BXProject

Well, after ages and ages of moaniong about my car not getting warm enough, the temp gauge only ever showed 55ºc unless you were howling up the motorway at over 100mph, this spell of fucking shitty freezing cold weather has finally prodded me into doing something about it.
I've been gently working the four bolts which hold the thermostat cover back and fourth for a few weeks to gently free them. and this afternoon I went to the farm, and undid them completely, to find.....

some nob had put a small stat in a big cover, so it was free to float about.
It might aswell not have been there.
Also, there was a lot of corrosion inside the cover, so much in fact that I couldn't get the circlip out. Clearly this car has been run for some time with no anti-freeze in it.
So, off to the knackered engine which came out of Chris' car, to get the relatively new stat, and the cover which was quite clean inside.
while I re-assebled it all, I made sure to put copperslip on all the bolts, just in case I ever need to do this again.
And on the way home from the farm this afternoon, the temp was holding nice and steady at 80ºc at a comfortable 75mph, warm enough to wear just a t-shirt, instead of a coat....nice!!

smiffy wrote: Also, there was a lot of corrosion inside the cover, so much in fact that I couldn't get the circlip out.

I take it that you don't have the plastic cover with the "dust cap" bleed nozzle on top then? Is that just fitted to the GTI's ?

no, mine's the cast alloy one, turbo d, and ordinary d are the same.
The plastic ones are I think petrol only, but not all of those are the same.... some have the bleed cap, and some don't, as I found out when trying to replece the one on my ZX some years ago.

My (late) TurboD has the plastic housing too, no bleed screw though. Good job for sorting it without snapping the bolts...I know the feeling, when a 10 minute job turns into an epic problem.

Late models were homologated Mat. All models after 91, that I've worked on, had the placcy with bleeder, as fitted to my 93 TXD. They all also seem to have the GTI interior fitted.

Thats just cos' citroen had shit loads of interiors left and they knew he BX was coming to an end, so they just bunged em on the standard equipment list

I bought an LX ford orion once ( i know, but i was young) and it had electric everything which it shouldnt have done, but it was a late H reg before the shape changed, so they were jus bunging all the options on down the assembly line apparantly

Ha Ha!! The 1600 Orion was the first diesel I had of my own.
Yes it was slow, but it would flirt up and down the m/way at 75, all day and return 60mpg. It had lots of small faults which I fixed very cheaply, like a lolly stick stopping the heater working. I bought it for 300 quid and sold it 14 months later for 425, so no complaints really