Citroen BX driving on 3 wheels! Help!

antoswords

Hi folks

Need a hand here. I remember being at the St Patrick's day parade in Bray many moons ago, circa late 80's. Now,i clearly remember the dealer for Citroen in Bray at the time had a display in the parade, new cars etc, in the parade was a BX driving on 3 wheels. Anyone i say it to now where i live, say no way, impossible and basically just laugh.

I need to find evidence to show them i wasn't high at the time. I have looked on youtube etc, and even pictures, to no avail.

Can someone help me out!!!!!!!

Cheers

Anto

Nissan doctor

antoswords wrote: »

Hi folks

Need a hand here. I remember being at the St Patrick's day parade in Bray many moons ago, circa late 80's. Now,i clearly remember the dealer for Citroen in Bray at the time had a display in the parade, new cars etc, in the parade was a BX driving on 3 wheels. Anyone i say it to now where i live, say no way, impossible and basically just laugh.

I need to find evidence to show them i wasn't high at the time. I have looked on youtube etc, and even pictures, to no avail.

Can someone help me out!!!!!!!

Cheers

Anto

Certainly not impossible with the hydropneumatic suspension fitted. It self levels so would keep the car level even with one wheel missing.

Guy:Incognito

Plenty of Hydraulic Citroens will drive on 3 wheels. The DS (iirc) right up to the Xantia. Not sure of the newer stuff.

A GS doing it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HK2nTRvm_s

Xantia:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKC5d4Ytcq0

Havnt tried it with my Xantia's though :-)

mondeo

Thats amazing, never seen anything like that before:D.

Mycroft H

It will only do it on the back wheels as far as I know.

Mycroft H

Great article for anyone thats vaguely interested in the most comfortable suspension set up ever.

Hydropneumatics are inherently superior to steel springs for reasons that are often misunderstood. In addition to the superb comfort, they also have advantages related to car handling and control efficiency, solving a number of problems which are inherent in the use of steel springs.

The hydropneumatic system is a progressive spring-rate suspension, on other words the more it is compressed, the stiffer it becomes. This results in a suspension which is extremely soft in its initial movement (far softer than a steel spring) but which becomes harder and harder as it is compressed (far stiffer than a steel spring). This is because of theinherent properties of a gas: halve its volume and its pressure doubles. When the suspension operates, the ram pushes oil into the sphere, thereby altering the volume (and therefore the pressure) of the gas. Usually steel-sprung cars are either too soft ("comfortable"), or too stiff ("sporty"), or some intermediate compromise, while hydropneumatics offer "two cars in one". Many manufacturers supply composite steel springs with a soft course and a staiff course - two different spring rates, while hydropneumatics offer an infinite number of rates.

This also ensures that the suspension's spring-rate (hardness) is continuously adapted to the vehicle load. Thus when the car is unladen, the pressure within the spheres is in balance. If a passenger enters the car, this pressure becomes higher by the value of his or her weight (the gas in the spheres is compressed to an equal degree, i.e. has now become "harder") and the car will have lost some height, so the self-leveling system immediately reacts and brings the car up to the predetermined ride height. The result is that the spring rate is kept constant, regardless of the load of the car. In other words, a fully loaded car will be as equally well controlled as a car with just one passenger. With a steel-spring car, either the car would be set up to be comfortable with 1-2 passengers but getting too soft as more weight is added (becoming uncontrollable under full payload), or it would be too stiff with 1-2 passengers and okay on full payload. This effect is especially pronounced at the rear where the designer of a steel-sprung car has to make a compromise because the rear suspension has to be able to deal with a large range of loads. Hydropneumatically spring cars can have a rear that is set very soft; one can easily push the empty car down with his hand. When a load is added, it stiffens as much as necessary. Steel-sprung cars need to have rear springs much stiffer than necessary for comfortable daily driving.

The self-levelling system ensures that there is always the same suspension travel available irrespective of load.
Furthermore, the self-levelling function also rids suspension design of a number of unwanted compromises that designers of conventionally sprung cars have to make since the suspension is always functioning around one predetermined position, no matter the car's load, the various suspension-geometry issues become a much simpler equation to solve. A hydropneumatic suspension operates from at ideal angles at all times and under all conditions.
The ride comfort is excellent and never wallows uncontrollably in the way that an equally softly sprung car on steel springs would do.

http://www.citroenet.org.uk/miscellaneous/hydraulics/hydraulics-1.html

unkel

During the assassionation attempt of Charles de Gaulle, 50 years ago, his DS was driven on at 140km/h on 2 flat tyres. I kid you not.

BX 19 wrote: »

It will only do it on the back wheels as far as I know.

The weight of the engine in the front would be too much for the system to handle

Mycroft H

unkel wrote: »

During the assassionation attempt of Charles de Gaulle, 50 years ago, his DS was driven on at 140km/h on 2 flat tyres. I kid you not.



The weight of the engine in the front would be too much for the system to handle

Wouldn't surprise me, people have been known to have blow outs and not even notice with them. I had a flat in the xantia and only noticed because someone pointed it out to me when stuck in traffic . I would have made a bags of the tyre very easily.

Yea, thats the reason, can't see it holding up a 2 litre diesel lump. :pac:

Another fun fact. The system was used in the Bentley Mulsanne (1980s version) used elements of the hydropneumatic system. If you ordered a suspension sphere from Bentley, it would arrive in a bentley box but the actual sphere would have a citroen stamp on it

And of course a 200% mark up due to the bentley name. :pac:

slimjimmc

BX 19 wrote: »

It will only do it on the back wheels as far as I know.

Navigating a slalom with a missing front wheel might be difficult, but the GSA (and similar sprung models) was well capable of maintaining a straight line with a front blow out or even making an emergency swerve with a front blow out, all at high speed too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6Kfd1Um4YI

dazmetron

antoswords wrote: »

Hi folks

Need a hand here. I remember being at the St Patrick's day parade in Bray many moons ago, circa late 80's. Now,i clearly remember the dealer for Citroen in Bray at the time had a display in the parade, new cars etc, in the parade was a BX driving on 3 wheels. Anyone i say it to now where i live, say no way, impossible and basically just laugh.

I need to find evidence to show them i wasn't high at the time. I have looked on youtube etc, and even pictures, to no avail.

Can someone help me out!!!!!!!

Cheers

Anto

I don't have evidence but I remember it in the parade. Similerly I can't remember which year but I think it must have been 1989 or early 90's. The dealer was Martin Byrne who at the time was the official Citroen dealer in Bray. My Dad had a Citroen BX at the time that he bought from Martin and I remember pestering my Dad to drive his car on three wheels - he wouldn't!

Pottler

Bx, you need to nip down to Hursts in Carbury - he has lots of Citroens with only 3 wheels, not sure how well they run though! Great cars- missus has had one aallwaays - currently a Picasso(I know, not hydro) with 300k km on clock. Previous was a Xantia 1.6 with eleventyfive gazillion miles up before it died of me being sick of looking at it and "accidently" hitting it with my ex60.:D

Mycroft H

Pottler wrote: »

Bx, you need to nip down to Hursts in Carbury - he has lots of Citroens with only 3 wheels, not sure how well they run though! Great cars- missus has had one aallwaays - currently a Picasso(I know, not hydro) with 300k km on clock. Previous was a Xantia 1.6 with eleventyfive gazillion miles up before it died of me being sick of looking at it and "accidently" hitting it with my ex60.:D

I'm 2 miles from Kevin Hurst. He is a good chap alright.

He had an Xantia Td Taxi there there the last time with 423,000 miles on the clock. Runs like clockwork.

unkel

BX 19 wrote: »

Another fun fact. The system was used in the Bentley Mulsanne (1980s version) used elements of the hydropneumatic system.

I'm not sure of that Bentley but Rolls-Royce used the Citroen system under license in the 60s and 70s

The Mercedes W116 450SEL 6.9, many would say the best saloon car ever made, also had hydropneumatic suspension

Mycroft H

unkel wrote: »

I'm not sure of that Bentley but Rolls-Royce used the Citroen system under license in the 60s and 70s

The Mercedes W116 450SEL 6.9, many would say the best saloon car ever made, also had hydropneumatic suspension

Maybe it wasn't the Musanne and maybe the Bentley T. Rolls Royce and Bentley were one and the same back then, most of them having the same chassis.

On the T/Rolls Royce SS it was used in the rear to give a bit of self levelling but they made the system even more complicated the Citroen did themselves.

Can't be definitely sure about the mulsanne, but there was Bentleys using the system.

EDIT:

I wasn't going mad...

http://www.frenchcarforum.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=35208

unkel

This looks a bit more official and you were right, the Mulsanne used hydropneumatic suspension at the rear

And guess what car this was? (don't look at the comments)

Anan1

unkel wrote: »

This looks a bit more official and you were right, the Mulsanne used hydropneumatic suspension at the rear

And guess what car this was? (don't look at the comments)

That was a 6.9 with the camera on the front bumper, wasn't it?

unkel

Indeed. I couldn't find a video where it wasn't mentioned in one of the comments

Common knowledge now but we had some interesting discussions about it a few years ago, I'm sure you remember

Anan1

I think I might have originally picked that up from you!

unkel

Anan1 wrote: »

I think I might have originally picked that up from you!

The other way around

And looks like we discussed it first in this thread a few years before that