The promised questions

[saintjamesy89]

Hi guys,

Question - the front end doesnt rise/fall smoothly, it jerks and groans when it does so, the back is nice and smooth. LHM was low, and topping it up made a small difference. It's still an amazingly comfortable car.

Question - what variant of the TU3 would mine be? (k1F?). I need to buy some servicing parts, its a G plate 1989 TGE. Or where could I find the engine code?

Is there a recommended oil for this engine?

Are there wires for rear speakers?

I think thats it for now, but i'm sure I will come up with some more.
Cheers!

[Tim Leech]

Tom

You need to lube the front struts (search on here on how to do it)

There is NO provision for rear speakers on a TG spec car mate sorry.

I imagine the filters and plugs are the same for most 1.4 TU cars, where do you get your parts from? www.gsfcarparts.com are useful

[saintjamesy89]

Ok, what sort of lube would you reccomend? I can do without rear speakers I suppose. I'm not chav enough to put speakers in the parcel shelf either...

Also is it possible to fit an instrument panel with a tachometer from another model? I quite like seeing the rev's i'm doing. If I do this I will also need a clock in the top of the dashboard where it looks like there should be one, anyone know if there are wires there already to do this?

Thanks.

[citsncycles]

Nice to hear from another 14 owner!

I'm still learning about mine, but here goes with what I think are the correct answers, and I'm sure if I get any wrong I'll soon be corrected

Service parts are all standard TU3 items, although there seems to have been 3 different air filters fitted depending on age.

According to the Haynes book of lies, engine oil is either 15W/40 or 20W/50 - I plan on using the latter when I service mine next week due to the engine mileage (coming up to 144K). Gear oil is 75W/80W, and again according to haynes it never needs changing in the gearbox used on the 14, but in my case I'll try to do it anyway as it's reluctant to shift into 2nd when cold.

I did run cables back to rear speakers on mine, but only because there were holes cut into my shelf already , and a pair of speakers were better than the holes.

I've not had to do it yet but I believe to lube the front struts you use LHM injected or poured from the top. As already mentioned, you should be able to find details on this job elsewhere on the forum.

The actual dash pod from a car with a tacho should swap straight in, and assuming that the rev counter works off the ignition system and not a separate sensor it should be easy to wire up - there are others better qualified than me to detail this. Mine has no wiring in place for the digital clock in the tray in the dash, but again it should be fairly simple to pick up the necessary feeds for this. I believe the clock is an item common to other Citroen's (the ZX for one I think), as well as some Peugeot's.

Hope this helps.

[MULLEY]

Don't bother with lhm lubing the front struts, there should be a couple of holes in each strut turret, one side will have a rubber bung in it, get some 3in1 oil & pop a few drops through the hole & then do some citreobics, that should hopefully free the struts up a bit. If that doesn't work, then i'd recommend hydraflushing fluid to replace all your lhm to see if that clears out lots of crap in the system & the struts.

Nothing wrong with fitting some 6x9's in the rear parcel shelf, sounds so much better than any other place to fit speakers, you can also upgrade the fronts if they are those shitty paper coned versions, some were fitted with better quality plastic one's i believe & the top of the range models had tweeters fitted in the tops of the dash where the top air vents are.

[Defender110]

''3 in 1'', is that still available?

[MULLEY]

I've got some If it's rare, then it's available to borrow @ £1 a drip

[Defender110]

I've got some If it's rare, then it's available to borrow @ £1 a drip

Borrow? how would we give you the drip back after we've used it?

[MULLEY]

Easy peasy, come round & fix my cars

[saintjamesy89]

Thanks guys, I have some 3 in 1 lubricant too, but is made by durex, would this do? It seems quite thick, it's a bugger to get off anything. This mornings job = lube my front struts.
Not sure about this oil returning business, sounds like lots of effort to me. And £1 a drop ?? I could probably dig some up for you for that price

[mat_fenwick]

Made by Durex? I think you're looking in the wrong cupboard! (My missus hates it when I get the copper grease mixed up with the KY…)

[saintjamesy89]

Oops, yep wrong cupboard...

After some half-hearted lubrication (it's pissing down with rain) and a good 20mins of citreobics, the back end rises smoothly first (but a bit slowly) and the front end rises after the back end very quickly and now only jerks/groans at the very top BUT the stop light comes when the back end is rising and sometimes when the front end starts to rise, it goes away if you rev the engine. (LHm is topped up at the full mark at highest suspension).

The front end also drops first, quickly, and then the rear follows slowly.

I'm not after perfect suspension chaps, but what does these antics say to you experiened BX'ers?

[saintjamesy89]

On listening to the engine, it sounds quite tappety, are these adjustable on this engine? Last time I adjusted tappets was on my series 3 land rover with a perkins 4203 engine, mmm torque-alicious!
It is in need of an oil change I think, so will do that soon anyway.

[scarecrow]

The tappets are adjustable.

[saintjamesy89]

Cool, will have to get me a feeler blade set.