Citroen XM Forum

Thinking back over the days work made me realise I hadn't fitted the regulator hydraulic hose retainer bracket under the aforementioned missing bolt: quick job, undo the bolt, install the bracket, refit bolt. The water pump arrived so it was on with timing belt and water pump removal.
As expected the bolts were all seized in and as they screw into the aluminium casing I was very careful to work them out gently, with plenty of lube and loosening and tightening repeatedly until they were free.
I didn't have any taps, or dies, so spent some time cleaning the bolts and casing threads until the bolts could be screwed in by hand only. When fitting I added a trace of copper-slip to avoid any further corrosion issues.

When the pump was removed half the gasket was very stuck to the housing, so I cut it off with a knife blade, then wire bushed, sanded and scraped the face until clean.
Fitting the new pump and gasket is straightforward, though it's useful if you apply non-setting sealing compound to stick the gasket to the water pump to hold it in position.
I fitted this one dry, so it was a bit of a fiddle to ensure the gasket stayed aligned. I didn't want to use grease as the gasket is meant to bond to the metal surface.
Interestingly, the pump being removed is a genuine Citroen one. I can't work out whether it is September '92, or September '02 manufacture. September '92 would correspond with the manufacture of the car.
The timing belt and engine mounts are all back on, awaiting adding coolant.

Coolant added, engine run to temperature and bled of air, also changed the gearbox ATF, which is very worthwhile and should be done every 12,000 miles.

From under the gearbox you access the strainer and drain plug.
To remove the strainer first unbolt the outer cover, then using pliers without serrations, pull the strainer down using one of the support legs. They can be quite stuck in, but keep firmly pulling while wiggling it a bit. The old ATF was dark brown, but didn't smell of burning.
Clean the strainer using petrol, or white spirit, and a brush. this one was surprisingly clean, with not much debris and no metal flakes.
Fit new O rings to the strainer and cover; strainer is 49 * 2mm, cover is 50 * 3mm.
My new O rings were 2.5mm and 3.5mm cross section, and I couldn't make the strainer O ring fit without risk of breaking the strainer, so re-used the old O ring this time, which was still a firm fit.
The drain plug uses a 16mm copper/aluminium washer as the seal.

The gearbox took 3.5 litres of new ATF and appeared at the 80c Max mark, when hot. I'll check it again when in use and fully hot.
to check, run the selector through all the gears, put it back in park, leave the engine running and pull the dipstick.
ATF expands significantly when hot, so the dipstick is marked with 40c and 80c markings.

I pulled the rear wheel arch liners out, wire brushed the dirt out and had a look at body condition. There are four small areas to weld: front wheelhouse outriggers, left rear inner sill, one small patch on left under the car.
The rear of the car is in very good condition, especially for an estate.

There are some areas of damage to the floor and sills, mainly where the car took a bit of a beating when being moved while not running.

There was a hump in the carpet at the rear left; stripping out revealed the floor has suffered significant damage from being jacked up with a trolley jack,
So far I've stripped the seam sealant and stretched and knocked the floor and upright back into shape. The seam has pulled some spot welds out so I will weld that.

The rear right sill has a large deep scrape, presumably from running up a high kerb.
I drained the tank and removed the fill pipe, which due to being 10mm too long was rubbing on the inner sill, causing corrosion, capped the tank spigot, cut out the very small amount of inner sill corrosion and set to re-forming the outer sill.
As the sill is now corroded due to the damage there is no point attempting paint-less dent removal, so I welded tags on and used chains as pullers.
My intention is to reform the sill to the original shape, then cut out and replace any corroded/weakened metal.

After re-forming the outer sill I cut the rotten metal out which revealed an intact inner sill and jacking point. Often these are significantly corroded.

A bit more hot stick and hammer action and the right sill looks a bit like... The inside had a tiny bit of corrosion and also I filled over the alignment hole with metal instead of the factory installed seam sealer. The left sill had a section needing replacement on the inner side of the jacking point. After cutting the plate off it became apparent there were leaves inside the sill and the outer skin was also corroded.
Another bout of Mr Angry Grinder.
Poking about in the seam sealer in the rear wheel-house revealed a water entry point. Inner side seamed and puddled on. And outer parts too. As a precaution I took the fuel filler pipe out of the right side wheel-arch, but all seems ok there.

Rear passenger floors both straightened, one welded and straightened again. Half way along the left sill was a nasty gash where the metal was very creased inwards.
A bit of tag and chain action saw it basically straight, but the metal was thinned and needed replacement.