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

[CitroJim]

Even more curious Dan! This is getting interesting...

[ekjdm14]

Indeed, another good old fashioned mystery to add to our "collection"... I will be examining the pistons & rods very closely and hopefully be able to pull some part numbers to be able to cross reference where the rods came from. Engine is sat upright again now, manifolds off and almost ready to lift the lid when the drizzle allows!

One thing worthy of note, although doubtful of any consequence, is all the rods/caps are numbered as one would do when rebuilding an engine. The numbers aren't stamped in though, they appear to be acid-etched & I'm wondering if it's a factory thing. (there is a number 1 stamped into each rod, although I'd imagine that's a tolerance identifier?) I can't honestly recall any previous XUD rods I've handled being numbered in such a way though, and surely numbering them in production would be unnecessary?

Only thing I can think of if these aren't etched from the factory, is the engine was rebuilt early in it's life/perhaps warranty? Still doesn't explain how a set of the weak DHY rods would have made their way into a DHX coded engine, because there'd be no need to number them if they were replaced either...

[ekjdm14]

406 gearbox, flywheel, virtually new pull clutch, Garrett turbo & manifold swapped from the dead DHX engine to the D8A that was previously in the red 306 (exploded K14 and slipping clutch were the reasons for pulling it back out). Pretty close to being able to just drop that back in now then should be able to get Black on the driveway for her second engine replacement(!) before the exciting stuff can happen (Hopefully under cover too, for the fresh TD build)

[CitroJim]

Good progress Dan!

[ekjdm14]

Even better. Engine is now in, wired & mostly plumbed up. Just driveshafts front end & one heater hose away from being back on the road fingers crossed. Lack of fluids stops play for now though, the engine is very low & having been nursed home on used "any oil" (better than no oil) it & filter will need a change before I'm happy to crank it over again, gearbox I thought we had a couple of litres of our usual choice Mannol 75w90 left but alas there's none (and the only ones left on ebay are £84 for 5L now, thank you messrs. Trump and Zelensky).

Will have to pay Halfrauds a visit and hope they have some suitable stuff in stock for less than an arm and leg (and wouldn't mind keeping both my kidneys too, if at all possible).

[ekjdm14]

306 been back on the road for a couple of days now. Guess what the D8A engine is showing potential symptoms of now though?....

She's fairly consistently pressuring up the cooling system!

Not quite on the scale Black's engine is doing, but I'm fairly convinced it's "that thing" again... Honestly now I think back it may have had this trait for a while as I recall having to run this engine "atmospheric", if not the first time in this car then certainly when it was in the ZX. Only other niggle with it is the pull-clutch cable is playing up and needs converted to manual adjustment, at least that's not a major pain.

Going to play it by ear a bit & consider running atmospheric cooling again, this engine tends to run around 72c in anything other than heavy traffic on a warm day anyhow so not too much evaporation or localised boiling issues. Turns out the "good" XUD build with the converted D9B block may be in the works sooner than later though, after Black has her new heart thus freeing up said block for the machine shop.

Have I ever mentioned cars seem to have "seasons" for alike kind of faults? Just seems this year we're having some pretty major seasons, we've had turbo season, (blown 2 maybe 3) then bottom end season (one was inherited admittedly, but still managed to re-shell & seize that lol) & now head gasket season.

Can next year be like, wiper blade season, or maybe headlight bulb season? I don't mind doing a few bulbs, pretty please car Gods!