1983 Citroen BX 16TRS - For the love of cars!

That is actually amazing. Thank you so so much for sharing your car story and your family's rather splendid history.

I look forward to seeing more about your Citroen BX in due course. The BX GTI is the only car I remember from the NEC motorshow in '88 when I was six and my Dad's best friend had a BX 19RD Estate, which was a wonderful car.

Definitely a bucket list car for me.

And PistonHeads!

Aha! Yes, it got quite a lot of love on there.

I'm happy to report things are looking rosy for the Estate, at the moment

(Nov '15) Well time for some nitty-gritty anyway!

So, the TRS is now back at my house after my eventful day with it in July last year. Sit-rep between July last year and July this year:

Progress made: None.

Parts obtained: A set of steel wheels with 500mile-old Michelins fitted, to replace the 32yr old Michelins fitted to the car. The steel rims are from a later BX TZD Turbo, with a wider rim and a slightly smaller offset, and though the car appears to be a normal ride height, it is, in fact, propped up by big lumps of timber!

Do the new wheels fit?: No, not on the back (and one of the wheels is seized on, anyway). No big deal - I want to keep the 1983 steelies!

Additional cars bought: Two!

Status of TRS: Exactly as before, only it now no longer runs.


If I'm honest, I had a wobbler and decided I have too many projects on the go. I listed the TRS for sale in early summer 2015, but thankfully with no takers (largely because I wanted to try and recoup my costs on the travelling and the cost of the wheels). I'm now relieved it didn't sell!

So, in July of this year the decision was made to relocate the BX to my workshop, and bring one of my other wrecks back here in its place. The BX arrived at Southways on the 14th July:



First things first, I needed to get the car running again, so I could identify the LHM leak and see if I could repair it enough to recommission the system and see how everything else fared. Otherwise, I'd have to pull the whole thing apart and risk refitting parts I've never tested before, only to possibly find they don't work.
I suspected the Weber DRTC carb was the culprit. It was obviously carrying that horrible manual choke conversion, and probably a fair bit of internal corrosion from sitting around for years and years. In the time it sat in my garage, it went from running poorly to not running poorly. Or at all. curse word.
Luckily I had another DRTC 32-34 in my spares stash, complete with autochoke unit! I didn't realise I did, until I moved my BX 16v from my parents garage earlier in the year and found it among a pile of bits my Dad was hoping I'd finally removed from their garage, having moved out 8 years beforehand. Still don't remember how I got it - was probably part of a project to make an AX GT use more fuel and not go much quicker. And the icing on the cake - I found a brand new carb rebuilt kit in the glovebox of the TRS! I think the guy I got it off bought it with the intention of sorting out the carb, but never did.

So the carbs were set side by side, and though I wanted to keep the 16 all original, I was prepared to make a good carb out of the two (my spare carb being from a mk2). The original may have only done 17k miles, but corrosion is not bound by mileage:

The original carb with manual conversion:



Progress:



Good carb built up and fitted:



It runs (properly this time, on autochoke)! Only you can't tell, because the rev counter doesn't work:



Success

So, having got the engine running again (and very sweetly it runs too) my attentions turned to the retention of green blood, or more specifically, the lack of it. Because the TRS has been off the road for so many years, and because all the high pressure pipes on an early BX aren't really protective coated, most of them have turned to rust. During my day of horrors (the day I picked it up and was introduced to the leak) I discovered that it emanated from the front subframe area. On a BX subframe-area LHM leak, you think octopus (bundle of rubber hoses that run up the offside chassis rail and are nicknamed the Octopus, because of reasons, it's resemblance to the tentacled creature of the sea seemingly not one of them). However, because it was having trouble even pressurising, I figured it was more likely a high-pressure line failure. So, I had to run the car up, tighten up the bleed screw on the pressure regulator, and see what came out. It didn't take long:



Ah, that'll be those pipes then. The ones that break into multiple pieces of pipe when you touch them:



Realistically, it now seems at least half the car needs re-piping (not entirely surprising, frankly). Knowing that the front subframe needs to come off, I'll leave that for a later date and busy myself with something less messy. Wheels, I think:



Tyres removed (kept one for a spare; seemed a shame to bin one of the original Michelins, though hope I never need to use it!) I then began to set about each wheel in the grit-blaster. Plan is full blast, prep and paint with POR15 and then prime, before finding a matching light grey to the original finish.

30mins in the blaster, one of the wheels laughed at me, and I realised it's not going to happen like I planned:



Most of the coating still there! Quick chat with the Wheel Specialist in Fareham confirmed they're probably originally coated in a form of powder, which the shot is softening with the heat caused by friction and is then bouncing off of. He suggested they be acid-dipped, and though I wanted to do them myself, I think I'm going to have to relent and give them to him.

So, with the wheels a failure currently, I found some others to roll it over to the two-post ramp on, and decided now is as good a time as any to just dive in on that subframe:



The hubs and brakes are a bit.....stored on a Swansea driveway for decades-looking:



As are the brake pipe mounting brackets:


It's all looking a bit....meh:



Then I blew across the subframe with the air line, and this happened:



Very meh!

Cheers! Yes, definitely needs a lot of TLC.

Your subframe really makes mine look quite okay. That being said, I'd still consider swapping them, always wanted to ride a BX with bearings in the front suspension.

Also, thanks for the photos that explain the structure. Always wondered how the ride could be better on bearings, not knowing that it was bearings WITH bushings.

Dec '16

Well, it must be that time of year again! Time to do something to my mk1 BX. I did consider drawing the line at sweeping the dust off it:



...but that wasn't really necessary. You can clearly still see it's red, afterall.

So, my attentions moved to where I left it last. The front subframe. As with any blog I write, you'll need to cast your minds back to remember what the last thing I did on it actually was. Personally, I had to read the thread to see what I'd written. Ah yes, the subframe!



Of course, I had it shotblasted about a year ago to [strikethrough]uncover the utter devastation[/strikethrough] inspect the condition of the subframe, but even in a dry workshop, a shotblasted surface will rust. I should have painted it with something to hold it off.

Should have.

But, it's only surface rust, so no big deal. The holes and pitting were more concerning, but the biggest concern of all was the bearings. The bearings are important! I've covered it before (multiple times, on multiple threads, to multiple persons who never asked me to open my mouth, let alone dictate the subject of conversation) but basically, all BXs have a subframe which sits under the front of the shell. The wishbones mount to this, by way of a pivot bar each side, so one big stud (usually 16mm in diameter) passes through both wishbone bushes and the wishbone pivots on this.
With most BXs, it's the same as most cars; The wishbone sits in the normal position you want it to, and the pivot effect is created by the twisting of the rubber bushes in the wishbones. Now, hydropneumatic Citroens have many advantages over less-mortal cars. Progressive springing and damping, self-levelling ride height, anti-dive etc. But, one of the drawbacks is that the car sinks when it's parked up, so your wishbone bushes that are mounted at the correct ride-height are put under constant stress as soon as the car sinks.
Solution? Bearings! When the BX was designed, some needle-roller bearings were fitted in the front subframe, through which the wishbone mounting stud would pass through (originally 14mm). The wishbone still had bushes fitted, to deal with NVH, and the bearings dealt with the suspension travel. It could sit at any height, or tackle any bump, and the bushes only dealt with the shock loadings. It was brilliant! It was also short lived. The BX was launched in 1982 (1983 in the UK) and by September 1985, they'd ditched the bearing subframes. The bearings were causing constant warranty issues as they were seizing up and the subframes were rotting from the inside out. Any BX pre-September 1985 that went to Citroen with dicky bearings was retrofitted with a post-1985 subframe (which is where the fatter 16mm studs came in, along with beefier wishbone bushes to deal with the fact the bushes alone were now handling everything). As a result, to have any chance of having a bearing subframe, you need to have a pre-September build model, and then from that, you need one that hasn't had the later subframe retrofitted. The blue GT I'm restoring (occasionally) for my Dad has the later subframe, and obviously my 16v does too. Because the TRS is painfully original, and because it's only covered 17,500 miles, it still has the now very rare bearing subframe. Apparently, the ride is noticeably better on these cars (it's not exactly bad on any BX!) and I'm determined to keep this subframe, even though this subframe bears more than a passing resemblance to a type of Roman Empire.

So, the first bit was to try and extract the old bearings, which felt 'orrible when rotating the old wishbones. I've kindly been lent a rear trailing arm bearing removal tool by a top man called Geoff. The bearings in the front subframes are practically identical to the ones used in the rear arms, the differences being the seals and control washers (which I all have brand new!) Expecting lots of grief, particularly as some editions of the Haynes book of lies suggests, helpfully, that you visit a dealer in the event these bearings need attention (who will change your subframe for a new one), I was hopping with joy at what transpired last night:



Some taps later:






Not only did the tubes and bearings come out easily, they weren't even rusty! Everything looks in fine fettle. I mean, it can't be, as it felt rougher than the morning after a night out with Pete Doherty, but it all came apart willingly.
That was act one. Act two, was where the special tool came in:



I needed to get the races out. This car was 33 years old a couple of weeks ago, and I know those bearings haven't been touched, because if they'd been touched, they wouldn't be there any more. So, the special tool went in, which passes through the outer bearing race. You then do up the bolt in the middle, the tool expands and grips the outer race. You then tap it out from behind.

Erm, very easily, as it turned out:




So, a job I'd been fretting about for a year or so was over and done with, very successfully, within 40mins. Fitting new bearings is a reversal of removal, and you don't need the special tool. It's like doing miniature Sierra wheel bearings, if I'm honest! Sorry, not Sierra....TVR.

My plan is to rebuild the subframe using grafts from this later subframe:



The subframe (also from Geoff) has done 300k miles, and seemingly decided it doesn't want to be a subframe anymore:



So it's not like I'm wrecking a perfectly good subframe. Unless this one turns out to be useless, in which case I will raid a perfectly good subframe!

Onwards!

A renewed bout of BX enthusiasm (having watched the 'Blaze' channel last night) finds me at the computer, updating a BX thread. Last week was a momentous week, because I actually did something on the TRS! The last work pictured here was from 2016, and then I managed to do some jobs in 2017 (but not many), so I'll update those before the tiny amount of 2018 I managed last Tuesday evening.

The piffling amount of labour I managed to muster in 2017 revolved around the subframe, plus one or two other small bits. First, I'll start with the last of 2016, which was...

Wheels! If you remember (it was a long time ago, after all) I sent my wheel rims away to be acid dipped so I could work on them, and our grit blaster provided a source of amusement to the original paint coating on the BX's steel rims. I was particularly keen to save these wheels, because not only are they original (like pretty much everything on the car!), they are actually date stamped 1983. If I'm going to dick around trying to put this car back on the road while preserving as much as possible, changing the wheels would be a massive no-no.

When the wheels came back, I was informed they'd also been coated just to stop them rusting again. This was a thoughtful touch, though if I'm honest it completely screwed my plans! They did look good though:



However, up close, the pitting is plain to see, and I'll need to get creative with a welder to plug these holes up:



...because these rims will be about as air-tight as I am:



This creates a slight issue, because they've actually been powdercoated. I wanted to galvanise the rims to prevent them rusting again, and powdercoat is not going to do that. And I can't shot blast them myself, because......well, it's a bit of a circle. I'll decide what to do here, but I may just have to forgo the galvanising I ideally craved. At least the wheels have been sat upstairs for the last million years since I did anything!

I also tried a trick that I'd been reading about for just as long, but never had. A hot-air gun! Specifically, a hot-air gun pointed at some very pink bumpers in an attempt to make them less pink. 10mins on the rear corner brought about this:



I'd call that a success! And no, those wheels aren't staying on the car. They'd be a periodically correct accessory (or should that be 'accessorie') for the TRS, but alas they were borrowed from the GT to wheel it up onto the dolly. I won't do the rest of the bumpers for now, as they're pretty badly stained and need a good scrub first.

I also bought a brand new, old stock rev counter on eBay for the princely sum of £10. The rev counter in the TRS doesn't work, and while it's likely to be something wiring-related, rather than a failed 17k mile old component, I thought it'd look nice in a cabinet even if I never needed it:



So, that was the end of 2016. But what did 2017 bring?

Well, unsurprisingly it was back to the subframe. And that - even more unsurprisingly - had rusted a bit more!



Repairs were still underway though, and that was a positive not to be sniffed at. So much of getting through projects like this is about keeping your pecker up (in a manner of speaking). You have to stay happy and positive, because when you're down and grumpy, you get little done (and anything you do get done tends to be hashed and rushed). So quality over quantity, every time, and at least the repairs are going well on the subframe.

I did decide not to use the cracked 300k donor subframe, though, as I found it wasn't actually in very good condition under all the muck. A low-mileage, rust-free unit off a TZD Turbo popped up on a BX forum for £50 (that crucially, had been steam cleaned, which was worth the £50 alone!):



I set about harvesting the required bits from that instead:




And shot-blasted the various bits I needed so they could be fitted to the TRS subframe:



There's no way I could have made that single piece in less than 3 attempts and 3 months!

Now, some of you will be asking "That's all very well and good you BX-loving freak, but how are you going to maintain the alignment?!" Ah, I'm one step ahead of the question I just imagined you asking there!

I made a jig:



Which when fitted to a subframe, looks like:



Other than taking this picture....:



...and moving the TRS to the other side of the workshop, I did nothing else on it in 2017. Slow times!


2018 hasn't started with much gusto, either! However, on Tuesday, I continued with the subframe rebuild, and when I get 5 mins, I'll upload the pics and hoist them up