Just a little bit of info that may help anyone particularly a BX owner with a harsh riding car.
The TZi that my son bought at Easter never really felt right in the ride; hard to describe, but I would say kind of like walking on a trampoline, springy but taught. The ride height I knew was wrong right from the first time I saw the car so the other day, knowing a long drive was in front of me, I decided to "give it a tweak."
Not having had cause to adjust a suspension for years, the memory was a bit faded but to my recollection I had to adjust the clamp on the sway bar. Try as I might, I couldn't get a budge out of it. Just over from it I saw another adjustment which I loosened and sure enough the suspension moved. Took the car for a drive & noticed a slight wander at a bit of speed, so had a bit of a look in Haynes which confirmed I needed to turn the one that was obviosly jammed. Decided I'd return the "other" adjustment back to the original position at which time I found that it could not be set as per specifications due to the actual adjustment arm from the h/c to sway bar being frozen. With the car up on the ramps, I get the wife to move the height adjustment lever forwards and back a couple of times & then suddenly there's a cracking noise followed by a bloody great whooooooosh as the car starts to move skywards and the LHM roars back to the tank. Grab & tighten the clamp on the sway bar, adjust the front to back setting (which by this time again works - long story why, but logical) readjust the height and drop the car back down. Then find that for the first time it will bounce up & down, something it had difficulty with before, but still didn't feel quite 100%. Remove a sphere & check only to find it's also had 16V spheres fitted to it (400cc heavy damped) so grab a spare set of fronts from shunted CX and fit. Buuuudiful!!!
Took it for a long trip yesterday over a variety of terrain, rough, smooth, flat & hills, coupled with open road & traffic conditions with 5 fairly heavy adults and usual female organized boot load. (Fridge to keep everything cold - Winter & summer wardrobe in case the weather changes - water supply in case we get lost in the desert - stove to cook meals on in case we get hungry - variety of cooking utensils - foodstuffs large enough supply to tide us over in case of nuclear attack and of course, the kitchen sink to wash up in when we've finished ) and travelling 120+ most of the time.
From leaving home, to dropping off one passenger, doing a bit of sightseeing, having dinner, bit more sightseeing, refilling with juice and coming back in peak hour traffic some of the way was a total of 13 1/2 hours and to cover just over 1000 klms in that time also, we averaged 7.4 litres /100klms and not one of us had an ache to talk about when we got back. The ride is possibly now as close to a CX ride as I have ever felt in a BX, so if you have a BX with a "strange" stiff feel, it may be worth a look at these h/c adjustments. The reason I have made such a todo about this is that overseas someone mentioned the other day that a strange hard to describe harshness that some had experienced and didn't seem to be able to find had been helped a lot by fiddling with the height correctors. It was when I head this that I decided I'd give it a try as Adrian's had been quite weird from the day we bought the car. I knew it was cureable, it was finding the cure that was always going to be the problem. I'll try to get some pics sometime & post them out of interests sake.
Alan S
The TZi that my son bought at Easter never really felt right in the ride; hard to describe, but I would say kind of like walking on a trampoline, springy but taught. The ride height I knew was wrong right from the first time I saw the car so the other day, knowing a long drive was in front of me, I decided to "give it a tweak."
Not having had cause to adjust a suspension for years, the memory was a bit faded but to my recollection I had to adjust the clamp on the sway bar. Try as I might, I couldn't get a budge out of it. Just over from it I saw another adjustment which I loosened and sure enough the suspension moved. Took the car for a drive & noticed a slight wander at a bit of speed, so had a bit of a look in Haynes which confirmed I needed to turn the one that was obviosly jammed. Decided I'd return the "other" adjustment back to the original position at which time I found that it could not be set as per specifications due to the actual adjustment arm from the h/c to sway bar being frozen. With the car up on the ramps, I get the wife to move the height adjustment lever forwards and back a couple of times & then suddenly there's a cracking noise followed by a bloody great whooooooosh as the car starts to move skywards and the LHM roars back to the tank. Grab & tighten the clamp on the sway bar, adjust the front to back setting (which by this time again works - long story why, but logical) readjust the height and drop the car back down. Then find that for the first time it will bounce up & down, something it had difficulty with before, but still didn't feel quite 100%. Remove a sphere & check only to find it's also had 16V spheres fitted to it (400cc heavy damped) so grab a spare set of fronts from shunted CX and fit. Buuuudiful!!!
Took it for a long trip yesterday over a variety of terrain, rough, smooth, flat & hills, coupled with open road & traffic conditions with 5 fairly heavy adults and usual female organized boot load. (Fridge to keep everything cold - Winter & summer wardrobe in case the weather changes - water supply in case we get lost in the desert - stove to cook meals on in case we get hungry - variety of cooking utensils - foodstuffs large enough supply to tide us over in case of nuclear attack and of course, the kitchen sink to wash up in when we've finished ) and travelling 120+ most of the time.
From leaving home, to dropping off one passenger, doing a bit of sightseeing, having dinner, bit more sightseeing, refilling with juice and coming back in peak hour traffic some of the way was a total of 13 1/2 hours and to cover just over 1000 klms in that time also, we averaged 7.4 litres /100klms and not one of us had an ache to talk about when we got back. The ride is possibly now as close to a CX ride as I have ever felt in a BX, so if you have a BX with a "strange" stiff feel, it may be worth a look at these h/c adjustments. The reason I have made such a todo about this is that overseas someone mentioned the other day that a strange hard to describe harshness that some had experienced and didn't seem to be able to find had been helped a lot by fiddling with the height correctors. It was when I head this that I decided I'd give it a try as Adrian's had been quite weird from the day we bought the car. I knew it was cureable, it was finding the cure that was always going to be the problem. I'll try to get some pics sometime & post them out of interests sake.
Alan S