Zel's Fleet Blog - BX, Jag XJ-S, Sinclair C5, Mercedes 208D & 230TE, AC Model 70.

[Zelandeth]

On a trivial note Zel, love the number noticing stuff!

What was the BX odometer at when it first unloaded at chez Zel? I'm sure one of your photos will have it for the record.

Regards Neil

149076 - The same as it's been at for goodness only knows how long given that the speedo cable wasn't attached!

[CitroJim]

What a difference in TPA since she joined your fleet Zel... From looking very sorry for herself and now very tidy indeed...

A true credit to you and I'm sure BX will enjoy the same transformation too

I bet she turns heads wherever she goes!

[Zelandeth]

Few bits and pieces done today. First up was seeing if I could figure out what was up with the dash lighting on the BX.

The only lighting inside which is tied to the headlights is in the rear window heater and hazard light switches, the rest all comes on with the ignition. The only light I found that was working was the one in the glove box - but investigation of the schematics shows that it's on a different circuit. The rest should all run through a rheostat - missing on mine. I'd originally assumed just being basically a base spec car it just didn't have the rheostat...however I fully expected the wiring to be there just with a link in its place. Kind of expected they would have fitted a blanking plug too rather than just leaving a hole in the lower steering cowl.

Peering down inside the cowling I could see this.



Hmm...Green and green with a purple trace. Let's consult the schematics.



Would you look at that...the dash lighting rheostat (number 50 in the diagram) has that colour of wiring.

Quick rummage around in my box of bits of Xantia turned up this.



Thanks to PSA being big fans of not changing parts bin items for decades this has exactly the same connector and slotted perfectly into place. Did this fix the dash lighting?



That's a yes.

Thankfully the rest all seem to still work too.



Remembered seeing this floating around in the boxes in the boot...



Which today I realised I had spotted the home for - it's the trim which should go between the ignition barrel and the cowling.



Doesn't that look better?



Speaking of looking better, treating the front bumper has made a heck of a difference!





Work has started on the polishing.



As I had kind of expected, the metal badge on the boot lid fell off pretty much as soon as I touched it. Leaving a horrible mess behind it.



Which required the best part of an hour carefully picking away at it to clean up. It has left a mark but you wouldn't notice it if you weren't looking for it.



I'll keep it with the car obviously.

I'm torn about the dealer decals...They're part of the car's story, which makes me inclined to leave them be. However they're in quite poor condition, and the cleanliness of the design on the BX really makes them stick out...so I'm tending towards removing them. If they weren't already flaking off I'd probably just leave them be.

We're getting there, though it's time consuming as polishing a car always is. I'd hoped to get most of the doors done but only got the tailgate and one rear quarter done because of the amount of time dealing with that badge lost me.



Looking a lot better already I think though, we're getting there.

Does anyone know how the little spoiler is attached? If removing it isn't a huge pain it would make repainting it far less of a faff (it should be satin black, but it's worn away badly like the paint on the door tops has).

I noticed this afternoon that despite 38 years and 150K miles the protective film is still on the metallic label with the gearchange pattern on it.

l

Once it was dark this meant I could finally get a dash at night photo.



...At which point I immediately news that the light behind the fuel gauge has gone out again. That's going on the "deal with later" list.

Does look the part though.







It's interesting to see that Citroen apparently got in there a couple of decades early with the whole gentle general background night time cabin lighting. I never saw this on other cars until around 2000 (think it was a Skoda Superb).



With a bit of luck I might get the polish and wax finished tomorrow.

[CitroJim]

Gosh! That's coming up a treat Zel, what a difference already! Awesome

[Hell Razor5543]

She is looking great Zel. Another 'endangered' car has found a safe home. I noticed that the clock appears to have an issue. On my BX this was due to a couple of failing solder joins, so the permanent 12V was not getting through (the clock did light up and work when the ignition was on, but it died when the power was off).

[white exec]

I had the same thing with the gear-change label on ours, Zel . . . after 28 years, the protective film was still there, looking a bit blueish. Underneath, a pristine anodised label.

Not sure, but I think the residual spoiler is actually a moulded part of the tailgate, and not removable. It's there (but in body colour) even on models with much larger spoilers, iirc.

On the dash instrument lighting, the facelifted BX has its instrument backlighting come on as soon as the IGN is switched on. This takes a toll on lamp life, and is pointless during daylight. One good (and easy) mod is to fit an extra small relay, near the rheostat, that only allows illumination when both IGN + sidelights are switched on.

Paintwork looking rather good!

[Zelandeth]

Couple of folks have confirmed the spoiler isn't removable. Fair enough...just means a lot of extra masking will be needed to paint it.

The clock definitely has an issue with the permanent 12V feed as it loses the time whenever the ignition is turned off. I know the panel has to come apart for cleaning at some point so will investigate it then.

Regarding the dash lighting, I imagine the on-with-ignition setup is a holdover from the S1 cars where it's pretty much necessary to have a clear view of some of the instruments on anything other than a nice sunny afternoon as they're so deeply recessed into the cluster. When I pull it apart for cleaning I will do a quick experiment to see whether it would work with warm white LEDs (so far I've had about a 50% success rate with that...either it looks totally identical or just doesn't work at all) as that could address most of the lamp life concerns. Though just knocking the rheostat down by a few percent should vastly increase the projected lamp life.

[Hell Razor5543]

On my BX (an H reg) the clocks' onboard connector was to a 'film'. This meant I was for more 'careful' when re-soldering the joins (IIRC there were only 4). There was also a removeable bulb in the classic holder.

[admiral51]

Zel you are doing a cracking job on the BX def in good hands.
I have been thinking about the seats.
I am sure there are many Auto motive seat repairers near you that will charge a fortune but there must be someone in the near vicinity that will use the originals as a template and supply something that is close to the originals.
Not talking about the whole seat, just the fabric covering and the foam needs to be of a proper rating but worth taking a little time to shop around

Colin

[CitroJim]

Regarding the dash lighting, I imagine the on-with-ignition setup is a holdover from the S1 cars

My S2 AX still has it.... But despite a very similar set of instruments my S1 Saxo does not...

All the base model 205s I've known did too but not the GTi. Hellishly hard on instrument bulbs...

[Hell Razor5543]

I wonder if there was meant to be a fixed resistor (as opposed to a variable one) to allow the dash lights to be on at a fixed level of brightness?

[white exec]

You could always fit one, to limit brightness.
On the BX here, having re-lamped the dash, I have added an extra series resistor (4R7) to the end of the 12R rheostat, to knock back both min and max brightness. (Fitted the resistor into the rheostat alu casing, which is a heat sink.)

[Zelandeth]

Reasonably productive day today. Main task was to hit the BX (not literally) with the polish and wax.

I'd been hovering over whether to remove the dealer decals for a while, though as they were in pretty poor condition was leaning towards removing them...Especially as the BX being such a clean design doesn't suit them.



Decision was made far easier however when they started to disintegrate pretty much as soon as I started polishing around them...Off they come then!





Also giving me a tiny glimpse of the actual colour of the bonnet.

A couple of hours of elbow grease ensued...The difference was immediately obvious!

Can you spot where I'd got to?



The weather today was pretty much perfect for it. The effort was very much worth it I think...The results speak for themselves really.

















The bonnet and roof still have a bit of a haze to them so could probably do with going over again, but overall I think she's looking a huge amount more presentable. She looks far better for having lost the random stickers and badge from the bootlid and bonnet I think.

I'm waiting on some proper 3M double sided foam tape so I can redo all the rubbing strips (two are coming away in addition to the two missing on the front wings), which will be a good opportunity to deal with the ingrained grime right next to them I just couldn't get to today. The bootlid badges look to be metal rather than plastic, so removing to clean behind them shouldn't be a problem.

Getting the missing bit of rubbing strip back on the front wings will help a lot I think as your eye is drawn to the gap there immediately I find.


Once I was satisfied with my progress there I decided to finish up wiring in the new instruments in TPA. This took longer than it really should have mostly thanks to poor process planning on my part but we got nearly there in the end, and the voltmeter now works. I just need to hook up the permanent live for the clock at the battery end and tidy up my wiring a bit.



What ended up taking the longest was tying into the existing dash lighting circuit and sorting out the grounds - as we had a mish-mash between the gauges of common grounds for the gauge and lighting, grounded through the case and totally separate connections - and I was trying to keep the spaghetti to a minimum. Got there though.





Really need to lose that horrible blue filter on the speedometer illumination...Will probably try to match it to the fuel gauge (as the filter on that is built into the gauge). Don't mind the main instruments being different to the lower set...but the mismatch between instruments actually grouped together bugs me.

Finishing off the clock wiring tomorrow should only be a ten minute job. Only took a while because I've got a battery isolator switch fitted so need a dedicated live for it run all the way back to the battery itself (via a 2A fuse of course, right at the battery side). That adds a lot of extra work as the wiring all has to run underneath the car. Nice to be still getting things ticked off though.

Really happy with how the BX is looking now. I was right that the colour was really going to look the part once it had a good shine to it, really does suit the car I think - even though I'd never have thought to choose beige at the showroom, I do like it.

[CitroJim]

Another absolutely awesome and rewarding day on the cars Zel

BX is looking very sweet now She'll be very popular and welcome at shows once they get under way again... The BX crowd will be positively drooling!

[Zelandeth]

Resting battery voltage looks a bit healthier when I've not been faffing about with the headlights for half an hour.



The clock now works too.

I keep forgetting how well this thing picks up when you've got a decently long stretch of road on the level. Think the folks in the convertible Golf were slightly baffled when I came hurtling past them on the dual carriageway earlier.

Unfortunately one of my old gremlins resurfaced later in the day when the throttle cable came away from the retainer in the twist grip. I initially thought it had snapped, but it's just pulled out. That's the third time this has happened.

Getting the rest of the way home required a little ingenuity.



Really wasn't a problem, though my hand was getting really tired by the time I got home - there's a wicked strong return spring on that cable!

Think it's time to get a new twist grip ordered that doesn't rely on an odd sized mounting peg that I have to improvise. Be nice to get one that's not just hard plastic anyway as it gets horrible and sweaty after half an hour or so.