Xantia stop warning light.

[walnut]

Help please,

I drive a Xantia 1.8 diesel estate taxi, so the car gets a lot of use.
recently the stop warning light has started to come on whilst driving the car.
This usually occurs at low revs when the car is stopped at a junction etc.
If I start to drive the light goes out.
I have checked the LHM level with the hight adjusted to high and all is well, plenty of LHM.
Another thing which could be related to the problem is that when I adjust the height to high the rear of the car will only rise on the fourth attempt.
I have checked both hight adjusted links, front and back and sprayed both mechanisms with chain oil.
If anybody has any suggestions they would be gratefully recieved.

PS If anybody is interested I have been using Vegetable Oil instead of Diesel for the past month (1,500 miles), engine running fine.

[Peter.N.]

I would think that the Most likely cause would be a tired hydraulic pump, the output dropping to below what is required at low revs, just check that the belt is not slipping first. It could also be that something is passing more fluid than it should, regulator, steering rack/ram or even a suspension strut/cylinder, but if its done a lot of miles I would go for the pump.

My XM has a worn pump which causes a very slow rise in pressure when cold, the stop light doesn't come on but the display keeps telling me that the pressure is low and the suspension is slow to rise, but the give away is that when idling there is a 'hissing' noise from the regulator as the valve has opened but the pump is unable to deliver enough fluid to bring the pressure up to working level, if you just blip the throttle the pressure comes up and hissing stops for about 30 seconds until the accumulator is empty.

[paulbx]

STOP light

1. How's the ticking from the accumlator sphere? any less than 1 in 10 secs coudl mean its flat and and this MAY mean STOP light when tehre is not enough pressure from a worn pump at idle. NormaLa ccumulator ticks 1 in 30 / 1 in 60 secs

2. Overheating? What's the guage say?

paul B

[marpate1]

Help please,
PS If anybody is interested I have been using Vegetable Oil instead of Diesel for the past month (1,500 miles), engine running fine.

Yes - very interested. I run biodiesel at the moment at 80p/l. How much duty do you pay on SVO? Where do you get it from? What modifications did you make to the car? Bosch pump?

Cheers,
Mark

[walnut]

Thanks for the quick response.
I think the problem is connected with the veg oil, maybe the fact that it is more viscous than diesel.
The car has a Bosch pump. At the moment I'am trying the car on pure Veg oil from Asda orTesco's, works out at 42p/l. No modifications to the engine.
I was thinking of fitting two types of fuel pre heaters for the veg oil, a water heater and an electric one to heat the fuel at start up.

[davek-uk]

I'd be very surprised of the veg oil was the problem. I've tried it in mine with no problems at all. Tesco or Asda oil in the 3l bottles are pretty thin and it has to be chilly weather before you'd get serious starting problems.

Your problem could be flat spheres, front accumulator or possibly rear anti-sink. Even dirty LHM and filters can cause slow raising problems.

Duty on veg oil is currently 47.1p/l and you have to be registered with HM R&C to be able to pay it. Alternatively, if you wish to run the risk there's no duty... There are plenty of people running XUDs on veg oil - many on the web and there must be many more just keeping quiet. In fact the duty on veg oil used to be 27.1p/l until quite recently. Then HM R&C realised how many were using it and decided to raise the duty - typical.

[rpaco]

I've been running on V100 for a year now in my 1988 Xantia 1.9SX TD one dodgy batch of the iol caused a bit of hesitation and missing but a bottle of redex diesel sorted it.

My stop light is on today because I have just discovered no water in the rad!! It had been loosing a bit and the light stayed on sometimes til I got moving but it stayed on this morning. So check your water level. I have a rad leak. Posting sepearately about that.


BTW you have to register and pay the duty if you use SVO. V100 is legal duty paid modified recycled vegie oil. go to http://www.bio-power.co.uk/ to find lots of info. Also if you hav ebeen watching Working lunch on BBC2 you will have seen a series of articles about vegie fuel. But I am sure it's not th ecause of your STOP light.

[c.morewood]

you say you checked the LHM.. but did you do a visual check in the LHM tank?
I (and the main citroen dealer) have been caught out by a sticky float, indicating that the LHM level is fine when it was infact dangerously low.
Mine showed up when going up hills as the stop light would come on, the Citroen dealer couldn't find anything wrong and charged me £30 for having a look!!
my local independant (ex citroen) garage sussed out the problem before anything disastrous happened.