BXProject

Oh yeah, my ZX 2.0i 16v is really a bag of wank!

On the face of it, it could be a nice car, but the trouble is it's been owned by a succession of arseholes.
The bodywork is ok, and so is the interior. Original wheels with good tyres too.
However that's where the good bit ends.
The heater doesn't...it blows sort of warm air through the face vent, but ice cold air on the windscreen.
The central locking sometimes works...
The exhaust is the wrong one for the car, and the back box has been welded to the middle.
The manifold seal ring is totally fucked because the wrong fitting fit was used, not pulling the cat tight enough to the manifold.
But I've left the best till last... The pipe between the air box, and the throttle body is split in more than one place, allowing a massive vacuum leak.
Currently, my car is doing about 10mpg, and I just can't sustain that.

I'm very disappointed, I really don't know what to do for the best now...

So much so, that I'm going to buy a BX TXD this weekend, and lay up the ZX.

Any ideas?

The pipe could be temporarily 'fixed' with duct tape, but can't see why that would cause low fuel consumption. The lambda sensor should detect it running lean from the vacuum leak, and richen up (to a point) to compensate. A dodgy heater can't be fun at this time of year though!

I bought a cheap diesel Focus as a winter hack - only cost around £600 and has heated windscreen and washer jets as a bonus! That sort of thing (i.e. something 10-15 years old and close to the bottom of its depreciation curve) might be cheaper than a BX nowadays...

I thought you had a couple of decent exhaust systems off the old white volcanes? If the systems got scrapped i'll be very upset as they had a proper valver back box on one i seem to remember!

Much of the rest just seems like old age. The air coming out of the wrong places sounds like the mode door linkage is broken and probably an easy fix if you can figure out where it should be clipped too. If you grab a hold of the linkages and can get them in the right places, you might be able to zip tie them into HOT, FOOT, DEF which will be a PITA in the summer, but okay for now.

Central locking is probably a warn motor or sticking latch. Start with lubing the latch with 3in1 or similar, but not fecking WD40!!

The exhaust is a bit of a pain, but frankly I'm not sure why you expect 15 to 20 year old French tat to be anything but in need of TLC either ride the rough with the smooth, or buy a new car. And stop buying BXs you only end up killing them

No no get it right dear, I buy BX's that work, but are total rot boxes!!





Speaking of which, the white BX which I was working on, it looks like the fuel pump has died due to the chip fat in the fuel. We've decided to take the engine out when it gets warmer, and put the motor from the green car, which is known to be excellent in it.

couple of hours, some snips, sheet and a welder would have that right. Nae bother!!!

the fuel economy is down to several factors.
The lambda sensor is falling out of the rotten exhaust, most of the exhaust gasses are escaping direct from the manifold before it gets anywhere near the sensor anyway. The induction system is fucked and leaking badly, the air mass meter is outside of parameters, the lambda sensor is also out of parameter, the ecu seems to be sending as much fuel as it can to the injectors since it's all saying lean, when infact it's running so rich you can smell it from 30 miles away.
not to mentin various pipes being crushed by the diff housing, the cracked windscreen, the heater box, which is as Vanny mentioned I'm sure, and the fact everything has been butchered over the years makes doing anything to it near impossible. The cam belt tensioner bolts have all been mullered, even the serpentine belt tensioner bolt wouldn't budge with a fat bastard hanging off a breaker bar, which, ironically, broke..
Even reading the ECU was a ballache.
It is a shame, it could hvae been a lovely car, but I cant help but think the outlay to make it nice now would far outweigh what the car is actually worth..

Like he said, /\ it's shite! Think I will park it up, and if it can be made to run properly in the spring, get rid of it, od else scrap it.

You seem too be almost as good at buying cars as I am.


I spent a metric shitload getting this through an MOT and running right for it to catch fire due to a ruptured fuel line after just 3 weeks and end up donating its donkey to medical science...



I have a very slightly rusty but ultimately reliable K11 now and thats probably how it will stay until it fails its MOT horiffically on tin worm

well at least the car didnt cost you a bucketload of money John,
try buying a £3,500 car at the end of July and having to spend a further two grand getting it put right only to find that the wife no longer trusts it, its spent 7 weeks in the garage out of the 20 weeks weve owned it and it didnt even sell on Ebay,
Yet my £450.00 pug 106 and the 406 estate we got for the same price have been great ( apart from a random hesitation on the 406 now and again )

All's well that ends well. A colleague in work has offered me £300 for the car, which I'm happy to accept, and I get to keep the wheels, which are rare as fuck! Result!

he nearly had less to buy earlier, some fat cow tried to sit on it...

or

LMFAO. Oddly, the concept of the first, witht he loks of the latter!

Sounds like some of the girls I've seen on a night out in Bristol!

and you lived to tell the tale???? Blimey, you must nimble on yer feet!