Citroen XM Forum

Good Luck!

It is not a nice job, changing the timing belt of a 2.1 TD. Too cold for comfort as well now.
Worst of all is extracting the engine mounting carrier bracket. Or rather putting it back. (visable with the two big studs diagonally to the right of my hand and the belt in between)

I was under the impression this engine had an automatic tensioner Ivisable on the picture.
like the modified ones on the 2.0 16v but I was wrong there. It only tensions at assembly. The old belt was quite slack, see picture.
The other nasty surprise was a broken bolt in the water pump assembly holes. Which I couldn't extract.

Is the engine block coolant plug on the rear of the engine, I haven't looked for it yet and don't feel much like crawling back under once again, but I would love to get rid of all the coolant and water before I put new coolant in. Reason is that the French garage where we stranded in september, use tap water and different brand coolant which I don't want to mix again.

Anyways, she is running again with a few small jobs to do. Happy days hopefully, haven't driven her yet but it is snowing anyway

Well done Jaap. Rather you than me on that job. Yuk!

The block drain is on the rear of the block.

That belt doesn't look particularly slack, was the new one noticeably tighter?

Thanks, found it and managed to empty the block without having a shower.

The new one was tighter even though I still thought it somewhat slack.
The old one I could turn between thumb and index finger at about 90 degree angle.
So I turned the engine double the times as stated in Haynes but that gave no change in the tightness so it should be good now.

I've read that some modern cars need checking of tightness belts as standard maintenance procedure. To be honest I've never checked belts before changing.

captainhaddock wrote: The old one I could turn between thumb and index finger at about 90 degree angle.

That's about right.

Nothing to report on Turby, really. Other than the battery getting weak before it's time really (2012)

Because of that (using the jumpstarter) I noticed there are no earth straps on the bonnet of this car. They're nowhere to be found either so I now wonder if Diesels should have them as well? It's not important, thankfully. I know

Mine don't either Jaap. Both XM's didn't have or have them.

You don't have a drain somewhere do you, or is it just duff battery?

No no drain, thankfully.

Hi Jaap,

Is that the blue GM battery? Are you getting the date from the battery or the service book? I remember the mechanic at the local garage who sold me that battery putting a later marking on the battery.