved it to bits!!

ah - the good old days when a mid sized family car could actually comfortably fit 5 people

JJ

[rallycross]

Great photos from Goodwood the car looks fab.

My first ever sporty 16v was a mk1 BX 16v in white which I got in 1993 (swopped it for a sunburst red XR3i!).

The BX 16v felt so much faster than the on paper figures, when they get past 4500 revs they really start to fly.

I always fancied getting a late model mk2 they looked great in Grey or Red. Good to see one is surviving cant be too many left now.

[The_Burg]

Nice to see. BX is getting a rare beast now! Owned a 1.9 TR a 1.9TRD and a GTi. GTi was pretty rapid. Handling felt dead but if you drove on trust really stuck to the road.
Weigh pretty much nothing. Even the non turbo diesel went surprisingly well. Ridiculously economical too, swear someone used to fill it up when i wasn't looking.

[Kitchski]

Whoa, quite a few replies to go through! Here goes:

williamp said:

Sorry to hear of your experience, but its not unusual from what I've heard.

Not that it counts for much, but I really like your car!

Thanks. I've heard bad things in the past, but then my wife's Saxo was used on one of Chris Barrie's Massive Speed shows, and he was a thoroughly top bloke. Even bought everybody lunch!

MrMoonyMan said:

Screw them!

I'd love to own that. Heck, even drive it.

Love the way bx's look and those seats are great.

Good work

If you're ever in Fareham and the car happens to be on the road, you're welcome to have a go

I love the way it looks, but I'd never tell anyone it was a good looking car. Not typically good looking anyway. But the seats are genuinely awesome. Some of the best I've ever had!

GC8 said:

I miss everything about mine apart from the overly strong artificial self-centring steering 'feel' and the drivers seat adjustment.

I like the steering as it's weighted nicely, and quite short-geared, but I know what you mean about the feel of it. It's not as bad as later Cits like the Xantia, or even modern electro-steering cars, but it is slightly disconnected. But then, you're running on a gas, via a hydraulic fluid operating lots of valves and gadgets designed to isolate you from the road's imperfections. Bearing that in mind, I think the BX has a great level of feel.

S10GTA said:

I'm sure you had a paddy. No likely. Tosser.

I really didn't. I did my usual thinking of an amazing thing to say about 5 hours after the event took place.

JakeT said:

Sounds like he was a giant tt to me. Should have told them you'd be off to drive it to the scrapyard and be gone! When watching the video as soon as the music came in there was a laugh...

tt would be harsh as I never spoke to him other than a few sentences, but a bit of a primadonna for sure. I don't think he was a dick, I just don't think he had a clue what he was talking about.
And yeah, the first song in the video made me cringe more than laugh, but then I know my mate's humour!

drewos said:

I get the love for these. A mate of mine had a phase 2 16 valve around 2000. At the same time I had a mk2 golf gti 8 valve but the BX was in a different league performance wise. Had a drive of it a couple of times and as a previous post mentioned, the grip was fantastic and so comfortable. The chairs were some of the best ever fitted IMO and really held you in place hammering around corners. We took it out not long after the head had been rebuilt due to a snapped cambelt and nearly touched 150 mph, mind you that was worked out by the mph per rpm in 5th gear as the speedo had given up working a long while back!

Yeah they waste mk2 Golfs pretty easily. Crept up on a Rallye in it once, but in fairness the Golf and this were never really fighting for the same market. An Astra GTE 16v is about level pegging with a good one of these - I certainly couldn't beat one in a straight line, and I tried! To be doing 150mph though, you'd have to be doing over 7500rpm in top gear though, so bearing in mind the standard limiter is either 7200rpm or 7400rpm, I'm guessing it wasn't standard? I've had mine round to the 'H' on the speedo, but that's there for comedy value more than anything once past 70 mph. Struggles to pull much past 130mph on the GPS, but oddly enough it can pull up to the 125-130mph mark going up slight hills. I did bounce it in 5th once (only car I've ever hit the limiter in top gear in) but that was down a slight slope.

bigkeeko said:

Read the whole thread from the start. Good stuff and cool old car. Shame about the bell end having a pop at the last. Nothing like being used and a complete lack of respect. Still, every cloud as you rightly stated. She's up and running.

That's the way I tried to look at it. Did me a favour in an odd way!

RemyMartin said:

I only came into say your car is fking magnificent and this celebrity is clearly a dick.

The M word might be stretching it a bit! But cheers

mooseracer said:

Great fun read, I admire your love of the old(ish) fast Citroens and echo what's been said about the 'celebrity'

Someone's got to like them! Don't suppose you had a mentally fast AX once by chance?

problemchild1976 said:

When in my 20s (late 90's) I used to drive an H-Reg BX Meteor 1.6 in grey - loved it to bits!!

ah - the good old days when a mid sized family car could actually comfortably fit 5 people

JJ

Ah the Meteor. Limited run, still see a few about.

rallycross said:

Great photos from Goodwood the car looks fab.

My first ever sporty 16v was a mk1 BX 16v in white which I got in 1993 (swopped it for a sunburst red XR3i!).

The BX 16v felt so much faster than the on paper figures, when they get past 4500 revs they really start to fly.

I always fancied getting a late model mk2 they looked great in Grey or Red. Good to see one is surviving cant be too many left now.

Cheers Craig. They do wake up above 4500rpm for sure. Don't think there are many left, possibly about 100?

The_Burg said:

Nice to see. BX is getting a rare beast now! Owned a 1.9 TR a 1.9TRD and a GTi. GTi was pretty rapid. Handling felt dead but if you drove on trust really stuck to the road.
Weigh pretty much nothing. Even the non turbo diesel went surprisingly well. Ridiculously economical too, swear someone used to fill it up when i wasn't looking.

The 16v is freakishly economical at times. Can nudge 40mpg on a run pretty easily. Best ever was 42mpg, but round down it can nearly halve that!

[GC8]

Kitchski said:

Whoa

GC8 said:

I miss everything about mine apart from the overly strong artificial self-centring steering 'feel' and the drivers seat adjustment.

I like the steering as it's weighted nicely, and quite short-geared, but I know what you mean about the feel of it. It's not as bad as later Cits like the Xantia, or even modern electro-steering cars, but it is slightly disconnected. But then, you're running on a gas, via a hydraulic fluid operating lots of valves and gadgets designed to isolate you from the road's imperfections. Bearing that in mind, I think the BX has a great level of feel.

Both p2 16v cars suffered but the J registered white with herringbone car was definitely the worst. It was added resitance to moving off-centre intended to give the impression of weight, but it needed too much force to overcome. This was on new-20k cars.

Both the BX and Xantia owned afterwards (both steady) didn't suffer.

It was the rocking tilt which always niggled me - the seats were great but you couldn't ever get them positioned correctly.

[Kitchski]

GC8 said:

Both p2 16v cars suffered but the J registered white with herringbone car was definitely the worst. It was added resitance to moving off-centre intended to give the impression of weight, but it needed too much force to overcome. This was on new-20k cars.

Both the BX and Xantia owned afterwards (both steady) didn't suffer.

It was the rocking tilt which always niggled me - the seats were great but you couldn't ever get them positioned correctly.

I know what you mean on the seats, and I can imagine not everybody finds them comfortable.

[mooseracer]

Kitchski said:

Whoa, quite a few replies to go through! Here goes:

mooseracer said:

Great fun read, I admire your love of the old(ish) fast Citroens and echo what's been said about the 'celebrity'

Someone's got to like them! Don't suppose you had a mentally fast AX once by chance?

Yes indeed I did. Turbocharged VTS engine, stripped interior, plastic windows etc. The guy I sold it to wrapped it around a tree I believe

[Kitchski]

mooseracer said:

Yes indeed I did. Turbocharged VTS engine, stripped interior, plastic windows etc. The guy I sold it to wrapped it around a tree I believe

I still have the PFC mag it was featured in! Took that car as my inspiration many years back (before giving up!)

Now have another AX GT and am slowly carrying out a rolling resto. The thread's on here somewhere.

[mooseracer]

Kitchski said:

I still have the PFC mag it was featured in! Took that car as my inspiration many years back (before giving up!)

Now have another AX GT and am slowly carrying out a rolling resto. The thread's on here somewhere.

Yes I've seen the thread and a grand job you're doing too. Top marks for saving it.

I got a bit carried away with my old AX to be honest.....300bhp is way too much for one, even with all the other work it had done. It never ceased to try and kill me! My original idea was to VTS engine it and leave it at that. Somehow things escalated.....

[Kitchski]

mooseracer said:

Somehow things escalated.....

As all good things do

[irish boy]

http://www.carandclassic.co.uk/car/C761671


Has to be good value?

[Kitchski]

irish boy said:

http://www.carandclassic.co.uk/car/C761671


Has to be good value?

This one?



Most definitely. I owned it a while back! Bought it from a guy on the BX forum who owned a few of them. That's £1500 more than I paid, but then I had to trailer it back down here, get it through an MoT etc. I really liked it though. The engine genuinely was very sweet when I had it, and it just needed a bit of suspension tinkering (was riding a bit high and a bit too soft, possibly not on 16v spheres but that's all easy to sort). Clutch does need doing, but it shouldn't put anyone off the car and they're not too hard to change either.
Biggest thing it needs is a respray, but structurally it's pretty good. A-pillar was a bit frilly when I had it, but that's pretty normal. With new paint and some minor tweaks, it'd be a very nice car and certainly good value, seeing as another BX 16v sold for £3500 a couple of weeks ago, not to mention the £7k supercharged one that just sold. And this is a rare car - Meteor grey, ph1, sensible miles. Much rarer than my ph2, and there are only around 120 BX 16vs left in total, according to the usual websites.

I really liked it, didn't want to sell it really. The guy who bought it was the PH staff writer who had a white BX GTi 16v ph1, and that was a total lemon. It's been scrapped now. He bought 'DUG' to replace that car and once he'd actually owned a decent BX 16v, he moved it on as he'd finally ticked the box off!

[irish boy]

I've no space as I just bought a 190d but if it popped up last month I genuinely think I'd have bought it. The way all retro stuff is going at the minute it's very well priced. And it's a proper rare car that I remember dreaming about as a boy while reading the double page advert in what car.

[Kitchski]

Just over a year had passed since the last successful MoT test, so I decided to book the BX in yesterday and see if I could coax a another 'pass' out of it. I'm planning to take it to France in the Autumn, and it would be sensible to put some miles on it before then. You know, to give anything that's going to break a chance to break in the UK near my house?! Or, to accelerate the wear of any potentially EOL parts and bring the failure date further forward to coincide with a date that would have otherwise been after the trip overseas. Funny thing, logic.

The BX was last out and about at the end of April, for its TV 'feature' (on an as-yet-unbroadcast-so-I-can't-say-anything-as-I-signed-a-bit-of-paper-to-say-I-wasn't-going-to-say-anything-before-I-found-out-they-wanted-my-car-to-roast-rather-than-do-something-interesting-with-but-I'm-pretty-sure-it's-going-to-be-Ch5's Classic Car Show-levels-of-ste-programme). Since then I've been dipping my toes into AX GT, TVR, Hillman Imp and other BX-flavoured waters, so the 16v's basically just parked up and had the door shut on it.
Well, when I say shut on it, I mean opened on it. Yup, yesterday started fairly badly. I went out on Monday night and hooked up my last remaining battery charger, seeing as the battery wasn't exactly great before I parked it up in April (3rd hand, been on two other cars before, both of which also suffered long idle periods). It was yet another of those cheapo chargers you buy before you realise buying cheap means buying thrice. I went back in the house, watched about 90mins of The Car's The Star episodes on Youtube (remember those?) and went back out to the garage at about 11:30pm to check on proceedings. I opened the door to be greeted with the stench of hot plastic. I removed the charger, filed it in the bin and decided to go to work in the morning, grab some jumpleads and then come back for the BX. I left the bonnet open, as I'd been doing all this inside the garage.
Next morning, I drive to work in the AX, grab the leads, come back, open the garage door...SMACK! Garage door hits the open BX bonnet and gets jammed against it. I roll under the ajar garage door, manage to manipulate the bonnet into enough difference shapes to release the door (the beauty of plastic bonnets!) and wonder how the day will get worse.

The AX brings the BX back to life:



I drive the BX out of the garage, to be greeted with a flat nearside rear tyre. I pump it up from scratch, with a handpump. It was a hot morning.

I go back into the garage, and see this:



Petrol. Joy.

There's a drip-drip leak coming from the pump area all the while the car is running. Assuming either a perished hose, or a perished pump! I drive it in anyway. bks to it. If I dies, I dies.

The MoT is booked for 11am, but we've got a Frogeye Sprite also booked in for 2pm, so I switch the appointments around and pull the pump off the BX. Yup, suspicions confirmed:



Annoyingly, I gave away a good spare to a mate with an Alfa 75 who needed a new pump because (and you're going to like this bit)......his original one corroded through, and leaked while the engine was running.
Luckily I managed to find a replacement locally:



And before long it was fitted along with a new filter, and some new hose (on the bit I could actually get to):



MoT obtained that afternoon. First time pass, same advisories as normal. Bit of interaction on the OSR lamp (wiring, not just an earth) and a slightly blowy exhaust joint plus the rear tyres are just within the tread limit. To be fair, all the tyres are starting to crack a bit, and I know they're well past 7-8 years old now, so they really need replacing. They're rumbling pretty badly and it's lacking grip these days when you get your boot down, so I'll likely do those sometime in the next few weeks. Been really impressed with the Dunlops I put on the AX GT, so will probably do the same for the BX.

A few jobs to do over the next few weeks, like sticking some new non-OE front spot lamps in (want to preserve the originals as they're getting stupid expensive now) and a couple of coolant leaks to attend to, one of which involves taking the dashboard out. At that point, do I start bolting all in the A/C gear in? Decisions....

[Shadow R1]

That's in the abandoned cars thread, claims to be a 16v 4x4.

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...