James' BX

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

Kitch wrote:Just a thought....a Xantia I bought once had no turbo either, with no funny noises. Accelaration was woeful, smoked badly to begin with but fine after a while.
That's exactly what's happening to me, though I've looked at the pipes and didn't find anything wrong. I will have another look, if that's the problem I'll have to hit myself!
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Aerodynamica
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Post by Aerodynamica »

Hi Tourist, I don't know if you're keen on doing your own work but rear arm bearings are not -that- hard a job. The hardest part I have found has been getting the old bearing tracks out.

If you are up to the job yourself, the 4 bearing sets you need to do both arms are about £7-9 each from Euro car parts and similar from GSF, the rubber seal can be got from the Citroen dealer still for a couple of pounds.

Of course, it depends on whether you'd want to D.I.Y it :P
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Post by Kitch »

Worth checking the pipes.

As for the arms....good thing you don't have ABS. If your bearings are indeed shagged, they may have worn through into the arms too and they might need replacing. Much harder to find ABS arms, but non-ABS not so bad. I've never done them...I've watched twice but its a job I cringe just looking at. I'd rather take the engine out! At least I know what I'm doing!
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Post by Tourist »

I don't know what I'm doing, it's probably worth the money a garage would change for piece-of-mind that the job's done properly :? and anyway, I get special rates because I'm friendly with the mechanic :)
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Aerodynamica
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Post by Aerodynamica »

Good job !
Graeme M

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Mk1 Xantia 1.9TD SX

'c'est hydropneumatique'
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Post by Kitch »

I'm not gonna ask about that!!

But I paid about £120 a side inc parts at the local Citroen specialist.
One third of a three-spoke BX columnist team for the Citroenian magazine.

CCC BX registrar: The national BX register - click to submit a car!

1983(A) 16TRS (Rouge Valleunga)
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Post by Tourist »

Kitch wrote:I'm not gonna ask about that!!
No I didn't mean like that =P

Edit: noticed you said Citroen specialist not dealer. That's good :)
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Post by Kitch »

Yeah Dorys down in the New Forest. If you can get your car to them, they're great. Pretty good value, and honest as the day is long. Only time they weren't great for me is when they really didn't wanna repipe my BX! :lol:
They quoted me £800 to get me to piss off! But I expect they've opened a few cans of worms with jobs like that.
One third of a three-spoke BX columnist team for the Citroenian magazine.

CCC BX registrar: The national BX register - click to submit a car!

1983(A) 16TRS (Rouge Valleunga)
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Post by Tourist »

I changed the battery over, car starts with no problems now but I'm still getting the issue of the starter motor disconnecting from the engine (to put it crudely) I put the old battery into my ZX and it couldn't start.

Now I'll know if the alternator's playing up by waiting to see if the battery goes flat even when I'm using the car. If it does, I'm in trouble :?
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mnde
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Post by mnde »

Hmm I wouldn't wait that long tbh. I'd avoid mullering yet another battery to find whether the alternator is playing up.

I had to call out the AA to my workplace once... because I'd left my GSA's headlights on all day :oops: (no buzzer warning in G's). I knew the alternator was already on the way out because it had started making strange noises. But the AA man also used his multimeter to measure the alternator's charging current with the engine running and found it to be insufficient to keep the battery topped right up - especially as it was winter and all the extra load from lights, heater, wipers etc.

Don't ask me how to measure it or what a healthy charge supplied from the alternator should be, because I don't know :lol: but search this site (e.g. keyword "alternator"), or someone else might pop up on this thread and tell you!

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Post by Tourist »

I'm getting the car looked at again monday so it won't be like this for long.

BTW the insulation under the back seats (lift them up) appears to be wet, right across the width of the back seat. I did a quick check for rust but it looks fine to me, what do you think this could be?
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Philip Chidlow
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Post by Philip Chidlow »

Could be the sunroof drain tubes blocked? Get the garage to blow some compressed air down them. (They take the water from the sunroof tray to the four corners of the car). The water's coming in through the sunroof I guess - as they aren't water-tight - and not finding a way out... Mind you, are the carpets wet too?

If they're not I might well be wrong!
• 1992 Citroen BX TZD Turbo Hurricane
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Post by Tourist »

The carpets are fine.
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Post by MULLEY »

Could also be the door seals letting in water if they have perished?

Main culprit will be what Phil said. You can sort them outyourself, see below.

Take the rear lights off (both of them as you cant tell which side is blocked, perhaps both), in the bodywork there is a rectangular shaped hole, the drain tube is in there somewhere if not on view, probably off to one side, could be either.

What i tend to do to ensure you dont fracture the tube as they are quite old is to get some grease & pop it on the circular shank of a screwdriver. Get the screwdriver behind the tube & ease it firmly but carefully towards you so that it can come out of the hole (the tube will bend & compress on the screwdriver shank), you can also put some grease on the leading edge of the hole to make it slide out easier.

This is a little fiddly the 1st time you try it, but once you've done it once its easy.

Once you have the drain tube out (both sides), suck hard & quickly take the pipe out of your mouth, otherwise you'll have a mouth full of stale shitty water :lol: . If that doesnt work, try blowing up the tube & then suck again.

What i also do is get some warm water, with the sunroof closed, pour the warm water over the sunroof & you should then hopefully see it pissing out of the drain tube. You'll probably see gunk coming out as well, i continue pooring water onto the sunroof until no more gunk comes out.

Hopefully its then sorted, & no more water ingress into you car.

I 1st noticed that the drain tubes were blocked, when i fired up the car, when the front started rising before the back, i heard a loud gurgling sound, turned round & saw shed loads of water pissing out of the rear speakers mounted up high above the rear seats :lol: Since doing the above, not had any probs again....
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

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Tourist
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Post by Tourist »

Got the car back about an hour ago from the garage. The bad news is that to take the turbo out, half the engine needs to come out or so I'm told. This will be expensive. I also have suspected water AND oil leaks, the arm bearings need replacing (not sure which ones ... maybe all) and I definitely need new spheres asap. Not only that, there's rust and some bad welding on one of the sills which means the car is bordering mot failure.

Down :(

It looks like I'll be looking for another BX very soon, unless I can somehow get my money back so I can repair this one.
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