It's here! My 1987 19TRS Auto.

Anything about BXs
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Tim Leech
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Post by Tim Leech »

Hope to see the car looking spanking next year then! I did think it had a very short life span when I sold it in 2007, these arly S2 cars are getting rare now.
Lots of Motors, mostly semi broken....
richardd1652
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Post by richardd1652 »

I may have imagined it but am i right in the belief that the 1st Mk2,s were on C plates and the last of the Mk1,s were on D plates?
Richard.
1985 MK1 BX Digit
1986 MK1 BX Leader
1988 19RD
1983 Tin Snail
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Tim Leech
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Post by Tim Leech »

richardd1652 wrote:I may have imagined it but am i right in the belief that the 1st Mk2,s were on C plates and the last of the Mk1,s were on D plates?
Richard.
There were some launch stock Mk2s around in July 1986 hence the C suffix, but in reality most started coming through in late 86/early 87, there were some last of the line Mk2's registered on a D.
Lots of Motors, mostly semi broken....
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rayfenwick
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Post by rayfenwick »

richardd1652 wrote: Hope to see it at Wetherby in the spring Ray?
Richard.
Unless something drastic goes wrong it'll be there, and looking much more loved :)
Last edited by rayfenwick on Wed Sep 15, 2010 1:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Ray

The Fleet (most recent first):
2000 Citroën XM 3.0 24V V6 Exclusive Auto (pre-MOT)
1997 Citroën XM 2.0 TCT Exclusive Auto (for sale)
1979 Citroën CX 2.4 EI Cmatic Prestige (slowly being restored)

1992 Alfa Romeo 164 Lusso 3.0 v6 12v Manual (on the to-do list)

www.citroencarclub.co.uk
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rayfenwick
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Re: An update:

Post by rayfenwick »

mat_fenwick wrote: Depends whether you have slim girly hands or not...
Guilty as charged :oops:

Still, it's made me the only person who's been able to do many jobs where the thick wristed/fingered people simply couldn't.. :)

(I'm sure there's some double entendre pending, but I can't think of it at the moment :) )
Ray

The Fleet (most recent first):
2000 Citroën XM 3.0 24V V6 Exclusive Auto (pre-MOT)
1997 Citroën XM 2.0 TCT Exclusive Auto (for sale)
1979 Citroën CX 2.4 EI Cmatic Prestige (slowly being restored)

1992 Alfa Romeo 164 Lusso 3.0 v6 12v Manual (on the to-do list)

www.citroencarclub.co.uk
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rayfenwick
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Post by rayfenwick »

richardd1652 wrote:Looking good Ray.Didnt think that rear wing was repairable but its made a big difference.
Richard.
It certainly has! It's beginning to look like someone owns it :)

I'm hoping to get a respray done in time for Wetherby, and no longer will "Beatrice" have to hide in the shadows :)
Ray

The Fleet (most recent first):
2000 Citroën XM 3.0 24V V6 Exclusive Auto (pre-MOT)
1997 Citroën XM 2.0 TCT Exclusive Auto (for sale)
1979 Citroën CX 2.4 EI Cmatic Prestige (slowly being restored)

1992 Alfa Romeo 164 Lusso 3.0 v6 12v Manual (on the to-do list)

www.citroencarclub.co.uk
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rayfenwick
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Post by rayfenwick »

richardd1652 wrote:I bought it really to stop it going to the crusher but i dont really like automatics.Glad to know Ray is getting her sorted out and looking good again.
Richard.
Philip Chidlow wrote:What a poor lost soul that car became. How cynically used (sorry! :oops: :lol: ) but what is notable is just how well that car drove. It was sweeeet.

Glad it lives. This time for real.
It's been really heartening to know that this car has a lot of fans out there. I bought it really because It looked like it had been a good car that had been neglected, and was destined for the crusher unless someone saved it. The journey home, with its speed, comfort and never missing a beat made me convinced I'd made a wise decision. Next day's huge puddle of LHM from a split octopus made me convinced I'd made a mistake. Still, I'm pleased I've stuck with it, and I'm confident it'll be done soon.

I'm hoping I can get everything done for the MOT before the XM tax runs out at the end of this month - if the BX passes the MOT I'll tax that and transfer the insurance and SORN the XM until new year. If it doesn't pass the MOT I'll re-tax the XM and try to fix the BX and re-MOT it in the new year IYSWIM. In the words of Mick Hucknall "Money is too tight to mention"...
Ray

The Fleet (most recent first):
2000 Citroën XM 3.0 24V V6 Exclusive Auto (pre-MOT)
1997 Citroën XM 2.0 TCT Exclusive Auto (for sale)
1979 Citroën CX 2.4 EI Cmatic Prestige (slowly being restored)

1992 Alfa Romeo 164 Lusso 3.0 v6 12v Manual (on the to-do list)

www.citroencarclub.co.uk
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electrokid
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Post by electrokid »

Beatrice :shock: :wink:
1992 BX19 TGD estate 228K Rusty - SORNed
2002 C5 HDi SX estate
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rayfenwick
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Post by rayfenwick »

The idea was "French girls names beginning with the same letter", so BX=Beatrice. However, it then went a bit wrong....

CX=Maude (after a French friend of mine who was my teaching partner during training in Moscow)

Isabelka (Russian "pet" form of Isabelle) <SWMBO>It sounds French</SWMBO>

I never claimed to be sane.... :)
Ray

The Fleet (most recent first):
2000 Citroën XM 3.0 24V V6 Exclusive Auto (pre-MOT)
1997 Citroën XM 2.0 TCT Exclusive Auto (for sale)
1979 Citroën CX 2.4 EI Cmatic Prestige (slowly being restored)

1992 Alfa Romeo 164 Lusso 3.0 v6 12v Manual (on the to-do list)

www.citroencarclub.co.uk
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electrokid
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Post by electrokid »

I never claimed to be sane
You and me both :lol:

and I suppose Beatrice, and other names such as Irene, sound much better in their French pronunciation :-)
1992 BX19 TGD estate 228K Rusty - SORNed
2002 C5 HDi SX estate
scarecrow

Post by scarecrow »

everything sounds sexier in French
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rayfenwick
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Post by rayfenwick »

I find that also.. :)
Ray

The Fleet (most recent first):
2000 Citroën XM 3.0 24V V6 Exclusive Auto (pre-MOT)
1997 Citroën XM 2.0 TCT Exclusive Auto (for sale)
1979 Citroën CX 2.4 EI Cmatic Prestige (slowly being restored)

1992 Alfa Romeo 164 Lusso 3.0 v6 12v Manual (on the to-do list)

www.citroencarclub.co.uk
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Philip Chidlow
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Post by Philip Chidlow »

Je trouve cela également :D
• 1992 Citroen BX TZD Turbo Hurricane
• 2006 Xsara Picasso 1.6 16v
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rayfenwick
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Post by rayfenwick »

A long overdue update, now that work has started again on the BX.

Octopus. Octop!ss more like...seemingly from every damn joint on the thing.

Image

All the low pressure pipes were cut and joined and bodged, and there was no choice but to get a new octopus, which I managed to get for a good price from Phil Chidlow. Now the weather was warming up, and the neighbour wanted her (somewhat greener and oilier than before) drive back, it was time to move the BX to my brother Graham's and begin.

So... remove old octopus, marking up the pipes to avoid confusion, and then fit the new one. Nice in theory. In practice however, it was, and continues to be, a complete pain.

Image

First problem is that the whole underneath of the front of the car was covered and I mean COVERED in old LHM, and what appears to be oil from a leaky sump gasket. Even going near it resulted in becoming absolutely blathered in this stuff.

Image

Given that I had to put a litre of LHM in it to get it to my brothers (less than a minute away), and the splits in the octopus seemed to multiply as soon as it was touched, there was quite a lot of it around, and that Graham's skin and oil just DON'T get on at all (not to mention his hallway carpet...), you can imagine some of the things he was calling the car, and me for buying it...

Image

Despite what people have said, it seemed there was no possible way of reaching the octopus "body" without removing the driveshaft (though it could well have been fitted in an odd location...), so lots of grumbling and swearing later, and the path was clear. The path to getting more covered in old oil that was filling every channel on the subframe, and clinging to pretty much everything else, that is...

Once the old octopus was detangled from everything and removed, it became clear that it had been completely shagged, and had lots of previous signs of repair, and some pipes didn't seem to be connected at all!

It also became clear that the careful marking up of pipes (didn't have coloured zip ties, so used masking tape labels) had all wiped clean/fell off. Oh poo.

After extensive googling, I managed to find some pictures of what goes where, but the accompanying text was in Japanese that displays as Unicode gibberish (not that I understand Japanese anyway..) so it wasn't as helpful as it might have been...

So, after some struggling, Graham managed to connect it up, though we had the fun of pipes not being long enough, pipes that simply don't fit where they are supposed to go, and a fair bit of bodging on our part also. If it wasn't for the fact that there is only one octopus for every BX, we'd have been convinced this was the wrong one. Could my car be so different? What was going on?

In fact, what IS going on? Every time Graham thinks he's sorted a leaky union, another one appears. When the offside of the car was sorted, the leak simply moved to the nearside. More swearing from Graham, and more sarky comments from his Ford and Vauxhall loving mate from 4 doors down...

So... is it possible that 2 pipes are incorrectly connected together, rather than returning to the tank? This would (to me) explain the leaks and occasional blown off pipes, but then so would the state of some of the pipes, and unless I'm getting it completely wrong, all the octopus does is return the surplus and "leaked past" LHM to the tank. I can't see how it is possible to connect 2 things up to cause the scenario I've described, though as I've said before, I'm not much good at this side of things, and Graham's never worked on one before.

The biggest problem is that the pipes as they were were already clearly in a mess, and it's difficult for us to know if everything is in the right place or not. Everything seems to work ok (as I suppose it would, as we've not touched the high pressure supply side of things...) but we still get leaks from places.

So if anyone has any advice, I'd be more than happy to receive it. I don't want to give up with this car, I want to give it the treatment it deserves. Unfortunately, there's been some very tempting sorted cars for little money recently, and my eyes have strayed a bit..... :oops:

Finally, whilst looking at how I'm going to wire in the front fog lights, I noticed this round yellow light, which I'd always thought was the tell-tale light for the front fogs, had a bulb-holder and wires already.

Image

I noticed the bulb was loose, and not in the fitting. I reconnected it, and found it flashes briefly once when the indicator is first applied (left or right), but nothing else makes it light. Does anyone have any ideas what it might be? I thought alarm, but I can't see one anywhere...
Ray

The Fleet (most recent first):
2000 Citroën XM 3.0 24V V6 Exclusive Auto (pre-MOT)
1997 Citroën XM 2.0 TCT Exclusive Auto (for sale)
1979 Citroën CX 2.4 EI Cmatic Prestige (slowly being restored)

1992 Alfa Romeo 164 Lusso 3.0 v6 12v Manual (on the to-do list)

www.citroencarclub.co.uk
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mat_fenwick
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Post by mat_fenwick »

Trailer indicator tell tale. Mine has one in the very same place, and (for some reason) several cars I've driven with them flash once when you turn the indicators on. Much prefer a light to an annoying buzzer when you do a lot of towing!
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