BX16V.com Forum

guy not far from me has a white ph2 16v that looks like its been sitting there in his drive for at least a few years.

mouldy on the outside (well you can see it down the sides) but looks complete and I am thinking of approaching him.

do these take a lot to resurect after a long layup outside? Apart from the obvious rubber perishing, what else is there to look out for?

Thanks

just the usual issues of checking over all the pipes, especially anything rubberm swapping the cambelt straight away!! battery could well be completely dead and no use! tyres will more than likely need changing too, check everywhere for rust too! but shouldnt take all that much to get it running! depends why it was laid up! could have been an mot fail???

yup.. double check with the bloke how long it's been laid up.. but anything more than a year and i'd be inclined to change the cambelt before trying to start it.

hi andy,
sounds like you may have found a little gem. hopefully he will part with it for little!! as for the car well my silver car came out a field on grass after 3.5 years. to be honest it went with a fresh gallon of petrol and some new plugs. also my red one was layed up for a year and half by a river! lol it went fine too with some plugs and fresh fuel. the car your talking of should start with some good power and fresh fuel. it will need serviced inc the cam belt if you buy it. also get it in the air and look at the pipes underneath first, it would be worth checking the state of all pressure and return pipe. also check wheel bearings, they dont often go but worth checking. also check the sphere's as they might be seized. basically lots of grease will get the wipers going etc if they have stuck which is uite common.

to be honest the car is prolly laid up because it has a major fault or a smaller one the guy cant fix but prolly was going to at one time.

cheers rossco

I've just done this after 7 years! The car was fine to start with and even passed its MOT first time. However things keep breaking every day.

You know I dont expect anyone to agree with me and I dont suppose its good advice but I didn't change the cambelt and, as an engineer, see no reason why you should just because its not been used for a time. You should change it because its likely to be knackered anway if the car was about to be abandoned and having dirt and oil on it for a long time could well have deteriorated the fibres.

In my case the belt was new on a new engine and will have suffered almost no fatigue from the little use it got before I parked it. Its the fibres in a belt which provide the strength and if they dont come in to contact with anyway harmful then they will be as strong as ever.

Someone said it has been in the one position for a long time and hence will somehow be damaged but if you buy a cambelt from Citroen I imagine it will have been in a box in the one position for a while! The tension on a cold engine will be low and anyway fatigue is caused by cyclic stress not static stress so again will not harm the fibres.

You should change the belt because it will probably be contaminated and hence weakened over time but that is the only reason... feel free to disagree ofcourse )

H474, well one has to play safe than be a fool.
My 16V which is a '89 model has only 33,000 miles on the clock
upto now and at 25,000 mls the belt snapped but at the previous
owners hands, he spent a pretty sum repairing it.

So it is age that plays a part too.
BTW i had the water pump changed recently a mth back,
The manufactured date on it was 1988.

The cambelt issue is all down to circumstance IF you know the history of the belt you can make a sensible decision IF you do not or the history is poor best off changing it.

Aside from the perishable items mentioned check the fluids for water ingress - oil obviously doesn't want water in it and whip the LHM tank off anf clean it out and refill with fresh LHM, you may as well give the system half a chance rathe rthan pumping rusty coloured sludge round it which you often find in LHM tanks after years of neglect in th eopen rather than a garage.

Definitely worth turning the engine over by hand a few times before engaging the starter though.

Cheers
Luke

cheers guys, its around the corner to me, behind a range rover and next to a TR7? Its in white and looks just neglected. I am away for the next week but will take the dog for a walk and just happen to pass the house and it'll be rude not to enquire.

I'll see what he sys, its been there since we moved here (2yrs+) but he may have this image that as its an old car it must be worth a bit! I'll have to make it known that the intention is to keep it in one piece and not break it for the pug boys to have (although I do have a 205, thats staying 8v!)

I'll let you all know.

whats the reg of it?
Still wondering what happened to my old 16v I had some years back.Its ok I dont want it back as my son Iain,and I have 3 already.
Clive

I would change the oil and filter before trying to start it. The oil was probably old before the car was stored.

Plus turn it over on the starter for 30 seconds or so with the coil disconnected so the oil gets a chance to circulate before the motor is fired up.

Cars deteriorate surprisingly quickly when not used, so take it easy and don't do any long family journeys until you have got some faith in it!


Mike

Second that...would seriously consider checking belt and oil first.

I once bought a car (many moons ago) that had sat on blocks in a garage for years. The mileage was ridiculously low, the car was as it came off the showroom floor.
When I pulled the dipstick it had a line etched in it from the top of the oil and when it later had engine work, it also had a line etched around the insides of the sump at the same oil level, so acids in oils are real. My advice, get it and the filter changed quick, however, that was back in mineral oils days so maybe synths and semis may not have quite as savage characteristics.

As far as cambelts go; I can only compare with belts on clothes dryers over here.
They usually run 2 belts, one for the bowl, the other for the fan and they are extremely long wearing, providing they get used often.
After a drought breaks (like when it hasn't rained properly for say 2 - 5 years, we used to get inundated with service calls on all these dryers breaking belts. One year, a major company had it's entire supply gobbled up and had 6500 on back order within a week.
The cause? The belts would be sitting around the pulleys, in the one spot for sometimes years, other times months. The bowl belt was fibreglass reinforced so not a weak belt, but the belt being in that position for so long would have moulded itself into that shape, so as the belt rotated, the bulge that was moulded on, would flex as it straightened and cause it ro snap.
It's my throry that the cambelt could suffer the same fate and catch you out if not changed ASAP.


Alan S

We did this a couple of years ago with the red shed which hadn't run for over 2 years with 250 K on the clock.

I pumped all the old fuel out first (and put it in the other one diluted!) cleaned the dizzy cap and checked the leads, away it went, lifted within 30 seconds. once warm you can start to service it normally.

Cam belt wise I'd replace the tensioners and pump automativcally on ANY 16v i didn't know the history on - this is regardless of age or use
And remember by the time you've checked them physically -the labour is more hastle not to do it now
and you get fresh coolant at the same time!
water poumps have allways failedwithin 6 months on all resurected cars Ive had in the past so I'd not expect the piddly ones in an ol froggy to do any better! tensioner bearings are nearly allways dry any way regardless of use or lack of!! and as for belts a clean synthetic rubber probally won't be damaged by sitting still, but it will be damaged by running on rusty crap that will ineviteably collect on the pulleys and tensioners in a damp enviroment the cheap tensioners can sometimes get badly crustedd in just a few months, clean them all with a scotchbrite in the grooves before putting on a new belt! or just run it on the old one for few minutes
to looosen the dust......

Otherwise its a case of driving it locally for a few weeks to get it really warm and test everything - Change the LHM and clean the filters, strip and clean the rear brakes, pull the discs of and clean all those years of rust off them before winding it through the pads, if the discs need a grinder job don't be suprised if the thickness is a bit variable where the pads masked them - mine had a nice neat line eaten in where the pad dust groove had sat! but after a wire brush they were still true and worked perfectly for the next year! and I never felt the groove once - Cheapskate!

Otherwise a really good check and lube everything service will tell you what you need to know.

Just resurected a Moggy end of last year which i had to service in situ as I couldn't get it out of its barn any other way, hadn't run for 10 years but fired OK, the real work strats making it stay reliable.
same with the Jag 27 years in my uncle garage and I drove it onto it trailer and round the block just to prove it could - brakes even worked! although the tyres where decidely not round. but in the following 6 months everything has leaked or failed!
And I've just come back from my neighbours who left his wifes saxo for 6 months and in the meantime the rear brake shoes have just delaminated for fun and the cylinders are block of rust!! whereas my transit van. leave it outside in the rain for 6 months and it still fires on the second hand festa battery I robbed 4 years ago, year old fuel and it drives around normally, theres no real logic to what you can get away with

well the update is I can't get hold of the owner, many cars there with a range rover in front, but the car looks sound with green mildew on the sides so when I am passing I'll bang on the door again!

How much is a non running example, I am sure its a phase 2 as well. Considering there is a running car on ebay at £400 and that appears to be struggling?

i've had two complete valvers that where non runners (both engines in pieces but not destroyed) and one that was scrap. The non runners set me back £150 and £165 and the scrap one cost £50.

The value of scrap has gone up a rediculous amount and it is possible now to get £175 for a scrap depoluted car! So you'll have to hope the owner doesn't know the high scrap values at the moment!