Disassemble Xantia door catch ?

[Mandrake]

Hi All,

I'm trying to fix intermitant spastic fits from the central locking in Dads Xantia and I'm reasonably sure it will be the switch inside the lock mechanism to blame, so I've removed the mechanism, however I'm now stuck because despite having screws there is a rivvet right through the middle which also looks to be the pivot point for the mechanism. See below:



Has anyone stripped one of these down before ? I'm a little bit afraid to drill the rivvet out in case I can't replace it and end up immobalizing the car. Suggestions ?

Regards,
Simon

[DickieG]

I've come across a couple of Xantia's where as soon as you lock the car it would immediately unlock again, in both instances I traced the fault to the plug connection/socket you can see in your picture Simon, for some reason in both instances the left front door lock was the cause.

Citroën also produced an "Info Rapid" for the same fault which in combination with it being difficult to turn a key in the lock, states the remedy is to slacken the screw at the top left of your picture Simon by half a turn. (How did someone discover that )

[Mandrake]

Hi DickieG,

Thanks for that - soon after posting I went ahead and drilled the rivet head and opened it anyway, as you can see from this photo:



Yes the plug and socket was my first guess, micro switch was the second - the plug and socket looked fine though, no corrosion, but I cleaned it with LPS1 anyway, and I also cleaned both micro switches inside. I'm not sure what the second one does (which you can't see in the picture) but it monitors the position of the actual catch - it might be related to deadlocking ?

I couldn't really find anything wrong with the micro switch either, but what I did find is the nylon gears were completely dry of any kind of lubrication - not even any of the white stuff you usually see on nylon gears, so I greased mechanism and reassembled it and I can hear from the noise it makes that its a LOT happier about operating with the grease with a more positive action.

I'm only theorizing here, but apart from possible intermittent electrical contact, it's possible that if the mechanism is not operating smoothly it may not trigger the switch in time when you lock, causing it to unlock.

I've refitted it all and so far no problems, but we'll see.....

(I also haven't done the passenger door yet)

Regards,
Simon