1985 Citroen BX 19GT overhaul
Discussion
I know a black j reg one in Sussex somewhere. Think the reg ends CHM.
We had a Mondeo ST200 for a while, and red BX 16v rang alongside it. I thought the Mondeo was a good car, but the BX hadDin licked in most key areas. More comfy, more frugal, just as quick (if not slightly quicker), as good around the bends etc. BX had better brakes and more rear legroom too. Mondeo had more equipment, would have been safer in a shunt and was more refined, but car for car not patch on what the BX could do, especially when you considered the age gap.
We had a Mondeo ST200 for a while, and red BX 16v rang alongside it. I thought the Mondeo was a good car, but the BX hadDin licked in most key areas. More comfy, more frugal, just as quick (if not slightly quicker), as good around the bends etc. BX had better brakes and more rear legroom too. Mondeo had more equipment, would have been safer in a shunt and was more refined, but car for car not patch on what the BX could do, especially when you considered the age gap.
As a 15 year old picked up a 85 c plate 17rd hatch new with my dad and the following year a 19rd estate mk2 on a d plate, for a run of the mill family car the old bx sure gets under your skin, wish Citroën built something today I could love this much. On the bright side I got to experience Andre baldet in Northampton in full rant mode ! What a man.
Some brief progress today. Rust-hunting underneath the original underseal is very time consuming......and mucky!
Today I kept myself busy with finishing off the sill on the NSR. I fitted one of the rear axle bumpstop brackets (there are two, a big one and a small one - the small one is a regular bumpstop, the bigger one is there for when the car sinks, so it basically rests on it). They often rot, but Chevronics were on hand having had some replacements re-manufactured from scratch:
One of my woes from last week:
That'll be a new pipe needed from the security valve, right at the front of the car all the way to the back. b
ks!
So I started painting the inside of the repaired subframe mounting section while it was still accessible in the sill:
Then I got a piece of scrap tin and started making a new sill bit:
And welded it in:
Then I dressed it down flush to (hopefully) look like I never did it!:
Then I cut out a little slither of metal found in the bin:
....And made the little end lip for the sill:
Then, just as with an operation on your leg, it was time to try and put some weight on the repaired pieces:
(to be honest, I could easily lift the back of the car at the moment, what with everything off it. Not much of a test!)
Then it was time to begin the extremely fun (read relentless tedium) task of going over all the original underseal to look for rust. It's a no brainer while the tank is out to go to town above it so that I don't have to worry again. You could pick three sq. ft of shell and find 1sq. cm of rust underneath it, but if you never went looking you'd end up with a sq. ft of rust in 5-10 years time of course, so it's well worth doing. Just REALLY REALLY REALLY boring!:
I'm not going to the trouble of removing all the underseal. If I was going all out show-winner, then it'd all be smoothed, POR15'd and then painted like the bodywork. But it's not going to be show winner, it's going to be driven through puddles (it's a car, afterall), so I'm leaving all the decent underseal on there, and then covering it along with the exposed rust sections with 2k epoxy mastic. That's once the rust has been treated of course:
I'll probably still prime and spray it body colour under here, but it won't be bodywork-smooth, just the right colour. Looking forward to finishing up on the back end, and I'm only about half way through
Today I kept myself busy with finishing off the sill on the NSR. I fitted one of the rear axle bumpstop brackets (there are two, a big one and a small one - the small one is a regular bumpstop, the bigger one is there for when the car sinks, so it basically rests on it). They often rot, but Chevronics were on hand having had some replacements re-manufactured from scratch:
One of my woes from last week:
That'll be a new pipe needed from the security valve, right at the front of the car all the way to the back. b
ks!So I started painting the inside of the repaired subframe mounting section while it was still accessible in the sill:
Then I got a piece of scrap tin and started making a new sill bit:
And welded it in:
Then I dressed it down flush to (hopefully) look like I never did it!:
Then I cut out a little slither of metal found in the bin:
....And made the little end lip for the sill:
Then, just as with an operation on your leg, it was time to try and put some weight on the repaired pieces:
(to be honest, I could easily lift the back of the car at the moment, what with everything off it. Not much of a test!)
Then it was time to begin the extremely fun (read relentless tedium) task of going over all the original underseal to look for rust. It's a no brainer while the tank is out to go to town above it so that I don't have to worry again. You could pick three sq. ft of shell and find 1sq. cm of rust underneath it, but if you never went looking you'd end up with a sq. ft of rust in 5-10 years time of course, so it's well worth doing. Just REALLY REALLY REALLY boring!:
I'm not going to the trouble of removing all the underseal. If I was going all out show-winner, then it'd all be smoothed, POR15'd and then painted like the bodywork. But it's not going to be show winner, it's going to be driven through puddles (it's a car, afterall), so I'm leaving all the decent underseal on there, and then covering it along with the exposed rust sections with 2k epoxy mastic. That's once the rust has been treated of course:
I'll probably still prime and spray it body colour under here, but it won't be bodywork-smooth, just the right colour. Looking forward to finishing up on the back end, and I'm only about half way through
Amazing how must corrosion work has been done on the car - plenty of people would have walked away for a better example! Top effort! 
Seems as though the BX wasn't galvanised and protectedlike the Xantia and 406. I know they are a generation different with the BX being released in 83 and the Xantia 10 years later, but it it demonstrates how far cars have really come along in this area!
I wanted to buy my mates 16v, but he wouldn't sell it to me. Said it was such an unreliable POS that it would ruin our friendship because I would have thought he sold me a total dud. That car ended up burning to the ground one night due to an electrical fault
Seems as though the BX wasn't galvanised and protectedlike the Xantia and 406. I know they are a generation different with the BX being released in 83 and the Xantia 10 years later, but it it demonstrates how far cars have really come along in this area!
I wanted to buy my mates 16v, but he wouldn't sell it to me. Said it was such an unreliable POS that it would ruin our friendship because I would have thought he sold me a total dud. That car ended up burning to the ground one night due to an electrical fault
To be fair, the car was lucky in that I didn't really notice how bad the rot had got. BXs have been pretty good at fighting rot over the years, so I was a bit blase about it. It was once it'd been resprayed that I noticed what I'd let myself in for. The car's been very lucky - it would have been scrapped if we'd spotted all this earlier on.
The BX was galvanised too, but that was a long time ago!
The BX was galvanised too, but that was a long time ago!
Mini-update on the BX GT today. Not a huge amount of progress, but it's got to be done. Things will have to speed up a bit as I need the ramp back at work, as one of our 'fleet' (hate that word, but can't think of what else to call it) has broken down, and needs a 2-post ramp. And no, it's not the AX either (it's the newest, most modern car we own that has performed the automotive equivalent of soiling its own pants.
Morale is hard enough to manage at the best of times, well for me anyway. And R.M.S. Morale is struggling against the tide at the moment, as the job I'm in the middle of is piss-boring and tedious, not to mention filthy. So yes, we're still grinding away removing underseal and re-painting the bits of the shell you will never actually see! Last time I'd applied the rust-treatment, and now it was time to apply the paint, which in this instance is 2k Rustbuster (epoxy mastic):
The beauty of this paint is, being 2k, you can mix it differently for different effects. I go quite thick on the underside stuff, and once I've brushed (read spread it like Lurpak, or some other crap butter that doesn't spread) I can go over it with a brush and 'stipple' it, giving the same OE finish the factory underseal has. This is especially handy on the sills, and doubly so because it happens to be the right colour too!
The grinding and stripping of the underseal just takes forever. It's really, really boring. It's also bd hot, as I have to use Halogen lamps in the workshop, where there is no air flow and it's nudging 24deg C outside. Not nice, but worth it as you often find panels that looked fine, yet concealed stuff like this:
Eventually I'd treated more of the underside:
And, as per the 'Stones suggestion, I painted it black:
It's not staying black underneath though. No, that's far too un-masochistic for me. I'm going to torture myself by trying to achieve a decent body colour finish, as per the factory. Well, why not.
Inbetween waiting for rust treatment to change colour, and paint to go off, I set about doing something even more pointless. He's the BX's fuel tank:
For those of you who aren't fuel tank enthusiasts, it's plastic. There's an alloy heat shield underneath, as the exhaust runs through the cross-section of it. Only one face of it is visible when it's fitted, as the body blocks two sides, and the rear axle blocks the third.
Still, why not waste an hour of my life, eh?:
Whoever decided to waxoyl the plastic fuel tank will find themselves removed from my Christmas card list as soon as I catch up on my correspondence.
Lastly, some of you may remember I managed to angle grind one of the rear suspension pipes. These pipes are metal, 3.5mm in diameter and are used to convey around 1400psi of green oil to all four corners of the car. It is not advisable to kiss them with angle grinder cutting discs.
I'd actually bought in a load of Kunifer pipe to re-pipe my red BX (oh st, I forgot I still had that one!) along with various unions and rubber seals. I had the tool too, so it could be asserted that I had all the gear, but no idea.
No idea, until now:
A flare I made on an old offcut of pipe came out remarkably well. Easier than normal single and double flare brake pipe unions, if I'm honest. On the Citroens, the flare is about 10mm up as you can see, and the rubber seal sildes on the end, thus:
You then insert all that into whatever it is that you're trying to supply LHM to, and boom. Hydraulics yo! Now I just need to make a pipe....
Morale is hard enough to manage at the best of times, well for me anyway. And R.M.S. Morale is struggling against the tide at the moment, as the job I'm in the middle of is piss-boring and tedious, not to mention filthy. So yes, we're still grinding away removing underseal and re-painting the bits of the shell you will never actually see! Last time I'd applied the rust-treatment, and now it was time to apply the paint, which in this instance is 2k Rustbuster (epoxy mastic):
The beauty of this paint is, being 2k, you can mix it differently for different effects. I go quite thick on the underside stuff, and once I've brushed (read spread it like Lurpak, or some other crap butter that doesn't spread) I can go over it with a brush and 'stipple' it, giving the same OE finish the factory underseal has. This is especially handy on the sills, and doubly so because it happens to be the right colour too!
The grinding and stripping of the underseal just takes forever. It's really, really boring. It's also b
d hot, as I have to use Halogen lamps in the workshop, where there is no air flow and it's nudging 24deg C outside. Not nice, but worth it as you often find panels that looked fine, yet concealed stuff like this: Eventually I'd treated more of the underside:
And, as per the 'Stones suggestion, I painted it black:
It's not staying black underneath though. No, that's far too un-masochistic for me. I'm going to torture myself by trying to achieve a decent body colour finish, as per the factory. Well, why not.
Inbetween waiting for rust treatment to change colour, and paint to go off, I set about doing something even more pointless. He's the BX's fuel tank:
For those of you who aren't fuel tank enthusiasts, it's plastic. There's an alloy heat shield underneath, as the exhaust runs through the cross-section of it. Only one face of it is visible when it's fitted, as the body blocks two sides, and the rear axle blocks the third.
Still, why not waste an hour of my life, eh?:
Whoever decided to waxoyl the plastic fuel tank will find themselves removed from my Christmas card list as soon as I catch up on my correspondence.
Lastly, some of you may remember I managed to angle grind one of the rear suspension pipes. These pipes are metal, 3.5mm in diameter and are used to convey around 1400psi of green oil to all four corners of the car. It is not advisable to kiss them with angle grinder cutting discs.
I'd actually bought in a load of Kunifer pipe to re-pipe my red BX (oh s
t, I forgot I still had that one!) along with various unions and rubber seals. I had the tool too, so it could be asserted that I had all the gear, but no idea.No idea, until now:
A flare I made on an old offcut of pipe came out remarkably well. Easier than normal single and double flare brake pipe unions, if I'm honest. On the Citroens, the flare is about 10mm up as you can see, and the rubber seal sildes on the end, thus:
You then insert all that into whatever it is that you're trying to supply LHM to, and boom. Hydraulics yo! Now I just need to make a pipe....
Kitchski said:
A flare I made on an old offcut of pipe came out remarkably well. Easier than normal single and double flare brake pipe unions, if I'm honest. On the Citroens, the flare is about 10mm up as you can see, and the rubber seal sildes on the end, thus:
You then insert all that into whatever it is that you're trying to supply LHM to, and boom. Hydraulics yo! Now I just need to make a pipe....
You might want the bulge a little further up the pipe - or maybe it just needs the seal sliding a bit further up. There should be a small nose of pipe sticking out of the end of the seal.You then insert all that into whatever it is that you're trying to supply LHM to, and boom. Hydraulics yo! Now I just need to make a pipe....
TooMany2cvs said:
You might want the bulge a little further up the pipe - or maybe it just needs the seal sliding a bit further up. There should be a small nose of pipe sticking out of the end of the seal.
Cheers Adrian. The seal can go a bit further up, it was just there for photo purposes. I'll also try seating the pipe a bit further forwards in the tool 
Continuing the theme, I did some more work on the BX GT! And for some serious continuity attention to detail, I also got very little done in what seemed like 3 days worth of effort!
So, with half the rear end painted in the undercoat mastic paint, my attentions had to turn away from rubber underseal off with wire brushes. I decided to stay a bit cleaner and make some stuff.
Here is a rear quarter panel bracket, removed from a BX (I know! Who'd have thought?!):
There is one mounted each side, mirror-image style. Here, in fact:
....or at least, that's where it was!
The bumper slider posts through them too, so it kind of reinforces the rear bodywork. The problem with said brackets is that they get pelted with muck, debris, salt, st (lots of horses round here) and other stuff that metal doesn't like interacting with. Inevitably, they rust. Can you buy new ones? Can you duck (I'm running with 'duck' now, it makes things easier on my phone's autocorrect). You have to make them, which means you need a pattern.
So, I laid out the best one of the two I had like a bearskin rug, and got artistic with a sharpy:
And then bent it:
And then swore like a drunk nun when I made the second:
Once I'd rectified this 'oversight', I had two brackets:
Then I fitted them:
Once they were in, I went over some of the previous 'repairs' as best I could, and it was time to get the rest of it painted up. I didn't take any pictures of the underseal being removed and rust being treated, as I'd lost the ducking will to live.
Tomorrow, I'll whip out the primer and the paint, and do the whole underside in body colour. Then, at the end of the day....axle goes back on and it should *hopefully* sit on its own wheels for the first time in 2.5 YEARS!
Wish me luck! I'll ducking need it.
So, with half the rear end painted in the undercoat mastic paint, my attentions had to turn away from rubber underseal off with wire brushes. I decided to stay a bit cleaner and make some stuff.
Here is a rear quarter panel bracket, removed from a BX (I know! Who'd have thought?!):
There is one mounted each side, mirror-image style. Here, in fact:
....or at least, that's where it was!
The bumper slider posts through them too, so it kind of reinforces the rear bodywork. The problem with said brackets is that they get pelted with muck, debris, salt, s
t (lots of horses round here) and other stuff that metal doesn't like interacting with. Inevitably, they rust. Can you buy new ones? Can you duck (I'm running with 'duck' now, it makes things easier on my phone's autocorrect). You have to make them, which means you need a pattern. So, I laid out the best one of the two I had like a bearskin rug, and got artistic with a sharpy:
And then bent it:
And then swore like a drunk nun when I made the second:
Once I'd rectified this 'oversight', I had two brackets:
Then I fitted them:
Once they were in, I went over some of the previous 'repairs' as best I could, and it was time to get the rest of it painted up. I didn't take any pictures of the underseal being removed and rust being treated, as I'd lost the ducking will to live.
Tomorrow, I'll whip out the primer and the paint, and do the whole underside in body colour. Then, at the end of the day....axle goes back on and it should *hopefully* sit on its own wheels for the first time in 2.5 YEARS!
Wish me luck! I'll ducking need it.
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