Dollywobbler's TZD estate - departure time

[mds141]

/\ Merc definitely. Or an XM!

[mat_fenwick]

I wouldn't worry about the oil leak - a little oil goes a long way. I do wonder whether it could be the oil return pipe rather than the feed pipe though, which would be an equally easy fix. Or even the cam cover gasket; that will tend to drip down and cover the turbo in oil. I would have thought if the turbo seals were at fault you'd be burning oil.

Or take the Merc and keep the mileage down on the TZD...

[Dollywobbler]

The Merc is tempting - it is waftamatic - but in the BX, the trip will cost me £75 I reckon. That becomes more like £140-150 in the Merc!

[citsncycles]

Have you had to top the oil up yet in the BX?

I've managed to get quite long distances with regular top ups - of course when that means a couple of ltrs every 15 miles or so then it's time to call it a day and sort it out!

[Dollywobbler]

I haven't as it happens. I don't think it has suddenly sprung a leak, just gently easing a bit out. I think I'll go for it. I've got breakdown cover!

[Dollywobbler]

Spoke to Citro-Geoff earlier. He seemed to think the noisy fifth gear might be because something is unscrewing itself in the gearbox. Hope not, but it'll be fun trip with all these potential disasters!

[citsncycles]

If it's unscrewing itself, I'd imagine it's probably doing something similar to the later 2CV boxes, although I couldn't tell you the consequences of that on one of these.

I guess dipping the clutch when braking may reduce the chance of a complete unscrewing of the box?

[Dollywobbler]

Well, we made it to Kent. 300 miles with no problems other than fairly heavy oil usage and the ABS light coming on every time I hit an indicated 85mph (about 76mph in reality). Built in anti-speeding measures! Light always goes off if I restart. Oil was down to about a third of the way down the 'safe' part of the dipstick, but the filler cap itself wasn't quite fitted correctly. It's quite smokey on boost too, much to the annoyance of people following me!

Just need to get back home tomorrow now!

[vulgalour]

The excitement of it all! I wonder what the root of the problem will turn out to be.

[citsncycles]

ABS light sounds like it could be a loose wire blowing about somewhere possibly.

I thought all TDs were smoky on boost!

[Dollywobbler]

This one is especially bad. Clouds out the back! I gave it a boot-full in the Dartford tunnel and the car behind almost disappeared. Something not right there.

I'm not sure the ABS can be a loose wire. It is very specific. You must exceed an indicated 83 mph. Keep the speed down and the light doesn't come on. It has made it quite obvious that I'm not very good at keeping the speed down...

660 miles completed without any failures though. Not bad going for a car that I've only owned for a couple of weeks and which has covered over 306,000 miles.

The list of minor issues is growing though. The front end feels very unbalanced when it bounces. It feels as if the nearside front shock absorber has gone. I can't work out why it feels so uneven unless it somehow has a Turbo D sphere one side, and not the other. The front spheres are not very old. It also crashes and bangs around terribly on urban roads - front and back. I suspect adjusting the tailgate may improve things - I think that's bouncing around a bit when closed - but it's not riding like a BX should.

Looks like I'll be heading to the South East again later in the month, so I'll have to try and improve things before then!

[saintjamesy89]

Doesn't sound too bad Ian, for what it is. Black smoke can be fun at the right time!

How do you go about adjusting the tailgate? Mine sounds like its crashing about a bit too over big bumps/pot holes.

[Dollywobbler]

The striker can be moved. Need to be a bit careful as if it moves too much, you can't shut the boot and with the weight of the thing, you could probably end up bending things if you're not careful. The doors are very clangy too, so I need to go around all of the strikers.

The cloud doesn't appear to be black and it's far more smokey than the TXD.

[citsncycles]

Even though the spheres may not be very old, it does sound like one of them may be down on pressure. If it was mine behaving like that, I'd get the pressures checked, but that's mainly because I live a few miles from someone who can do that for me.

[mat_fenwick]

Or for free - swap the spheres between sides and see whether the problem follows...
You really need to splash out on a sphere tool!