1985 Citroen BX 19GT overhaul
Discussion
caiss4 said:
Love this thread. Had a BX (1.9TDi) in the early 90's as a company car. Quirky and crap in equal measure but overall loved it and it served well over 100k miles.
Looking at the latest photos you've posted I noticed that the heatshrink on the wiring loom has the name ' Raychem' . My wife worked for Raychem and regularly visited the PSA harness shops in Portugal during the same era.
Looking forward to seeing the end result!
Funnily enough, the RAYCHEM heatshrink came from our cupboard. It's not original Looking at the latest photos you've posted I noticed that the heatshrink on the wiring loom has the name ' Raychem' . My wife worked for Raychem and regularly visited the PSA harness shops in Portugal during the same era.
Looking forward to seeing the end result!
Right, extended lunch - I'm getting this up to speed!
The place to start the final update before we're up to speed, is POWAH!!
That's right; With the newly rebuilt Solex carb (seemingly) functioning correctly, I took a brave pill on an evening I was meant to be sticking some Mini race cars on the dyno, and took advantage of the fact they were running late.
Back in 2013, we got around 75bhp, which is what a BX 1.4 puts out! It clearly wasn't right, and the BX was clearly not happy. Fast-forward to 2018, and all the efforts on the carb appear to have paid dividends!
Sticking with the DIN correction factors, that's 105bhp - exactly what they were rated at from new! Give or take some ponies either way (as a rolling road dyno is never going to be 100% accurate), that is a proper result! A broad, strong power graph too, and the air/fuel ratio under full chat was really stable. Buzzing at this point!
The interior was still to be finished, though. I'd fitted all the window motors and mechs (leccy windows all round, don't you know!) I hadn't fitted the doorcards, however, as these doors were donor doors, if you remember, and had no damp-proof membranes fitted.
I bought a huge roll of polythene ages ago, and never got round to sorting this out. Today, I would address this. First up, I had to complete the wiring into the driver's door. To do that, you need to disassemble the connector for the window motor and central locking, so that you can pass it through the rubber bellows:
I know. Dumb, isn't it?
Once the driver's door was wired up, I was ready to make and fit the membranes. Had an idea in my head, as rather than just glue a load of polythene to the doors and trim it off, I wanted some templates as I own a millionty other BXs, and I'm willing to bet that collectively they have two doors MAXIMUM that have a membrane fitted.
So, template making:
Which evolves into membrane making:
Wiring all tucked away and tested on all doors. Yup, all of them. Didn't miss any problems. The driver's door in particular definitely did not have a mis-mounted window motor, resulting in a failure to move the glass. Nope. No chance.
Here's the driver's door membrane fitted. It stayed like this. Honestly, I didn't have to cut the new membrane to access the window motor (because it was fitted properly, of course) and I certainly didn't use gaffa tape to seal it back up.
And then the doorcard can be fitted in all it's filthy, dusty glory:
I'm pressing on at this point, and there's a good reason: I booked an MoT for the car to give me a deadline to work to. This was Friday, last week (14th)!
So, with an interior in place, I prepared the car for any testing on salty roads, should the unthinkable happen and it actually get through the MoT for the first time in 6 years! I bought some underseal, and went nuts:
It came with an attachment, so I was also able to inject all the cavities and sills:
All that remained was to chuck a small Christmas gift on it - number plates! These gave a subtle nod to the past, as Martin Walter was the dealership that supplied the BX brand new, back in 1985. I Googled the dealership, based in Cambridge, and was gutted to hear that the old building that once housed it has only recently been knocked down. Would have been nice to take it back there for a photo one day, but ho-hum.
The 14th arrived, and at 10am the BX went to the MoT station. Honestly, I'm never nervous about MoTs, as they're so easy to get through (a flawed test, IMO), but in this instance, I was really bricking it! Note the masking tape, which was holding on the second attempt at getting the door mouldings to stay on the b
d doors:
Some adjustments of the headlamp later, and I needn't have worried - passed first time, no advisories
An issue that didn't escape me was the cold-starting. I was having trouble with the newly-rebuilt Solex carb, suspecting I'd got something fitted wrong. I'd removed it, played with it, put it back and then sworn more times than I could remember. When I took the car to the MoT, it was warmed up and would idle, but when I went to leave.....there was a smoke screen, and choking ensued.
I was so keen to drive this thing that I pretty much decided I was going to take it out that day. This is where it starts to get tricky...
You see, the car isn't mine, it's my Dad's. Going way back to the beginning of the thread, it was him that decided to get it overhauled, as he'd been left a small amount of money by my recently departed great Uncle Charlie. it was money he never had before, and he had a tatty car in the garage that could have looked a bit nicer. There was always the chance it would increase in value (it couldn't exactly drop any lower!) so he was happy to crack on.
I started it, but once I was balls-deep, I realised the enormity of the task. It wasn't cosmetic, it was really rotten. If we had any idea if was this bad back then, I doubt it would have been saved, so my naivety and ignorance saved this car, because once we were too far in to turn around, we found the real trouble!
Because of this, the job has taken AGES. Way, way longer than expected. A combination of being busy at work, having a young family, too many cars of my own and a real motivation problem meant that the GT has waited, and waited, and waited. My dad has been really patient. He rarely mentions it, and I think knows that I'm doing what I can, and that I haven't wanted to rush anything. The car has been a bit of a Pandora's box, and you find that as soon as you open one problem to fix it, you find four more.
So with things the way they are, updates to my Dad have been sparing. He doesn't really know where it stands. the last comms he had from me were regarding the rolling road at the top, where I informed him we'd retrieved some French donkeys that were lost to the field next door, and this time shut the gate.
I then had an idea - I would give him the car back for Christmas (Christmas 2022, you ask?). Non....THIS Christmas! I'd dabbled with this idea in my head for years, but never had the chance. All of a sudden, everything was in place. The car was MoT'd, Christmas was round the corner, and he had no idea that I'd made progress (well, unless he reads this, in which case I'm screwed, but I'm pretty sure he doesn't. And, if for some reason he does....Merry Christmas, Dad!
)
I had a problem, however - the law. I can insure it easily enough, but it's not taxed. I don't really want to drive his SORN-for-the-past-six-years car around, and have it impounded by the plod (the advice I was given by a traffic cop neighbour is that if it's more than 3 months out of date, I'm havin' it!) So I had to tax it, but how? I don't have the registration documents.
Step forward Mother Kitchski! A few texts later, she's found the V5, and got me the document number from it! Some minutes later, and the GT is taxed, insured and MoT'd for the first time since 2011! And my Dad (I assume) has no idea!
Only one thing for it.....TEST DRIVE TIME!!
Honestly, this day was so, so overdue! It was almost an emotional moment, as this year has been quite a testing one for me in many ways, and driving this thing a few miles up the road completely boosted me! It's been a weight on my mind for so long, that to finally achieve this was a big, big deal. I'm still buzzing now, in a way!
The drive was largely positive. It didn't misbehave, though it was clear the carb was far from happy. It pulled sweetly once fully warmed up, but like at the MoT, anything else meant hard work. Getting it going again after I took those pics was time-consuming, and smokey! There was a light knock from the suspension somewhere, which I think might be a droplink in the very early stages of wear. Could also be a noisy strut, as they're a bit sticky now. I also found that the tell-tale lamp for the indicators had stopped working, which was a bugger, because the indicators don't self-cancel, being up on the rocker switch on the left-hand pod. You're basically relying on hearing a very old-looking French relay clicking behind the dashboard somewhere, but thankfully you can actually hear it, because the radio is also not working (and I'm pretty sure that it actually was working when the car came down!)
Otherwise, it was bliss! The ride is such good fun, and deals with big lumps and bumps extraordinarily well. Speed bumps just aren't a thing, and you watch all the modern cars around you banging into drains and bumping up and down huge lumps in the road, and wondering where they went, because you felt nothing! In true BX form, you feel the imperfections and ridges more than you'd think, and I'd go as far as to say that refinement and NVH absorption aren't its strong suits, but I can forgive that when the ride is pillowy soft! The brakes are immense too, though the clutch needs tightening, as gearchanges can become reluctant if not rev-matched perfectly. I'm also missing a gear linkage (I know, it still works without it!) so that may yet improve things, but I suspect the clutch release arm needs the thread winding out a bit.
All in all, it's a very positive drive. I drive the car to watch my youngest in his Nativity, where he played a cat (just.....don't even...) and then remember than I've left all the bungs out for the various box sections! Ooops!
So, it's back to the workshop, where I refit all the plugs. However, I can't find the two largest ones from the rear sill, so have to get creative:
Raised the back end by putting the car on high, then lowering it with axle stands under the rear jacking points. No jacks needed!
The hole in question:
No grommets anywhere near that big in my stocks, so I found some real (honestly...it is, I promise) carbon fibre:
Done! With thecheap, stty wannabe fake carbon fibre caps in place, I could now drive through salty puddles with gay abandon!
The wheel bolts were letting the side down, so being that the BX was resting indoors over the weekend, I decided to attend to those too:
Another couple of coats and they'll be ready for me to scratch to st when I put a socket on them.
I returned this week, knowing that I was on the home straight. Two big issues hanging over me with the car: The engine was leaking oil and coolant a bit, and the carb wasn't happy. I discovered how unhappy when I revved the engine and changed the colour of the ground:
Then it began misfiring, so I pulled the plugs to have a look:
Hmmmmm.
Time to put this right, once and for all. I know that the carb itself is fine, because the dyno results showed perfect air/fuel mix, as did the powercurve. The issue, I'm sure, is the autochoke unit. There is a fair bit of complexity with the various flaps and linkages, as everything moves depending on how hot it is, and how much throttle you've got on. There's a choke flap at the top of the first choke itself, which remains closed when I'm sure it's meant to open. I remove all the linkages and exercise everything by hand, but nothing makes that flap open until the engine is nearly warmed up. Full throttle pulls the flap open, so it's just the idle I'm having trouble with.
Then it dawned on me! There was a diaphragm on the back of the choke unit, and I'd renewed this as it was part of the kit. It's the diaphragm that opens the choke flap when heavy throttle is applied. And......there's an adjuster on it! If the old one was leaking, and the adjuster had been overwound to compensate, then the new one was probably being held too far out. So, I wound the screw back until the flap sat where I wanted it to, and the result was instant! Now I could get on with the job of setting the idle mixture and speed:
Bingo!
It's reading a little bit rich as the HP pump is dragging quite a bit, so I've left it idling slightly higher to compensate, but in all truth it could just be left like this. It runs like a peach!
The autochoke still in operation in that pic. It idles at around 900-950rpm when warmed up, and it will restart on a single churn of the starter motor. Sometimes it's seemingly instant! It's like 'Turn key = engine running'! It was never like that before!
So, that brings us up to today! This lunchtime, in fact. I had a number of jobs to do (accountants, parts to collect etc.), so the BX was taken out for more testing:
No Citroen suspension test would be complete without cobbled streets. Sadly it's Portsmouth, not Paris:
We're up to date! FINALLY!
Right now, I've got a couple of parts still to fit. It needs a massive clean inside (hence no interior pics), and some final bits to fit and adjust. Covered around 140miles so far, and I want to keep running it around so that I can give it back to him ready to go (although I suspect it'll be back for some tinkering before long).
Question is....how do I give it back to him? He's a bit like me, in that he might feel awkward if I wrap the key in a box and give it to him, but then that's what my kids really want to do. We're not going round there until the 29th December, so I've got time to think.
Oh, and worry where the oil is dripping from!
The place to start the final update before we're up to speed, is POWAH!!
That's right; With the newly rebuilt Solex carb (seemingly) functioning correctly, I took a brave pill on an evening I was meant to be sticking some Mini race cars on the dyno, and took advantage of the fact they were running late.
Back in 2013, we got around 75bhp, which is what a BX 1.4 puts out! It clearly wasn't right, and the BX was clearly not happy. Fast-forward to 2018, and all the efforts on the carb appear to have paid dividends!
Sticking with the DIN correction factors, that's 105bhp - exactly what they were rated at from new! Give or take some ponies either way (as a rolling road dyno is never going to be 100% accurate), that is a proper result! A broad, strong power graph too, and the air/fuel ratio under full chat was really stable. Buzzing at this point!
The interior was still to be finished, though. I'd fitted all the window motors and mechs (leccy windows all round, don't you know!) I hadn't fitted the doorcards, however, as these doors were donor doors, if you remember, and had no damp-proof membranes fitted.
I bought a huge roll of polythene ages ago, and never got round to sorting this out. Today, I would address this. First up, I had to complete the wiring into the driver's door. To do that, you need to disassemble the connector for the window motor and central locking, so that you can pass it through the rubber bellows:
I know. Dumb, isn't it?
Once the driver's door was wired up, I was ready to make and fit the membranes. Had an idea in my head, as rather than just glue a load of polythene to the doors and trim it off, I wanted some templates as I own a millionty other BXs, and I'm willing to bet that collectively they have two doors MAXIMUM that have a membrane fitted.
So, template making:
Which evolves into membrane making:
Wiring all tucked away and tested on all doors. Yup, all of them. Didn't miss any problems. The driver's door in particular definitely did not have a mis-mounted window motor, resulting in a failure to move the glass. Nope. No chance.
Here's the driver's door membrane fitted. It stayed like this. Honestly, I didn't have to cut the new membrane to access the window motor (because it was fitted properly, of course) and I certainly didn't use gaffa tape to seal it back up.
And then the doorcard can be fitted in all it's filthy, dusty glory:
I'm pressing on at this point, and there's a good reason: I booked an MoT for the car to give me a deadline to work to. This was Friday, last week (14th)!
So, with an interior in place, I prepared the car for any testing on salty roads, should the unthinkable happen and it actually get through the MoT for the first time in 6 years! I bought some underseal, and went nuts:
It came with an attachment, so I was also able to inject all the cavities and sills:
All that remained was to chuck a small Christmas gift on it - number plates! These gave a subtle nod to the past, as Martin Walter was the dealership that supplied the BX brand new, back in 1985. I Googled the dealership, based in Cambridge, and was gutted to hear that the old building that once housed it has only recently been knocked down. Would have been nice to take it back there for a photo one day, but ho-hum.
The 14th arrived, and at 10am the BX went to the MoT station. Honestly, I'm never nervous about MoTs, as they're so easy to get through (a flawed test, IMO), but in this instance, I was really bricking it! Note the masking tape, which was holding on the second attempt at getting the door mouldings to stay on the b
d doors:Some adjustments of the headlamp later, and I needn't have worried - passed first time, no advisories
An issue that didn't escape me was the cold-starting. I was having trouble with the newly-rebuilt Solex carb, suspecting I'd got something fitted wrong. I'd removed it, played with it, put it back and then sworn more times than I could remember. When I took the car to the MoT, it was warmed up and would idle, but when I went to leave.....there was a smoke screen, and choking ensued.
I was so keen to drive this thing that I pretty much decided I was going to take it out that day. This is where it starts to get tricky...
You see, the car isn't mine, it's my Dad's. Going way back to the beginning of the thread, it was him that decided to get it overhauled, as he'd been left a small amount of money by my recently departed great Uncle Charlie. it was money he never had before, and he had a tatty car in the garage that could have looked a bit nicer. There was always the chance it would increase in value (it couldn't exactly drop any lower!) so he was happy to crack on.
I started it, but once I was balls-deep, I realised the enormity of the task. It wasn't cosmetic, it was really rotten. If we had any idea if was this bad back then, I doubt it would have been saved, so my naivety and ignorance saved this car, because once we were too far in to turn around, we found the real trouble!
Because of this, the job has taken AGES. Way, way longer than expected. A combination of being busy at work, having a young family, too many cars of my own and a real motivation problem meant that the GT has waited, and waited, and waited. My dad has been really patient. He rarely mentions it, and I think knows that I'm doing what I can, and that I haven't wanted to rush anything. The car has been a bit of a Pandora's box, and you find that as soon as you open one problem to fix it, you find four more.
So with things the way they are, updates to my Dad have been sparing. He doesn't really know where it stands. the last comms he had from me were regarding the rolling road at the top, where I informed him we'd retrieved some French donkeys that were lost to the field next door, and this time shut the gate.
I then had an idea - I would give him the car back for Christmas (Christmas 2022, you ask?). Non....THIS Christmas! I'd dabbled with this idea in my head for years, but never had the chance. All of a sudden, everything was in place. The car was MoT'd, Christmas was round the corner, and he had no idea that I'd made progress (well, unless he reads this, in which case I'm screwed, but I'm pretty sure he doesn't. And, if for some reason he does....Merry Christmas, Dad!
)I had a problem, however - the law. I can insure it easily enough, but it's not taxed. I don't really want to drive his SORN-for-the-past-six-years car around, and have it impounded by the plod (the advice I was given by a traffic cop neighbour is that if it's more than 3 months out of date, I'm havin' it!) So I had to tax it, but how? I don't have the registration documents.
Step forward Mother Kitchski! A few texts later, she's found the V5, and got me the document number from it! Some minutes later, and the GT is taxed, insured and MoT'd for the first time since 2011! And my Dad (I assume) has no idea!
Only one thing for it.....TEST DRIVE TIME!!
Honestly, this day was so, so overdue! It was almost an emotional moment, as this year has been quite a testing one for me in many ways, and driving this thing a few miles up the road completely boosted me! It's been a weight on my mind for so long, that to finally achieve this was a big, big deal. I'm still buzzing now, in a way!
The drive was largely positive. It didn't misbehave, though it was clear the carb was far from happy. It pulled sweetly once fully warmed up, but like at the MoT, anything else meant hard work. Getting it going again after I took those pics was time-consuming, and smokey! There was a light knock from the suspension somewhere, which I think might be a droplink in the very early stages of wear. Could also be a noisy strut, as they're a bit sticky now. I also found that the tell-tale lamp for the indicators had stopped working, which was a bugger, because the indicators don't self-cancel, being up on the rocker switch on the left-hand pod. You're basically relying on hearing a very old-looking French relay clicking behind the dashboard somewhere, but thankfully you can actually hear it, because the radio is also not working (and I'm pretty sure that it actually was working when the car came down!)
Otherwise, it was bliss! The ride is such good fun, and deals with big lumps and bumps extraordinarily well. Speed bumps just aren't a thing, and you watch all the modern cars around you banging into drains and bumping up and down huge lumps in the road, and wondering where they went, because you felt nothing! In true BX form, you feel the imperfections and ridges more than you'd think, and I'd go as far as to say that refinement and NVH absorption aren't its strong suits, but I can forgive that when the ride is pillowy soft! The brakes are immense too, though the clutch needs tightening, as gearchanges can become reluctant if not rev-matched perfectly. I'm also missing a gear linkage (I know, it still works without it!) so that may yet improve things, but I suspect the clutch release arm needs the thread winding out a bit.
All in all, it's a very positive drive. I drive the car to watch my youngest in his Nativity, where he played a cat (just.....don't even...) and then remember than I've left all the bungs out for the various box sections! Ooops!
So, it's back to the workshop, where I refit all the plugs. However, I can't find the two largest ones from the rear sill, so have to get creative:
Raised the back end by putting the car on high, then lowering it with axle stands under the rear jacking points. No jacks needed!
The hole in question:
No grommets anywhere near that big in my stocks, so I found some real (honestly...it is, I promise) carbon fibre:
Done! With the
tty wannabe fakeThe wheel bolts were letting the side down, so being that the BX was resting indoors over the weekend, I decided to attend to those too:
Another couple of coats and they'll be ready for me to scratch to s
t when I put a socket on them.I returned this week, knowing that I was on the home straight. Two big issues hanging over me with the car: The engine was leaking oil and coolant a bit, and the carb wasn't happy. I discovered how unhappy when I revved the engine and changed the colour of the ground:
Then it began misfiring, so I pulled the plugs to have a look:
Hmmmmm.
Time to put this right, once and for all. I know that the carb itself is fine, because the dyno results showed perfect air/fuel mix, as did the powercurve. The issue, I'm sure, is the autochoke unit. There is a fair bit of complexity with the various flaps and linkages, as everything moves depending on how hot it is, and how much throttle you've got on. There's a choke flap at the top of the first choke itself, which remains closed when I'm sure it's meant to open. I remove all the linkages and exercise everything by hand, but nothing makes that flap open until the engine is nearly warmed up. Full throttle pulls the flap open, so it's just the idle I'm having trouble with.
Then it dawned on me! There was a diaphragm on the back of the choke unit, and I'd renewed this as it was part of the kit. It's the diaphragm that opens the choke flap when heavy throttle is applied. And......there's an adjuster on it! If the old one was leaking, and the adjuster had been overwound to compensate, then the new one was probably being held too far out. So, I wound the screw back until the flap sat where I wanted it to, and the result was instant! Now I could get on with the job of setting the idle mixture and speed:
Bingo!
It's reading a little bit rich as the HP pump is dragging quite a bit, so I've left it idling slightly higher to compensate, but in all truth it could just be left like this. It runs like a peach!
The autochoke still in operation in that pic. It idles at around 900-950rpm when warmed up, and it will restart on a single churn of the starter motor. Sometimes it's seemingly instant! It's like 'Turn key = engine running'! It was never like that before!
So, that brings us up to today! This lunchtime, in fact. I had a number of jobs to do (accountants, parts to collect etc.), so the BX was taken out for more testing:
No Citroen suspension test would be complete without cobbled streets. Sadly it's Portsmouth, not Paris:
We're up to date! FINALLY!
Right now, I've got a couple of parts still to fit. It needs a massive clean inside (hence no interior pics), and some final bits to fit and adjust. Covered around 140miles so far, and I want to keep running it around so that I can give it back to him ready to go (although I suspect it'll be back for some tinkering before long).
Question is....how do I give it back to him? He's a bit like me, in that he might feel awkward if I wrap the key in a box and give it to him, but then that's what my kids really want to do. We're not going round there until the 29th December, so I've got time to think.
Oh, and worry where the oil is dripping from!
Paracetamol said:
we had one of these new in 1984. A160LRJ 16TRS.
My dad came from a Volvo 240dl and found it very flimsy but boy what tech it had (much of which did not work!). And the suspension and drum speedo were show shoppers.
I've got a 16TRS on an A-plate in one of the other thousand BX threads I'm running My dad came from a Volvo 240dl and found it very flimsy but boy what tech it had (much of which did not work!). And the suspension and drum speedo were show shoppers.
Great story and well done !
Loved my BX ( J 943 PRE ) it was a dk blue 1.7 TD. Bought it circa 2001. It ran out of MOT in circa May 2003, so I put it in a nice dry barn that I was then renting. I went away to Holland Arnhem on a battlefield tour for 3 days. On my return, I went to the barn to collect a few bits. I thought it looked " different" in there, but I locked up and went home. Went back the following day and OMFG my BX had gone.....
My wife ( soon after in 06 my Ex wife ) had got an arse licking moron who was then working for me, to go up there and take my BX to a breakers in Basildon I believe. I was absolutely gutted. I should have found out where it was and gone down there, but for some reason I didn't .....
Loved my BX ( J 943 PRE ) it was a dk blue 1.7 TD. Bought it circa 2001. It ran out of MOT in circa May 2003, so I put it in a nice dry barn that I was then renting. I went away to Holland Arnhem on a battlefield tour for 3 days. On my return, I went to the barn to collect a few bits. I thought it looked " different" in there, but I locked up and went home. Went back the following day and OMFG my BX had gone.....
My wife ( soon after in 06 my Ex wife ) had got an arse licking moron who was then working for me, to go up there and take my BX to a breakers in Basildon I believe. I was absolutely gutted. I should have found out where it was and gone down there, but for some reason I didn't .....
IanUAE said:
My grandmother bought my parents Metro for the grandfather and gave him the key in a wrapped matchbox one Christmas. We have history of giving joke presents at Christmas he thought it was a joke present that he was getting a match box. He cried when he finally opened the box.
Aww, perhaps he asked Santa for a Fiesta? 
Top work, absolutely excellent attention to detail. I am extremely jealous of your workshop but I know the perceived luxury of working on cars 'for a living' sometimes removes the time and energy required for your own projects!
I am also a strong advocate for yellow foglights when suitable. Tres bon. Please ensure you send to Sam Walshe of Practical Classics.
I am also a strong advocate for yellow foglights when suitable. Tres bon. Please ensure you send to Sam Walshe of Practical Classics.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/183609325049
This appeared on the bookface this morning, and made me think of this thread.
Hope it all went well?
This appeared on the bookface this morning, and made me think of this thread.
Hope it all went well?
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