1990 Citroën CX 25 Safari! DTR Turbo 2 Restoration

Love it! Don't think I have ever seen a yellow one before! Is that the original colour?

Worth joining the Citroen owners club apparently. James Walshe of Practical Classics is a Citroenista and restored a CX and got lots of advice and parts that way.
That yellow looks like the original SERVIS (follded in 1991-2, Name bought out) fleet colour from days of yore. A company that would come to your home and repair white goods IIRC.

So.. next job on the list was to get the front bumper off, I noticed it had a crack right behind the number plate, which looked to me like it had rolled into something once upon a time this could be evidenced by the different front number plate.

These suspicions were correct, as it had a lovely dent in the front crash bar, my guess is a bollard. Whilst the front number was off (how it currently still is) would provide better access for the welding that would need to be done under neath the driver side headlight.

As I said above the paintjob is worse than a drunken apprentice, a simple jetwash of the bumper with myself and my friend (whos drive this is stored on) and the bumper went back to its original shade of grey plastic!

next job is to get it running smoothly, it has an awful cloud of white smoke, due to glow plugs that are on their deathbed, along with this will be a new fuel filter and new fuel lines, each fuel line currently has more holes than a colander.

-Michael

This is the car once on the drive, roughly 10 minutes after it was delivered! I was beyond myself, looked every which way and could not stop smiling, however whilst smiling I also created a mental list of jobs that needed doing, the original colour is still very evident under the bonnet and underneath every panel


My friend came to join in on the jet washing, we were the same colour as the car by the end, all that yellow paint came flying right off with no labor needed 


Time for my go! 


This was the bumper in the condition we took it off, you can see the crack I mentioned underneath where the number plate should go. 

tofufi I'm glad you're sticking around! can't wait to show more!

Jobs to do:

-sort out the brakes (its either nothing or an emergency stop no middle ground)
-Weld the rotten parts of the car
-Sort the warning lights (only the coolant one works)
-Sort the dash display (door display etc.)
-Oil and filter change
- Sort the rear wash pump and the front wiper motor
Those are the tasks I have set myself to complete coming up

-Michael

Coolant flush day has arrived, as the thermostat and radiator sensor needed to be replaced (in the future) it was best to drain it now and run through fresh water in the interim. Lovely shade of brown came out of the radiator as seen by the picture below, this would be something I would have to pick up on later in the build when the car can run under its own steam confidently, straight down the manhole the old stuff went. 

I then got distracted by some new parts that had came in the post and was to impatient to wait, I noticed the old bullet style bulbs got concerningly hot in the interior light, for the price of £4 I decided to invest in some LED bulbs this would be a great addition to the set and also would provide great lighting coverage.

Going back to the random jobs, the passenger window needed sorting, then the passenger door card could be refitted meaning less parts for me to store whey-ey!. It was odd, with myself having no electrical experience myself and my friend we tried different switches, some worked going up but not down and vice versa, turns out the circuit is all in series as such, meaning if the drivers one is knackered the full loop is brown bread, that's 2 hours I will never regain. Below are some photos of both the drivers and passenger doors mid diagnosing, top tip for anyone doing a CX or Citroen around this time, the grey silicone glue they use for the internals of the door, awful stuff to get off. 


Coming up is a new radio and speaker install (as we had to fix this for the passenger door card to be refitted and it was loose wires all over, and you guessed it with more crimps!), re-fitting the door card.

-Michael 

Hello everyone! long time no speak, welding day has arrived! I splashed the cash to go out and buy a MiG welder and get it to good use, bear in mind my friend nor myself had ever used a welder, slowly over time we worked out how much wire to feed, and how to make it workable, and look better once grinded down
I could be quite the photographer don't you think?

Whilst the welding was getting done, I decided to move to the inside to wire in a new replacement for the cigarette lighter, I want to keep the car as stock as possible, whilst updating the car to the 21st century. This isn't the final product but decided to install a USB replacement, this will get us away for now, and comes with an ON/OFF switch as well, which is nice considering the car has a permanent live. 

After some more of the front welding was done, and I took a days break to go to a party, my friend decided to strip the interior back to metal, we started to strip the boot lining previously to find out both inner boot wings had quite bad rust holes, this was expected but quite a lot of holes appeared the more you dug back at them, the car is in desperate need of some good WAXOYL once its done, with a different form of rust proof paint for the inside!. 
half way through:

This was the interior after, to my surprise the actual floor pan content was really solid! however, i definitely will coat the high volume areas in rust proof solution
after:

Every warm day, has to come to a close somehow, so that was the end of that day! more to follow hopefully next time is to get the front bumper on and sort all of the headlights, finish the internal welding and then put the interior back together bit by bit whilst we take the rear bumper off to expose more welding that needs to take place. 

I am going to France next summer so I am hoping to get the car ready for then, as the space and fuel economy will be very practical, compared to hiring a minibus for only the 5 of us. 

i'm not sure where your doubt came from that we would like the car.

without even consulting anyone else i can say with confidence that it meets universal approval !

you found a good one then

Love a Citroen ever since my dad had a BX when I was a wee’un. Bookmarked.