GT mediated Awesomeness

[Dave_16v]

That's exactly it, and different oils produce different smells . Castrol R used to be nice, people used to add a bit to the tank even on pump fed bikes if they were not premix.

[saintjamesy89]

I had hoped to be writing to tell you all that I've finished the rear arms, front calipers and LHM change on the GT and how easy it was etc! However, I came down with a cold last Saturday on a night shift and have been quite ill since, not helped by struggling through shifts during the week. This is irritating because I had booked off Friday and Saturday for this job!

Friday was not a good day, I felt terrible after 3 12 hour day shifts and only managed to get the GT onto axle stands before retreating back inside and collapsing in a snotty heap. Saturday was better, I removed the front calipers, the drivers side came off with hardly a hindrance but the passenger side gave quite a fight! The flexi hose union was just rounding off, so as I planned to replace the flexi's anyway, I cut it and after failing with a standard socket, got the twist grip set out and it finally gave up!

Calipers off, ready to send to Bigg Red in Worcester, Ive used them a few times now and they do a great job of refurbishing calipers. I think every car of mine (except the Lexus of course) has had one of the sets of calipers done by them As you can just about see, all the rubber gaitors and seals etc are knackered so I imagine it'll be piston/bore corrosion and the passenger side was sticking slightly, it wasn't getting hot but I could feel it grabbing when gently rolling to a stop.



For the rear arms I bought a set off of a well known CX chap, they'd had a new set of arm bearings already installed, the reason for this is twofold - it would allow me to fit them myself and I was concerned that the current arms bearing orifices are knackered due to leaving it too long - IIRC they go ovoid shaped with excessive wear. I spent a fair while wire brushing them and could've carried on, but the paint is only really for protection - not cosmetic appeal.

Out of the box:


Much wire brushing later (they were CRUSTY!):


Etch primed (I masked off any mating faces):




That is where I'm at, I need to pick up a few things - some stonechip and top coat (probably black) for finishing painting the arms and a 40mm socket for the hub nut. I can then remove the old arms, fit the shiny ones, remove the old discs, remove the old hubs and shields (with bearings) and fit the new hubs, existing discs from GT, re-fit rear calipers to the arms, refit the refurbished front calipers and then bleed everything! Sorted.

Let's hope it is as simple as that!

[saintjamesy89]

A little more progress, apart from a hub puller that I will order this evening I have all the tools I need. 24mm socket for the arm to body mounting bolt and 40mm socket for the hub nut (need to check the new hub kits, the nut on the car is 40mm but I won't be touching that!).

The arms have been primed, stonechipped and top-coated. They are ready for hub nut removal and an attempt to get the old hubs off, I'm not looking forward to that bit so much

Stonechip


Top coat


The disc guards are off and are in process of the same treatment as the arms, they are solid which is nice - nothing other than some surface rust but I'm glad I have caught them now rather than in a few years when they may well be no good.

One had a good going over with a wire brush.


Primed


I have also ordered a new battery, the unit in the car works perfectly, but is leaking acid and dissolving the metal of the battery tray - annoying as it is only about 2 years old I think. I've got an EPT Bleu romantique rattle can coming in the post to fix that before rust sets in, there are one or two areas in the engine bay to touch up SO whilst I have the correct colour stuff, I may as well.

I will phone Bigg Red tomorrow, hopefully the calipers will be ready to post back to me so I can get it all put back together and the LHM replaced and system bled etc, we're going out for dinner with friends on Friday night and I want to go in the BX - let's see if I can get it all done before then!

[saintjamesy89]

Disc guards stonechipped, but I ran out of satin black with the arms so will grab some more of that when I pop out.



I was planning to sort out the battery tray today, so that when the bleu romantique rattle can arrives in the post I can get on with that, but its really wet here today. This I know first hand as I just spent half an hour lying on the driveway in the rain, removing the old rear arms from the GT
Surprisingly, and I mean that with a fair amount of irony, I can't get the hub nuts off... They are really tight on there and without a vice, I just can't get enough power into my long breaker bar without the arm twisting, even with me and the OH stood on the arm! I'm heading out into town later so I will pop into my friendly garage to see if they will help, they may as well do the bearings too I think whilst they are there.







Of course I lost one of the rear strut retaining clips/pins, it pinged off into the mud/grass under the car, rusty brown = perfect camouflage... When it has stopped pissing down I'll have another look but I've ordered one off ebay anyway, just in case it's of use to anyone:

"Suspension Cylinder retaining pin 52709 (BX, Xantia, C5)"

[Dave_16v]

Having looked at some of the recent pictures, I will say you do well to carry out a lot of these jobs in what looks to be very basic conditions. Many of us have done it and sometimes I look back at the time I have spent under cars, often BX's when they were daily drivers and shudder at the thought. It's not as if they were always going wrong, just that having had four or them, exhaust pipes etc. never seemed to be that great in the day.
I'm not averse to working under cars now but from a safety aspect, axle stands are somewhat precarious plus they've sold so cheaply, it makes you wonder
Take care.

[saintjamesy89]

Rear arms sorted! Many, many thanks to the chap who lives opposite- he is a retired aerospace engineer and has worked on his own (and others) cars all his life. His 400nm impact driver had those hub nuts off in seconds, whilst the bearing races stuck on the shaft and some heat/persuasion didn't work - a gentle angle grinder slice broke the tension and off they came. The hardest bit was getting the dust shield on!

Naked shaft () before cleaning up with some wet and dry.


The vice mangled my paintwork, so a few top coats later and all is well - the stonechip however put up a really good fight against the jaws of the vice!



More tomorrow.

[RobC]

Great work!

[saintjamesy89]

Thanks for your replies Dave and Rob, I do suffer from very basic working conditions! A non-level drive of lumpy concrete, with part of it being dirt and paving slabs. Unfortunately the Volvo is immobile and is taking up the more level, solid concrete part of the drive this is the original drive space, where the the BX is next to it used to be an outbuilding. I yearn for a workshop! A ramp would be the cherry on top.

Today I did good things, the rear arms are on, all done up and torqued. My torque wrench only goes to 150 odd ft/lb and Haynes says the Hub nuts should be around 200 ft/lb so whenever it goes into a garage next I'll get this checked, today I just did them up as tight as I possibly could and locked the nut. The brake discs needed a rub down due to surface rust, getting the strut arm retaining pin in was a fiddle and manipulating the ARB whilst trying to get the bolt and bracket in place required 3 pairs of hands - otherwise it was plain sailing thankfully.







Don't worry, I did lock the hub nut and put the dust covers back on! It started raining so I finished this side and retreated for lunch and coffee. The other side is pretty much the same, so I won't bore you with photo's of that.

Over the past few days I have been repairing my battery tray, the 18 month old battery was leaking acid and was gradually dissolving the paint and metal in that area. I had to order a new battery for the Lexus so got one for the GT too. This will be the cause of the engine loom failure last year, I slightly relocated the connector for ease of access so the new stuff hasn't been affected

Crusty!


Cleaned and lightly sanded




Primed, base coat and lacquer. Its shiny! Just don't look too hard or you'll see many imperfections, but overall I'm happy enough with it. The next problem is the rest of the engine bay paintwork...





I think I will look into a battery tray for the new battery to sit in, I do need to clean up the negative earth lead to body union and whilst I'm here the negative battery ring terminal is pretty bashed up so I might also look into replacing that. There is always more! I still need to fit the new front flexi-hoses and remove, empty and clean the LHM reservoir before refilling with fresh new LHM.

Still waiting on the front calipers, they've been with the refurb company a week and when I spoke to them on Monday there seemed to be a bit of confusion over whether they can be refurbished or not. The guy n the phone said they would get done one way or another which is interesting, so I'll ring again tomorrow for an update.

[panky]

The engine bay looks a proper job and great work on the arms. I replace one many years ago on my old GTi when the arm bearings started squeaking. It was easier then to get a good second hand replacement, as there were plenty around, rather than put new bearings in.

[saintjamesy89]

I was very lucky to be able to buy second hand arms with new bearings already installed! Saved me a fair amount of grief and/or expense.

A few more jobs jobbed over the past few days, the sad cable was quite sad - it has never had a very solid connection to the battery terminal and wouldn't tighten up any further, which is a shame as the lead and ring connectors are fine - new negative terminal and two leads for the inner wing and gearbox earth points. I've cleaned up the gearbox and battery tray earths before but must have missed the inner wing connection - it certainly benefitted from a clean. New battery in too.







The LHM tank has been out, the tank itself cleaned and all the filters too of course. There was some debris in the filters and tank bottom, but nowhere near as bad as when I first did this job years ago! Nice fresh and new LHM back in. The car has been running hydraurincage for too long and whilst the system is depressurised, calipers are off and rear spheres loose it is an ideal opportunity, once all back together I can bleed the brakes and that should be as near as a system flush as easily possible.

Dirty


Clean




The next job was the rear light clusters, the operation of one lamp has been affecting the others slightly since I bought the car - so more earth cleaning required (I've been meaning to do this for an age!). They were covered in wax which I can only assume is cavity/underseal type stuff - could these have not been cleaned up since new?!

Original










Cleaned all the connectors and body, a bit of bleu romantique on the earth bolts just because


The light cluster connectors were also grubby.


Not for long!


Still waiting on the calipers, I wasn't able to get hold of the company on Friday but some good progress on the GT otherwise.

[panky]

Some great work there. The battery connections seem to be a common thing as I've just done some fettling on DKK. No shiny new clamps though just a hacksaw through the gap and a couple of washers under the nuts I'll do a proper job in time - I promise

[saintjamesy89]

Some great work there. The battery connections seem to be a common thing as I've just done some fettling on DKK. No shiny new clamps though just a hacksaw through the gap and a couple of washers under the nuts I'll do a proper job in time - I promise

[saintjamesy89]

I finally got hold of the head builder at Bigg Red to find out what on earth is going on with my GT's calipers. I was getting a little irritated with the lack of communication, it seems the head builder had disassembled them and put together the rebuild kit, but nobody there wanted to reassemble them - I'm not sure why unless BX calipers are atypical? So they were sent to a classic specialist in Birmingham who hasn't gotten around to them yet - hopefully they will be done this week or I might not male it to Rustival. The GT has been out of action now for nearly a month!!

Whilst it's been out of use, I've been thinking about the other jobs that need doing on it, I had a rare few hours of being a passenger whilst we collected some furniture over the weekend (borrowed a LWB van from the OH's work) and did a bit of a deep dive into the compressor mounts. I've been unable to mount the compressor ever since I had to replace the sump in 2022, I couldn't find a BX alloy sump (quelle surprise!) so bought an XUD Berlingo version that turned out to be 99% the same, the 1% difference being the compressor mounting lugs! These were smaller in diameter and used a larger M10 bolt, not only that but only two of the lugs had the bushes, I guess the other two had fallen off at some point.

I have been using "catalogs.ssg.asia" for the parts diagrams, number and descriptions - I saw this posted on another thread on here I think? great resource anyway, I found the part numbers for the BX 8v and Berlingo so I finally knew what I was looking for. Ever since I replaced the sump this has been an issue partly because I assumed the compressor would only take an M9 bolt (these were what the original BX sump had when I removed it from the French TRS) BUT lo and behold, the compressor mounting hole is 10mm... So easy solution, source a few more Berlingo metal bushes (I think the 16v also uses these?) which were used in a whole host of PSA cars and vans for decades and some good quality M10 bolts and we should be good.

The part numbers for the Berlingo (and 16v BX?) "Compressor blocking spacer" are 6453 AS and 6453 CJ. It seems that the Drivers side top and bottom lugs (belt side) use 6453-AS and the passenger side top and bottom use 6453-CJ. I couldn't find any CJ that weren't over 20ER each! The mounting holes are the same diameter so I hope using all AS will be fine! I have a total of 3 AS bushes now, one original and 2 ordered off of ebay. I remember one falling off during it's post re-jetting rolling road that the garage handed to me, I hope I put it in the glove box but who knows! It'd save me from buying one at great expense from a dodgy looking French/Polish/German website.

Berlingo metal L and BX rubber/metal R












I need a new vernier caliper battery, I know.

[RobC]

Interesting stuff - I'm soon to mount a compressor onto a 16v sump and am also lacking the bushes and bolts... since you appear to have done the hard work for me, I would be interested to have some links to where to ghet the correct parts!

[saintjamesy89]

Interesting stuff - I'm soon to mount a compressor onto a 16v sump and am also lacking the bushes and bolts... since you appear to have done the hard work for me, I would be interested to have some links to where to get the correct parts!

Good luck Rob! You'll just have to trawl the internet using the part numbers, if you're lucky you'll find UK based parts that aren't £20 each It seems that PSA used them on anything from a DS (proper DS, not the modern one) to vans made up to 2011!. This evening I found some of the 6453 CJ here.

So some of the stuff I said in my last post was rubbish! I have ordered and received 2 6453-AS and had one remaining 6453-CJ that was still on the sump as in the pictures in my last post (I can't find the other one, goodness knows where it is!). I have, tonight, found and ordered 2 6453-CJ in case there are any differences between the new parts and my one remaining.

Just be aware that the BX part numbers are different to what I'm using here - remember I have a Berlingo sump. But at least we know the Berlingo sumps are compatible for any future issues us 8v BX owners might have, not sure about the 16v though.
-16v: COMPRESSOR SOCKET "6453 A2" (4 required)
-8v: COMPRESSOR SUPPORT CUP "6453 54" (8 required)

In other news, the calipers arrived this afternoon. Odd as I haven't paid for them yet and previously Bigg Red have asked for payment before shipping, typically I'm working a night shift tonight so they'll have to wait until Monday.