(but read on...). Many thanks to Adam (what a lovely guy!) who swapped my wheels for the ones on the TZD(?) he's just bought. Both sets of wheels look much better on their new cars than original.Here's the first picture of the GT with its new alloys:
Bugger.
You might possibly notice a slight variance here with the general testing procedure for new wheels. Here's a little clue as to what happened.
Yes, a good old LHM leak. And there was a lot more where that came from, most of it falling in a hastily improvised tray. Not sure which pipe actually split but it was rubber/plastic and had split just where it pushed on to a metal pipe; located just above the front offside subframe at the back of the engine bay just behind the front wheel. I guess it's a low-pressure return pipe of some sort; I'll have a closer look later. There wasn't enough slack to cut the end off and re-use.
It might just have come out in sympathy with the aforementioned new TZD as Adam was fixing a rather large LHM leak as I arrived, coming from a spookily similar location.
And I'd just changed my rear spheres in the morning, giving 120 miles of silky-smooth ride, the best I've ever had in a BX. Could changing the spheres (all 5 of them in the last month) have had an effect or is it just co-incidence?
Now, the question of 'metric' alloys. This is one of my new ones (from 1991 car, I assume original wheels):
and this is one from a Mk1 BX seen at the CCC national meet last month:
As far as I can tell, the only difference between the two is the colour of the plastic centre disc.
BUT - according to the Citroenz test of the BX 16 TRS (at the bottom) the alloy wheels take Michelin TRX 170/65R-365 tyres. Longstone tyres state that the TRX rim and tyre was designed to work together. The implication here is that you should always use correct tyre size, presumably Michelin TRX all round as I can't find any potential alternatives on the net.
HOWEVER - the tyres on my new alloys are 165/70R-14, which begs the question, has someone fitted the wrong tyres in the past (they're all non-Michelin, including the spare), or did the wheel size change to 14" for mk 2s from 365 (whatever that is), or have I got totally the wrong end of the stick?
There is a code on the alloys but I've only just remembered about it and as it's gone midnight I really don't want to go and ferret around for that now! But I will post it later.
I do recall someone on the forum mentioning that the version of the alloys for mark 2s had the black centre disc (which these have) and that they took 14" tyres. Can anyone clarify this? For safety's sake I would like to make sure I'm driving around on the correct tyres.... although I'm not too keen on paying the best part of £600 to replace all five
If they should really take 14" then I might just treat the car to a new set of Firestones at £35 each from Blackcircles. Provided it promises not to p*ss LHM all over them
Lastly many thanks to Adam and his mate (forgotten his name but he likes Alfas so is obviously a top bloke!) for all the help, tea and Boddingtons, and for the nice man from the RAC who brought me all the way home.
Oh and apologies to Adam's mum for the unwelcome present on her driveway
. Sorry!
) wheels for a final check. Seems to be 5.00 B14 CH4.25 followed by what looks like SMR or SHR. Any chance of someone checking this out on pr.net? 
I think I particularly like the "14" in the code..... 
