My bodged Citroen BX 16v

[Kitchski]

Good find!

I spotted a kid (must have been 12-14 or so) with a posh camera looking over the BX while it was parked in the paddock. Then when we left he sprinted (literally) across the grass and took up a spot above the tunnel. I wondered if I'd ever see the pictures, or if he'd hang around and snap the Sierra too

Double win

edit: Found this on his page....

RareCars said:

Literally waited 1 1/2 hours to get a front shot.

Jesus mate, it's only a BX

Edited by Kitchski on Wednesday 2nd July 22:42

[Kitchski]

carmadgaz said:

Thought that number plate rang a bell...

Yup, though luckily I'm not in the picture! No BX stand at the NEC this year, sadly. Two years on the trot for what is quite a small forum-based community was good going though, and it was bloody good fun to take part in it (even if I had a weekend from hell!)

[cheddar]

Great read.

Brilliant cars and with a unique ability to slowly transform their handling as the spheres wear out, hopefully fronts wearing fastest eventually producing huge lift off oversteer.

[Peugeot304]

hi, great to see you saw the photos. took them last year!

was nice to see a BX that's why I waited ages to photograph it, nice to see you appreciate that!
Didn't sprint over, I was standing by the tunnel anyway!?

Camera isn't posh if it was the photos would be better!

hope the BX is still going well

William

Kitchski said:

Jesus mate, it's only a BX

Edited by Kitchski on Wednesday 2nd July 22:42

[Kitchski]

Peugeot304 said:

hi, great to see you saw the photos. took them last year!

was nice to see a BX that's why I waited ages to photograph it, nice to see you appreciate that!
Didn't sprint over, I was standing by the tunnel anyway!?

Camera isn't posh if it was the photos would be better!

hope the BX is still going well

William

Hi William, small world! Must have been someone else I saw running. I remember seeing a young lad with a camera doing the rounds in the paddock, assumed it was the same but it seems not. Either way, pretty cool that they were found on the internet, and cooler still that you then found this!

[Kitchski]

Just over a year since I last updated and I'm on a lunchbreak. So what's happened in the world of the bodged BX? Grab a cuppa!

Well firstly, I regret calling the thread 'bodged' BX, being that in the grand scheme of things one small lump of chemical metal acting as filler isn't really as bad as it could be (this is where I find out all the sills are full of P40). Admin please feel free to change the title to just Citroen BX 16v or something, with my gratitude!

So, most importantly, the car is still here, still with us. Last year on 13th June marked 10 years since quintessential boring car collector Simon and myself headed to Penenden Heath to buy the trusty steed. The car was on the road at the time of the anniversary, and spent most of the summer buzzing around (including getting snapped at Goodwood above).

Around July/August-time (the week before the Goodwood Hot Hatch meet I was looking forward to driving it down to), whilst on a local jaunt to drop some other BX wheels off to the local wheel specialist (actually known as The Wheel Specialist - they're dead good....) I was cut up by a Vauxhall Zafira on a local A-road. The sensible, mature, level-headed citizen would have observed the manoeuvre, made some sort of judgement against the perpetrator and moved on with their lives. Obviously, what I did was mash my foot to get alongside at the next set of lights so I could blow him into next week. There aren't many better experiences in life than immaturely squaring up to newer cars in an old BX, knowing that the outcome would be hilarious, should the BX be victorious. It often is, but then I'm quite careful about who I vent my rage at (note to self, if a Mazda 6 MPS is making progress and you're in a BX 16v, just drive behind them). Anyway, so aligned at the next set of lights and cursory evil glance administered (but not sufficiently to catch his attention - I'm not a masochist) I proceed to belt the BX to death at the first signs of a green light. Zafira chap does the same (after all, it's just a stty old Citroen, right?) BX storms into the lead! 7000 + rpm and then the briefest of cuts of the limiter before I grab second. 5000rpm and climbing and the once dual-lane A-road has merged into a single lane, my lead sufficient to allow me to slip in front and provide a (slight) slipstream to the charging MPV. 7000rpm approaches. We're at 55mph, and only seconds have passed so far (6 or so, I'm guessing) with the knowledge that I know I'll need to grab third before the 60mph mark comes. The engine dips again, slightly earlier than I thought it might (you have a sort of sixth-sense as to when the limiter's coming in) so I grab third and floor it. Nothing. Not zip. All red lights illuminated. Rev counter at zero. fk! The single lane now opens back into two as I roll helplessly along at 50mph or so, all traces of power assistance from the steering gone, and with the brakes slowly dying away. The Zafira steams past. An atheist doesn't pray, but I'm sat there doing just that, hoping he hasn't heard a bang, or seen smoke, or noticed anything other than my resounding success! I turn right across oncoming traffic (really not wanting to stop!), aiming for the local College, and roll to the side of the road. Turn the key, and there's a click. Not a flat battery click. Not a knackered starter click. A deeper click. Sounds bad, really bad. I did the first thing anyone would do. Take a pic and update Facebook:


OMGZ i haz brake downs :sadface:

Eventually the engine un-seized itself, which was unexpected to say the least! Problem is, this BX is what's known in Citroen circles as a bit of a 'sinker'. Some BXs take 24 hrs to fully sink once the engine's been shut down. Some take 12. Some lower the back within 2hrs and the front within 2 days. Mine takes 30mins, top to bottom, which is down to an internal leak the system's had for donkey's years. What this meant, however, is that if I wanted to get back to work within 3 hours I needed to be towed back. My RAC membership would get me back, but it'd be on the deck by the time they arrived, meaning it could either towed on a dolly with no rear suspension (and no arm bearings or bumpstops left by the time it got to the workshop) or moved on a flatbed......that they wouldn't be able to winch it onto because the exhaust pipe would be sitting 7mm from the floor. A call to my business partner saw the BX being towed by rope back to the workshop, which luckily was only a mile away. Unluckily, the BX tripped over the towrope on the way into the estate and ripped the front bumper off its mounts, right in front of a group of people having an hourly yellow-finger-staining break outside. It was pushed into the workshop with presumed terminal engine problems and my sweet new ride pressed into service:



Original plan was to take it off the road around Autumn '14 time and stow it up in my parent's garage for the winter (I know cars are there to be driven, and I'm not trying to be a total tart but there are some pretty grotty areas or rot around the sills and rear inner arches that don't need any incentive to flourish by salt-covered highways). Obviously the breakdown had put me in the difficult position of having my car stuck in my workshop, with no idea what had gone wrong. By now (September 2014) I'd established I had decent compression but a noisy starter and no visible damage or leaks. Thinking my flywheel might have come loose or something scary like that, I tried depressing the pedal while cranking, but no difference was made to the noise. Eventually, the starter began to sound normal again! Weird! I also realised I had no spark, and no injector opening. I did have a fuel pump, however. Now, on a Motronic system, no injector and no pump basically means crankshaft sensor has failed, but the crankshaft sensor was new (having been replaced back in my quest to rid it of the misfire around the NEC time the year before). Was a proper Bosch one too. I remove the sensor and find it totally destroyed! I remove the guard plate at the bottom of the bell-housing, revealed a fairly mangled but saveable ring gear. And behind the ring gear? A small M6 bolt! I remove the bolt, renew the sensor, turn the key and BANG!

Not really, it started without drama.

Turns out there are supposed to be two bolts holding the ignition coil bracket to the inlet manifold, and on my car there was one. The ignition coil is directly above a small (2x5cm at most) opening in the top of the bellhousing, used for inspecting st. There's supposed to be a cover there, but on mine it was missing. You couldn't make it up! It still doesn't have a cover.

Edit - the remains of the TDC sensor:

|http://thumbsnap.com/1VayNlbb[/url]

And a pic I did showing just how bd unlucky (or is that lucky?) I'd been!

|http://thumbsnap.com/uFu1rMjl[/url]

So now the BX is running, though now with slightly damaged front bumper. A plan is hatched to remove the BX from the unit and move it to Eastleigh to my parent's where it can live in the garage normally occupied by my Dad's BX (which I have in the workshop....keep up at the back!)
We head to the workshop one Saturday morning, all three kids and the missus and grab the BX. I'll drive it to Eastleigh, my missus following in the Picasso snotbox. We make it to the end of the estate before BANG!

This time, something really happened:



My wife, now totally distraught by the event, had misjudged me pulling out of a junction and slammed the Picahole into the back of the BX! I take some responsibility as I was balancing it on the throttle and clutch while waiting to pull out of the junction on a slight incline. Chances are she saw the BX's rear end squat slightly and thought I was going for a gap, so started to pull and quickly see if she could get out too. I aborted, she didn't realise. Kids all ok, only a minor bump, but because the 16v used GRP bumpers the damage looked much worse than it was. The BX was stowed up in my parent's garage until July this year. I had originally planned to leave it off the road this year, as it's got too many jobs waiting to be sorted on it, but I missed driving it so much I went and dug it out. First job, replace the bumper. Luckily I had a spare:



With the spare bumper attached, an MoT was achieved. First time pass, naturally:



Next on the list was to replace some leaky coolant hoses and an oil pressure gauge sender unit. I'd managed to source a full silicone hose kit (in black, thankfully) and had planned to convert the car to run Evans Waterless Coolant at the same time. All done, along with oil pressure sender which required the removal of the inlet manifold and subsequently the improving of lots of iffy wiring I'd found:



Sadly, changing the oil sender didn't bring the gauge back to life, and it was also at this point I realised my cooling fans weren't working (right when I spotted the gauge at 110deg!) Seems I've got some electronicaliky gremlins to put right. I did manage to polish it for the first time since 2013 though:



With the MoT and replacement rear bumper (but still a loose front bumper, inop rev counter, inop battery light, inop oil pressure gauge, inop oil level gauge, inop cooling fans and now a leaky heater matrix), I drove the car to the Chrevons Rally, somewhere in Bedfordshire. The matrix leak worsened by the mile, and I was thankful I'd converted the car to run waterless coolant as it doesn't pressurise anywhere near as much as regular coolant, meaning the leak on my matrix wasn't being pushed to the limit as it might have done. My lack of cooling fans also would have caused havoc with standard coolant, so again I was lucky that I could use the heater blower alone to hold the temp at around 110-115degrees in traffic with no resulting issues, other than my expensive coolant leaking into my driver's footwell. Anyway, it made the rally, and, having driven there and back alone, it reminded me just how at home I feel in the thing. I haven't really bonded with many other machines in my life like this one. Hell, I don't even bond with humans that well!




The car returned from the event, and being that the whole journey was one of those 'Will it? Won't it?' tense-type affairs, it felt right to get it home and stow it up in the garage. The last picture I planned to take of it on the road was this one, taken round the corner from my house at the end of the journey:



And for 2015, that's where the story ended.


Except it didn't. I'd forgotten I'd commissioned The Wheel Specialist to take one of my many sets of BX 16v alloys and do something different with them. Normally the Speedline SL311's fitted to BX 16Vs are either silver all over (ph1) or Anthracite with a diamond-cut lip (ph2, like mine).
After a previous convo with Vernon of TWS and a bit of random thinking on the toilet, I had the idea to try coating the things completely in black, then diamond-cutting the surface faces. It's the way they used to do AX GT, CX GTi and Visa GTi alloys back in the day. The result?:





Awesome, frankly! Even with P6000's on, these things were gonna be an upgrade!

Only......I don't think they are:




I think on a really early BX they would, but I'm not convinced on this one. I've still got the originals, so worst case is I just sell these. What to do!

Anyway, I'm sufficiently late back from my lunch I'll be staying late to make the hours up!

Edited by Kitchski on Tuesday 6th October 20:54

Edited by Kitchski on Tuesday 6th October 20:56

[S10GTA]

Wheels look st, and my cars not THAT boring

Edited by S10GTA on Monday 5th October 16:07

[Kitchski]

S10GTA said:

Wheels look st, and my cars not THAT boring

Edited by S10GTA on Monday 5th October 16:07

You're clearly visually impaired, and your car is boring.

[S10GTA]

Kitchski said:

S10GTA said:

Wheels look st, and my cars not THAT boring

Edited by S10GTA on Monday 5th October 16:07

You're clearly visually impaired, and your car is boring.

Lets rephrase it, the wheels look great, just not on your car.

[Kitchski]

S10GTA said:

Kitchski said:

S10GTA said:

Wheels look st, and my cars not THAT boring

Edited by S10GTA on Monday 5th October 16:07

You're clearly visually impaired, and your car is boring.

Lets rephrase it, the wheels look great, just not on your car.

Yes, I think I'd agree there. Your Volvo's still boring though.

[Shadow R1]

Superb update.

Don't think the wheels work on that car.

[T66ORA]

Its a no on the wheels from me as well, to bling imo stick to the Anthracites.

[Kitchski]

I tend to agree, so wheels for sale on various old Citroen pages! It's not like I'd have been getting much use out of them anyway.

[Kitchski]

Unexpected update time on the bodged (it's not really bodged BTW!) BX 16 valve.....

I didn't keep the wheels in the end. They were sold to a fellow BXer who thought they looked better on the car than I did. I LOVED the look of the wheels themselves, but on the car they just didn't look quite right for my eyes.

The update's unexpected, because the plan for this car was to sit 2016 out completely. I finished last year by going to that Citroen meeting and drove the car back with no speedo, no rev counter, barely any warning lights and no cooling fan. Because the various dials and gauges were inop, I'd had a quick look to see if it was an easy fix (tried a different binnacle - made no difference) and left it in pieces. There are rust patches to sort out, a leaking heater matrix, the front bumper was hanging off (after it tried to ingest itself having trodden on the rope that was towing the car over a year ago when a bolt fell into the bell housing from the ignition coil bracket and munched the crank sensor) and there were many issues that had been lingering for years, that I'd always put off and say I'd sort out the next year. Had no plans to drive it this year, and had wanted instead to get the AX GT on the road, and finish my Dad's BX GT and my mk1 BX 16TRS off. I also have a TVR to sort out, so there wasn't going to be much time for the 16v.

And then I got asked if I could supply a BX for some filming for a TV programme in Chichester on 20th April. It was very hush hush, other than to say it was an ITV production. Almost too hush hush, in fact.
I was very curious as to why a BX was even wanted, to be honest. Sure, I love them, but the majority aren't fussed and most car programmes on TV are the boring, predictable types. If it's a classic car programme, there will be an E-Type, or a Morris Minor. If they slag a car off, it'll be an Allegro, or a Marina. It's all so shamefully generic.

It had been on TV previously, of course:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLXEf4rcfZQ

(Complete with leather interior, which I sold not long after that was filmed. Jason Dawe genuinely loved them, and Mallory genuinely hated them. Mallory was a bit funny, but Jason Dawe was a genuinely friendly guy).

In the case of this show, all they'd say is that they wanted a stand out car, and could I have it at Goodwood for 9am on April 20th? I said yes. I tend to grab opportunities, and if it's a chance to put a car you don't normally see on the small screen out there, then surely that's a good thing?
Only problem was it was still in lots of bits. Luckily it's still MoT'd until July, so I didn't have to worry about that. Was jsut a case of taxing it, and getting some of the issues sorted. First job, remove it from it's hidey-hole:



I'm immediately reminded of one of the issues that plagued the car before I stowed it up last year:



The low level warning light sensor in the header tank has a leaky seal. Being that it's running Evans Waterless Coolant, that's about £5worth on the floor no doubt!

I dragged the car into work (on the 18th...left it nice and late) and with work being massively busy, I put more stress upon my future self by taking some time out of the day to sort some bits on the car on the 19th. I also had to clean it up, though I'd polished it the year before with the T-Cut 365 stuff, which seems to last longer than any of the other polishes I've used on it, so this time around I spent more time fixing bits up like the dials and heater controls (which didn't work or light up) and less time cleaning. I actually started cleaning it at about 5pm on the 19th...just over 12 hrs before I was due to take it for filming. I put a fair amount of effort into getting it sorted out too. Even changed the centre console over, got all the heater controls working and lighting up with the rest of the dash again:



That's an original A/C heater panel. I plan to fit A/C to it (I have all the bits from another car) but that wasn't for the 19th! So I made do with the heater panel, which gave me working switches, full lighting, and I even fitted an old CD player I had kicking around. Sounds surprisingly good!
I managed to get the rev counter working too! The fix? Fuse #1 (10A) had FALLEN out of the fusebox! That also controlled the signal wire to the cooling fan relay, so the rev counter and cooling fans were a delightfully quick fix!

So, at about 8pm on the 19th, having spent a good 7 hours fitting my tidier wheels, getting all the dash working and cleaning the bejesus out of it inside, it was ready! I was excited! Maybe it would be ragged around Goodwood by some cool car guy? James May? Guy Martin? Jay Leno?! I'm getting carried away, but I had hopes that someone would be on board with the idea behind the BX and what it brought to the medium hatch section back in the 80's. Truth be told, I was even more keen to see what other forgotten gems they might feature! Would I see a Starion? Would I see an MG Metro Turbo? I was quietly excited!

And then the 20th came. I rocked up at the Chichester Park hotel at 8:15am and met with the team. We headed to Goodwood circuit, but they couldn't sort out a location. So we moved to Goodwood House and set up camp. I was uber excited to be on the Festival of Speed course!:




And finally the moment came. The presenter (I'm not allowed to name him, signed a bit of paper and everything) arrived! He got out, discussed some stuff with the director, mentioned the phrase "Get it to the scrapyard" as something he could use in the ab-lib delivery, and moaned that it wasn't as easy to take the piss out of as the Allegro last week. In the end, the BX got about 10secs of time, which was enough for the chap to declare that cars are all about you and your sense of style. A well-designed car tells a story.....but he couldn't figure out what sort of story this thing was telling.

And that was it.

I'd gone to all that hassle, all that trouble and effort, for some rich TV personality to rock up and slag off my most prized possession. I can take a joke, and I get a fair amount of piss-taking for the BX love, but in those cases I can counter back. I can take the piss back. I'm happy to get ranty because I know the BX was a great car, irrelevant of how much I like them. I don't like Audi A4s, but I'd never say they're crap. The BX was a great car of the 80s, and I just so happen to love them too. In this case, the BX had been brought in to be the butt of a joke. That's why I was getting smoke and mirrors in the first place.

I nearly had a Paddy.

While it was all going on, I was pretty disappointed, but on the whole took it in my stride. It was only when I got home I started to feel really pissed off about it, to the point I emailed the producer and told him what I thought. He never emailed back. We'll all have to wait until October to see what actually came about.

That said, it wasn't the worst thing that's ever happened. If it weren't for this, I'd never have got it out of the garage and gone to town fixing it up. It'd still be sat in there now, part of my massive to-do list. The cooling fans would still be borked, the rev counter wouldn't rev....I definitely wouldn't be pretending to have air-con!
And, the day was a good one because I had a good day out with a mate, who also happens to be a st-hot photographer. After we'd razzed it up the hill climb at Goodwood (had to be done) we headed out into the sticks, and he got to work:



He's also a dab hand at videos, so with a compilation of what he grabbed that day, he made this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqpdoMK6l_Y

(Watch it to the end, it's not what you think! And it doesn't work on mobile devices, due to one of the songs having a copyright, or something)

After this, I popped the BX away again but found it was still taxed on Drive it Day, 24th April. So, it was off out again. The Goodwood.....again! I took some pics this time, but sadly don't have anything like the talent of my mate!








All in all,I really enjoyed driving it again. I just never get bored of it, and it's easy to see why I'll never get rid. It's just such good fun, and the engine really is a gem. Sure it's not the fastest thing in the world, but for the technology and era it was made, it's pretty good. Certainly quick enough to have fun with, though something modern would destroy it! But it's comfy, it's cheap, it's reliable, it's interesting, it's fairly frugal. I love the thing!

Edited by Kitchski on Saturday 30th April 00:00

[williamp]

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!

[MrMoonyMan]

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

[GC8]

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

[S10GTA]

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

[JakeT]

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...

[drewos]

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!