Air Bubbles from diesel fuel filter. Xantia 1998 Mk2

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Post by myglaren »

Sounds a reasonable proposition Nigel.
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Post by Xaccers »

Remove the lid, remove the fuel lines, drain the filter housing and remove the 13mm bolt to remove the housing.
I certainly don't remember any coolant leaking out when Jim and I swapped Teh_Agent's filter housings (we tried several).

I'd then soak it in petrol etc to clean it up around the stat, and once clean and dry, blob a load of epoxy/sealant.
Refit to the engine and see how it goes.
In the mean time, start looking for a replacement.
You might as well use the time its going to take to find a good suitable replacement and have it delivered :)
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Post by falling-out-with-my-car »

Xac,

the only thing that troubles me now is getting the flow rate right retro-fitting a different type of filter for a Turbo engine or are the flow rates all pretty much similar, has anyone done this or got any idea please?

I saw some lucas/cav diesel filters on fle-bay for range rovers but it said not for turbo engines now I'm confused as other makes dont say wether or not thay are for turbo diesel engines. if I could just get hold of a BX 1.9TD filter housing that would be brilliant.

cheers Nigel
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Post by Xaccers »

The problem is that most people don't need to make any changes to the XUD in order to run SVO or WVO, so you're a rare entity Nigel :)
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Post by spider »

Ok, if it helps:

On my 205 I had the 'back of block' fuel heater. This caused endless air problems so I bypassed it. The filter was a stand alone unit with no heating and that also had air problems.

As I could not fit the type you have (its a long story but on an XUD7 in a 205 / 309 you cannot fit that type of filter if you have an oil cooler fitted to the oil filter due to no hoses being suitable) , I'll spare you the details.

Anyway, I brought this from Ebay :

Image

Image

From 'dieselman' from what I remember, sells a fair bit of useful stuff.


I then needed some heating, so I made this from two copper pipes, just soldered together:

Image

Image


You'll notice the fuel line and the coolant line is the feed out of the top of the thermostat housing to the expansion bottle, as this always circulates coolant.

It's a bit tidier now, that was during my initial experiments. I only use derv btw, but needed some heating for winter obviously.

Maybe this idea is some help to you, although the positioning of stuff is obviously different.

I'm just posting this as hoping to throw a few ideas your way. :)
Andy.

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Post by falling-out-with-my-car »

Xac,

Yes i agree i am a rare entity definately.....lol. Ive been to the scrappy today and bought two xantia fuel filter housings well one was off a zx diesel and looked similar until I got it home but it fitted onto my motor, it bled air like crazy.
now I have the second one fitted it still bleeds air but much less than my orriginal filter housing.

I think when looking for space to fit something shown like spider above (in his pics) I shall make a bracket to have welded onto the Bulkhead strut that sticks out of the xantia bulkhead on the drivers side. I can than remove the rubber primer bulb completely apparently veg likes to eat these to although mines been fine thus far.

Yes Spider that's ezxactly what Ive been having in mind there is one for an escort 1.8 diesel which is a little smaller than that and a snip at £25 including the filter which has a drain off screw for fuel/water in the bottom.
replacement filters are £2.50 including vat. seems like a sensable option.

I hate the design of the citroen fuel filter I think its crap to be honest the bottom seal relys only upon one single bolt in the centre of the bowel to apply equal pressure around the outer edge of the drum utter rubbish and obviously not designed to last.

regards Nigel.
Citroen Xantia S2 1.9 TD estate 189K soon to be broken for parts Jan 2017 headlamps & radiator fan assembly already spoken for & A 1987 Citroen 2CV6 special just for fun.
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Post by falling-out-with-my-car »

Right Ive decided to give the old xantia filter housing one more try so Ive stumbled across a website that sells viton O-ring seals.
the size of the bottom seal is outside dia-73mm internal diameter-65mm and 3mm across. the sizes are shown on the diagram Andy posted earlier in this thread (Thanks Andy).

the only one I can find onlne is 4mm across but I reckon it will fit with a squeeze and the extra ml might make for a closer fit.

the website for the viton o-rings is www.altecweb.com point your Mouse pointer to hardware for a link to o-rings.

regards Nigel.
Citroen Xantia S2 1.9 TD estate 189K soon to be broken for parts Jan 2017 headlamps & radiator fan assembly already spoken for & A 1987 Citroen 2CV6 special just for fun.
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Post by falling-out-with-my-car »

Right I seem to have made a reasonable temporary repair
of the air bubble problem in the XUD fuel filter, firstly I
removed the filter housing cleaned it up with petrol and
turned it upside down, I then filled the outer groove that
the orriginal oil seal sits in with epoxy resin glue and then
I sat a 4mm profile o-ring on top of the epoxy glue, now I
know what your thinking the 4mm profile is far to big for
the slot in the bottom of the filter housing to fit properly
esspecially as the orriginal seal has a profile of 2.5mm.

I waited for the epoxy to start to set and turned the
housing the right way up and bolted it back on the
thermostat housing in the car the glue oozed out of
the sides as I clamped the filter housing down.

I primed the fuel line and still saw some bubbles
in the line when I started the engine, but not so
many so I took the car for 70mph run up the a14
and stopped in a layby to check for bubbles and it
seems to have cleared the problem, the 4mm
profile seal fixes the housing more rigidly to the
thermostat housing as there is no play if you try
to rock the fuel filter housing from sided to side,
do this with the old 2.5mm profile seal and it moves quite a lot.

I'm still not convinced that the air problem will
be gone and stay gone for good so I have ordered
a new filter assembly from www.ssldieselparts.co.uk
the nice man will buil;d your filter to your requirements
over the phone and all for the princly sum of £20

depending on which filter you buy.

citroen wanted £67+vat, I know therte is a heat
exchanger under the orriginal filyter housing but
being as I have a flat plate heat exchanger already
I can route the heated fuel through the new unheated
filter housing. provided I install a pre-filter to filter the
fuel before it reaches the FPHE.

it seems that the only place to retro-fit a different filter
housing on my xantia is behind and just below my air

filter box on a bracket hanging over the gearbox.

I hope that the above infor helps someone with at least
a temporary fix to stop air getting to their XUD fuel pump.

oh & Xac according to the www.vegetableoildiesel.co.uk/forum

website their are quite a few people that have modified
their xud engine cars with retro-fitted filter housings
because the veg oil and bio-diesel eats the seals
eventually, so for your information I am not Unique
it just happened to me before it happens to you
and i found a cheaper way to fix it than entertain
citroen at ludicrous prices.
I did try two second hand housings from a scrappy
but it didnt work the air bubbles kept on comming
through the fuel line.

regards Nigel.
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Post by Xaccers »

I never said you were unique, we both agreed you're a rare entity Nigel :D

Glad you got it sorted in the end.

Interesting that you say your filter housing was able to move before you took it off.
Cassy's is solid enough to use to pull the engine forward and it's been off before when we swapped her head some years back.
I wonder, do you think a previous owner/mechanic could have taken it off and not secured it properly? Letting in a bit of dirt (it's not exactly a clean area on most XUDs just look inside the filter housing!) exacerbating the issue and preventing the bolt holding it securely?
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Post by falling-out-with-my-car »

Xac,

ahh yes "a rare entity" thats it.

anyway I'm not the only one that seems to have issue with their running these cars on filtered WVO, its got something to do with free fatty acids apparently the viton seals dont appreciate it very much.

unfortunately with an xantia fuel filter you dont change the bottom seal every time you change a filter, otherwise I suppose the housing would proberbly last a lot longer without sucking air. the other drawback is the heating /cooling thermost/valve in the fuel filter housing this also has viton seals that get eaten by the filtered waste veg oil.

with the new delphi filter being delivered on Wednesday its seals will be changed every three thousand miles with the new filter, so hopefully this little Niggle wont rear its ugly head again. I shall completely remove the old xud housing it will then be obsolete once the new delphi housing is connected up to my FPHE.

glad to hear youve not had the same problems yet Xac. your veg oil must be in much better shape than my filtered waste oil???

regards Nigel.
Citroen Xantia S2 1.9 TD estate 189K soon to be broken for parts Jan 2017 headlamps & radiator fan assembly already spoken for & A 1987 Citroen 2CV6 special just for fun.
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Post by Xaccers »

Well, not having the space/time/energy to produce WVO like you have, so I stick to SVO.
Seems to be a lot more forgiving of o-rings and fuel filters.
The main issue from running high concentrations of it just seems to be exposing weaknesses in the old deterorating fuel pump seals.

It'd be interesting to look into how fully converted to biodiesel stuff treats the o-rings.
I've heard nasty things about home made bio (and sometimes professionally made) stripping the lining of fuel tanks.

Needless to say I'd never put any in my cars, not when I have a plentiful and reasonably priced source of SVO just up the road.

Of course with nearly free WVO, any costs of modifications are going to pay for themselves pretty quickly.
Would be interesting to see what needs to be changed in your processing system to reduce the impact of WVO that little bit more, to see if it's worth going that far or not.
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Post by falling-out-with-my-car »

for every 120 litres of filtered waste veg oil at least 6
litres of water still remains in the oil, what I need to
do is build a condensor boiling the oil at 100 degrees
C for four hours passing air from a fish tank air pump
through the oil and condensing any moisture off of the top.

you cant see the suspended water it is blended in with
the waste oil even if it is filtered to 1 micron.

the only difference between dry oil and oil with water
still in it after heating and filtering twice is the amount
of cloud in the oil after settling for about two weeks,
after the initial heating to 75 degrees C and settling
in both 205 litre drums for about a week I fill 25 litre
carbouys and leave to stand for another two weeks
I never get any more water dropping out.

it has to be forced out by condensing it out and blowing
air bubbles through the oil at high temperatures.

the car runs fine as it is heated twice and filtered to 1
micron which is five times better filtered than your
common car filter element.

the car seems more responsive since I installed the
FPHE I bought from dieselveg, once I get this new
filter housing in place I hope there wont be any more
fuel filter seal issues ever again, doing what I am doing
with two 205 litre drums is perfectly fine for making a
reasonable quality filtered waste oil fuel. but there is
room for improovement. there just doesnt seem to be
enough time in any given week to sort it all out.

as I said before if the o-rings in the fuel filter housing were
cheaper to buy as spares it wouldnt take more than 10
minutes to change all of them every three thousand miles
to ensure that no air ever got sucked into the xud filter
housing, but its far easier to fit a different make filter
with canister type filters that come with fresh new seals
every time you buy a new canister filter .

a new delphi 296 canister filter costs £2 and comes with
two new seals, the three seals in the xud filter and a fuel filter costs £26.00 and that is because you can't order a single o-ring
you have to buy a pack of ten coswtin g £9 a pack and that
is just for the small o-rings in the thermostat on the side of
the xud filter, the big o-ring on the bottom is £6 so you can
begin to see where the savings are and the practcality of
fitting a different make filter housing.

regards Nigel.

Edit to add: And Thanks "Steve" for adding these pictures.

this is what I have decided to do about the air leaks in the xud filter,
I have completely removed the xud filter housing as I couldnt cure the air leaks.
I bought this delphi un-heated unit for £17.00 and connected it to my
flat plate heat exchanger,
(it is possible to buy a glowplug heater for this filter) as you can
see space under the bonnet is at a premium so a bracket
had to be made to hold the new filter in place, total cost including
hose clips and new fuel line £25.00.
if I had bought the citroen xud filter new it would have cost me
£67 +vat just for the new xud housing. the new filter cartridges
incidentially cost £2 each about the same as an xud filter.

Image

Image
Citroen Xantia S2 1.9 TD estate 189K soon to be broken for parts Jan 2017 headlamps & radiator fan assembly already spoken for & A 1987 Citroen 2CV6 special just for fun.
New addition Citroen C5 2.0 HDi Exclusive Hatch purchased 09/12/2016 with 83K on the clock.
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Photos of retro-fitted filter unit to 1998 xantia diesel.

Post by falling-out-with-my-car »

myGlaren put the piccs above up for me to show people where it is possible to fit a different filter to an xantia saving quite a bit of money on the actual filter housing.

thanks again steve.
Citroen Xantia S2 1.9 TD estate 189K soon to be broken for parts Jan 2017 headlamps & radiator fan assembly already spoken for & A 1987 Citroen 2CV6 special just for fun.
New addition Citroen C5 2.0 HDi Exclusive Hatch purchased 09/12/2016 with 83K on the clock.
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