Citroen BX Project

My craze for Citroens began with this car, the Citroen BX. My dad purchase his 1993 BX in 95 when I was about 8 years old. We had many long distance trips and and all of them were memorable. We loved the car to bits but the car had to go after 3 years of ownership. About 9 years later, I bought my first car, the Citroen Xantia and after awhile,
I manged to source a well looked after BX. It was a blue 1992 BX19GTi. First owner had it for 6 months. The second owner had it for about 16 years till I showed up =)

I got the car in Oct 2009 for RM1800. The car came with service history, bills etc.As soon as I got the car(thanks to Joe Wong) the accumulator sphere was replaced. There was some LHM leak that proved to be a minor problem- a loose hydraulic hose was plugged back and the car was ready to make its way back to KL. My fiance graciously helped me drive my Xantia home. The picture on the right shows the two cars at the Gua Tempurung Stop.

So my BX experience begins. Brought the car home and the car was faultless.....for a month... then it begun! The air cond compressor was the first to give way. Replaced it and it worked well again.

So, the car, although well taken cared of, needed some replacement parts. Some of the parts replaced:
- BX spec comfort spheres, main accumulator sphere

- All new LHM hoses

-Ignition

-New clutch kit

-Fog lamps

-Radiator

-Few interior items

-Front struts

-Height corrector

-Belts

After the basic things were done, I needed to focus my attention to a number of areas. The goal is to bring the car back to its former glory. It will take time and some $$$ but very much possible.

Firstly, the paint is looking very tired. Some minor dents here and there but nothing serious. The interior is in good condition except for some broken plastic bits.

The main thing though is the ride-the car does not feel like its floating. It was a frustrating few months trying to sort the ride. Later the struts were noisy so it was quite obvious the struts had something to do with the ride .There were no new available struts so I had to make do with secondhand ones. The other problem was that the ride height was not correct - the front was higher than it supposed to be. Tried adjusting the height corrector but it was not in proper working order. It would be either too high or too low. Found a replacement and now the car feels great although sometimes the left side gets a little high, affecting the ride. That will be sorted out in time

Managed to get the engine bay cleaned yesterday at Taman Bolton, Batu Caves. Here are some pictures

Today(24th Dec) I set out to check why my speedometer wouldn't work. That meant I had to remove the steering column etc..... Removed whatever necessary and found that the speedo cable was very much intact. So that should not be the problem but since I've unscrewed everything, I decided to do something I wanted to do for quite a while now.

We are talking about the RATTLES in the BX. I find it very annoying especially if I've had a rough day at work and have to get in my car and hear RATTLES. In Malaysia, the roads are full of POTHOLES and potholes and Potholes so the RATTLES are amplified by 2000%.

What I did was use silicone on all the insides of the plastic panels. I used the same concept I use when I tune drums. Basically the more stuff you put on a drum head, the more dead the sound. Since the plastics are very thin they have a very high sound. Try tapping on some of the panels and you will know what I mean. They sound hollow and will always be happy to amplify vibrations. That is a bad thing in this case. So I applied silicon everywhere not visible, especially weaker spots where it was thinner. See the pictures below..

So... good news for me. There are no rattles from the steering area anymore. All the panels feel more solid but just to be sure I am going to be getting some foam or some sponge soon