George's April '94 3lt 12v manual

[jorgy]

Hi all

Here's some photos from today's....leak inspection, while car was warming up to full temp.


1. The right-hand fog in this one is NOT the fog. It's a 5w5 bulb in the fog wired from the side light -which haver been replaced by LEDs in this case-.

The fogs are the very...traditional YELLOW color! This car came with white ones of course (1994!) by I put these yellow (think got them from Citroenxm) due to a broken glass on the whites... HID 4300k lights ON.

Do u like the double-chevron painted in RED? Previous owner's job. A friend of mine's telling me: "when r u getting new chevrons", each time he sees the car...






2. Another one, fogs are now ON.

The puddle of water beneath is from bleeding the manifold inlet -the highest and only point needing to be bled for air on the PRV engine-.




3. Bonnet up and..."ta-da!!" (Beautiful) 12v engine cover is permanently off as this makes easier daily inspection! See "dry fueling pipes etc"

Can u see the green macaroni at the LHM tank area?? Should make some close ups of these at some point of time...





That's all for now!!
cheers
George

[Ciaran]

Lovely car George, I've always wanted a black one, not to mention a V!

I hope you can get to the bottom of your current cooling system issues, it really is too good to give up on.

Ciarán

[citroenxm]

George,

I ALSO run my V6 without the covers on, having about 6 covers ive pleanty to choose from and not leave it off through broken-ness..

Makes leaky fuel pipes easyer to detect before your whole engine has filled up with fuel and self ignited

Nice model... A S1.5 according to UK plates..??


Paul

[jorgy]

George,


Nice model... A S1.5 according to UK plates..??

Paul

Yep, the nicest XMs to have!!!
G

[jorgy]

So these days have been spring-cleaning days for this neglected XM. It's going back on the road as of Monday (if Mr MOT-man agrees on Saturday).

One thing that had to be done was an LHM change and general cleaning.

About 2-3 years ago I installed extensions to each return pipe on the LHM tank. I did this to be able

1/to watch the return flow and trace it back to specific components (as my pressure regulator clicks rather too often), and,
2/to easily change/clean the LHM filters -Citroen has been really silly to sell the car with return pipes that barely allow u to remove the LHM tank top, after u have fought a bit with it of course; I bet it makes many owners postpone maintenance-.

So here it goes: just tubes from the hardware store and...aquarium connectors from ebay. The pressure regulator return needed a wider metal connector. And tie-wraps everywhere. Not a drop or leak in 2-3 years of use.

I should say that the flow-watching plan is not working as u actually can't see much of the flow -unless there are bubbles in it- . Only the pressure regulator return flow is somewhat visible (and this returns lots of fluid).





Off it goes, and to the side, so I can remove the LHM tank:







Connections from near:





Rocket-science technology:





First wipe of the tank top assembly (with petrol). When it came out, all was so black that I thought there were no LHM filters on:




I should have normally washed the assembly in petrol but sadly time was of essence, so tried my best in-situ:







Brand new LHM filters, no more than £20 from Cit. The emotion felt was probably not dissimilar to that of a teenage girl dressing her first pair of brand new high-heels for the 1st time -hope the XM also felt the same - :






The return filter locates into place with this tiny bit of plastic, then the pump-sunction filter clips and locks it into place:




I couldn't find a role for the traditional hook for this filter (that I had safeguarded in a tiny plastic bag for 4 years and checked everyday it was there ), so it stayed out. Anybody knows better?




Then I removed the tank and put a spare, petrol-cleaned one I had ready. I couldn't decide if to re-use the old LHM or stuff fresh thing in. A test was required:

Equal quantities:




Old to the left:






The difference was clear. Then I remembered that the old mix was: LHM from 2006, then 5,000 miles on Hydraflush and Hydronet2000 in addition in 2007-08, and then about 50% fresh LHM top up in mid-2008 as I had had a leak.

The old filters had never been cleaned, here they are:





They are now washed and stored.

Re-starting with new LHM was without funny antics -like: the XM not wanting to go up, or jumping around, or lifting the rear but not the front etc- and I didn't need to prime the pump:

always remember to slacken the 12mm return bolt on the pressure regulator before re-starting up the engine, and then let it run as such for a few minutes, otherwise any air sucked by the pump is guaranteed to be evenly distributed around your hydraulic system!!

So that's one happy XM now LHM-wise!!

Next is brake-bleeding -last time done March 2006-.

cheers
George

[jonathan_dyane]

Nice work George!

The issue with the little hook was that it was on backwards; it should hook under the round filter...

[jorgy]

Hi Jonathan

Well, I tried that position you describe (the other way around, hooking it on the round filter's edge) but the quality of the fit made me think "naaaah, can't be like that".

If it is as such, the function of the hook is to keep the fat filter close tight with the round filter so that the little plastic bit of the fat filter won't dislocate from its hole leaving the fat filter hanging?

Thanks for confirming. I'll go and correct it and report here.

George

[jonathan_dyane]

I know, it's no great fit. I suspect it's main function is to try to prevent the fat filter getting knocked off when you maneouver the filter head in and out of the reservoir.

[jorgy]

Little update on this car.

It's not been used since about June 2010, and as of November it is SORNed Why? Only because some exhaust manifolds studs have broken, and it's gradually become too noisy to drive -unless you want to ridicule yourself. This is not uncommon in 12 PRVs -also the manifolds themselves can crack-.

With my indy we were working on scheduling a repair, that would see the engine out and a full camchains renewal at the same opportunity. Unfortunately he fell ill with cancer. Still he managed to gather one by one all the parts needed for the task, down to the last bolt -he had to have some from Renault (the PRV was used in earlier Safranes). To cut a long story short, the day the car was booked for the job to start, it became apparent that this great Citroen enthusiast that Graham Harper of Glasgow was, would soon not be with us anymore. So all work stopped in his garage. Graham is now gone, and so are his skills and knowledge of Citroens -a great loss to Glasgow Citroen fans. Needless to say that without his continuous support with this 1st Cit of mine since 2004, I'd have probably soon been obliged to switch to some "normal" car or to a new car.

Things are still fluid. His ex-staff have now taken over and are continuing the garage, but it seems they are not keen to continue Graham's involvement with all-things-difficult -e.g. change a DIRAVI rack on an XM-. So they don't want to do my engine job.

The parts are there and I'm thinking of buying them off them, in hoping that I will find elsewhere for the job to be done -even out of Glasgow if need be. Graham had also gathered the technical documentation needed so this shouldn't be a problem -the job itself is not any more difficult than any cambelt, a couple of hrs once the engine is out. For now I'm making a list of places that I'll start gauging interest from and getting quotes later in spring.

And that's the sad state of things with this manual 12v V6 XM with DIRAVI steering. I really don't want to let it go, it's such an accomplished vehicle.

G

[Dieselman]

Sorry to hear of your XM problems and of Grahams demise. Cancer is a strange condition which makes people feel very odd for a long time before the end.

Good luck with your finding an alternative garage. If it becomes really necessary, I would think of getting the car to either Paul on here or Malcolm at savoy, or just do it yourself in spare time.