Testing the water/advance notice

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Philip Chidlow
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Testing the water/advance notice

Post by Philip Chidlow »

I have an urge for another project/Challenge 2017/18 car and can't keep my current BX. That's the bottom line. :( I've been quite well-behaved recently with keeping my cars but at some point I need to find 'Bob' a new home. I feel a little guilty about it as, not only have I spent an awful lot of money on it but Phil Boxall (Kermit) has been exceptionally helpful, (he more than worked his passage on the Challenge!). However I do intend to further repay his generosity and of course will employ him on the new car if he's willing lol...

So; to the point:

We are of course talking about my lovely 1992 Citroën BX TZD Turbo hatchback. Purchased in August 2014 and extensively recommissioned in preparation for the 2015 Citroen Classic Challenge which it completed admirably. It had been 'rescued' but was in a pretty poor shape in some areas but essentially the engine was only just run in and ran (runs) very well. The suspension and brakes have been thoroughly overhauled as has much else, like the external lighting.

Good points are:
It works very well; It’s low-mileage (94k ish - I will confirm), reliable, economical and thoroughly practical (being a BX this is something you all well know). There is virtually nothing in the way of rust or damage to detract from what must be one of the best turbo diesel BX’s you will find. It’s got a recent MOT too, which it passed well. It has, since the spring been living in it's own garage.

Work done since 08/2014: This has been expensive!

Cam belt changed.
Water pump and tensioner checked - all fine.
Aux belts checked/changed.
Oil changes (3) with new filters.
New battery.
Purflux fuel filter.
K&N air filter.
Fuel lines and flexi hoses fitted.
New stop solenoid.
New rad cap, wiper blades and washer nozzles.
Brand new steering coupling fitted.

New driver’s door mirror.
Rear headrests.
Side window wind deflectors.
Replaced driver’s side window mechanism with new.
New Pioneer door speakers and Sony Radio/CD.

Fitted new front struts including return pipes and clips.
New front and rear discs and pads.
New rear arm bearings.
New front spheres and strut top.
Replaced rear spheres.
LHM change (2): filters cleaned.
Accumulator sphere replaced.
New Octopus and ’squid’ harnesses replaced.
Fabricated copper piping to replace leaking high pressure pipe.
Replaced doseur return.

Temp gauge in pod fitted.
Front splitter secured.

Fitted BNIB (Cibie lens) Headlights and indicators.
Citroen headlight protectors fitted.
Quality bright H4 bulbs.
New front fogs (yellow) fitted.
Rear light units replaced.
New number plates and c-pillar decals.
Front n/s outer boot replaced.

5 x Speedline 6J alloy wheels each fitted with new Kleber Quadraxer all-season tyres.
Cituning SS back box/chromed tail pipe fitted.

Still to do:
Sunroof drain tubes need clearing/repairing/replacing because it leaks in heavy rain. So it has been perfectly sealed discreetly with black tape. The roof mechanism works though, and it was greased before being closed up.

The tow bar though not usable (we had to cut part of it to make way for the back box) it’s fine as a deterrent and metal reversing sensor!

The temp gauge reads high so needs an inline variable resistor fitting. The engine runs at a perfect temp but the dial reads 100 so a bit of adjustment needed; Kermit was going to do that for me..

The paint’s a bit flat but with successive polishes comes up better all the time.

The radio’s a bit fiddly so I would suggest getting a better one (with bigger buttons!).

Oh and a couple of switch blanks are missing from the rear console… and that’s about it.

Some will have seen the car at the Chevrons Rally in September and of course
as I said, it did the Challenge this year, completing 2,220 miles in a little over a week and returning over 50 mpg fully loaded. Can’t be bad can it?


I am interested in serious enquiries. If I have to wait until the spring next year, fine, but I thought I'd put this 'out there' now.

Although I would never - well hardly ever - expect to make anything like what a car 'owes me' when selling, this car has cost well in excess of £3,500, so someone's going to get a bit of a bargain really.... even though I have set my price expectation at £2,250.

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rear 3/4 view (before the new exhaust)

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And these tyres, I have to say, are superb:

Image
• 1992 Citroen BX TZD Turbo Hurricane
• 2006 Xsara Picasso 1.6 16v
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Tim Leech
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Re: Testing the water/advance notice

Post by Tim Leech »

Phil, I wouldn't, replacing it when you get the urge will be VERY difficult!
Lots of Motors, mostly semi broken....
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Re: Testing the water/advance notice

Post by Philip Chidlow »

Who says I'm not replacing it with something that'll satisfy the urge? Although in all fairness I'm not. No, I have a few plans and sadly they aren't BX shaped. If I did replace it with another BX one day it would likely be a GTi or a 16v. I'm after some 'performance'. My other cars give me the economy :)

You are right though Tim I would find it hard to replace. And I'm in no real hurry.
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Re: Testing the water/advance notice

Post by Jaba »

You are incorrigible Phil, how many BXs have you had ?
The Joy of BX with just one Citroën BX to my name now. Will I sing Bye Bye to my GTI or will it be Till death us do part.
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Re: Testing the water/advance notice

Post by Philip Chidlow »

A lot more than I've had GS's ;)
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Re: Testing the water/advance notice

Post by Kitch »

Jaba wrote:You are incorrigible Phil, how many BXs have you had ?
I haven't known many people as reliant on 'man maths' as Phil :lol:

Man maths, for those not in the know, is deciding to do something most (including yourself) would deem daft/financial suicide, and then desperately trying to come up with situations and means to justify the decision. 20 yrs later you finally admit to your mates in the pub that you were wrong.

For example: In 2002, at a tender 18yrs of age, I owned an AX GT and a Honda Prelude. The AX GT was off the road needing work, and I fancied building a VTS-powered amazing Max Power'd show car. I set about ripping the AX apart. The Prelude I paid £700 for (didn't haggle, just wanted it) and then 4 months later put a £630 MoT on my credit card (which I paid millions in interest on and eventually paid off with a huge loan, with interest). So the Prelude now owes me £1330.
I decide that because I have a project car at home, I need something distinctly workhorse-like in order to travel the country, procuring bargains and mental engines and stuff and transporting them home (in reality, I might have found an estate car useful once, possibly twice). I might also need a towbar, in case I get a trailer for the AX (that isn't built yet). And then boom! Someone offers me a battered ph1 405 TD estate in exchange for my now £1400 rusty-but-patched-up 'Lude. I get excited at the prospect of owning a worse car (the 405 was a dog) purely because I was changing cars.
Then, the deal falls through. I now resent my Prelude for what it's done to me (even though all it did wrong was rust up a bit before I owned it, and play no part whatsoever in the falling through of the deal for the smokey Pug). I decide to sell the Prelude ASAP for £250 (I'm now down by £1080 and have no daily driver) so I pay my mate £60 in fuel money (now £1140 down) to drive me to Bluewater to see a BX TZD Turbo for £395. Sounds perfect - I know them well, it's got room (though less than the Pug that caused me to think about doing all this). I get there, and the BX is dripping LHM slowly from behind the subframe. I rage quit the BX's forecourt and declare myself not returning from Kent without a car to my friend, as I've spent £60 getting there (not thinking about the £1140 I'm not down to the tune of). I buy an Autotrader (£3.00 or something? I'll write that one off) and find an AX GT up in Canterbury. It's £600. Bargain! Let's go look (because I know them, and it's the only thing I can find that I like because I HAVE to have something right now, even though it's barely any more practical than the Prelude I just spunked £1140 away on).
So we drive to get the AX. It's £600. That's now potentially me £1740 down, but great news! It's BROKEN! On the test drive it's coughing and banging, and spluttering. It's done 150k miles. It's a total shed. Result! I can haggle! I'll fix it at home while I already totally fail to find time to build the special AX I'm planning to build, which might fit the trailer requires a change of cars.....that I think I'll need to get. I haggle it down to £375. I'm elated! I've saved £225 (while actually losing £1515). I drive home. The car breaks down on the M25 (where I have no tax, no insurance pre-arranged etc, but I'm hoping the fact the reg number is one digit different to my car at home - really, it was G140TKL for the new shed, and G148TKL for the special AX at home, and were registered one day apart at the same dealership in 1990 - buys me some legroom, even though they're different colours). I ring my breakdown company and explain my breakdown situation. They clarify the reg. "Nope, G140 Miss, not 148" I explain. "Oh, we must have an error, my apologies" she says. RESULT! I save £15 on the admin fees to switch my breakdown cover to the new, shit AX! (I'd nearly be £1530 down, not £1515 - what a stroke of luck!) I continue to break down. I buy a dodgey battery off a dodgey tow-truck guy (£25, so now £1540 down, but in my mind I'm purely down to savings of £200, not the full £225 I saved with the haggling because the car was broken). I eventually get home to Southampton (ish) in the new AX, £1540 out of pocket, but thinking I'm £200 up on the deal.
The head gasket fails on the AX GT (shit new one, not ruined old one that I remember as being good, but was probably also shit). I take a day off work from the pine furniture ship, unpaid (losing around £60 if memory serves, so £1600 down, but elect not to deduct this from my £200 savings from le shite AX). I buy head gasket set and bolts, cambelt kit and water pump. I also buy Haynes manual (full price, from Halfords). I'm another £100 down, so now £1700 out of pocket (but in my head, £100 up on the deal as I'm deducting the cost of the repairs from the savings I made when I haggled). I fix the AX on the drive. It runs a treat! I now have a marginally less shite AX, a ruined AX in bits, and £100 in my pocket (with no record of the £1700 I'm down by).

So, does the tale end there? Well, no. Because, the car I took a trip to Kent in to eventually land me the AX GT in was an 02 plate Fiesta....something. Last of the line, the shitty 1.3 engine. Chum who owned it sold a mk2 Golf GTi 8v for it (not a bad one either), but decided he wanted a brand new car, so got into debt on a new Fiesta. I, now in my (arguably more fun, better looking and less debt-inducing) perfectly running AX GT, see chum and think "You know what, I should get a new car! A brand new one!" I begin looking at Saxos, and briefly Fiestas, but drop them like a brick when I realise the Zetec-S is out of budget. I take out a MAMMOTH loan. I buy the Saxo, and insure it (yes, I paid for insurance lasting one year using a loan spread over five). I sell the AX GT for £250. So my original debt is now £1450, and I'm saddled with a brand new Saxo (which lost about £1500 within minutes of driving away from the forecourt and was sold for £4300 18months after buying it, and a mammoth loan that didn't get paid off until 2007, causing me to be unable to move away from home until the age of 24.

In the last ten years, I've MASSIVELY improved at my applications of man maths, and actually try to incorporate making small profits into my decisions. It means I don't always have the flashiest stuff, or go on the best holidays etc, but it also means I don't end up paying for things I got rid of years ago, and occasionally I can make enough money on the side to invest in something, like this:

Image

I don't learn.

Anyway, back on topic :lol:
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Re: Testing the water/advance notice

Post by Philip Chidlow »

Brilliant. Well observed, too... Essentially I am contrary and typically Geminian in my fickleness. In my defence; I did buy the BX for the Challenge. The expense and so on, exceeded expectations but what was I to do? In the end the car was pretty darned reliable on the trip and Kermit, in exchange for his work on it and generous enthusiasm, got to travel around with me gratis.

I think the bottom line is; I will never be a financially astute car-dealer/restorer. I will always lose money on what I enjoy. I will always tire of a car eventually; not usually until after I've got it pretty well sorted. XM, BX after BX, Xantia, etc... same old story. What can I say? At least others have, in the past benefitted from this capriciousness! One car was taken away from me by the actions of a careless driver only 10km into picking it up from being restored. I never got to really enjoy it, and that has left a hole that the BX can't fill...

So... where's that GS....? :D
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Re: Testing the water/advance notice

Post by Tinkley »

Excellent tale Kitch.... :wink: ooooh, you young guys itching to blast down the road, mind you at that age on a bike I used all the performance too....

Also probably why I've kept running a BX after buying a one year old one in '89. Had finance on that, but after 3 years it was paid off and actually compared to an Escort or Astra it was cheaper. Got a good deal trading in my old Sunbeam which was 12 years old at the time. But when it came to 'Should I change the car?' time with the BX it was cheaper to keep it on the road with no finance to worry about. Biggest problem keeping a BX on the road now, is the scarcity of them and some parts and of course my last one was written off - twice. When you consider Anne Marie's accident and Chevronics have another shunted write off it's amazing considering how few there are on the road to start with! I don't intend to ever have a concours vehicle bit do want all the fundamentals to work correctly.

I don't mind buying new motorcycles but they are a bit different, and mine have generally done pretty high miles - like 22k in the first year on my last one so lost at least half it's value. However I like to know what has been done (mainly by myself) with these, just so much more 'direct' than a car.

Phil your car looks great, and is definitely sorted fundamentally, so a proper useable vehicle. Well done for saving it and getting it back to really good road going condition.
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Re: Testing the water/advance notice

Post by Philip Chidlow »

You know what? I'm here in France... I've spotted only 5 BX's the whole trip so far, and every time I spot one I get a little buzz. This should tell me something...

So, to reiterate: I'm in no rush to sell and certainly in no mood to drop on price :)

If you are interested please let me know but in the meantime I'm happy to keep the ol' gal :)

I would need a fair wedge to go for project GS after all.... ;)
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Re: Testing the water/advance notice

Post by bxzx16v »

Keep her Phil you'll regret it if you sell .

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Re: Testing the water/advance notice

Post by Philip Chidlow »

I will for the time being and be really very happy to drive about in it! But one day I will need to scratch my GS itch lol
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Re: Testing the water/advance notice

Post by JayW »

Richard, you almost want me to write down the story of the BX that spent 9 years in the garage with 000's of quids of parts deteriorating, expiring and devaluing, costing £500 a year on storage, countless hundreds on transportation and endless trauma and headaches...

It really is an epic!

#-o
I have zero patience for your tedium.
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Re: Testing the water/advance notice

Post by Kitch »

JayW wrote:Richard, you almost want me to write down the story of the BX that spent 9 years in the garage with 000's of quids of parts deteriorating, expiring and devaluing, costing £500 a year on storage, countless hundreds on transportation and endless trauma and headaches...

It really is an epic!

#-o
I don't Jay, I wouldn't want to put you through it :lol:
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Re: Testing the water/advance notice

Post by jvbram »

Would any modificstions be required toput a Pug 405 td into a Bx td? Eg does it have a pully on the end of the cam shaft for the HML pump.
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Re: Testing the water/advance notice

Post by Tim Leech »

You would need to swap the cam shaft and cam cover over
Lots of Motors, mostly semi broken....
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