BXing on the Solent

[Kitch]

Couldn't think of a decent name for my (proper) new blog, so that's the first thing that came to mind!

Decided to start a new blog, which I'll slowly add to. I've got quite a few others running (maybe somebody could lock/remove them once I've nabbed all the content I need in the interests of house-keeping?!)
Don't really need to introduce myself as I know (or know of) most of you! So I thought I'd quickly bash through the cars i currently own and that will feature in this blog (along with a couple of extras I sometimes tinker with for others)

Including regular updates from the current fleet:

1991 BX 16v (aka 'BAH')



Purchased: June 2004
Approx mileage (to date): 122,000
Status: In daily service
Plans: In service for 2014 (daily duties at the moment), coming off the road in 2015 for refit including air-con retrofit and extensive rust protection

1984 BX16 TRS



Purchased: July 2014
Approx mileage (to date): 17,600
Status: Has been off the road since 2007
Plans: Bodywork repairs and recommission in as close to original state as possible

1989 BX 16v (aka 'G-SEG')



Purchased: August 2012
Approx mileage: not sure.....170k??
Status: Partially dismantled
Plans: None, other than to carefully strip, catalogue and store parts. Extensive tinworm has rendered this a donor car for other BXs

1989 BX 16v (aka 'X-PO@ or 'The Red Shell')




Purchased: August 2013
Approx mileage: 130,000
Status: Very slowly being brought back to life
Plans: Purchased for £100 with no engine as a spares source, the shell is actually pretty good (apart from a section of the O/S A-pillar!) The engine from G-SEG will be refreshed and fitted to this car, which hopefully will be on the road (albeit looking pretty much as it does now) for 2015.

1989 BX GTi 16v (aka 'DUG')



Now sold!

And occasional brief contributions or appearances by:

The GT (currently being restored and featured as a Reader's Saga in Practical Classics):


Mulley's valver (which he hasn't seen yet!):


I tend to tinker with something on one of the cars at least every couple of days, but figured rather than boring everyone around me to tears with BX-related arsery, I could just bang on about it to equally fanatical folk of questionable sanity!

[Kitch]

Snippets from 2012 on BAH:

Well life with the BX has started again - I taxed it last night! It's going to be a hectic year for me, but there are few events during the year I intend on attending.

First thing I had to do was get the car onto the rolling road we installed last year at work. I've only ever put the Saxo VTR (honest) and Picasso on it, and being I took the BX to a local RR place who don't have a great rep last year and getting some silly unrealistic result (176.2bhp!) I was keen to pop it on a set that I know aren't fudged.....because I'm the operator!
Flywheel figures on rolling road dynos are only ever an estimate - the wheel figure is the only truely accurate one. I did two runs, one with the Superchip it (used to) have fitted, and one without.

Run with:



Run without:



The clue is in that dip in torque at around 3000rpm. The graph isn't cali'd to show it yet, but on the AFR readings the mixture leaned right out to dangerous levels (around 17.5-18.0 AFR) before richening back up too much until around 6500rpm, which was the only point the mixture was right. So whoever mapped that chip basically had know idea what they were doing! Results were broadly similar, but I'd been wondering for some time whether that chip was crap or not.....seems it was.

Results weren't clear cut to decipher though; 133hp at the wheels isn't too bad at all, and using the standard calculations (which you can do on a calculator) the result is 159bhp, which I'd be happy with as it shows the engine is in good health. However, the corrected figure of 144bhp isn't great, and this figure is normally more accurate is takes into account wheel slip, ambient temperature, atmospheric pressure.......it gets boring but you get the idea!

No excuses to hand at this moment. I think the front tyres only have around 20psi in them and the tracking is miles out, so there would have been a bit more drag then normal I'm going to sort the tracking out, pump the tyres up and have another go. I'll film that one too.

Today's job was to sort out the driver's door moulding, which has come unstuck and tends to jam against the wing meaning you have to slide out of an opening about 50mm wide!





Turns out the door has a fair amount of surface rust and the mouldings on the 16v are held on with a blob of mastick at each end with trim tape along the middle. The rust was under both blobs of mastic, but only severe enough to have it come away at the front end.



Lots of rubbing down ensued before caking it in Kurust and leaving it overnight in the workshop.





I'll fill it tomorrow, let that harden, rub it back, prime it, rub it back and paint it. I know it doesn't need to be perfect under there as it's hidden, but I see it as a good excuse to practice getting a nice finish with a rattle can! I might have a bash at the skirts and valances if it comes out ok. I'm not quite a full respray stage yet, but having to polish it to keep it red annoys the shit out of me as I don't like cleaning cars. Bores me to tears if I'm honest - I can probably stomach up enough enthusiasm to do a car once a year. Besides, I don't have time!

While I was doing the door (and seeing as every bloody product under the sun needs to be left ages before the next stages) I noticed the rear C-pillar isn't looking too clever, and have seen (someone who I can't remember's name, but it was on a Hurricane) do a quick fix with filler with good results I thought why not? It's not holed yet so it'll buy me some time. So I started that too:




And that's as far as I've got today. Gotta get it ship-shape (within reason) - I'm getting married in a week and a half and need it ready for then!

Managed to improve that early lowly power figure....

What a difference a set of plugs can make though! From this:



To this....



That's 9HP at the wheels! Now you can't call it an exact science, because if you did 5 runs you'd find a variance of up to 5bhp between them all. But that jump is too big for variance. I was sceptical and it's likely my company is going to act as a distributor for them, so it's lucky I've been impressed!

I took some videos of the BX on the dyno too, which I'll upload to youtube when I get a spare 3 days.

Here's that run:

Quick update time! With the NEC looming, I had to make some small changes:

Old:

New:


Old:

New:


A few other issues to attend to, like the coolant leak that's just decided to....well, happen really. I've also had a buzzing noise coming from the backbox for a couple of weeks. It's not the OE 16v one, it's a cheapo Walker copy cat. I bought a centre section a few years ago too, but that's made of monkey metal and has already rusted through, so I found a spare off the red shell....a GENUINE Citroen one!

So, fitted my original genuine backbox that came with the car way back in 2004 (that I'd removed to preserve it for future use, but decided to stop being a tart) along with this centre silencer. Had to clean it out first though:



Something had been living in it!:



All fitted now though:



Added bonus.....this exhaust system is a genuine one, front to back! And it makes a unique noise that the aftermarket ones can't hit. It's subtle, like a sort of muted hum, but with a muffled rasp if you give it some welly.
I also removed my cone air filter, and I have to say I'm enjoying it without it now! So currently, my 16v is pretty much totally standard....and all the better for it (you can tell I've hit 30!)

Enjoyed the drive home

[Kitch]

Snippets from G-SEG in 2012, following picking it up from Matt H:

Took a trip to somewhere near Worcester today to purchase another BX:




Matt H (who bought the car from Tim) had fallen out of love with it following a few ups and downs. The main down is that its an MOT failure with a bit of rust needing attention and practically no hydraulic pipes left. I do remember the pipes needing replacement at a CCC national a few years back - surprised it still hasn't been done! Anyway, they've now let go. Matt's tried to look after the car, but underneath it's not returning the favour.

So far the MOT failure sheet isn't huge, but there are some biggies to contend with:




Basically, engine needs to come out and subframe needs to come off. The rot at the subframe mount is pretty bad - especially under the area where someone had sikkaflexed a piece of tin over the top of rot (reminded me of my own car and the chemical metal!)

two plans currently in early stages:

1 - (ideal plan) fix the car up, get it looking as good underneath as it does up top and then decide whether to sell it on or sell mine on. I'm pretty attached to mine, so it's unlikely that I'd keep it. I do have a mate who's been after a good one for ages, so providing I can turn it into a good one of course.

2 - Admit defeat before I sink lots of money in and break the car for spares. But BX breaking, not 205 breaking......in other words salvaging all the rare parts rather than angle-grinding the engine out. This isn't the ideal plan - but it all hinges on a good inspection underneath the car tomorrow (with luck).

One odd possibility I'm considering is that I could use all the grey panels on my car and get the roof and shut lines sprayed, and convert my car to grey! I hate cleaning/polishing cars, so the grey is ideal! It's also very tidy. But, the red kinda has more character and when it actually is all gleaming (and that's rare) it looks better IMO.

So tomorrow it's up onto the ramp when I get a spare few minutes and have a good poke! Wish me luck!

[Kitch]

You can see the thread start to sour fairly early on (now I look back at it!):

Have had first 'feasibility' study (that's now the official name) of both engine/mechanicals and body.

Body: Better than I'd expected! I mean the front subframe mounts are absolutely shocking and there are one or two crusty areas, but truth be told at the moment I'm struggling to see what else is so bad. Sills are really good, rear chassis rails fine. Rear panel is a bit flimsy, under the bonnet is a bit untidy and basically the less said about the arches and the arseholery that's gone on in there sometime in the last 10 years the better.
Driver's door is hanging a bit, bit of tin worm coming through in some of the door shuts, but nothing I would class as excessive for a BX this age. It looks like it's been a daily driver for the last 10 years or so, not a garage queen! But exterior bodywork is as good as you'll find on a BX these days, even if the front bumper's paint job is a bit amateur. Got some rust bubbling up under the paint around the windscreen (BIG surprise!) but it's in it's infancy - you could catch it if you wanted to pay a bodyshop to do so.
Overall, for the age/mileage I'd say subframe mount aside it's actually about right. It's not exceptional but then it's not a mess either.

Engine/mechanicals Worse than expected. Rolling roaded it today at 114hp at the wheels, which is less than my Saxo VTS! Flywheel output is around 136bhp DIN, so it's lost a fair few ponies. It also sounds a bit weak, the mixture is very lean (to the point of dangerously so at around 3500rpm), it can't hold a steady idle (the HP pump cutting in cuts the engine out when it's hot) and half of the gauges either aren't working or there are serious issues. I suspect it's the gauges, although if the coolant gauge is not right then I'd guess someone's removed the thermostat, or it's jammed open.
Gearbox feels notchy, clutch cable is too loose (probably related). Front struts are sticking and it's pissing LHM out above the fuel tank, from the octopus, the brake lines to both wheels and the resevoir for some reason! The rear spheres feel too soft too - suspect they're not 16v ones. Hot/cold heater cable also seized and aircon system might as well never even be there.

Not all bad though - starts easily enough, very straight externally and pretty much complete. I think the car has potential still, but the issue it might have is the time & money to sink into it. It needs ALOT of work to get it ship shape. It's engine out, subframe out, welding to rails, octopus, fuel tank out and change the HP pipes, spheres, possible engine work......it goes on. So a decision is still a little way off, but I'm feeling more positive about the underside as I don't like welding old cars made of thin metal!


One thing I need to ask Matt H is how old the fuel is in it.....this could have massive effects on the power and AFR readings. Will update later with power graphs and pics.

More:

Yeah that's right Mike, the body is the bulk of the work. There are a hell of a lot of other bits to do though, so it's more like 1/2 the battle

Anyway, today yielded results. First was a trip to the rolling road dyno:




Results not so great:



Compare it to the only other 16v I've put on there - mine, which is pretty much standard these days:


(Don't read too much into the 98RON thing - it makes very little difference.)

This could be down to old fuel - I'm waiting to find out when it was last topped up and with what, as supermarket fuel seems to go off quicker than the branded stuff (could all be in my head - it all comes from the same place afterall!). Worringly, around 3500rpm the AFR monitor was reading 15.9 It basically means it's running very lean, which is the sort of behaviour that can melt things inside engines. So that will need addressing. Generally, the engine sounds ropey and isn't happy running. I'm pretty confident I could sort it out - compression test next will give me more info to hand, but I think the reason it sounds crap is probably the tappets needing a strip & refurb. If I fix it up engine will come out anyway and was going to do cambelt so it's no real hardship to whip the cams out and sort the tappets at the same time - it's just time consuming; redressing 16 hydraulic buckets takes days off your life!

Incidentally, anyone reading this with a 16v - I'll dyno it FOC if you bring it down; I'm keen to learn patterns on the rollers with different examples and specs.

I'd heard the car wasn't exactly a scorcher previously from more than one source, so although the results weren't a surprise I was still feeling a tad deflated. I was expecting the worst when I put it on the ramp:



Initially, I went straight to the zone that many have already told me has written the car off....




Followed by....



Now that looks shocking (not just the attempted welding of the subframe) but......the main rail isn't the part that's massively affected. Although there is a bit that needs attention, the larger part that is unseaming itself from the rail is the closing panel that forms part of the inner wheel arch. That isn't as structural as the rail, although it will reinforce it. But this is good news from this respect. It's still an engine and subframe out job, so a pretty massive job, but it's not what I would class as enough to write a car with potential off. So I'd already decided that this rot is not the killer of the car, if I do decide that it's a no-go.

Happily the other side is better, though desperately needing treatment:



The leak you can see is from the octopus - it's pissing out of one of the returns. The brake lines to the front calipers are also shot, so when you touch the brakes it gushes out. And when it's not gushing, it's still dripping all over BMW M3s:



Luckily, sills look good. Certainly no worse than my red one, or most other BXs I look under:




Haven't found anything horrific anywhere else either:





CV boot *might* need attention though:



The only thing I hate to say here (and it's no dig at Tim) but it's a prime example of a car being kept clean and polished and that being regarded as 'looking after your pride and joy' when underneath it wasn't receiving the attention it needed. It might be with a new car that you're fighting depreciation with, but as a car ages the body becomes less important and the underneath and mechanicals start to take centre stage. I'm not quite sure why or how or who, but the guts of the car just don't seem to have had that enthusiasts touch, even if the exterior clearly has.
It's no dig at Matt either, he hasn't owned the car long enough to really influence it. I know he had plans for the car and at one point favoured it to his ph1. I can almost guess the reason is because his ph1 will drive a lot better than this one, and that's without having driven his ph1.

Overall I would class it as a positive day. I'm still not 100% sold on what I'm doing with it - I need to go round the car and make a list of everything that needs doing. If I'm going to sort the car, I'll do it properly. No half-arsed jobs, properly or not at all.

Had a result yesterday/today having done a compression test. Decided to investigate further as to why the power's down and perform a compression test. First spark plug I get to.......hardly done up at all. Not loose, but not sealing tight. Then, get to no.1.........loose! Performed test (cold admittedly - I can't run it up for long as it pisses LHM everywhere) and was happy with the 150psi or so results. Refitted plugs (although they'll be replaced yet) and didn't start car again til today. My god does it sound alot sweeter! They can't have been sealing right!

So, after a few days' thinking and some planning I've decided to go for it and sort the car out. It's going to take more time and money than I'd hoped, but I think the car is worth it. If (and only if) I get the car right, at the moment the plan will probably be to sell it, although it will be sans air-con (as BAH will be getting it).

Found some more crumbling around the boot floor area, but that's not too big a deal to put right.

So, it's going to be engine out and cambelt/water pump done at same time. Then subframe out, weld body, sort the leak from the octopus and get the engine bay right again with wiring niggles fixed, coolant hoses checked and changed etc. I'll also get the power up into the 150's, because otherwise it just won't go like a valver is supposed to.
Then it's fuel tank out and change the HP pipes over the tank. I'll sort the brake pipes at the same time.

So good news it that (unless the rot turns out to be terminal once it's apart) the plan is to save it

[Kitch]

The last G-SEG update in it's own thread (which can now be closed, thanks mods):

Managed to achieve something on G-SEG today. Sadly it was something that broke yesterday, rather than getting round to any of the other issues to sort

Yesterday it wouldn't start having been left since before Christmas. An hour's tinkering today found the plunger in the dizzy cap had jammed and the spring had expanded, resulting in a very weak spark. Took the cap apart, cleaned and reset everything and managed to get it to fire today (took a while - it was pretty flooded!)
Good news is that it feels much better on the throttle, so it looks like one of the issues with the engine (other than the spark plugs being loose) was a weak spark. I plan to change the plugs anyway, but I'm now feeling more confident about getting this thing kicking out the full 160bhp, rather than 135 (at the end of the day, it does matter....why else would you buy a 16v over a regular BX if it didn't go well?!)

Jobs to do (so far):

1) Attend to rot in the nearside wheelarch and chassis rail. Going to take a while to sort, but luckily it looks like it hasn't spread out of reach.
2) Engine's got to come out to attend to chassis rail rot (if I want to do it properly!) so when it does I'll do the cambelt as it's due. I'm also probably going to strip the cams and tappets out of it and refurb the hydraulic buckets, as it's pretty noisy at the moment.
3) Sort the HP pipe leaks. About three of them at the moment! It's going to need re-piping.
4) Sort MOT issues out....steering rack gaitor, CV boot.....something else I can't remember, but there's enough to keep me busy.
5) More rot to sort at the back of the car behind the rear bumper. Pretty easy to do, luckily.

I have now driven it though....slowly round the estate, with the handbrake as a footbrake (brakes don't work due to HP pipe pissing LHM everywhere) and the good news is that aside from being slow, it's pretty good on the move. Very smooth (because it has normal BX spheres, not 16v ones at the moment) and no rattles or knocks that I could hear.

Plans for it? Well I like the idea of running both it and my red one this year. But.....finances have to come first and I need a new kitchen and to please the wife. I think it's more likely I'll get it on the road for that CCC show in April (forget which it is) and then probably put it up for sale. But who knows, I might be able to keep it.

It was after this post that I slowly began to realise that the car's days were numbered. There is rust, just everywhere. For any area you managed to repair, you'd have a heap of others that, while not structural, would detract from the car's overall appearance (slam panel, top of the windscreen aperture, kickplates, C-pillar/dog leg...all stuff that prevents it from being a good example, yet can be tricky to put right).

Since I've slowly been stripping the parts from it (NOTHING has been thrown away ) I've been finding more areas of rot. I think it was Phil Chidlow who suggested taking pictures of all areas of the shell that have succumbed to rot, and that's what I've been doing (under the rear seat was a new one on me!) The engine is now removed and awaiting a spot of refreshing to get it running sweetly again ready to go into the 'red shell'.

It's such a shame, as to this day it remains one of the nicest-looking BXs I've seen, IMO. It's just a shame as in this instance, the beauty is only skin deep

[Kitch]

The Red Shell, taken from 2013:

As some may know, I collected this yesterday. BX 16v....£100 (£150 if you include the fuel I used!). Bargain? Not really, it doesn't have an engine.












Bit missing:


Inner wings look good:






Nearside A-pillar in excellent condition (like my other red one, weirdly):


Roof:


Windscreen pillar (been like it a while so guess the whole A-pillar will be pretty bad)






So there it is. I've now got a dilemma on my hands - what to do with it!

Option A: Originally I went and collected it because I figured it would be long dead and when you've got a 16v (and you intend to keep it for good) having a shed full of spares is pretty reassuring. So option A is stick to what I was going to do....break it for spares, and I mean break it properly, wasting nothing. Not rip what I want and crush the rest....I would even consider trying to un-stitch the shell's spot welds!

Option B: Take note on the fact that by and large, it's not actually in too bad a condition. Ok so the paint's pretty sad, but paintwork doesn't make a good car. In the important areas, it doesn't look too bad. Though in some (windscreen surrounds) it does look pretty poor! But because the condition isn't too bad, sell the car on again to someone who wants to resurrect it, or at least do something with it. I have taken pity on it and I do believe it was quite a nice one before it was butchered, so it would be lovely to see it going again, but I also have to think of my other car and the spares I may need. That said, i also have the grey one (G-SEG) and that also carries a load of parts. And that car is dead; the shell is in far worse condition than this one (from what I've seen so far). But, putting my selfish hat on (true to character) selling it on again doesn't benefit me in any way. I feel good about "saving" it, but then at the same time no body else stepped up to the plate to go and collect it this weekend, and if I hadn't it would be sitting in a scrap yard awaiting the crusher right now, along with all the rare spares on it. I also have to be aware of the fact that I have no idea the mechanical condition of the car....suspension, brakes, electronics etc. And who knows how they butchered that engine out and what state it might be in.

Option C1: Take pity on the car and get it up and running using the bits from G-SEG like the engine, box etc. Get it MoT'd, and sell as a running project needing bodywork.
Option C2: As above, but get bodywork sorted out prior to sale, so it's a minter. Risk with both these options is I end up out of pocket, and 16v values seem to really be hit and miss at the moment; we're definitely in the mk1's golden era in terms of values! There's also the time factor to consider, though this way only one 16v dies.

So far I've got some thinking to do! Need to have a better look around the shell and see what state it's in. There are a few areas I'm concerned about in the engine bay, and I know from experience if you find a car someone has stripped parts from, they usually haven't been too careful in how they go about it. Being pragmatic, it was going to get cubed today, so the very worst is that it still dies, but it's recycled thoroughly rather than wasted.

Hmmmmmmmm......

I was coming across all negative at this point:

It always amazes me the number of people who say a valver needs to be saved because it's so rare, yet there's possibly as many valvers around as there are 16's of any model!

Having said that, it looks a saveable motor, but like many cars (not just BX's) only worth doing if it's for yourself. I think a mint valver could fetch 2 or 3 grand, but it would have to be mint, and there would be a big gap in values between the perfect car and one needing a couple of details sorting.

The club seems to have plenty of members willing to do mechanical work but are unable to do bodywork repairs for 1 reason or another. I don't know if it would be worth it financially, but doing the welding work required would make it much more sellable. I think the reason no one else was prepared to take it on was because it was assumed by many that an engine donor must be rotten, while until recently a complete valver was probably worth less than its engine!

I quite agree Mike. For a single model, the 16v is probably one of the more common variants left. I think the reason they're still regarded as one of the rare ones is that their decline in numbers was massively influenced by the 205 brigade, rather than just declining naturally like the 14s and 16s etc have. You're probably right.....if we looked into it we'd probably find less 16s than 16Vs!
I'd love to think a mint one could fetch £2-3k. I think £2k is easily within reach for a minter, possibly £2.5k.

Thing is, this one is probably saveable, yes. But would it be worthwhile me doing it? No, I'd have to spend a fair whack on it getting it painted and probably wouldn't see it back. I've been out again today and had a slightly better look over it. Found this:





Look closer at the A-pillar....




The O/S is totally shot....made of dust. I've had the same thing to sort on the GT and it wasn't easy to do. And if I'm going to be paying for a red 16v to be resprayed, I think I'd rather be getting BAH done up!

My thoughts at the moment are that sadly it's all about survival of the fittest, and that though this one was unquestionably a good one in recent years, it's declined pretty badly over the last few and could be used to preserve others.



I'll probably change my mind tomorrow though

[Kitch]

More 'decisions':

So, I've reached a decision. It's not the decision, but it is a decision none the less!

Basically, it's all or nothing. I'm either going to break it for bits, or I'm going to try and restore it and make a REALLY good 16v out of it in the view that by selling it for good money, I'll soften the blow of losing lots of my beloved spare parts and also possibly pay for a cruise to keep the other half sweet

I'd be concerned that if I sold it as a project to somebody, they might then withdraw and sell it on again or something later down the line, meaning I lost all the valuable spares (or the opportunity to get it looking good myself) for pittance. Not to mention the fact to make it worthwhile, I'd have to set the price of the project at an unrealistic figure!

So basically, if it passes the following criteria, it's a goer:

* Rust check - if it's too far gone, it's too far gone.
* Wiring check - if it's been butchered it'll be a world of pain I don't need
* Bodywork check - I need to polish the whole car and try and make it look nice again. I don't have lots of money to throw at a bodyshop and I'll already have to do so with the A-pillar repairs.
* Parts cost check - Lots of parts will be needed, and they add up. The engine in G-SEG isn't quite right so I'll need to spend some funds to get it running right again. For a kick off it needs either new tappets, or the old ones refurbing and a cambelt. Might even be prudent to take the head off, clean it all up and fit a new gasket/water pump etc.

So there is quite a hill to get over, but basically if it's sound in all those areas I'll make a go of it. Then, when I can't get £2k+ for it, I'll have a right strop on here

If it fails any of those areas, then I'll have to call time on it.

I'll report back with the findings as and when I find them!

And then followed by:

It passed the wiring check (guy who pulled the engine out even labelled wires!)

But I found out why the engine was pulled out....





O/S A-Pillar is completely shot. The windscreen is stressed and delaminated all along the bottom edge O/S corner, and knowing what I've learnt through doing the GT, that's not light or easy work to put right. Adding to the fact that the pillar is so shot on first inspection, the inner sections will be completely ruined (because they always are). It's all down to the fact it's rust through at the bottom corner of the windscreen. A real shame, because the rest of it is bloody good.

Not as bad as G-SEG on the whole, but the amount of paint it would need, along with the fab-work and the welding, and the fact it doesn't have an engine and I'd be gambling on the condition of the mechanicals (struts, arms, spheres, ABS sensors....the usual) it looks like it's a no go

Gutted, because I'd started making plans to get it sorted, but it's just too far gone. At least there will be a source of spares for other cars.

And then the thread was left alone. Now I'm saying I'm going to save it! What's changed?

Well, I've learned more, for a start. Sure, the A-pillar in fubar, but the rest of the shell is actually really good - better in many places by BXs I see in daily use or at shows. I know what's involved in the A-pillar, as I've been there with the GT. It's tricky, but being that it's seemingly just that A-pillar, I've now decided that it's really an idea to try and save this one. I doubt I'll be going to full hog with it and attempting to have it resprayed etc, but when BAH comes off the road next year, my aim is to have this one up and running and use it for rallys etc in BAH's place (assuming I don't still have DUG).

What makes this decision (and it is, the decision!) more of a pain, is that I'd already stripped the interior out of it. Now, I have to fit the one from G-SEG, as I didn't strip that (seriously can't remember why) out for Alex to use in G-VOT's quest to return it to original spec. More work and faffing around, but on the flip side it would have needed to have come out to put a lot of the wiring that was ripped out for the 205 conversion that nearly killed it back in 2008.

I spent an evening last week on it hoovering out mouse nests, drying any leaks and sorting through parts from G-SEG that will be needed on this car. Next stage is to lift the dash back out (it's not been bolted in since the engine was ripped out) and do the same to G-SEG, and then transplant wiring and all the required bits for the engine over.

Only bummer in all of this is that I have to raid some of my own spares, and at times realise I'm using my only XXXXX or whatever, so in the future if something fails or breaks on BAH, I could be in for a world of pain trying to find it all.

[bxzx16v]

What a nice collection of 16v's you have there Kitch.

Mark

[Kitch]

I'm slowly working my way through all of them, yeah!

[Thread Bear]

BXing on the Solent

Or 'Solent Blocs'?
Less appealing to me, 'Hamble happenings', 'Testing times' - wrong side of the conurbation to really work. And of course The Farnham Farces, OK I will go away now....

But. If only one car 'BAH Humbug',

Need time to understand what I am looking at but a few desirable cars and some well founded projects on a quick pootle through. Need to get rid of quite a bit of stuff to be able to get near my Gti, but once there it will be a learning experience for me as it has sensors, electrics etc. I have so far studiously avoided. So good resources are greatly to be desired.

[Kitch]

I'll see what I can do on the 'good resources' front

Update today from BAH - drove to Hastings from Fareham yesterday and back again today. Some may remember the fun I had going to and from the NEC with an intermittent misfire - well I did find the TDC sensor cable from the plug had insulation that wasn't exactly doing any insulating a couple of weeks ago. Managed to change the sensor without removing the HP pump bracket - success kid meme for me!
Problem hasn't totally disappeared, though it doesn't dick about like it did that eventful weekend back in November. The rev counter still flutters occasionally, and when pulling away you sometimes get a slight stutter, but on the move it's been fine. Yesterday's and today's journeys included a mix of 60-70mph light cruising on the A27, coupled with aggressive blasts from roundabouts using all the revs in the lower gears. No problems and performance is exactly as it should be. Better still, it's averaged around 34-35mpg for the trip

Have a feeling the fluttering rev counter is down to knackered wiring though, so that's added to the list for refurbishment next year. Weirdest symptom is that it stutters and tries to stall when you're braking to a standstill at the lights, with the clutch dipped. It's like lateral g-force is causing a wire to stress a fractured connection until the car stops

It just needs to last the year, that's all I ask.

[Tim Leech]

Kitch,

The GT did the same thing, it was the wiring to the coil, well one of the connectors although the GT has a normal coil, hope it helps.

She kept missing and the rev counter would keep dying alos.

[Kitch]

Kitch,

The GT did the same thing, it was the wiring to the coil, well one of the connectors although the GT has a normal coil, hope it helps.

She kept missing and the rev counter would keep dying alos.

I have a feeling it's something like this at fault Tim. As long as it can hang on until next year, then I can get some connectors and wire together and start renewing sections of loom, as it's all going a bit crusty.

[Tim Leech]

All I did was cut off the connectors and fit new ones and hey presto!

[Kitch]

Connectors are alright, repaired some of those already. The wiring is all crispy and old, and it's only a matter of time before something fails. I think it'd be time well-spent going through it all with a fine tooth comb.