Tales from beyond the grave AKA Dan & Emma's Black Xantia, pug 206HDi, Daniel's 206 Verve 1.4i, GTi180 plus XUD9TE 206!!

[ekjdm14]

Well there could be some further advances to science in the near future since we just ended up purchasing a '92 BX19 TZD break for the princely sum of £500 & that has somewhat of a garden in the passenger footwell!

It's a fairly tatty old NA diesel on 233k miles but nothing beyond the realms of possibility to rescue- bit of patchwork on the left inner wing, scuttle corners, right rear end of the sill, patch around both rear arches & a chunk out of the Hueliez rear crossmember over the exhaust. Overall though for the mileage it's not horrible, under the 'screen/bulkhead/door hinges etc are sound, floors solid & a lot of the hydraulic pipes appear to be copper/cunifer, interior fairly good minus some plastic degradation on the binnacle & the engine seems to run pretty sweet (after initially trying to go to the moon due to a gummed up pump, boy am I glad I had the intake pipe off ready! after "throttling" it and allowing it to chug along at 2k rpm for a few minutes combined with backing out the fuel screw and working the accelerator it came back around and now responds well.

Not got any photos yet (you know me!) but will try and get some since BX content is pretty uncommon here now.

[CitroJim]

Wow! That's great Dan Keep us posted on the progress with the BX

[moizeau]

I've got some shims for the rear suspension arms if you want them? 233K is nowt. I scrapped and 1.9N/A with 450K, and that was only because the back end was about to fall off.

[ekjdm14]

Thanks Pete, not sure yet what suspension work will be needed if any. It's been a fairly well kept car until the last 5 years since when it's sat.

What even are the shims? Reviving this engine to get it up in the air and check underneath is the most I've even done to a BX thus far!

[RichardW]

When you change the rear arm bearings you are supposed to shim them so that have slight resistance to movement. I imagine most are (were!) just bunged back together with what ever was left and the bolts cranked up!

[ekjdm14]

Well, that escalated quickly! Not even collected the poor BX as yet since the youngest lad spotted a tidy Mk4 fiesta cheap and ideal for learning in, we went to look over that & came home not only with the fiesta but also a '93 Granada Scorpio 2.9i! So have spent the last couple of days playing with that, it needs rear arches/couple of patches to the outer sills, tyres and a pair of front springs and that should be on the road (as much as it can be anyway, being a 20mpg beast in a 1.50/litre climate anyway).

Always liked the old shape Scorpio & finding this one just triggered the old impulse buy scenario so Pugs/Cits taking a back seat for the moment. Will definitely be returning though, just not sure how long the old RWD luxurious boat itch will take to scratch! The seats seriously rival X1 Xantia leathers for comfort and the gadgets are cool too, but thirst may be the decider whether she stays or moves along once solid again.

[ekjdm14]

Well that didn't take as long as expected, "Granny" is well & truly back to life and on the road. Got things squared away as much as possible & decided to book a test to see what else I'd missed, turns out I'd missed nothing! Was expecting a fail on emissions as was still waiting on cap/rotor & leads but no, she wants to live. Put a couple of hundred miles on since then & looks like she wants to stick around too, she's surpassed my expected 20mpg and currently averaging around 27-28ish... Just one of those cars that wants to live on, a nice antidote to the ZX that just constantly fights and wants to be left to die! Not that it'll be allowed to rest in pieces mind, just a right stubborn little mare!

[ekjdm14]

Oh deary me the old frogs are getting their own back on us for playing with the fords for a while! The red 306 1.9D (TD swapped) has done us dirty 3 in a row now... First off the turbo failed spectacularly on the setup that was in there (the DT build with the 206 GTi flywheel and 'box that was in the black 206 years back & latterly under the ZX bonnet), cold side is fine but hot side pumped over 6 litres of oil through it to limp home under 2 miles!

Next up, we pulled that whole shebang and modified the slam panel and fitted the very nice running engine & box (complete with rebuilt turbo, new clutch and front mount intercooler) from the 406. This was what I'd call a "stage 1.5" build, running around 120bhp on straight vegetable oil. Less than 100 miles down with that shoehorned in there & we get a nasty coolant leak, turns out it's from the heater outlet on the back of the head which has rusted through internally. Would've been so much easier to sort BEFORE it was in a 306!!! Oh well, that sorted and we've managed a few hundred miles all well and good.

Then, this afternoon, just pulling out to pass a parked car, accelerating gently in 2nd gear and "BRRRRRRRRR" engine dies. First thought from the sound was "great, why's the cambelt failed it's only been on there a year? ah well, technically we needed to replace the head to fix the heater pipe properly no biggie"... Then we jump out to pop the bonnet and see what caused the belt to "fail" only to see the dreaded telltale bloodline of oil behind and a rapidly forming puddle under the front.

Damned thing has done either #1 or #2 rod, windowed the block front and back, to the point of breaking the front accessory bracket and rear engine mount/driveshaft intermediate carrier away and misaligning the driveshaft, maybe enough to have killed the diff casing also judging by the oil dripping from there. No warning, levels temperatures and pressures were good, no death rattle (although any loudness may have been masked by advanced pump timing, I personally think it's broken the rod rather than thrown it.)

I know there were a bad batch of DT engines originally in 306s (we learned about this way back at the beginning of this thread when we got Black the Xantia) but these were DHX engine code, this ex-406 unit is was a DHY code, and has done great until today. Now comes the fun of working out how to get the damn thing 20 miles home without a tow car! (honestly if the sump wasn't punctured in multiple places, so no oil capacity left, I'd have limped it home on 3 cylinders as it restarted and got itself out of the way just fine aside from the flailing rod shaking the whole car.)

Black was next in line for attention anyway (she's got her new windscreen now just need to do a small patch on one sill, rear ram gaiter, left rack gaiter & a pair of drop links she should be ready) but wasn't expecting to need her faithful service so urgently! Anyhow, just "offloading" so to speak, in order to try and process in my mind how a healthy XUD could suddenly just die completely... Maybe this is the "full circle" to this thread given how hard it was to believe that Black's previous owner said her NA engine gave no warning prior to chucking a rod lol. If anything the carnage here is even more impressive, at least Black didn't try to saw the block in half! Suppose at least we've got some good souvenirs (tempted to turn the crank/rods/block into a table).

[CitroJim]

Oh my goodness Dan, what a shocking tale of woe Still, they always bad luck comes along in threes so you're now well due a bit of good luck

Do keep us posted

[ekjdm14]

yep I did think that, we've had our 3 with that car at least. Black is currently fighting me removing the rear ram to sort the gaiter, the retaining pin is well and truly solid through the swingarm end! I know I'm very not-good at photos but when we get the 306 back & pulled apart we definitely have some worthy material to get pics of & will certainly be sharing the carnage...

Honestly thought Black's original engine was supremely impressive but this really is on another level.

[ekjdm14]

Well this isn't going the way I'd imagined it to do... Sphere, rear retaining clip and HP line were no problem but after 90 minutes of struggling, thinking, prying, tapping, drilling, swearing (and pleading with her!) the offside rear suspension cylinder's pushrod is still FIRMLY attached to the swing arm and showing no signs of relent. The retaining pin/clip is rusted off yet still solid through it's hole, I did think maybe I could twist the ball joint and break the remains of the pin but the "cup" part simply turns and whatever apparatus holds it to the swing arm must be a separate part. Drilling the pin isn't an option due to space constraints (I did manage to get maybe 1/16" of it but the drill is by necessity at an angle so can't go further & the pin is likely seized into the swing arm anyhow)

Does anyone have any "pro tips" for removing these? So far I'm striking out on ideas that don't involve either dropping the subframe or pulling the swing arm and cylinder together (if that's even possible).

[CitroJim]

Does anyone have any "pro tips" for removing these? So far I'm striking out on ideas that don't involve either dropping the subframe or pulling the swing arm and cylinder together (if that's even possible).

I feel your pain Dan, that's a tricky one. Here's hoping someone can

[RichardW]

You will never get the pin out in situ if it's stuck, there isn't right on access to the end to drive it out, and anyway the end is tapered so the drift just falls off. Had this trouble on my HDI estate when the end of the cylinder disintegrated during a sphere change. There is, on an estate at least, just room to get the arm out with the push rod still in, needs a bit of bending to get it past the brake line. Just remove it and deal with the pin later - despite about 6 hours on the car and getting no where, the damn thing pretty much just dropped out when I had it on the floor!

[RichardW]

Tale of battle here: viewtopic.php?t=44087

[ekjdm14]

Thanks Richard that's kind of where I was at sadly, was hoping upon hope that I'd missed some trick or technique but I did have a nasty feeling I'd exhausted options.

Looking at the subframe I don't think there's room on the hatchback to get the swing arm and cylinder out together although I may try. Failing that the "nuclear option" as I see it would be to remove the ball end of the pushrod destructively & then be able to grab the pin properly to be able to twist on it. That obviously depends on availability of the pushrods though, but I remain hopeful that the aftermarket caters since the ball joint is a wearing part (and honestly, has about 1/8" free play as it is so not best.)

Will drop over to your thread and have a read anyhow, psyche myself up for whatever toils lie ahead. Really didn't see this coming lol, here I was thinking it'll be simple and even the rack gaiter is the easy side to do.