Sally's home! The BX, although a very fine car and second-to-none in the areas of moving IKEA flatpacks and covering long journeys with ease while just sipping diesel, was always a tool for a particular job; that of carrying me between Canterbury and Brighton every weekend. Since moving to Brighton I'm covering very few miles, to the point where I had just started thinking about selling it in favour of something a bit older and more interesting - maybe another Rover P6, or an early BX GT like the one my Dad used to have. These thoughts were just gathering pace when the redoutable Chris Salter contacted me with the news that he had just acquired my favourite old car, the only car I've ever regretted selling, and had to sell up to fund work on his DS. Was I interested? Oh yes! Within a week the BX was sold to another member of the very fine BXclub and I was heading towards Chris with the cash from the BX sale in my hand.
It felt very strange seeing her again, five years after I watched Chris drive her away from my mum's house, purely because I was too skint to keep her. Even stranger to see her the other two G-series cars I've owned, Deirdre and Sophie, parked up around Chris' house!
On first inspection, I noticed a few things: the dent I put in one of the rear doors in a tight Italian car park has been pulled out, but is still visible. The paint hasn't fared as badly as I feared; just a few little patches where the primer underneath has come through, but still bright and clean overall. She's wearing yellow headlamps - they'll have to go. There's a GB sticker exactly where I used to put my magnetic one when we lived in Italy. There's a new alternator: I assume this is because she used to blow bulbs every couple of weeks, and all the lights pulsed slightly all the time. The interior hasn't changed at all, except that the radio I fitted has gone; it even smells the same as it used to.
The drive home threw up a few more things: the heated rear screen still doesn't work (I used to treat it with a Rain-Ex type product that stops it misting up), the driver's window has dropped off its runners (a common G fault), the cold fan has stopped working, the windscreen wipers are crap (that's always the first job I do when I buy a car; do squeaky wipers not bother anyone else?), and something's up with the charging. The ammeter was way into the red zone all the way back and I eventually had to give up on the lights as with them switched on the wipers were too slow to be effective. Also, there's no illumination on the dashboard... dead rheostat, or just a complete set of blown bulbs? I'll have a look when it stops raining. She's also got the typical rattly G-noise, which she didn't have before, when the exhaust goes slightly out of alignment and starts banging against the bottom of the height adjuster lever. Both my GSA's did this and I never did manage to cure it so I'll probably just ignore it for now.
That drive home was not really the ideal way for me to get back into seventies-style motoring after a time away (the Passat and Saab 900 had power steering and modern-style soundproofing and the BX is a very competent modern car) and the heavy rain and high winds, coupled with that failing battery, made the whole thing slightly too much like hard work. On the other hand, we did survive the worst winter northern Italy has ever seen, so we should be used to driving in heavy rain together. Driving all this modern stuff has obviously made me soft; I found Sally to be very noisy at speed, even though I know I raved about her quietness on this very website last time I owned her, and she didn't feel nearly so well planted on the road as the BX, despite being slightly heavier. In all fairness, it is spectacularly windy at the moment - we've lost the satellite dish off the house, and I've seen shop signboards flying off like handkerchiefs. Or maybe it's because I've been driving over-tyred cars with power assisted steering for a few years now; maybe I just need some time to get used to the super-direct non-assisted steering and narrow tyres again so that I don't overcompensate. Parallel-parking at home I found her steering very heavy and immediately got very cross with myself for being such a big wuss. Elsewhere on this site, you'll see me praising Sally for having lighter steering than the 1973 Rover 2000 and 1986 Peugeot 309 that I was regularly driving at the time. Even now, I reckon the steering's lighter than Mum's current 1995 106 - I've just gone soft.
Get a grip of yourself, Hedges, are you a man or a mouse? Anyway, the clutch, brakes and gearchange are all more positive and require less effort than the BX so I guess it all cancels out in the end. On top of that, I didn't do this to get an easier car to drive - if I'd wanted that I'd have sold the BX and driven my girlfriend's automatic Micra. I did it because I wanted a car with some soul and character, and Sally's all that. Despite the stressful conditions a couple of moments made me smile: a shared smile and thumbs-up from a guy driving an air-cooled VW van, a slight sideways moment on a wet roundabout, saved with the merest flick of the wrists on that amazing steering, just as I did so many times on water-logged Po Plain roads five years ago.
When I got home the rain was really coming down so I just legged it into the flat, but when I had to go to the corner shop after the rain had stopped I couldn't resist walking past where I'd parked Sally, just to look at her. I never did that when I had the BX, but I used to do it every day when we were in Voghera together.
Right then: back to practicalities. That battery was really gone after the 60 mile drive home, even though I'd given up on the lights, to the extent that when I stalled her parking (the throttle cable's sticking a bit, as she hasn't been driven for a while, making moving off a bit of a precision art), and there was nothing to be had but a little flicker of the rev counter when I turned the key. Fortunately I was pointing the right way down a hill and she bump-started just fine - just like those three weeks back in 2001 when I was unemployed and couldn't afford a new battery but lived on a hill in Canterbury. I texted Chris to let him know we were safe home, mentioning this (he'd noticed a problem but not had time to sort it) and he suggested the fan belt as a possible culprit, as they don't like being left to stand. I popped out to have a look, having forgotten that you can't see the fanbelts on these cars without removing the grille, but I did find a broken fanbelt sitting inside the spare wheel. This could be a clue as to the nature of my charging problem.
Friday 9 June 2006
Obviously a lot's gone on, so I'm just going to bring it all up to date here.
There was the obvious period of sulking while I considered what an idiotic thing I'd done, contemplated that horrible drive home, and generally listened to my parents, my girlfriend and her son telling me what a stupid thing I'd done selling a modern, reliable and reasonably cool car for this old wreck. My arguments - that Sally was one of the best GS's in the country when I'd first seen her and that she was anyway massively cool in any condition - were met with scorn and disdain. I started sleeping in the study. Then the MoT ran out and I had to start driving my girlfriend's automatic Micra, so clearly something had to be done. Citroen fans - enjoy this nice picture for a minute before reading the horror that is to come.
Right: on to the difficult stuff. I knew that Sally wasn't charging, so the first step was to try charging up the two batteries she came with - one connected, one on the floor in the back - to see if they were OK. We've recently moved house and I couldn't find my own charger, but fortunately she came with one in the boot. It's exactly the same as mine, fairly cheap but with a row of LED's to show the state of charge; the one under the bonnet (which looks fairly new) charged up fine overnight and the one which was sitting on the floor seemed to be fully charged already. These were left in the car by owner-before-Chris, by the way, he hadn't done anything but drive her home. Note to self: never buy a car with two batteries and a charger already inside, this is clearly a sign that something's wrong. Anyway, I hoiked the known battery into the car and drove her off to the MoT centre. On starting up, I had a new surprise: nothing electrical was working at all. None of the gauges on the dash, none of the accessories, no lights. Oh well - off to the MoT centre anyway. I couldn't even do hand signals, because of that dodgy driver's window, but as the MoT tester pointed out nobody signals in this town anyway - and if I had stuck my arm out of the window, I'd have had my watch nicked. Anyway, as I pulled into the garage's parking bay, everything suddenly sprang back into life.
The MoT failure sheet makes the electrical maladies seem even weirder, showing just some of the lamps not working and one of the headlamps with "light output severely reduced." She also failed on a suspension bush, a wheelbearing, the handbrake below required efficiency (8% - quite normal for a G) and rampant rust.
Rust? What? Just how badly can a car which was freshly restored when I bought her six years ago and still bloody good when I sold her five years ago rust? The answer is clearly visible below.
To be honest she wasn't perfect in this area five years ago. The underseal had got scratched and things were just beginning to go brown down there. But to be fair, both the GSA's I've owned were even worse than this around the front floors - and they came with MoT's! Am I the only person in the UK who consistently comes across honest MoT testers? Should I be glad that they're actually doing their job and keeping me safe... or pissed off because I spend so much money in bodyshops?
She failed on the battery tray too. Now call me oversensitive but I have owned a lot of manky old knackers so I think I know what I'm talking about: there's always rust under the battery tray and they don't tend to fail unless you can actually see the road through it. Is this a failure candidate?
Either way, I've got to get this all done, so she's booked into a welder near where I work. In the meantime, if you have a 70s Citroen or something that's known to rust badly, I suggest you get out on your drive with the Dinitrol right now. Don't wait until the weekend. Do it NOW.
Now then, those electrics. The alternator belt was present and correct after all, although being a GS you have to take the grille off and peer through a tiny access hole to find this out. It's also adjusted right to the end of the travel on the bracket, so if it's slipping it's because the belt's too big. It looks brand new so I assume it went in with the new alternator (which I'm reliably informed is a pig of a job - it certainly looks it). I still have absolutely no idea why some things were working and not others during the MoT, or why the failures are so inconsistent between one drive and the next. When my CX wasn't charging properly, it turned out to be because the wiring quality was so piss-poor. Cleaning all the connections and replacing some connectors seemed to sort it out, so I went for this approach on Sally too. I opened up the dash and cleaned all the switches and multiplugs with contact cleaner, then opened the bonnet and went for the fusebox and earth strap. I'm also suspicious of the voltage regulator - when I had Sally before, the lights used to pulse and she blew bulbs an awful lot, so I've ordered a new one. Turning her back on, I was surprised at the difference - everything worked (including the dash illumination, which hadn't before) except for the cold fan, and according to the ammeter on the dash she's even charging... if not as enthusiastically as I'd like. I'm suspicious - it should never be this easy.
During all this, the documents arrived - V5 or whatever it's called now. When I sent it in, I put it in the same envelope as the one for the BX, which I'd just sold. That was correctly spelled. The GS one, however, came back with the name of my block of flats spelled wrong. This isn't the first time this has happened - at one time, when I was living at my mum's, we had three cars registered there - two for Hedges, and one for Hadges. Can the DVLA not get anything right? It makes a mockery of those scary TV adverts where they tell you they'll come and get you if you don't pay tax because they've got everything on their database.
Monday 19 June 2006
Just a quick update. I got a call from the garage today; he says Sally's MoT'd, but that the horn stopped working on the way back from the test centre, and that despite the indication of the ammeter she's still not charging. In fact, she refused to start a few times during the test, which didn't exactly impress the MoT tester. At any rate, he's held onto her for a bit to see if he can figure out the charging problem and horn, but to be honest we agreed that I'd probably be chasing bad earths around for the rest of my life.
Wednesday, 21 June 2006
Before we move on, I want to say that for the first time since I bought her back I am completely happy with my car. I went for a drive tonight, purely for the pleasure of doing it; the first time I've done that since I had Sally in Lombardia, in Italy. I loved every second of it; I loved the feel of the steering, the way that all the unassisted controls felt so much more precise than their modern, powered or damped counterparts on the Micra; I loved the unembarassed, exuberant noise of the aircooled boxer engine and the way it leaped eagerly towards the redline compared to the Micra's cautious coarseness. I loved the way I was driving something totally different to anything else on the road. And I didn't have to worry about either of the things which had really scared me on the first drive home: the ammeter stayed in the "good" zone and didn't venture into the red, and the handbrake gave some heft. The garage hadn't found anything beyond typical French wiring to explain the charging problem, but a simple clean of all the connections seems to have done the trick.
So, how much has this car cost me? Well, I have to compare to my girlfriend's Micra, a small new car, which costs her £200 per month purely on the finance, plus tax, insurance and servicing. Compared to that, my costs stack up like this:
Received for the BX: +£500
Paid for Sally: -£400
MoT: -£44.15
Welding: -£200
Suspension part: -£69.91
Labour plus retest: -£176.34
So my "expensive dream hobby car" has cost me £390.40, in an MoT month when you would expect a bit of extra outlay anyway. Factor in the lower insurance and tax if you like... and you'll find that it's cheaper to run a rare classic car which is universally acknowledged to have really expensive spare sparts, spending a bit on improving it every month every month, and still have change left over from a a modern Micra.
Sunday, 25 June 2006
Just a quick update. I drove Sally up to town for the Bromley Pageant of Motoring, the first proper run since I picked her up. All seemed well; the battery meter stayed in the grey zone and nothing went wrong. I didn't make it into the One-Make Parking at the Pageant due to a cockup of my own - never mind eh. I did have a great day though, and had the pleasant feeling of stepping into Sally and finding her spectacularly modern and easy to drive after an Austin Champ.
Shame she blotted her copybook on the way home really. The left indicator seemed to stop working on the way home; investigating from the outside it seemed that it was just a blown bulb on the rear. When I took the bulb out it was not blown... but it was as green as the fuses I mentioned in an earlier post. I think five years parked under a tree has made a bit of a difference to this car. In fact, my shirt front was covered in leaf debris from the ventilators by the time I reached Bromley.
On top of that, the charging issue clearly isn't solved. I've had my eye glued to the ammeter and it has generally stayed in the grey zone, which is ok but not ideal. As far as I remember, it should be vertical, in the middle of the white zone. Anyway, it was dark by the time I was heading home from Bromley and with the headlamps on the needle was in the red zone and the battery too flat to start the car by the time I'd made the 55 miles to Brighton. I have a new voltage regulator - my prime suspect - but I haven't fitted it yet. I will tomorrow, when I put the fully charged battery back in.
Monday, 31 July 2006
Blimey, what a weekend. Sally hasn't quite broken her record of being the only car I've owned except Sophie that I've never seen on the back of a breakdown truck, but she has certainly been crying out for attention - as well she might. God knows, I could do with some.
Summertime is the busy season at work so it's the last time I want to be moving house... so sure enough that's what I did on Saturday. I didn't want to, but things had got so bad with the ex-girlfriend - up to the point that she tried to steal Sally's keys - that I had no choice. My stepbrother Kevin and his Mondeo estate took the bulk of the work (that's the last time I take the piss out of him for having such a boring car) but Sally carried her share of the load - at least as much as you can fit into the large but awkwardly shaped GS boot. She seemed uncomplaining until I went round a ninety degree bend to the sound of a nasty squishy noise from the open window - FLAT! We pulled in and changed the wheel. I'm very thankful Kevin was there; not only did he have a big wheelbrace in his car that was better able to shift the wheelnuts than Sally's own (honestly slightly inadequate) original item, but he also had a pump - the spare was in good condition but had no air in it. We didn't find a screw or anything in the old tyre but it was obviously getting to the end of its life... in fact I'm slightly surprised that it passed its MoT last month.
The driver's window had obviously dropped one end off of its runner and opened diagonally and only half way when I picked Sally up... on Saturday it refused to shut at all. I finally managed to get it almost closed, with a lot of encouragement, but it's left a hell of a lot of wind noise where it's not quite flush.
Last but not least, I had to do an airport run yesterday. I hardly ever do these any more but this was the busiest weekend of the year and both of our regular drivers were busy with other transfers (five on that day alone) so I had to cover it. It was two students travelling together, so their suitcases filled the boot. On the way back, a noise gradually began to make itself felt... starting as a vibration that felt and sounded like driving on the concrete section of the M25 on this side of Heathrow but which continued onto the smooth tarmac bit and gradually got worse until it became a tok tok knocking which could be felt through the floor. I stopped and checked each wheel and suspension sphere for movement, and each tyre for pressure but all seemed well. We decided between us to carry on... and once I'd dropped the students and their luggage off, she was back to normal. I'm stumped. What the hell part of a GS starts knocking when there's extra weight in the back? And why has she never done it before?
We're supposed to go to Oxfordshire for the weekend next weekend but I don't think I'm going to risk it with no spare and a mystery knocking sound. We'll go in my sister's Saxo.
Sunday, 13 August 2006
Today was a black day. Today was the day that Sally gave up on me. Today was the day she stopped being the only car I've owned that I'd never seen on the back of a breakdown truck.
Isn't it amazing how quickly your plans can change? My sister was taken ill so I decided, despite the tok tok sound she'd given under heavy load, to risk taking Sally to Oxfordshire carrying just me and my camping gear. After the puncture, I treated her to front tyres at the local Kwik Fit (155/15/80s at £100 the pair) and set off. A pair of new tyres and a wheel-balance made a huge difference to the feel of her - she tracks straight and the steering is not only truer but lighter too. However, she only made it as far as Guildford before the knocking sound got so bad that I knew I had to give up.
It had been easy to convince myself that the sound was just some quirk of carrying those heavy suitcases on the Heathrow run but now there was no doubt. I'd heard this sound before; there was a new slackness about the controls on setting off from a standstill; it was worse round corners; and dipping the clutch made everything go blissfully silent.
She'd dropped a driveshaft again.
When I made the decision to give up, I was about five miles from a friend's house on Woking. I gave him a bell and luckily he was home; I dumped Sal outside his place and he gave me a lift to Woking station. I carried on by train and enjoyed my weekend at the Cropredy festival before picking her up on my way back home.
I'd formulated a definite plan for getting her home: this knocking sound had developed over the last two journeys we'd taken together, becoming unbearable around the 50 mile mark (Heathrow to Brighton and Brighton to Woking) so I figured I'd set off and see what happened. Speed also seemed to be a factor; I had an idea that keeping to the back roads at low speeds might help.
Naive, huh? She was knocking from the word go, so I parked up outside the first pub I found and called for a tow. Sure enough, the breakdown guy confirmed my diagnosis - he lay under the car, rocked the front wheels back and forth, and couldn't see the driveshafts moving at all... on either side. He seemed slightly surprised at how blaise I was, but then he probably didn't know that you've got to see driveshafts as service items on a GS. I had them done on this car just five years ago.
UPDATE - Misdiagnosis above! My local garage insists it's engine mounts at fault, not driveshafts. My financial situation has not improved any, so regrettably Sally is FOR SALE.