1996 Citroen AX VTR

[norfolkaxman]

I finally summoned enough enthusiasm to take a look at my broken AX and quickly established that I had no fuel pressure. I could hear the pump running, but it wasn't doing anything. So I pulled it out and found that the hose between the pump itself and the plastic outlet pipe had come off. The pump was an aftermarket replacement which I had fitted: it was a loose fit in the housing so only the rubber hose was holding it in place. I refitted the hose, put a large hose clip round the pump body to stop the same thing happening again, and then found that one of the fuel pipes on top of the tank had split, so I had to drop the tank to deal with it.

I have used the little car a couple of times since for local errands and I have a strong suspicion that the cooling system isn't up to much. The temperature rises sharply in any kind of traffic, and then takes a long time to come down again. Radiator is new and the cooling fan works. I might need to look at fitting a bigger radiator although I would have thought the AX GT rad currently fitted should be good enough.

Meanwhile my diesel Pug 106 is slowly falling to bits around me (195k on the clock and adding 300 miles every week) and I have spotted a diesel AX for sale at a tempting price. Do I really need two old flimsy French cars in my life?

[westbay]

'airlock' in system / heater ? thermostat ?

[norfolkaxman]

Poor little AX. It suffered the fate of so many project cars. I thought it was just about finished, drove it a few times, realised it was a bit rubbish and still needed work, so I dumped it in the muddy bit at the bottom of the yard and tried to forget about how much money I had spent on it. The battery went flat, the steering wheel started growing mould and it was covered in leaves and cobwebs.

A few weeks ago I needed to move it. I hooked up a jump start pack, it fired up straight away and everything seemed to work. I decided to have one more big push to sort out its various faults, namely:

Weird clonking, grinding noise when manoeuvering at low speed, sounded like it was coming from the front suspension
Tendency to overheat in traffic
Dashboard illumination not working, temperature warning light flashing randomly
Exhaust blowing at two joints
Sitting much too high on its new front springs


Front suspension: I ordered a pair of 30mm lowering springs and some new strut top bearings. When I took the struts off I found that they were catching on the brake hose brackets, but only if the vehicle was going over a bump while turning. Quick win there, just repositioned the brackets.

Overheating: firstly I found a bleed screw I had missed on the top of the radiator. I bled the system, let the thing idle and waited for the cooling fan to kick in. It didn't, and eventually the engine boiled over. The fuse for the fan had blown, and a new fuse did the same. Fan was fine, the fault was in the wiring for the fan switch somewhere. Rather than try and make sense of Citroen wiring diagrams I bypassed the whole system with a VW two pin fan switch and a generic 30A relay. Fan now works. Still need to see how it behaves in traffic: the AX radiator is a pathetic little thing and I might need either a bigger fan or a better rad. Apparently a Saxo rad can be bodged in although a lot wider than the AX one.

Dash illumination - every single bulb blown. While it was apart I removed the temperature warning bulb: the gauge works fine so it doesn't need an idiot light.

Exhaust: I took the 4-1 system off and welded up the sleeved joint at the front. The one behind the cat was a real pain (flanges from different exhaust manufacturers not matching up) and is now bodged but seems to be holding up.

Having lowered the front it now sat much too high at the back. I'm not really looking for the 1975 Custom Car style, which meant being a bit brave and having a go at resetting the ride height on the back axle.It's a pig: spent about an hour trying to do the job with the axle in place, then gave up and took it off the vehicle. This allowed me to pull the trailing arms off the axle so I could inspect and grease the bearings.They were perfect which I was not expecting. I moved the torsion bars by just one spline which dropped the rear about 35mm so it now matches the front.

I'll try to get an MoT on it this week, then use it as a daily driver while the weather is reasonable. I'm a bit dismayed how many new bits of rust have appeared while it was sitting on damp ground: just surface rust at the moment but I'll need to go round and treat the worst bits before the rust starts munching into the bodyshell.

Finally... a while ago I bought an old Berlingo van. Steel wheels with centre caps. I realised these caps would fit my AX so I bought some more. They were tatty so I sprayed them silver but I'm not 100% sure about that, I think they might be better in black with a silver logo.

[biturbo228]

Always liked these. Sharp looking little things, and lovely colour on yours.

I kinda like the silver centre caps. Add a bit of visual interest to what would otherwise just be a mass of black (though I'm on the record as not being fond of all black wheels in 99% of cases).

[norfolkaxman]

Little blue box passed its MoT and is now sitting outside my house after managing a 25 mile journey without anything going wrong. Handling is about 100 times better on the lowered suspension. The new cooling fan turned up earlier: turns out the standard AX rad has so much space between the tubes that I was able to bolt the fan to it with M6 bolts and nylocs. It would be nice to take the little car to the RR Gathering but it's a bit late to arrange dog kennelling now. Next year maybe.

[norfolkaxman]

A couple of commuter runs threw up one or two issues to be dealt with. The bodged exhaust joint did what bodges usually do and I had a 25 mile drive to work with the exhaust scraping the road on every bump. I removed the entire system, deleted the centre box just because, and replaced the ball and cone joint on the cat with a simple sleeve joint. Luckily the AX exhaust is mostly straight lines so it was easy to get it to sit right. It sounds much better and has stayed where it should be, still grounds out on big humps but that's lowered suspension for ya.

I noticed that the battery was only charging to 12.4 volts although the car still started OK from cold, so fitted a new battery as I hate cars that don't start when I need to go somewhere. I pulled out the rear seat and put in a plywood shelf for the dog cage, so the dogs can now experience the fun of retro motoring. They seem to like it. I also ordered a new Citroen Total sticker for the tailgate, and when you are doing things like that you know your project car is almost there.

Finally, I managed to replace the disintegrating gearknob. When I first met the lady who became my wife 20 years ago she owned a TVR with a nice aftermarket aluminium gearknob. She sold the car to help pay for the wedding but put the standard gearknob back on it, and the aluminium one has been rolling around in a box in my workshop ever since, waiting for me to own a vehicle with a 5-speed box and reverse opposite 5th. The AX plastic knob pushes onto a square barbed fitting, but I attacked this with a 1/2" BSF die nut, tapped the thread in the knob to match and used a short bit of power steering hose as a sleeve to tidy up the join. Why BSF? Because it was all I had to hand.



We've spent the weekend buzzing around the Norfolk countryside, ending up sharing fish and chips with the dogs in a seaside car park surrounded by moderns. Cars on three sides, and on all of them the base of the windows was about level with the AX's roof. You don't really appreciate how ridiculously huge modern cars are until you drive something like an AX. First impressions?

Handling - great. Unassisted steering is a bit low geared but always lets you know exactly what is going on. Totally safe, neutral, will understeer if pushed hard, unfussed by hitting potholes and drain covers mid-bend. Ultimate grip isn't huge but it is an absolute delight to drive.

Ride - a bit choppy on bumpy roads but well-damped and doesn't bottom out if you hit a big hole hard. Sporty but not jarring. I'm glad I went for Bilsteins rather than cheapo standard shocks.

Engine - meh. It's a bit tired, slightly tappety and seeping oil in various places. Typical scrapyard Saxo motor, been thrashed senseless by fifteen young owners and none of them ever changed the oil. It has a bit of bite but doesn't really feel happy at high revs. OTOH it pulls strongly from low speeds, got that "big engine in a small car" feel that I loved when I had a Mk2 Golf 1.8GL. I'm on the lookout for another engine to rebuild over the winter, or I might just bite the bullet and VTS it. Depends what turns up locally.

Gearbox - meh again. It changes gear OK but whines in every gear, also the throw is a bit long and it doesn't really like being hurried so there's no point in fitting a quickshift kit. It came out of the same donor as the engine so I shouldn't be surprised.

Brakes - no complaints. They work as intended and I don't think having discs rather than drums on the back would add anything.

Cooling - hopefully sorted. No problems over the weekend, the only thing I haven't tried yet is a fast motorway run in hot weather which will soon tell me if the cooling capacity is inadequate. The electric fan is on a 95/90 switch, fan kicks in after three or four minutes when sitting in traffic, just as the temp needle nudges over halfway, and I'm happy with that.

All in all, I seem to have built myself a French Mk1 Golf GTi. I've owned three of those at various times, so I couldn't be happier with what I've done here. I'll probably run it as a daily until the end of the summer, save up some pennies to have the worst of the paintwork sorted, then find some dry undercover storage for the winter while I build up a better engine and box.

[norfolkaxman]

Blue box mini update: I've been running it as daily transport for a couple of weeks and it's great. Feels well sorted, no issues beyond the gearknob coming loose. It needs a locking nut or maybe drilling and tapping for a grubscrew. Cooling system copes fine with the hot weather, nice to have a car with a sunroof again.



Just had a delivery of steel to repair the bodywork on the next project, which isn't really RR material (unless I put a Mazda twin-cam in it). It's a Lister Autotruck if anyone is wondering.



After that, who knows? I keep thinking about Reliant Kittens, maybe a van with something like a K-series as a runabout for the business. Someone tell me this is a stupid idea before I go out and buy one.

Richard

[jpsmit]

Aug 13, 2024 22:32:36 GMT norfolkaxman said:

Blue box mini update: I've been running it as daily transport for a couple of weeks and it's great. Feels well sorted, no issues beyond the gearknob coming loose. It needs a locking nut or maybe drilling and tapping for a grubscrew. Cooling system copes fine with the hot weather, nice to have a car with a sunroof again.



Just had a delivery of steel to repair the bodywork on the next project, which isn't really RR material (unless I put a Mazda twin-cam in it). It's a Lister Autotruck if anyone is wondering.



After that, who knows? I keep thinking about Reliant Kittens, maybe a van with something like a K-series as a runabout for the business. Someone tell me this is a stupid idea before I go out and buy one.

Richard

Of course we are interested. Proceed please

[jayj83]

looks a fun little car, I did see a ax a few months ago with the Honda b16 fitted to it, I had a ax 1.4 gt many many moons ago was a fun car, Bought it cheap from a mate that was moving to Spain, It always stunk of fuel, no matter how it was driven, And the 1st brand new car my dad ever bought was a Citroen ax debut, The main agents stuck on safari stickers on the doors