French Car Forum

Found this forum so had to join up, as I am trying to gather as much information about my car as possible as certain parts of it are all new to me

As you can tell by the username, I am Dave, and I live in portsmouth, and my car is a 1999 Xantia 1.8

So far, from 1 user on here, I know someone...Kitch, drive (or used to) a 16v BX, and already been picking his brain about suspension info, as its all new to me! Ive only ever owned normal spring suspension!

Anyway, hi all....Now off to search for people breaking 1, I want a spoiler to get rid of the bland rear end lol!

Hi Dave and welcome. Hope you enjoy your stay and the Xantia. If you intend on keeping it for a while, this is probably the best forum for friendly, expert advice from those that have a real passion for these cars.

Welcome to the forum Dave
This place is teeming with information

Welcome

Hi

Welcome to the forum Dave

red_dwarfers wrote: This place is teeming with information

And not only about cars

Kitch is well known across on our sister forum: BX Club

And not only about cars

If you're thinking about getting into bee keeping Dave, this is also a good place to start

Welcome to the FCF

Bee keeping? ok thats different lol! I think I am happy enough with my snake, turtles, and other animals lol!

Im a bit of a reptile freak lol!

Well, as for the car, I will openly admit ive never been a fan of French cars, this was a needs must car....But ive kinda developed a strong liking for it and would like to keep it longer than i was expecting!

Its big enough for the family and dog, comfortable ride, cheap looking parts, got a nice bit of poke to it, and got air con which I miss during them hot days! Last car I had with air con was my rover 620 turbo, but that used enough fuel at the best of times lol!

I had an issue with it with the suspension not raising or lowering right, and brakes being juddery, but I was told how to lower and raise it to bleed the system, did that and both have improved dramatically!

The only thing I need to fix now is the drivers seat, everytime i sit on it it drops down!

Pompey_Dave wrote:The only thing I need to fix now is the drivers seat, everytime i sit on it it drops down!

That'll be due to the three bolts retaining the height lever coming loose, you'll need a Torx 20 driver to tighten them, pull away the plastic cover attached to the seat to gain access. You may find one or more of the bolts has dropped out and is now somewhere under the seat.

that unless they got hoovered up when the car was last cleaned inside lol!

Can I do that without removing the seat or does it have have to come out? Also, is that the cover you see when you look at the seat from the door area that shows you what it does?

No need to remove the seat, the cover is the one that sits around the lever arm down by the sill/door.

i just removed it and the handle fell off lol!!!

No bolts there, may of been cleaned up when it was valeted prior to my purchase of it

There was a piece of plastic behind it too, but a bit snapped off of that, does that matter or can I just bolt the handle back up to the seat frame without it?

Got to replace the bolts with something though since the original ones have gone

The piston handle mechanism sits onto a stepped flat metal bar and there's
a packing plastic plate which supports a clip for the shroud cover that you've
removed off the side of the seat. There are only 2 bolts and they're quite small
and not your regular type and need to be long enough and use a TORX drive
head - you'll see lugs on the plastic packing plate that engage in a particular
way on the metal bracket and that'll be easy to align in relation to the seat
and the outer handle. The piston handle is fitted pulled up so access to the
seat and the threads is possible.

Damned if I can find the bolt spec on service citroen the Citroen Parts
database though ans it shows a rivet holding it together which is more likely
the actual piston handle mechanism itself.

Andrew

well, the bolts are gone completely, so looks like I will have to try just find 2 nuts and bolts to put through to hold it in place

Lunch break job then lol!