Paul's silver 2.1 VSX TD

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onza100
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Paul's silver 2.1 VSX TD

Post by onza100 » Sat Oct 11, 2014 6:26 pm

Been meaning to start a thread for my car for a while so here she is.

I bought her as the Cx I'm restoring wasn't going to be ready for our honeymoon. We had plans for driving all around Europe as I'd never been.
So at the beginning of July I was looking at Cx's and Bx's when the idea of an Xm popped into my mind.
I'd always liked them since launch. I'd collected the video and brochure from the local dealership as a kid and still have them.

I decided what I'd like was a diesel, preferably a s1 and manual.
However with Xm's not being all that common and time not being on my side, the one that looked the best bet was a s2 auto that Medway citroen in kent had for sale.
It had 125k on the clock and a bit of haggling saw it gain 12 months ticket and I happily paid £800 for it.

These are the pictures from the ad.

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I caught the train up to Kent from Dorset to collect her.
Unfortunately my introduction into Xm ownership didn't go so well. I stopped at Tesco a couple of miles down the rd to get some lunch to be greeted by a pool of lhm under the rear.
I took the car straight back and Medway kindly fixed the leak.
Onto the M25 I thought I best check the leak just in case. I must admit I was thoroughly enjoying driving the car despite its initial problem.

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Unfortunately she was now leaking again but I decided to press on home after buying 3 litres of lhm. Regular top ups were needed :lol:

Just coming into Bridport (my home town) the big red stop light came on on the dash. Thinking I was low on lhm I rolled into the local petrol station only to realize there was steam coming from the bonnet and a radiator symbol with the stop sign.
Yep the head gasket had gone! :cry:

Medway offered me a full refund but after talking to them I decided to let them repair it.
A new head-gasket, water pump, thermostat and cam-belt were to be fitted which seamed like a very good deal to me.
My only problem was how to get the wounded car back to Kent. I filled her back up with water and went for a drive where I accidentally broke down. :lol:
The AA then took her back to Kent to be repaired. This did mean another trip to Kent and back for me but I felt it was worth it.

When I returned to collect the car I noticed a hissing noise when the car was turned off. I had asked Medway to change the header tank and cap (at my cost) as I felt they were in poor shape but they hadn't.
A different cap was fitted from their spares car and luckily this cured the hissing.
They also gave me the header tank, a sunroof (mine doesn't work) and a cd changer to say sorry and promised if it broke down again I could return it.

I must say I was very pleased I'd bought the car from them I don't believe they expected the failures and they were very helpfully throughout.

The car was driven home without a hitch this time.

Pretty much the next day I decided to change the header tank as it looked in really poor condition and do a coolant flush with some forte flush.
I used pink coolant (oat) as I know it has better corrosion inhibitors than the blue or green and I had some already.

Anyway I changed the tank put forte flush in and ran the car for the recommended time.
The coolant that came out was a disgusting orange rust colour.

This is the old tank.

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I fitted my coolant filling funnel to the header tank filled it with clean water and opened all the bleed points until clean water came out.
I used the hosepipe to get some pressure in there which helped.

I then ran the engine up to temp with just water and repeated this.
I also blew some air down the bleed points to get some more muck out.
Eventuality once I had only clear water coming out I refilled it with a strong coolant mix on the advice of the fourm.

At this point I also did and oil and filter change including the gearbox oil. What came out was disgusting and it ran much nice afterwards.
The air filter I changed for a K&N panel mainly because I like the clean and reuse idea. Check out the state of the old one!

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I then drove it as much as I could before our wedding at the beginning of Sept to make sure there weren't any other faults.
Luckly there weren't any major ones and other than a very quick wet vac and a few washes nothing much happened.

Until the day after the wedding we set off to Dover in it. I had a audi 100 turbo engine and box in the back that a very nice but crazy Italian chap had bought from me. Rather than pallet it I used the delivery money for fuel for the trip.
This is where we went, over 2000 miles without fault.

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I didn't take many photos of the car whilst we were away but here she is resting in Switzerland.

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I'll update with my current cleaning antics tomorrow. Sore fingers now :lol:

mds141
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Re: Paul's silver 2.1 VSX TD

Post by mds141 » Sat Oct 11, 2014 7:22 pm

Wonderful write up. They are fantastic cars when they are working. I've just spent over £600 on mine. No regrets though. :-)
Mark Smith.

2000 XM VSX 2.1 td auto. Rouge Magenta. RP 8542.
1989 BX GTi 16 valve. Blanc Alpine.
1997 Honda Firestorm.

Vince
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Re: Paul's silver 2.1 VSX TD

Post by Vince » Sat Oct 11, 2014 7:54 pm

Lets hope the faults are now behind you.

Id love to do a trip like the one you did, its a dream of mine to drive through the alps into Switzerland.

Can i ask how much it cost you on fuel and tolls give or take :)

Dieselman
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Re: Paul's silver 2.1 VSX TD

Post by Dieselman » Sat Oct 11, 2014 8:36 pm

That's a typical experience of buying an elderly car, it was decent of Medway to do a good deal on the fix, but how come they didn't change the coolant as part of a HG change...or did they , but not flush it well enough?

I like the idea of going on honeymoon with an engine. That sounds even worse than going to buy an XM from 200 miles away on a very rainy Valentines day... :roll:
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White Exec
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Re: Paul's silver 2.1 VSX TD

Post by White Exec » Sat Oct 11, 2014 9:12 pm

A great trip after your repair ordeal - and what better a destination! We did a honeymoon trip with ours in 2000, heading from Surrey to Lake Orta and Lake Garda, and some time in Venice. Stelvio pass on the way back - quite something.
Chris
1996 XM 2.5TD Exclusive RP7165 Polar White
1992 BX19D Millesime RP5800 Sable
1989 BX19RD Delage Red Deceased; 1998 ZX 1.9D Avantage auto Triton Green Company car 1998..2001; 2001 Xantia 1.8i auto Wicked Red Company car 2001..2003

captainhaddock
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Re: Paul's silver 2.1 VSX TD

Post by captainhaddock » Sat Oct 11, 2014 9:44 pm

Nice reading! Couldn't believe the state of that coolant AFTER a pump change? And that air filter....why wasn't that looked at. Seemed like many XM's, it was rather neglected before you bought it but they are good cars, especially to travel in.

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onza100
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Re: Paul's silver 2.1 VSX TD

Post by onza100 » Sun Oct 12, 2014 7:42 am

Vince wrote:Lets hope the faults are now behind you.

Id love to do a trip like the one you did, its a dream of mine to drive through the alps into Switzerland.

Can i ask how much it cost you on fuel and tolls give or take :)
I didn't keep a record of how much we spent but we started with a full tank and filled it to the brim 3 times on route and then squeezed as much in as we could before getting back on the ferry in Dunkirk.
We did 44 mpg on the way and 47 mpg on the way back. Not having an engine in the boot helped on the return leg I guess!

Tolls wise i think we spent approx 60 euros in France, 40 to get into Switzerland (covers you for the year), 30 odd in Italy and 20 for Austria.

If I was to go down to Italy again I'd probably have avoided France as Belgium and Germany have no tolls.
Id also have got the ferry with an empty fuel tank as carrefour supermarkets in France sell derv for 1.28 euros a litre so about £1 a litre. Fuel in Italy on the other hand was 1.60 odd.

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onza100
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Re: Paul's silver 2.1 VSX TD

Post by onza100 » Sun Oct 12, 2014 7:56 am

Dieselman wrote:That's a typical experience of buying an elderly car, it was decent of Medway to do a good deal on the fix, but how come they didn't change the coolant as part of a HG change...or did they , but not flush it well enough?

I like the idea of going on honeymoon with an engine. That sounds even worse than going to buy an XM from 200 miles away on a very rainy Valentines day... :roll:
I think they did the head gasket change as cheaply as possible unfortunately. I guess its understandable given the value of the car.
They didn't have the head skimmed or pressure tested either which is something I'd do as a matter of course.
I don't think the oil or coolant was changed just topped up going on the state of it.
captainhaddock wrote:Nice reading! Couldn't believe the state of that coolant AFTER a pump change? And that air filter....why wasn't that looked at. Seemed like many XM's, it was rather neglected before you bought it but they are good cars, especially to travel in.
Yes it is lovely to ride in although I think its bouncer on the rear than it ought to be. Spheres and new lhm is my next thing to save up for I think.

Its a shame but people tend to neglect servicing on older cars something I'm certainly not going to do. 8-)

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Re: Paul's silver 2.1 VSX TD

Post by xmexclusive » Sun Oct 12, 2014 10:28 am

I would consider Hydraflush for 5000 miles instead of LHM to clean the system.
Do not forget to bleed the brakes as these are stub ends on the system.
Two offers of NOS Hydraflush 5 ltr cans on ebay now at around £25.

This all assumes you do end up driving a Red V6.

John

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onza100
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Re: Paul's silver 2.1 VSX TD

Post by onza100 » Sun Oct 19, 2014 12:03 pm

So before I went away on my trip around Europe I'd been on the search for some alloy wheels.
I really do not like the wheel trims that are on the car. Far to rounded for such an angular car.
Robert came to the rescue with a set of these.

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These are my favorite of the standard wheels so I'm very pleased with them.
I'll get them blasted and paint them before I fit them to the car.
My current steels have winter tyres on so they might stay on until next year.


After the trip I've started to clean the car whenever I get some spare time.
Heres what I've been doing, not necessarily all on the same day!

Mucky!

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The first thing I tackled was the engine bay. Stupidly I forgot to take any before pictures.
The bay was sprayed with mighty blue degreaser and scrubbed with various brushes. Several soakings were required.
It was then power washed off.
Next to to tackle were the alloy parts and surface rust. For this I use Raceglaze Alubright deoxidiser.
This is an excellent product and makes non polished alloy like new and removes light rusting. It was applied and more scrubbing commenced!
I then power washed the bay down again.

I then ran the car to dry it out whilst spraying a light oil to disperse the water. The plastics and hoses were treated with autosmart finish.
Finally I applied raceglaze jetlaq to protect the metal parts and oiled all the linkages and catches etc.

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Next on the agenda was the interior and door shuts.

The door shuts were cleaned with mighty blue degreaser and all the gutters and rubbers scrubbed.
Autosmart finish was used to get them shiny again. I'll polish the paint when I machine polish the car. Sorry no photos again :(

The seats carpets etc were all wet vacced and the dash and door cards wiped down and treated.
I'll prob do this again sometime as there are parts you can't get at without removing things and I was short on time that day.

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I did the exterior on a separate day. Here are some of the products I used.

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I hadn't used the sonax products or the dragons breath before so I was interested to test them. They came highly recommended.

I did my usual sequence of snow foam, rinse, shampoo and rinse. Some parts like the rubbers, trim etc were cleaned with tfr to get the moss and algae growth off.
I like to put the car on the high setting so I can get under all the arches. Most other cars I end up removing the wheels to do this 8-)
I then dried the car off.
Next up was tar removal, Autosmart tardis was used for this. It was sprayed on and left to work, it literally melts tar away.
I didn't take a photo of it on the xm but heres a picture to show how well it works.

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You can either wipe it off or pressure wash.

With that done and the car dry again I set about using the dragons breath. This removes metal contamination from the paint which is normally hard to remove.

Looks pretty clean already doesn't it.

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Sprayed it on.

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And it starts to bleed to show where its working.

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Did the whole car and left it for the recommended 15mins

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Then power washed off and shampooed the car again.
I was very impressed with this the paint felt noticeably smother afterwards.

My next step will be to clay bar and machine polish the car but I need a couple of days to do this really.

So as I didn't have time for that and I wanted to protect the paint in the meantime I sprayed it down with Sonax Brilliant Shine Detailer.
This comes highly recommend it for offering sealant quality protection in a quick spray on product so I was excited to see how well it worked.
The black trim was all done with Sonax trim gel and the glass with rain X.

Heres a finished photo. Unfortunately it was getting dark by then!

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What has impressed me most is the protection offered by the detailer. It rain a few days after cleaning and it looked like this.

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The water literally rolls off. Its still good now and its a few weeks since I did it.

So thats me up to date. More to come soon :lol:

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