Greetings from Finland
Posted: Fri Sep 20, 2019 11:51 am
I have tried to life my life without a Citroen with no hydraulic suspension for almost a year now and just couldn't take it anymore. That's the reason I had to buy a cheap, rusty XM. That's the first XM i have owned. Other Citroens i've had during the ten years i have suffered from this disease are BX's, ZX, CX, Visa, Xantiae, Xsaras, Dispatch, C4 and lots of mk1 C5's. Currently i have a C3 Picasso as a daily driver and also a '89 AX. As for the other French makes i've had a 205 and 406 and also a ph2 Renault Safrane which was an awesome car.
Well, back to the XM:
It's a '90 2.0i with the 120hp RFZ engine and manual gearbox. Hydractive I and no fancy stuff like ABS or AC, but it has the additional rear window
I knew the rocker panels had big rust holes and the car had other problems too. Last passed MOT was from 2011, but it was tried last year.
Aside from the rust the reasons for failure were also engine oil leak and "fault in hydropneumatic suspension, rear, spheres are loose" which sounds pretty interesting.
Well, apparently someone had tried to fix those, as the engine isn't leaking and it had new spheres in all corners. I drove it home for 20 kilometers and the rear end was weirdly bouncy. Turns out the new rear spheres were actually rear regulators so no wonder there wasn't much shock absorption. I swapped in some old Xantia front spheres i had, and as i suddenly had two brand new regulators i swapped that one too. I also put in a better main accumulator as the original one was almost dead. As for the moment i'm planning to install the other rear regulator to the front but can't get my current tools around the old sphere to change it.
My plan is to, with as less financial effort as possible, to verify the car's condition before i make the decision to get the rust fixed because that is something i just cannot handle myself So far it looks good. The suspension seems to work, although i'm not really sure about the hydractive as i can't take it for a longer test drive without MOT.
I only have a problem with the fuel pump control. Seems like there is something wrong with the ECU because the relay control ground is constantly switching on-off when the key is on IGN. When the engine runs it is all ok. I already ordered a spare ECU to try.
Well, more about that in the technical section some other time...
I dream of a S1 V6 24V, the most interesting model because of the DIRAVI. Am i right that RHD models never had that?
Well, back to the XM:
It's a '90 2.0i with the 120hp RFZ engine and manual gearbox. Hydractive I and no fancy stuff like ABS or AC, but it has the additional rear window
I knew the rocker panels had big rust holes and the car had other problems too. Last passed MOT was from 2011, but it was tried last year.
Aside from the rust the reasons for failure were also engine oil leak and "fault in hydropneumatic suspension, rear, spheres are loose" which sounds pretty interesting.
Well, apparently someone had tried to fix those, as the engine isn't leaking and it had new spheres in all corners. I drove it home for 20 kilometers and the rear end was weirdly bouncy. Turns out the new rear spheres were actually rear regulators so no wonder there wasn't much shock absorption. I swapped in some old Xantia front spheres i had, and as i suddenly had two brand new regulators i swapped that one too. I also put in a better main accumulator as the original one was almost dead. As for the moment i'm planning to install the other rear regulator to the front but can't get my current tools around the old sphere to change it.
My plan is to, with as less financial effort as possible, to verify the car's condition before i make the decision to get the rust fixed because that is something i just cannot handle myself So far it looks good. The suspension seems to work, although i'm not really sure about the hydractive as i can't take it for a longer test drive without MOT.
I only have a problem with the fuel pump control. Seems like there is something wrong with the ECU because the relay control ground is constantly switching on-off when the key is on IGN. When the engine runs it is all ok. I already ordered a spare ECU to try.
Well, more about that in the technical section some other time...
I dream of a S1 V6 24V, the most interesting model because of the DIRAVI. Am i right that RHD models never had that?