Mat's BX Blog

Tell us about life with your BX, or indeed life in general!
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Defender110
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Post by Defender110 »

I kid you not; glorious sunshine and blue skies in Manchester no snow to be seen :lol:
Kevan
1997 Mercedes C230 W202
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MULLEY
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Post by MULLEY »

Chains :o how gay :wink: :lol:
2002 C5 2.0 HDI Estate - Jasmine - Now SORN
2011 Mini Cooper D Clubman - SOLD
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1992 TZD Turbo - Bluebell - My daily
1991 Gti 16V - Blaze - crash damaged, will get repaired.
1990 Gti 8Valve SOLD - looks like it's been scrapped
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1992 TXD - Scrapped in March 2014
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mat_fenwick
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Post by mat_fenwick »

:lol: Maybe, but it would have been tricky without! Came back home from work early, it's getting deeper.

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Even on high the bumper was digging in, and I struggled to get up the drive.

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1993 1.9 TZD Turbo Estate
1996 3.9 V8 Discovery
1993 VW LT35 campervan
1985 Hyundai Stellar V8
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MULLEY
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2011 Mini Cooper D Clubman - SOLD
2016 Mercedes A180D Sport - Auto refinement
1992 TZD Turbo - Bluebell - SORN
1992 TZD Turbo Estate - SORN
1991 Gti 16V - Blaze - crash damaged, will get repaired - SORN
1990 Gti 8Valve SOLD - looks like it's been scrapped
2002 Mini Cooper S - SOLD - i miss this car
1992 TXD - Scrapped in March 2014
1988 CX 25 GTI Turbo2 - SORN
1996 - AX Memphis 1.5D - Dream - SORN
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Post by MULLEY »

Blimey :shock: I knew it was snowing out your way, but didnt realise it was that much. Is that on the top setting? Depth is the only factor for the bx tbh, once the bumper starts collecting snow, drag increases & then it gets solid underneath so that eventually the wheels are lifted off the road & then you are going nowhere. There's tons of snow in your wheel arches, my worry would be that it could rip off the strut pipes then you'd be leaving a green trail behind......
2002 C5 2.0 HDI Estate - Jasmine - Now SORN
2011 Mini Cooper D Clubman - SOLD
2016 Mercedes A180D Sport - Auto refinement
1992 TZD Turbo - Bluebell - My daily
1991 Gti 16V - Blaze - crash damaged, will get repaired.
1990 Gti 8Valve SOLD - looks like it's been scrapped
2002 Mini Cooper S - SOLD - i miss this car
1992 TXD - Scrapped in March 2014
1988 CX 25 GTI Turbo2 - SORN
1996 - AX Memphis 1.5D - Dream - SORN

I'm not just a username, i'm also called Matthew.
Linegeist
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Post by Linegeist »

MULLEY wrote:There's tons of snow in your wheel arches, my worry would be that it could rip off the strut pipes then you'd be leaving a green trail behind......
I'd never considered that!!!!! :shock: Quick snow-driving will never feel the same again. :cry:

We rarely get snow on Anglesey - but THIS time, we're getting our fair share. The larder's full, the fire's roaring, the cat's warm ................ bring it on! The Linegeist hovel feels quite festive. :thup:

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Dollywobbler
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Post by Dollywobbler »

Bit further south than Mat, so we've only got about six inches here (though there has been some drifting). Had to abandon the BX down the road (after making it 120 miles from Cardiff) on Friday, but I'm going to try and rescue it today. I have ordered snow chains as well! No chance of getting up hills with 'naked' FWD. As we discovered...
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Tim Leech
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Post by Tim Leech »

Christ Bob, are your christmas lights LED's? I bet you could see them from space! :lol:
Lots of Motors, mostly semi broken....
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Post by Linegeist »

Roverman wrote:Christ Bob, are your christmas lights LED's? I bet you could see them from space! :lol:
Yes they are ................ :oops: Don't blame me - it's all Homebase's fault for placing them where herself could trip over 'em and exclaim loudly, "Oh looky! LED Christmas lights!!! Let's buy them, shall we, shall we? Eh? Eh?" :shock:

(That's my story and I'm sticking to it) :P

It could be worse, I could have them festooned, chav style, around the underside of of the Athena! :wink:
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mat_fenwick
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Post by mat_fenwick »

Time for a whinge. Very pissed off with things at the moment.

Had a problem with the Discovery over the last few weeks - loss of coolant, rock hard hoses, bubbles in the expansion tank and rough running on gas. Failed HG you might think, but a compression test showed extremely good figures on all 8 cylinders. So then I stripped down the stepper motors allowing gas to be 'injected' into the inlet manifold (1 per bank, each feeding 4 ports) to find there was a significant amount of water in them! So I deduced the problem must lie in the vaporiser which is heatered by the coolant and supplies a constant pressure of vaporised LPG to each stepper motor. I should point out that I've been suffering from sciatica recently, so working on cars has been painful to say the least but I managed to find a rebuild kit for the vaporiser, paid extra for Special Delivery and fully rebuilt it yesterday. Result! It ran much better, no pressurisation and more top end power. The slight roughness at idle was still there, I think as a result of me changing one of the stepper motors a few months ago - when they are installed as pairs they should be a balanced pair from the factory as at idle when they are both nearly closed any slight differences in flow are magnified. Open the throttle and it's nice and smooth so I wasn't too fussed. But I thought I would take it to the local specialist (70 miles away!) today as we were heading in that direction anyway.
They did make it clear to me that they couldn't promise an improvement, and that they would recommend removing the system to fit one of theirs instead. This I declined as it would cost significantly more than an hour of their diagnostic time, so they said that they would do the best they could.

So by the time they finished with the car they tell me they've tried various different maps, and also altered the speed of the self learning setting, but all this made things worse. So my original map was put back in, and it just needed a run on the open road to re-learn parameters for some fine tuning (they were unable to do this due to Christmas traffic).

This I tried, but switching to gas on the move for about 20 miles (as advised) just left me coasting with no power. Pulling into a layby we found that it will idle (just) on gas but will not rev above 1500rpm. Upon phoning them back they told me that there was nothing more they could do without substituting parts (which they didn't have) as the gas pressure was too low. But surely if there was an inherent problem with the gas pressure it wouldn't have run satisfactorily for the 100 or so miles after the vaporiser rebuild before I took it in.

I can’t believe I’ve paid money to end up with an LPG system going from working reasonably well, to being useless. It is obviously possible that an unrelated problem occurred whilst in their position, but I’m shafted really. Economically I can’t take it back there for them to try various new parts at my expense without any guarantee of success. I don’t really know what the legal position is - I just want it in the same usable condition it was in before I took it in to the specialist, without being (further) out of pocket.

The Disco is the only car that can make it out of our track, even the BX with chains couldn’t due to the depth and I’ve had to abandon it nose first in a snowdrift. Oh, and to top things off we’ve had no water for 4 days with no sign of a thaw imminent.

Lastly, due to the drugs I'm on for my back, no drinking for me this festive season...

Happy Christmas everyone! :-reindeer
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1993 1.9 TZD Turbo Estate
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Dollywobbler
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Post by Dollywobbler »

Oh dear. This is my fear with LPG - it's adding an additional complication that isn't necessarily DIY friendly. Don't speak to me about BXs stuck in the snow though...

Hope your back improves! We'll come and see you in the New Year. We can bring our own water... (gas is our issue - lack of and no top-ups while the weather is like this!).
scarecrow

Post by scarecrow »

Has Lana got panniers for the horses? That's how we got provisions one bad winter.

The authorities did state on the radio that people in urgent need should write messages in the snow for patrolling helicopters. I used some of our remaining coal to spell out V O D K A , but they never delivered :roll:

Luckily I'd made some banana wine a few months before, so I constructed a quick still and produced some moonshine, which didn't even make the partner go blind!
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electrokid
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Post by electrokid »

Hope you're feeling better soon mate.

I only know the theory re LPG but one thing comes to mind which may or may not be significant. The proportions of propane / butane can be varied seasonally since butane vapour pressure drops off around 0°C so just at the moment you're relying on the amount of propane in the mix for pressure in the tank. You might still be running on - or being supplied with 'summer lpg'.

Having said that, when the propane evaporates it should take butane with it but if there's an effect which our physics 'peers' haven't told us about or are in denial about I would guess there might be the circumstance that the propane may not take all the butane with it and leave you with insufficient propane in the tank to provide enough pressure - just a thought - you could try running it on a test from a propane bottle to see if it makes a difference.
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mat_fenwick
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Post by mat_fenwick »

Dollywobbler wrote:This is my fear with LPG - it's adding an additional complication that isn't necessarily DIY friendly. Don't speak to me about BXs stuck in the snow though...
Without the software to talk to the gas ECU you seem to be very much at the mercy of those that do, and I've yet to find one that I trust...distance is an issue living round here! Rip the system out and fit a new one seems to be the common mantra, obviously more profitable for them. But with a well working system I think it's a great fuel for running a thristy car on, and will even get through an MOT without a catalytic converter fitted, it's that clean!
Dragged the BX out of the snowbank today, but it did have an 'interesting' sideways moment whilst being towed!
scarecrow wrote:Has Lana got panniers for the horses?
No horse yet - we can't get any hay delivered so have postponed collection of the beast! But found today we can borrow a large tipping trailer so we'll probably end up collecting it ourselves. A couple of tons(!) should see it through the winter.
electrokid wrote:You might still be running on - or being supplied with 'summer lpg'
Don't think it's that unfortunately - it was running fine for about 100 miles since I rebuilt the vaporiser, and since they twaeked the setttings in the ECU it hasn't. Still on the same tankful. I did try refilling it to make sure it hadn't run out despite the gauge telling me otherwise, but no change.
I discovered that by repeatedly pumping the throttle it was possible to get the revs over 3k rpm, at which point it would rev perfectly normally and hold a steady engine speed from 3k upwards. Drop (even slightly) below 3k though, and the revs would rapidly drop to around 1500 and become rougher. It was possible (just) to drive the car but only below about 10mph as there was no power.

The importers for the kit don't want to know when it comes to spare parts requests for a 7 year old system, so I think the only realistic option is to install a new front end to it (i.e. keep the tanks etc and replace the injectors/ECU etc. The advantage being we'll get a modern more advanced system with sequential gas injection, hopefully more reliability and better spares back up. And if I do it myself I'll have the software and the knowledge how it all works...
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1993 1.9 TZD Turbo Estate
1996 3.9 V8 Discovery
1993 VW LT35 campervan
1985 Hyundai Stellar V8
2016 Hyundai iLoad
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toddao
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Post by toddao »

Sorry to hear about your trials Mat. Maybe when Santa turns up, throw him off his sleigh and run that a round for a few days?

What 'drugs' are preventing you from drinking? I've got the opposite problem!

Merry Christmas anyway! :D
Todd


this yellow writing is really hard to read
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mat_fenwick
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Post by mat_fenwick »

Cheers mate!

I'm on Co-Codamol for the painkilling, Diclofenac as an anti-inflamatory, and Diazapam to relax my muscles and help me sleep. Only works till about 5 so I then wake up in pain - by the time they've kicked in again it's time to get up anyway! Oh well, could be worse. In a month's time we'll look back on this and laugh about it I'm sure...

Enjoy your Christmas and don't do anything I wouldn't do! :wink:
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1993 1.9 TZD Turbo Estate
1996 3.9 V8 Discovery
1993 VW LT35 campervan
1985 Hyundai Stellar V8
2016 Hyundai iLoad
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