New member from Cork

[White Exec]

Hi Kieran,

Seeing your BX backend avatar sent me to some old 35mm scanned negs...

Surrey, 1996, with my Dad.JPG

Spain & Portugal, 1996.JPG

An amazing towcar, considering its light weight. Could have done with some AC though!

[kieran.l]

Hi Chris,

Ah cool, I haven't seen a BX in that deep red colour with white strips running along it before. A mk2 19RD judging from your signature. Did it have power steering or was it still only an option on the mk2s? My mk1 doesn't, but it doesn't bother me to be honest; something different from the more modern cars. And a bit of extra pulling is no harm from time to time... except when trying to parallell park! Yes the BX won tow-car of the year a number of times. I was too young to remember, but I'm sure my Dad used it to pull a caravan on one or two family holidays

[CitroJim]

The BX had a formidable reputation as an excellent towcar. I recall back in the very early 90s there was great sadness in the caravanning world when the end of BX production was announced..

The Xantia proved good too. I towed a fair old 'van for years with a 1.9TD

[White Exec]

The deep red colour was Richelieu Red. Yes, it did have PAS. Once (when it sprang an LHM leak) we had to tow-drive it half a mile without PAS: it was like doing a three-point-turn with a pair of lock gates!

We found the car in Romford, Essex with around 51k on the clock. The clutch was way out of adjustment, which led the owner to think that an expensive repair was needed, and so we got it at a good price. We ran it from 1994ish until we got our 2.5 XM (new) at the end of 1998, and took the BX mileage to 190k. The 19RD would return 44mpg average, and 39 towing - brilliant. And she did tow: Scotland, Belgium, France, Holland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Spain & Portugal (including the Picos de Europa).

Did a few tweaks along the way: New cylinder head (when the head gasket went for the second time), and the installation of a coolant header tank, to stop the problem once and for all. Also a second cooling fan (same as original, which was just moved to one side to ready mounting points!), and a DIY circuit to automatically switch the fans first into series, and then parallel at high temp. (I have the circuit, if you're interested.)

The engine was (apart from the head - fine, after the header tank) built like a tank. When finally replacing the head (177k mi) I thought I might as well replace the pistons and big-end bearings. What a waste of effort and money - the bores showed virtually no signs of wear whatsoever, and the pistons were as snug as new.

We up-rated the rather basic dash to include rev counter and digital clock (all from a scrapped GTi), driving the rev counter from a toothed wheel on the pump pulley at the end of the camshaft. Some rear headrests (same as front), and 100/80W (plus relay) in those fabulous headlights. The pink-and-silver coach-line was ours, from Halfords; I still have a roll. Both colours really suited the dark red. The rear light clusters were also swapped for some later 'smoked' versions (from the same GTi), but modded to retain the original brake light position at the outer edge.

The BX had the last of the long-travel Citroen suspension (I believe), and it was capable of driving across almost anything. We did several hillsides, one ploughed field, and regularly waded through a flooded road next to the river Wey at Eashing. Pleasingly, even on intermediate-high, there was still comfortable springing present, something the XM doesn't provide. A local independent Citroen garage introduced me to the possibilities of Valprex and re-gassing, so we enjoyed plenty of comfort.

An altogether magic car, which both of us loved to drive, or be driven in.

[kieran.l]

Hi Chris,

Lovely story there and some great modifications that you made

I'm not sure what you mean by long-travel suspension?? Do you mean that the later Citroens don't rise to the same height?

Ah, so the stripping detail you put on yourself, it suited that colour nicely!

Yes I too have found, by accident, that even in the intermediate height the BX is quite comfortable!

Kieran

[White Exec]

So far as I know, after the BX the working length of the hydraulic pistons was reduced - the BX (and CX presumably) being the last models that, theoretically, could "drive across ploughed fields". [Someone put me right on this, if I'm mistaken.] In shortening the available hydraulic stroke, one of the consequences was that, put on intermediate-high, there was not enough cylinder length available to offer soft/normal suspension (without risk of damage), and so on later models, intermediate-high was limited to a firm ride.

[kieran.l]

Ah ok I didn't know about the shorter struts, but what you say sounds plausible.