Hello folks, new here.

[rd27]

Hello there, I thought i'd finally join this forum after just visiting and reading various topics before I finally delved in and bought a BX. I actually used your Spotted section (very handy to those who update it btw) to find my car as it's much easier than searching eBay myself. Cheeky.
Anyway I went and collected my BX last Monday, it's a light blue n/a diesel txd model. I chose this one as I have previously owned a Xantia with the same engine and found it very reliable and simple to work on. Plus I liked the colour of this one, Olympic blue I believe, which is very apt for the time I suppose.
Pictures can be found on the eBay link in this thread, I haven't had time to take any myself yet as i'm still in the process of cleaning her up (i'm up to 13 hours worth of cleaning already and i've only just finished the interior) My Mrs thinks i'm a very strange person.
http://www.bxclub.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=16665" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

My plans for her are to investigate the cooling system, for some reason it's holding pressure even when the engine has been stood for days, an airlock hopefully, i'm going to sort the front struts in the near future as they're juddery and creaky and just get a couple of bodywork bits tidied up.

[Mothman]

Hi bud,

welcome to the club, ime sure you will get a lot of help and info off the forum.
Your motor looks great and it certainly is a lot easier to find them using our 'spotting' section.

With regard to your motor, i had one with similar issues, pressure in the system when cold etc and it turned out to be the head gasket ime afraid. With the engine running and the rad cap off, can you see any bubbles? If so, it wil need the head doing. Mine ran for many months like this but died in the end. I hope this isnt the case and its an airlock.
When topping up the cooling system, you will need to release the bleed valves, firstly the one on the top of the rad on the left as you face the motor and then a white tap on a pipe that leads into the top of the engine, not doing this can cause an airlock. There have been many threads on this and head gasket problems so do search the forum for these.

Good luck anyway and i hope you have many miles of BXing, they are an illness you know!!

Andy

[citsncycles]

Welcome - that's a nice colour for the BX,

[RxBX]

Hi and welcome to the BXC !

I see your just East of me (And Tim) in Nottinghamshire !

As per 'Mothmans' experience, hopefully its just an airlock ?

But just check if the rad has good clean coolant with anti-freeze and corrosion inhibitor, because if the coolant has not been changed regularly , corrosion can set in internally in the radiator core and reduce the coolant circulation to to point where to much residual coolant pressure is contained in the coolant system along with poor engine cooling (Which could lead to a head-gasket been blown) !

So if I was you, I'd take the radiator off the vehicle and give it a good flush out and also take the opportunity to back flush the heater matrix out (In situ) via the bulkhead hose connections whilst the main rad's out too and then check it out to see how it behaves afterwards ?

I'd suggest say to run it for a week or two before dropping the coolant and only then replenish with fresh Anti-freeze and coolant !

OR better still if the radiator looks like the original one ? It may pay dividends in the long-term to replace it with a new rad for piece of mind !

I state the /\ because the 'K' reg. 1.9 TXD that I bought as a spares donor a while back threw a con-rod from coolant overheating which I tracked down to a blocked radiator core !
As I weighed the core in as clean aluminium and by taking off the plastic header tanks which then revealed that approx. 70% of the internal core/tubes from the bottom up where totally blocked !

All the best.



.

[Defender110]

My Mrs thinks i'm a very strange person.
My plans for her are to investigate the cooling system,

Hardly suprising then ?


Welcome aboard.

[Tim Leech]

Welcome!

[rd27]

Thanks for the warm welcome guys, I think I may do a combination of all of your suggestions to try and get the system right, reverse flush the matrix and change rad etc. If it is worst case scenario and the head gasket is gone how difficult is the job? I'm reasonably mechanically minded and i've just purchased the relevant Haynes manuals. Would it also make sense to do the timing belt whilst i'm in there? The chap I bought it off assured my he'd done the belt a few years ago but I have no proof, just the word of a SWestern man. =P

[Tim Leech]

Bleeding the coolant can be a bit of a faff but its well documented on here on how to do it, theres quite a few BX'ers around the Nottm/Derby areas.

Lovely colour btw, quite rare too as only made for the last year or so.

[Defender110]

If you are not 100% sure i would do the belt even if you don't end up doing the head but definiteley do it wif you do the head as your 90% there once you have the head off. Is it showing any signs of overheating or coolant loss?

[rd27]

Hard to say, i've only drove it back from where I bought it from (140 miles) and it performed fine. The cooling system is holding pressure even with the engine being stood for a few days, so i'm yet to check the level etc. There is remains of leaking coolant running down the side of the rad from the cap although this could be what i've done from trying to take the cap off.