On the fourth of February 2021, XPO rolled off the back of a transporter only my drive. Just three years, eight months and six days later, XPO passed her first MOT since September 2008. Then, just 76 days later, XPO moved on to pastures new, driving off into the sunset with a new owner. However, the send-off was more eventful than I expected, with one disaster nearly resulting in XPO burning to the ground!
Oulton Park
The last dash for the MOT was driven by an opportunity to visit the ‘Autos de France’ at the Oulton Park motor racing circuit. The day sees a collection of racing featuring many French car series’ final race of the season. This includes some of my favourite racing, 2CV’s. If you’ve never seen 2CV’s racing, it is incredible flat-out racing of near-identical cars with no certainties for the podium.
I’d booked much earlier in the year, but as the event date drew closer, a realisation was forming. Working flat out, I could, possibly, maybe, get XPO to the event. Maybe. And what a way to finish the build!
After the inaugural trip out across Cheshire for the MOT and the clean pass (I’m still very chuffed with this), Oulton Park would be the second drive. Fortunately, it was not a very long drive, and I arrived unscathed pretty early. And I managed to bump into and park next to BAH! Okay, this wasn’t an accident. If you don’t already know, BAH is owned by Kitch, the previous custodian of XPO.
This meant that XPO and BAH could reunite for the first time in around four years. Okay, this wasn’t an accident but a carefully timed coming together of two iconic Citroen BX 16V’s. I really wanted to bring Jazz as well, but I couldn’t get a spare driver. Imagine, three working MOT’d Taxed 16v’s at the same event!
A motor racing circuit send off
Oh, and at the end of the racing, there was a parade lap or two of the entire Oulton Park circuit.
Not a particularly quick lap, peaking at almost 40mph, but what a way to finish the resurrection of XPO. Not just a lap of Oulton, but travelling in series with BAH and my favourite Saxo. At one point, while we were side by side, I could have cried. A fantastic personal success, a lovely day out with Kitch and his family, and XPO on the road and on the track.
Fantasic UpNDown Send Off
I think it was also an emotional day for XPO’s previous custodian. Having kept the car alive for so many years, saving it from scrap and toiling on what to do with it, seeing the car back together was a big moment.
The ‘Red Shell’, or Kitch’s 52nd car, which I bought in February 2021, clearly left a mark. So much so that Kitch put a whole video together on his YouTube channel, UPnDOWN. If you’ve been invested in the XPO write-up so far, then this is a fantastic storytelling session on the history of XPO before it arrived with me!
Finishing Touches
After the drives to the MOT and the day out at Oulton Park, there were a few niggles on XPO that needed tackling. While XPO would not be sold as some miracle perfect car, there was an amount of professional pride to get some of the niggles fixed!
Wheel Centres
Wheel centres really shouldn’t be a big issue. Unfortunately, they are unique to the BX 16V, and XPO came without any! After months of hunting, I managed to track some down. A brand new, factory-painted black one from Italy (best not to ask), a brand new one from Luke, a used one from the Netherlands and finally a silver one from a spare set of alloys.
The stress of sourcing the centre caps was nothing compared to getting them painted. I do have the Citroen documentation for the colour, but the colour code doesn’t come up on any paint systems. Fortunately, the online BX information sources were all pretty unanimous that ‘ETV’ is the correct paint code. However, Citroen, in their wisdom, have TWO colours assigned to the ETV paint code. One is the correct ‘Grey Anthracite’; the other is the metallic brown you can see above!
I’m no rocket scientist, brain surgeon or paint expert, Jim, but these alloys look rather grey to me, and certainly not metallic brown!
Sure enough, I called the supplier, and they did agree that there were two ETVs, and while I had ordered grey, they had messed up and sent the brown. I’m not sure I can blame Scooby’s Paints for Citroen having multiple colours with the same code.
Gris Anthracite ETV
Sprayed up, and the ETV paint code may not be entirely accurate. The wheel centres are a little darker than the rest of the alloys. This could just be because the alloys are faded. Fortunately, the colour difference is not as significant as this picture suggests, and they look a lot better than the gaping holes that XPO had!
Front Speakers
While venturing to Oulton and back, I noticed that the volume of the front right speaker was getting lower and lower. Only the driver’s side speaker, though. I suspected a bad connection, but a quick inspection revealed that the electrical link seemed good.
Given that these Philips speakers are at least 30 years old, probably older, I was not surprised to find that they might have lost their newness. The solution was a straight replacement. I would have preferred something Sony to match the head unit, but these were, shall we say, competitively priced.
Where I’ve installed coaxial speakers (tweater sat in front of the main cone), they often have space issues. The small central speaker often sits forward and hits the speaker grill. Fortunately, these Kenwood 13cm speakers were a perfect fit! And sounded much better than the speakers they replaced.
Thermal Event Near Miss
Having worked through some of the other smaller final issues, the day was getting closer to XPO’s departure to pastures new. In fact, it was just one day away. Call me old-fashioned, but given the sales cost of the car, it made sense to sell it with a full tank of fuel. This is a small gesture, but an important one for me.
Which I immediately regretted! Having tootled off to the E5 watering hole, I reversed back onto the drive to see a lot of drips. I assumed this would be a hydraulic failure. However, when I looked under the car, it certainly wasn’t in the right place for a hydraulic leak. The smell was instantly recognisable as dinosaur juice of greater than 90RON. Oh Shit! Good job the exhaust wasn’t hot. Oh shit oh shit!
This is possibly the closest I’ve been to a thermal event in my own car. Petrol spewing out into an aluminium drip tray, then being poured into a B&Q orange bocket. Mass panic as I walked around with buckets of fuel, wondering how the hell to make this mess safe. As we were already half moved out of the house, I had no jerry cans to hand, so I sent my wife out to find more. After some panicked decanting, and the vapours started to settle, I could take stock of the near miss.
Finding the leak
So now I’m a little stuck. The car is due to be collected the following day but has just puked up a tank of fuel. How on earth will I solve this in the few remaining hours before the new buyer trundles up? Since the first time I put fuel in XPO, the garage has always stank of vapours after a few days, but it has never leaked. I didn’t think too much of the odd vapour smell, although my eldest did mention it on more than one occasion.
The full charge of ‘gas’ got me wondering. The BX16v has a ‘long range tank’ holding around five litres of fuel above the main tank (picture number 1 above). This was the first time I’ve put fuel in this tank, so it is likely to be related. After much hunting around, the leak was clearly coming from the top of the tank on the left side. Had the tank been split or punctured? And then I remembered the tank breather system that can’t be accessed without dropping the tank!
Amazingly, all the bolts that held the tank in came undone the first time. Maybe XPO did want to live after all! With careful balancing of the now-empty fuel tank, I could reach the uneven union between the fuel tank and the hard breather line. After a little fumbling around in the dark, the pipe was off the tank; the failure point was obvious! Perhaps XPO won’t be going to pastures new just yet!
Replacement Parts
After a lot of phoning around, no one I knew had a spare to hand. At this point, driving to the night to get the fuel system back together was a definite option. I managed to find replacement parts at Chevronics, but these would take as many as seven working days before delivery and they were closed for Christmas.
However, I considered what happened at the other end of the breather pipe where it connects to the long-range tank. Checking the part catalogue, the pipe had the same number. Better still, I had removed the long-range tank from a scrap car earlier in the year. Sure enough, it had the pipe I needed, in good condition. A few hours later, disaster averted, the fuel system was back together, and XPO was in running order again. No, I didn’t fully fuel the car afterward!
On to Pastures New
The 29th of December 2024 was the day. XPO was as ready as she could be, looking ready for her drive to pastures new with her new owner.
These were the last pictures I took of XPO, shortly before driving off into the early morning sun. A weird mix of achievement and relief neutralised any significant emotion. Despite the hours poured into the resurection, I didn’t feel especially attached to the car. It was always going to be sold on. However, it was frustrating how much time had been dedicated to XPO while Jazz languished in hope of attention.
As a house move was on the horizon, getting the garage cleared of projects was a big step forward. After months of spending every spare moment working on XPO, the day after moving on to pastures new, there was a definite moment when I didn’t know what to do. However, the reality of life soon caught up, and I was plenty busy again!
Goodbye, XPO. It’s been an adventure and a half!
M
NEXT – Back to the beginning of XPO?
PREV – Eps49 The finishing line
A little tear formed in my eye : )
I checked DKK’s wheel nuts, after you painted XPO’s in episode 49, and they were looking the worse for wear. I only had fluorescent orange paint but they look so much better ; )
Amazing stuff. I read almost every word (except for the bits about the bodywork!). I’m considering entering the fray which is almost insane in Australia but hey, what’s a little exorbitant shipping fee among friends…
I agree entirely about shipping to Aus. It’s increased about fivefold in the last five years. I’m still finding economic ways to get things through, but month-on-month shipping costs continue to rise. However, there is an increasing number of new/remanufactured parts becomign available through Chevronics and others, and there are a handful of BX’s in Aus, so I dont think it’s impossible to find and restore a BX if you’re super keen (and have a good budget)
M