C'est Bleriot - 1987 17RD Hatchback

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vulgalour
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Re: C'est Bleriot - 1987 17RD Hatchback

Post by vulgalour »

I splurged some cash on something nobody will ever see; underlay. This is from Coverdale and it's almost identical to what I removed from the back of the BX carpets, pretty cheap too since I only need 2 metres to do the whole carpet and I know it can be dried out fairly easily if it does take on water. It also smells right, and that's important to me, the smell of a car's interior is just as important an experience as all the other factors. Easy to fit this stuff, simply draw around the carpet onto the paper backing that protects the sticky side of the underlay, cut out with good sharp scissors, and slap it on the back of the carpet. I used the old glue outlines on the carpet to help me figure out what shapes to cut. There's no underlay on the inner sills, if you put it there you won't get the side trims on. I did the rear carpet in two pieces, as that was easiest, and it also shows how it looks when fitted and the carpet when scraped of glue. I used a metal filler scraper/blade/knife thing to remove the glue which worked really well without damaging the carpet itself.
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I did both front sections too, they have a little bit of variation on the edges since you don't put it over what little inner arch intrudes into the cabin and for the driver's side there's a big round plastic stop on the back of the carpet to avoid. With that all ready to go in the car I found it easier to remove the centre console to install it. I also wanted to clean the centre console up since I wouldn't easily get another chance to do that and it's a much easier thing to clean out of the car. To remove the centre console there are very few fixings: one big plastic screw at the front, the gearknob, a small bolt under the plastic grommet, and a small nut hiding behind the blanking pocket (that someone has used as an ashtray in the past, which is a bit annoying). If you ever wondered why the bottom of the handbrake slot on the centre console had that bigger wide bit at the bottom, that's so you can get it over the handbrake when you remove and refit since the handle is too wide to go through the other sections easily. The rear pocket prises out, there's two spring-tabs at the top and and at the bottom.
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This is the bolt the big plastic screw at the front goes on. You can unscrew this with a regular screwdriver, you don't need a massive one, it's not very tight.
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This little bolt is hiding under a rubbery cap that simply prises off. The front portion of the centre console overlaps the rear. You can remove the rear portion without removing the front, if you're careful, but you do have to undo this bolt to do it.
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The gearknob simply unscrews. There's a spring underneath which isn't under any tension, and the black plastic portion of the gear lever goes some way underneath the boot and onto the metal part of the gear lever, so be aware of that when installing and removing.
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The nut hiding behind the pocket at the back of the console also has a washer, this is the prevent the plastic cracking from the nut being over tightened. Easy to remove.
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With all that done, the console is very easy to remove from the car and very easy to refit. One of the easiest centre consoles to do since there's no sneaky hidden fastenings or really any particularly twisty way to get the thing in and out. With that out and cleaned, I could reinstall the carpet which was equally very easy. I didn't remove the rear door trims, I found I could just push the carpet underneath them when the screws were loosened a bit. There's four fir tree style trim clips under the rear bench to hold the carpet down there, again you needn't remove the seat, you can push the carpet through the gap between the floor and the seat if you lift the seat base up a bit, then fold the seat base fully forward to push the trim clips home. There's two screws holding down the plastic trims at either end of the seat bench that also help hold everything flat.
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For the seats, it's 5 allen headed bolts. I found it easiest to push the seat all the way back to do the front ones, then all the way forwards to do the back ones. Don't fully tighten the front bolts until you've got the rears in, the floating captive nuts Citroen use for the seat bolts give you a lot of adjustment that should make fitting the seats easier. Unfortunately, I didn't have a socket small enough for these, so had to do it with allen keys, which is a chore. The front ones aren't very visible and removing the seat base doesn't make life much easier.
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At the rear of the seat the sill side is a single bolt, the seatbelt side is two bolts and a metal plate. This metal plate serves in part to cover the raw carpet edges but I suspect is also to help spread the load for the seatbelt, there being two bolts here rather than one is probably also to do with that, I expect.
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So, with all that in I vacuumed the carpet to get the dust from my shoes out and the fibrous bits from the underlay off and enjoyed the much softer feeling carpets. I swapped the front seat bases too, since there's rarely anyone in the passenger side, I thought it best to put the original fabric base on that side to reduce wear until I can make up my mind what I'm doing about the faded and worn seat fabric.
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I reinstalled the wind deflectors too. On rainy days they make the car so much nicer to be in since I can crack a window open and have some fresh air coming in without getting wet. It's so much nicer inside for having the new underlay and having the carpets shampooed, it's a relief not to have to put up with the boom from having no carpets or passenger seat in the car.
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Re: C'est Bleriot - 1987 17RD Hatchback

Post by Jaba »

If you keep up this good work with this level of illustrations we will have our own Haynes Manual here in the Forum!
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Re: C'est Bleriot - 1987 17RD Hatchback

Post by panky »

That's what I love about this thread, even the smallest jobs are recorded in great detail something Haynes would struggle to put across. Now if I only had a BX to reference :(
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Re: C'est Bleriot - 1987 17RD Hatchback

Post by vulgalour »

Part of doing it this way is habit, part is because the Haynes is bloody useless for the majority of jobs on this car! Serves as a good reference point for myself if nothing else.

ADDENDUM: When refitting the black plastic gear lever bit, make sure it's in the correct orientation. If it isn't, the reverse lock-out doesn't work and you can far too easily select first or reverse when you don't want to. I also found this piece is what is spoiling the gear change on this car, with it fitted the wrong way around the gear change is much nicer.
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Re: C'est Bleriot - 1987 17RD Hatchback

Post by saintjamesy89 »

Im reading this with great interest, i'd very much like to add extra sound and heat insulation to my GT, in the aid of making it a quieter and more comfortable cruiser, and I think the floor pan (amongst other areas of course) is one of the areas that would benefit from this.
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Re: C'est Bleriot - 1987 17RD Hatchback

Post by vulgalour »

I can only go off how the car feels to be in, but compared to the more modern foam that was under the driver's side front carpet, this older style underlay seems much more effective and cancelling out road noise, boom, and even some of the noise from the diesel engine clattering through into the cabin. I'd definitely recommend it since it's so cheap and easy to install. The doors would benefit from something being put inside them, whatever's in there must be fairly minimal as they do sound a bit tinny when closed and you can sometimes hear the stones and stuff that gets kicked up, which I reckon some soundproofing would reduce considerably. I'm not sure if it was the case across the range, but my boot has no underlay in it at all, if I'd bought an extra metre I could have done that as well which might have helped further as would, potentially, lining the underside of the parcel shelf with something. I suspect there's nothing on the back of the headlining or roof and that can be a bit noisy when it's raining heavily as a result.

There's lots of places to fit sound proofing and no complicated shapes to deal with, shouldn't be too difficult to really load your GT up with plenty of stuff and some of the pricier more modern gear can give surprisingly good results on older cars like these.
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Re: C'est Bleriot - 1987 17RD Hatchback

Post by panky »

Are there any sound deadening pads stuck to the floor, the bitumous self adhesive kind of thing. This takes the 'boom out of large panels and helps reduce noise, really good on the inside of door skins if you can get it in. Sllent Coat seems to be the go to brand but I use this stuff, very cheap and effective

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A single pad is enough for each panel as it's not sound proofing but adds weight to the area and stops them resonating and removed the 'tinnyness'
It's very similar to that used originally in Minis, here it is on the new floor pan of mine

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Re: C'est Bleriot - 1987 17RD Hatchback

Post by saintjamesy89 »

I have informally planned to insulate the entire floor plan, bulkhead, roof and the doors. Back along I replaced both the front electric window mechanisms and motors, as they were slack and had too much play in the scissor pivot joint, whilst I was at it I used sticky bitumen backed stuff with a metal face to insulate the front doors. It comes in sheets that just stick on, muh like the black stuff Panky posted, this is fairly easy to trim/cut too although the cut metal is very sharp!
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I'll have a look around at what is on offer when I get around to it, but I had planned to more or less cover as much of the inside of the car I can reach!
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Re: C'est Bleriot - 1987 17RD Hatchback

Post by vulgalour »

Panky: Got that sort of bitumen stuff on the BX floor as standard, it stills seems really prone to booming.


SaintJames: That looks as good a plan as any and it seals up the doors if it turns out your original membranes have come unstuck like mine had. Did you have any issues getting the plastic door card fixings to push home properly with that insulation fitted?
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Re: C'est Bleriot - 1987 17RD Hatchback

Post by saintjamesy89 »

Call me Tom, Sir Vulgalour.

My door membranes were cut, and half falling off. Yes, a few of the plastic xmas tree clips broke on removal of the door cards, but the ones that didn't break pushed in ok, although they needed a firm push! I do need to get some new ones, as i'm sure at least some of the rear door clips will break when it's their turn to be insulated.
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Re: C'est Bleriot - 1987 17RD Hatchback

Post by vulgalour »

I'm going to completely forget to call you Tom. Please don't take it personally when I inevitably do!

Gave the BX a wash today, and a wax, for the first time in a few weeks because of the weather being a bit rubbish. I've a couple of niggles I should address at some point:

Central locking
I'm not sure what's broken on this, central locking is not my forté. If you unlock the driver's door, all the doors unlock except the passenger door. If you unlock the passenger door all the doors unlock. If you have unlocked the passenger door and attempt to lock the driver's door, the locks bounce back up to unlock position. This is true if you've used the key in the passenger door, or if you use the pull knob inside the car. I can't get my head around how the system would manifest this fault, I would have expected the passenger door to work, or not work, on the central locking, not this odd sort-of-both sort-of-neither thing it's doing.

Clutch pedal
I have an intermittently creaky/squeaky pedal. I've tried oiling the pivot points I can get to and it makes no difference. Some days it's really creaky, others it's quiet, and I can't find any regular factor that determines what it's going to do from one drive to the next.

Weather stripping
Interior weather stripping on the front door cards likes to roll over on itself when you put the front windows down, with the passenger side being much worse than the drivers side. I've tried cleaning, polish, even WD40, to no avail. Every time you put the front windows down the weather strip inside the car just rolls over and tries to jam up the window. The rubber is still quite pliable and the windows are as clean as I can get them so I'm wondering if perhaps there should be some flocking or low-friction coating on the rubber that's just rubbed off over the years so it's now grabbing the glass too effectively. The rear doors don't have this issue.

Mystery Creak
Somewhere at the front, sometimes, there's a creak. It seems to be driver's side. I can find absolutely nothing amiss and, annoyingly, when I go to investigate the issue the issue is never there. Usually it appears on the first lift of the day and disappears before you've driven a mile. It might just be a Citroen thing.

Exhaust
Sometimes it likes to play the bongos on first start up. I cannot find what it's banging on and nothing appears amiss on the hangers. I'm aware it's not sitting quite right at the back so this could just be that the back box needs finegling to get it just so. This is another intermittent issue, some days it doesn't do it and some days it's really bad.
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Re: C'est Bleriot - 1987 17RD Hatchback

Post by xantia_v6 »

re your locking, the symptoms indicate (at a first stab) that the passenger door lock is worn, or in need of lubrication, or the interior lock lever is fouling on something, preventing the normal range of travel.
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Re: C'est Bleriot - 1987 17RD Hatchback

Post by vulgalour »

I'm going to be removing the solenoid to see if it can be repaired and, if not, replacing it as seems to be the norm for this particular problem. Doesn't seem that uncommon for BX and PSA owners to have exactly this lock issue, so at least it's a well known one and apparently easy to fix.

--
Today the foam arrived for the rear reflector panel so I could get that fitted. First sight to greet me was some lovely post-rain beading all over the car, I guess I did a reasonable job with the wax to get that.
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This would come back to bite me. I'd already filled the extraneous holes in the rear panel using more Gorilla epoxy, because it's pretty good stuff for the application. I now needed to do the same on the tailgate for reasons of strength on the panel. I had got some longer screws to accomodate the extra thickness of the foam I'd fitted to the panel and, annoyingly, one of the holes stripped the thread and broke the surface of the panel so to fix that I needed to fill and redrill the hole. A simple matter of putting tape on the reverse of the panel and filling with glue from the front, then leaving the tailgate open (disconnecting the boot light) for as long as it took the epoxy to set.
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There's been a lot of holes drilled in this panel over the years. I'd already done the same to the rear panel, then fitted the new self-adhesive foam sheet to try and elimate the risk of damaging the trim panel and cut down on the rattling it made when the tailgate was closed. I had planned to make a tape template from the rear panel to make drilling the holes easier, however because I'd waxed the rear panel, the tape just fell off. So it was the tried and tested method of measuring carefully and drilling the holes... then finding you'd managed to somehow cock up the measuring and drill the holes in the correct place.
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With that all ready to go, I drilled out the epoxy-filled holes on the tailgate in the appropriate place and screwed the trim panel down. The foam does help a lot and makes the delicate reflective panel feel less delicate while also keeping that nice thunk that the BX tailgate has due to it weighing a lot.
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Unfortunately, as I was tightening the screw that had previously stripped the thread on the hole I'd filled, very carefully I might add, I found a soft spot on the epoxy that hadn't cured (presumably because it's too cold outside for this job) so now one side is a little loose and I can't do anything about that until tomorrow when the epoxy should be fully cured. Oh well, that's how these jobs go sometimes. Of interest is that the original tailgate lock solenoid is still in the tailgate, presumably broken since someone fitted a manual lock to the tailgate. If I can get hold of a proper BX button and the correct solenoid, I'd like to return this to standard so all the locks work off the central locking properly.
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I have to agree with popular opinion on the rear panel, the car does look just that bit more finished at the back with it fitted. Tomorrow I'll redo the epoxy that hasn't quite gone right and all should be good. I've also got an experiment to fix the front window weatherstrips that are rolling under because the flocking has gone on the top edge. This experiment involves glue, and velvet ribbon and a trial run highlighted that it has promise as a solution.
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Re: C'est Bleriot - 1987 17RD Hatchback

Post by vulgalour »

Right, I'm a little bit confused about something on the BX today. I have a cold (I'm dying!) but I soldiered on (I'm not long for this world!) and checked the Milliput I'd used yesterday had now set. I decided to go this route because I really didn't trust the rear panel and the Gorilla epoxy to hold the weight of the back panel through two screws since it wasn't a great thickness of material for the screw threads to bite into. Knowing how strong Milliput is, and the fact it's in a very sheltered location, I'm confident this will be a good strong lasting repair and allow me to more easily fit and remove the rear panel whenever the whim takes me. It's easy stuff to work with, very cheap, but has a very long cure time of several hours which is even longer if you're leaving it to cure on something outdoors, so overnight it was. Drilled a 3mm hole which is smaller than the threads on the screws and let the screws cut their own thread, and now the panel is lovely and secure once more.
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While I had access to the tailgate solenoid it seemed rude not to test it. I could see a plug hanging loose so simply plugged that in and, with the parcel shelf removed just in case, closed the tailgate and tested the central locking. It works! So that leads to even more confusion as to why it was unplugged and a key-lock put in there in the first place. I tested it a few times and it reliably worked locking and unlocking as it ought. I can only assume it either has an intermittent fault which will manifest at some point in the future, or a previous owner didn't like having to unlock the entire car to get in the boot, so retrofitted the manual lock. Either way, I'm very pleased it now works properly. When I'm not full of snot and coughing up a lung, I'll take the passenger door card off and see if the fault there is similarly easy to fix or if I actually need a new solenoid.
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Refitted the tailgate panel, pushing the annoying fir tree clips home since that's how Citroen do this, and then enjoyed the pleasing thunk of the tailgate now that the rear panel has that foam layer fitted. The rear panel also feels much less fragile than it did and doesn't rattle, so I'm very happy with that.
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Now just to find a replacement black button for the tailgate so it looks right.
Last edited by vulgalour on Thu Oct 17, 2019 3:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: C'est Bleriot - 1987 17RD Hatchback

Post by panky »

Maybe the original lock itself was faulty and he assumed it was the solenoid.
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