66 replies to this topic

[Bungle]

a friend of mine has a MI16 BX in his dads garage

 

very quick car and a total sleeper

Edited by Bungle, 26 March 2014 - 07:40 AM.

[mini13]

it deserves to be,

[Ben_O]

I've always quite liked the CX too. Again, my first car was an AX, but a 3 door Debut: 954cc engine, 4 gears, tape player only had fast forward, and a clock instead of a rev counter. Sounds familiar....

 

 

Yup! My first one was an 1100cc but i had a 954 later on. think that was a debut. It was pink and i bought it for £30 off ebay with T&T. Just needed a new clutch! It was slow as hell but made a good stop gap when i was skint!

[The Otter]

I bought the BX a few goodies from Halfords last week: some new wiper blades (old ones were completely shot), an air freshener to try and make it not smell like a well used hire car, and some LHM fluid (suspension fluid) because its bound to empty its own fluid on the floor sooner or later...



I found out when I was changing the wiper blades that the spoiler Citroen decided to fit on the bootlid stops the wiper arm from being hinged upwards to get the blade off, so I had to take the arm off to change the blade. Oh you Frenchies...



Once in a while I randomly go all concourse on something, and the other day I decided I'd try and polish my rear number plate because it was looking a bit faded and cloudy. I stopped halfway through to take a picture for some reason, so that you could see the transformation... (right hand side has been polished here)



When it was raining the other day I decided it'd be a good time to go and sit in the car and see if there were any leaks, so I got in and immediately saw that the passengers side seat and floor where pretty wet. Oh bum. I saw the water was dripping in from the top of A pillar, so it was either windscreen or sunroof. Either way I knew it'd be fiddly to fix properly... Doing a bit of research I found out how sunroofs actually aren't meant to be watertight and that the water is channeled through a drainage system, with a pipe in each corner of the sunroof to take away the water. So what had happened to mine was that the front left drainage channel had become blocked and the water was just building up in the drainage pan until it overflowed in to the car via the sunroof hole - hence I needed to unblock the pipe.

So, my first plan was to be as lazy as possible about it. I drove the car up on to ramps at the back and poured in a bit of drain unblocker (I know it's for household sinks, but a drain is a drain right?) in to the offending corner and let that sit for half an hour (as per the instructions I'll have you know) and then wash it down with some nearly boiling water from the kettle. I had the car on ramps so the solution sat in the front corner rather than draining away out of the back channel.



Of course that didn't work so I then had a water/chemical solution sitting in the corner of the sunroof opening, going nowhere...



I realised I'd have to actually physically unblock the pipe, so firstly I had to actually find the pipe. I started by ripping of pieces of trim (which proved VERY difficult to get back in place...) and having a look.



Here's the pipe!



But where does it go? I followed it down and just about managed to see that it pops through a hole in the side of the door pillar and goes into the pillar box section ready to flow out in to the big wide world. You can just about make it out (the blurry bit) in the back at the bottom of this photo, taken sideways through the fuse box area. Sorry, it was the best I could manage.



With my tiny woman hands I managed to get in there and pull the pipe through from the box section and have it hanging out the door, like so.



You can see here about an inch long blockage of black sludge, which eventually made its way out, along with the drain unblocker, when I poked some fish tank airline hose up from the bottom.



What came out wasn't pretty... but now I have all four sunroof drains working as they should! Yay! No more leaks 

The non functioning seat adjustment was due to the round bar bit of this adjuster on the other side of the seat (that I couldn't photograph because of it being sandwiched against the centre console) popping out of place, so only the right hand side was doing any adjusting. No other pics, but I just used a lever bar to get the bar back in its position/teeth and it works fine again.

Was having a play around with the suspension and thought I'd take a couple of pics with it in ultimate 4x4 attack mode (also known as very high).





I also treated all the exterior plastics to a good clean and de-algae session, as they were covered in little green spots of very hard and baked on nastiness. Once I cleaned them all up I gave everything a going over with some boiled linseed oil (£5 from B&Q) and they came up really nice in my opinion! Unfortunately I didn't take any before shots, but I can guarantee they were much greyer than this.





I also bodged together the interior light with the missing switch, by inserting a piece of metal to bridge the gap that should be being bridged by the switch. It works now, but I will still look out for another interior light sometime to make it look a bit neater rather than having a bit of metal poking out of the light.

That's everything actually up to date now! 

Thanks for reading.

[Archived4]

Is that a deisel on a carb? Basically no electrics? If so I want one

[The Otter]

Is that a deisel on a carb? Basically no electrics? If so I want one

 

Diesels don't use carbs   I'm still learning the intricacies of diesels myself, but I'm sure there are still more electrics on it that an old A-series engine 

[Archived4]

Oh yeah, what ever they are called then, mechanical fuel injection. and that isnt hard lol

[minimat]

My dad had a rare 4x4 estate a long time ago j299 yoo when it wasn't very old which was great in the snow but not that reliable like most French cars.

hydraulic system kept playing up despite the dealer replacing almost the entire system (under warranty thankfully) gear linkage broke changing down for a corner leaving him to walk home, the final straw was when the clutch needed replacing which was an expensive engine out job on the 4x4 so it got traded in for a montego estate which was a lot more reliable (apart from the rust, several panels changed under warranty)

[The Otter]

So, it turned out that the blocked sunroof drain wasn't actually the cause of the leak... it was in fact water going underneath the windscreen seal at the top edge, I found after much investigation pouring jugs of water all over the roof. So I lifted up the rubber seal and pumped in a load of windscreen sealant and all is well! No more leak!

I've also been on a painting spree. I did the wiper arms, as the old paint was flaking off and looking pretty manky. Then I did the black panel on the boot lid because it was faded and scratched and I damaged it pretty badly getting the remains of that crumbly old GB badge off.

Here's a picture of the repainted satin black bootlid section, with the first of the crappy stickers I'll no doubt end up festooning the car with.



Today I had a go at covering up these bits of fairly deep surface rust, firstly on the inner edge of the drivers door and then on the drainage channel flute at the base of the centre door pillar.

This bit had a bit of a dent in it, so I assume it received a little knock from something in the distant past and the metal moth was just left to spread across the skin, slowly taking all the paint with it. (Dent is much smaller than the rust patch)



I assume this bit has come from damp rising up from the bottom of the channel, probably when it's been a bit blocked in the past.



So, rubbed them down and gave them a coat of Kurust.





Then gave them a lick of paint. Took a bit of a gamble and bought the only dark blue Citroen colour that Halfords sell (Admiral Blue), and it turned out to be a bit too light, so I tried putting a coat of black on and then a light coat of the blue over the top and it turned out almost spot on.



Edges are a bit more obvious on this bit, but still a lot better than it was. Really need to sort out my painting, I always get hard edges like this...



On the subject of rust, I also found this unpleasant surprise lurking for me in the boot.



Looks pretty cancerous, best give it a poke...



Yep, I can see day light quite clearly through that. Damn. Gave it a coat of Kurust for now, but I'll weld it up soon along with the patch on the front inner wing/wheel arch that needs doing.

I also came up with a "fix" for the rear parcel shelf. Firstly, lets see what I had left to work with.

Nothing here.



Even more nothing here.



Nope, nothing here either.



Well, one out of four is better than none out of four right?



My solution isn't exactly hi-tech or very fancy. I made up, and painted black, a couple of little wooden "shelves" to screw on to the boot liner side panels so it gives the parcel shelf something to sit on. 





It works well enough for me so that's another job off the list.

Soon I'll have a go at repainting the satin black bits around the door windows, and I've also really got to get my arse in to gear and fix the rust holes before I start using the thing as my daily...

Thanks for reading.

 

The Otter

[rally515]

Looking progressive otter, i think he reason for the sharp paint edges is 1) its been masked off so theres bound to be a thick layer which just ends at the area were the tape was covering and 2) you need to flatten and smooth it in with sand paper, the finer the grit you end at the bettr, also dont forget to polish after ;)

 

Following your progress

 

Cheers

Cliff

[Moggyton]

Looking good

[Ben_O]

love the sticker! where did you get it from? I want one for my 306!

 

Ben

[The Otter]

love the sticker! where did you get it from? I want one for my 306!

 

Ben

 

eBay  a store called oilcanstickers. http://www.ebay.co.u...=item1e70967533

[Chance]

With the painting:

YouTube 'backtaping'
Basically fold back the edge of the masking tape slightly and get a softer edge

I'm useless at painting but I tried it once doing a similar thing as you've done and it works

[The Otter]

Well, I've been sorting out some more serious rust issues over the past few days!

 

 

 

It's not just Minis that rust away from the inside out! I've patched it up now, I'll update with a pic of the repair later on.

 

Also just sorted my insurance for the year, £484 with Sainsburys 

 

I did also get a puncture in the front drivers tyre, due to a rusty bit of metal from all the rust I flaked off the car  I always meticulously sweep up before I move any cars around when I've been doing this sort of thing, but I must have just missed that one bit! Not too much of a problem though, all four tyres are different on this car, so I've now ordered a couple of new Yokos for the front wheels and will have peace of mind that at least the front two are the same brand/condition!