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

[ekjdm14]

Good weather for finding leaks though I suppose!

Indeed, it found a quite serious one in my house roof

Ohhh, not good. I did know of a good roofer I would've recommended alas he's being held on remand now, some trumped up charge about recklessly endangering life

Speaking of which, good weather for boats too

Anyhow, third time's the charm for Black & she has another years ticket now Do need to get onto the hydraulic lines before too long though as they're a bit ratty at the back end, where would be a good place to pick up a flaring tool suitable for the Xantia fittings? And are they horrendously expensive?

Also, is copper/CuNiFer pipe any cop for Hydropneumatic stuff or will it have to be steel?

[CitroJim]

Good news on Black's MoT Dan

On the pipery, best to have a natter with Pleiades...

[ekjdm14]

Probably a good idea to get in touch with them sooner than later yep. Ol' Black has thrown us a couple of curve balls since gaining her ticket though. Yesterday evening the fan decided to not come on (as opposed to her usual quirk of randomly coming on high when you've just parked and locked the doors) resulting in a brief flash of the over temperature light (only a second) while I pulled over and whipped the sensor plug off to force it into high speed. Also a broken bolt on the drivebelt tensioner, sorted for now with a shorter belt but will have to weld a nut on and extract that soon, and finally the rear suspension....

Damn thing is dripping again! At least she carried on her tradition of being faithful to us & held her bladder for the retest! Still only one time she's ever failed to complete a journey & that was due to a loose inertia switch that popped just as we arrived home from her first MoT with us.

Not too terribly bad though, considering she's sat for the better part of 3 years & 2 of those being under a large conifer on soft ground. Bit miffed at the rear suspension leak though, the original leak from 3 years ago was my own fault as I forgot to loosen the sphere before depressurising & tore the boot before brain engaged. She was always dry until then! Not sure what would cause it this time unless one of the pipes has popped out of the boot. I don't think the cylinder would be bypassing excessively given how she stays level when parked, so here's hoping for a simple fix as I don't like the price of LHM+ as an undercoating, effective as it may be!

As far as the fan goes, I may be tempted to rewire it through a relay to a toggle switch inside the car as I always felt like it should kick in sooner than it did on hills plus then we'd have peace of mind of it not running the battery flat if it starts randomly when we're not around the car.

[ekjdm14]

Right, theory on the drippy new boot. Could having the leakback lines switched cause an issue? The inside of the actual boot was usually dry, only leakback/return being from the weep hole on the cylinder so I'm thinking if I got those lines switched, the return flow from the height corrector & left ram would be able to get into the gaiter part of the right side boot & fill that until it gets forced out when the suspension compressed.

Head gasket is on my "paranoia" list for the moment though, I thoroughly bled the system yesterday & after about 30 miles the pressure in the system seemed excessive & there was an air lock in the top of the rad. Temperature still where it usually is but not a great sign. Also, on checking this morning there was still considerable pressure in the system. Have re-bled again but it would seem to be pressurising the coolant sadly, although not yet going the other way & no mixing of fluids. If it worsens I think I'll set the system up to run atmospheric with a large expansion bottle & see how she likes that, have done this on XUDs before with good results as long as one keeps temperatures below about 90 to limit evaporation.

Long term though, considering how dark the ATF looks I need to consider the options regards repair or swaps. Do I swap our spare good ex-306 NAD engine in & keep the 'box (favoured option tbh, 180k but runs strongly, has fresh GPs, WP, cambelt and non-egr Citroen intake installed, pretty solid dry engine), or dig out all my manual conversion bits from the stash & go NA/manual whilst swapping the engine, OR do I pull the head off this current engine and see if it can be sorted (not really sure on this, it's an early square port lump with the clip-on oil cap, has unknown mileage as it's a £20 ex-ZX unit from a forum member way back when & is a leaky oily mess.)

We'll see...

EDIT-: or, a further option seeing as it's in it's early stages & seems to be a "one way" (pressurising coolant but not burning any/no noticable loss of compression on one cylinder) issue so far, perhaps I could "cheat" it & retorque the head see if that helps. Actually more than half tempted to try this as it's minimally invasive & she runs good otherwise, perhaps even be naughty and retorque it hot (common practice on old tractors to do this, and a non-turbo XUD is basically a small tractor engine, in fact I think it is used in some agricultural/industrial applications anyway, there, justified it to myself!

(And yes, I'm 99% sure we have a HG failure on our hands now, just done a 25 mile run & there's a big cold spot at the top of the rad once again.)

[ekjdm14]

Aaaaaand.... She's dead, Jim

Still carrying on the tradition of not stranding us, just as we rounded the corner to home the heater suddenly went cold & she's now huffing enough gases into the coolant that even an atmospheric setup wouldn't be able to keep up as the expansion tank can't degas the coolant fast enough and it just blows all the coolant out.

Strange how badly it's pushing into the coolant yet not putting coolant in the cylinder, and even cranking it with fuel off it cranks evenly. I'm starting to wonder if it's actually a crack somewhere, although unsure how that'd have happened. Will see if she's still blowing pretty bubbles when fully cold again.

[CitroJim]

Aaaaaand.... She's dead, Jim

It's life Jim, but not as we know it...

Oh dear Dan, sorry to hear that So often head gaskets blow but no coolant ends up in the cylinders... And if any does then pressure will blow it out again very sharply...

Off with 'er 'ead and see what's going on...

As for the suspension cylinder boot leak - there should not be that much LHM as all should be is a slight bit of leakage past the piston rod. I'd be of the thought the cylinder itself may be failing and there's excessive leakage past the piston...

Also, as all the LHM returns are pretty much common, something else excessively leaking could be leaking into the boot...

Sorry to be a harbinger of doom...

[ekjdm14]

Well, some good news at least. No new puddles on the ground this morning, looks like the leak is pretty well stemmed & maybe I just didn't get the pipes seated properly. Black's engine will be decap'd some time in the future, for now though the "operating table" section of the driveway is taken up with Ryan's blown up 306. He's got the engine out this morning after an epic battle with the offside driveshaft as it was preloaded by the bulge in the back of the block & did NOT want to let go!

He's got some photos of the carnage that I'm trying to get onto the laptop so I can post them, but you can imagine the level of "explodedness" if I tell you I reached into the block where the lower mount lived, and was very nearly able to extract chunks of the oil pump through said hole.

One thing I'm wondering with the pile of "spare parts" we now have, is how different are the NA and TD blocks? Obviously pistons/rods etc are different but just the basic block is what I'm wondering about, as I'm thinking we could use Black's HGF block for a spicy TD build-up. I know there'll need to be an oil feed and drain for the turbo that may not be there on the NA block, but I can find oil pressure & return fairly simply if need be. Main potential issue to my mind is lack of piston cooling nozzles on the NA, and if there's any provision to modify the block to take them.

IF (big if, I know) we can reasonably convert the block to run as a TD then all I'd really need to buy in would be probably one or two piston cooling nozzles (as probably smashed also) a set of rod bearings to suit (we have a set of HDi rods waiting for just such a build) and maybe one piston if that's damaged plus a set of rings & gaskets.

[ekjdm14]

Here we hopefully go...

[ekjdm14]

The damage so far-:
Alternator broken in 2 places, still functional but was held in place by belt tension & a prayer
Auxiliary bracket (for alt/PAS pump) smashed to pieces
Rear lower engine mount/intermediate bearing carrier smashed to pieces
O/S driveshaft int. bearing damaged, shaft potentially even bent!
Speedo drive/output bearing on diff possibly damaged, was leaking but no cracks found as yet
Oil pump & it's drive sprocket smashed to pieces
Sump bellied out like it's pregnant, holed in at least 2 places plus flange torn to shreds
Block virtually sawn in half by the flailing rod, from what I can see so far it's smashed the bottom of the cylinder & likely the piston as well although head/valves/cam seem to have survived.

I'm sure there's more to see when it comes further apart, but for the moment I've pulled off the sump and removed the rod caps/bearings. They honestly don't look half bad for a 200k mile engine that has run, to my knowledge, at least 5 minutes with no oil & no pump to circulate it if there were. Obviously not good, but if they were in a running engine I doubt you'd see a problem from them.

More's the shame really, as it looks to have been a well cared for engine too, no real evidence of sludge buildup or any dirt having circulated through the bearings. Oh well, such is life I suppose & we have some good souvenirs to hang on the shed wall!

Think there might be something missing from this picture...

All in all not horrible looking bearings

This is the upper shell from #2, the absolute worst of the lot & even that only shows a little brass radius-ride on one edge (probably due to a bend in #2 rod, what with all the energy that's been released in there)

[mickthemaverick]

Looks like a weigh it in at the scrappy to me Dan and fit your spare!!

[ekjdm14]

Nah, bit of JB weld & a night's jigsaw-puzzling she'll go again

But in all honesty I'm pleased how much is left still good, the car started easily and pulled onto "the operating table" just fine under it's own power

Seems we have a bit of a thing for 3 cylinder XUD's here, almost makes me want to remove the injector from Black's faulty cylinder and run that on 3 as well!

Lot of good parts left though, and pending machine shop being able to convert the D9B block for a reasonable price (drilling/tapping for piston cooling nozzles) or finding a TD block in good shape, we have nearly enough for a spicy TD build

[CitroJim]

Oh gosh Dan, that was quite an explosion... Definitely a case of BER - Beyond Economic Repair - or any repair for that matter!!!

AFAIK, the NA and TD blocks themselves will be petty much the same but not the contents...

[ekjdm14]

Yes, I think even my idea of bodging it together and running as a "triple" are a no-go due to the main oil gallery being smashed where the pump should mount!

From what I've read on the blocks, the only differences are the provision for piston cooling & turbo feed/return lines. Both of which ought to be doable by local machine shop, so perhaps there will be a big-power build upcoming for the 306 once it & Black both have their replacement donkeys installed. Another longer-term jobbie, but as we already have a Garrett 2052V, HDi rods & a set of 11mm VE pump internals it's a good excuse to see how far the limits can be pushed.