My BX14 RE- Sold.

[Fumbler]

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I had work done on the BX over the last couple of days. Triple 'A' Garage in Brede, Sussex is a fantastic garage and Citroen specialist.

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They determined both front suspension spheres and the accumulator sphere to be beyond repair. When I spoke to the mechanic on the phone, the spheres' diaphragms had failed and couldn't work, meaning the front end was stiff and the regulator wasn't able to effectively maintain pressure.


I've also discovered that the downpipe is very big.

[Tim Leech]

Spheres have gone up a bit, mind you they are genuine Citroen ones

[Fumbler]

Spheres have gone up a bit, mind you they are genuine Citroen ones

I think it's because they had a clear-out a couple of weeks ago and will do another again. I wonder if they looked at the Pleiades orices or something. I'll definitely be calling themup for more work in future, and possibly take ownership of old BX stock they want to throw away.

[Fumbler]

Well, all is not well in the BX department. On Sunday, I was on the A303 and moved into the offside lane to overtake. This required me to put my foot down a bit. When I did so, the accelerator pump nozzle actually fell out of its socket and jammed the throttle open. I pulled over and operated the accelerator a bit more with the engine off. The throttle unjammed, but that came at the cost of the nozzle being sucked into the cylinder head. It's with a garage that was close to where I broke down and they're shoving a camera into the engine today, hopefully showing that the object hasn't made its way into the cylinders. That would be expensive.

[Jaba]

It might not be serious as it will be possible to fish it out of the cylinder through the sparkplug hole if it has got that far.
Unusual problem to have I must say.

[Fumbler]

It might not be serious as it will be possible to fish it out of the cylinder through the sparkplug hole if it has got that far.
Unusual problem to have I must say.

Very unusual. The pump nozzle on the carb is rather large and made of brass so I can'timagine it's actually got very far at all. I'm pretty sure it's stuck above an intake valve as whenever the clattering noise happens, the engine misfires. If it were in a cylinder, I'dexpect to hear the clattering a lot more often and more consistently.

[white exec]

Eeeeek!

[Fumbler]

Eeeeek!

Precisely my reaction when I lifted my foot off the accelerator... only to have it not come up with my foot!

[Fumbler]

It was fixed today and I managed to drive it home! Mahoosive relief.

[Fumbler]

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Zero rust, even the paint on the hydraulic pipes are intact. I applied more grease to the pipework today as there's wads of it everywhere.

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There is a jack under there, I promise.

I wanted to see why the front was sitting lower than the back, so I took it to the local Citroen specialists. We adjusted the heights and prodded the linkages a bit in the hope that it'd fix itself. Nope. It's not fixed. There is still something wrong with the linkages as the suspension height selector sometimes jams and won't go to full height, then sometimes it'll clunk back into poisition and work sort of fine. The car is driveable, which is good, but not correct. Selecting between normal and intermediate height only makes the front go up, but not down again. The rear stays where it is. We verified both height correctors work, so what's the deal? I think the next course of action is to send it up to Chevronics or somebody and get the height selector system refreshed. Something has fallen apart and is stopping the system from working correctly. The front end linkages are worn out and sloppy, but that doesn't explain why the manually selecting the height won't work and the ride is subsequently strange. It definitely isn't how it was.

[Kitch]

What on earth has happened to those suspension pipes?!

[Fumbler]

What on earth has happened to those suspension pipes?!

They've been coated to within an inch of their lives with grease, as they have done since new by the looks of things. Every single pipe from the front subframe backwards has a layer of grease on it.

[Jaba]

Just a thought have you checked the central pivot of the lever at the rear end of the adjuster rod which connects the front to rear rod to the rear height corrector has not seized up - it is a simple arrangement of a nut and threaded pivot which can and does seize preventing rear suspension height movement.
This comes with a health warning about working on suspension from underneath the unsupported car.

[Fumbler]

Just a thought have you checked the central pivot of the lever at the rear end of the adjuster rod which connects the front to rear rod to the rear height corrector has not seized up - it is a simple arrangement of a nut and threaded pivot which can and does seize preventing rear suspension height movement.
This comes with a health warning about working on suspension from underneath the unsupported car.

I'll have a look at that, on a 4-post of course. It feels like something is slipping out of its socket or slot somewhere. hat tends to happen is that I cannot move the lever to maximum height at all until I cycle through the other 3 heights. Then, there's a metallic *clank* and I can select the height. This issue and the lack of rear suspension movement happened at the same time, so would this pivot be the sole cause of the issue? The chap underneath didn't mention or notice anything untoward apart from the front linkages being worn.

[Kitch]

What on earth has happened to those suspension pipes?!

They've been coated to within an inch of their lives with grease, as they have done since new by the looks of things. Every single pipe from the front subframe backwards has a layer of grease on it.

Yeah but they look like spaghetti!