1997 Xantia 1.9TD Estate - 05/07

[isisalar]

Sticky pads, or any adhesive will not stick to dirt. Cleaning the surfaces is essential, white spirit, brake cleaner, meths etc. Sandpapering down a bit should do the trick too.

[Northern_Mike]

I'm with Handyman on this. Screw it on.

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[vulgalour]

The bumper is spotlessly clean, I made sure of that, not even any soapy residue on the plastic. I think it is the fine texture that's causing the issue, you can see it imprinted in the tape. Going to take me a while to clean all the tape off the back of the plate now, it's stuck exceptionally well to the smooth plastic. The new tape was better, it lasted 100 miles before giving up shortly after I parked up at home.

My two alternatives at this point are to smooth out the texture of the number plate recess, time consuming but possible. If I can get it back to a nice smooth glossy surface I reckon the plate will stay stuck. Failing that I've got some sticky-back velcro tape which I know will stay stuck to the number plate, if I then screw the other half of the tape to the bumper it should work. Advantage to the velcro is that I can then remove the plate to clean behind it.

For now, the plate is sat on the dashboard, something I've done before without issue for a short period of time. I move house tomorrow so everything is packed away, this is something I can resolve when I get up to the new place.


In other news, I had a weird thing with the brakes on the motorway the other day when collecting a cooker. Was quite satisfying to get a stand-alone cooker in the boot without even folding the rear seats! Anyway, I was slowing down for traffic and the brake pedal was very soft, not spongy, just sort of softly sprung. The brakes worked, but I did come off and on again with the pedal which brought it back to normal and made stopping a more confident affair. It's not done it again, I can't get the car to replicate whatever this was but I was wondering if it's something I need to look for a cause of?

[myglaren]

Could you fasten a plate to the bumper with screws then attach your numberplate with the double sided tape- there are preumably holes in the bumper from the original plates.
getting anything to stick to ABS is never a simple task.

Regarding the brakes, in case you aren't aware of it, Xantia brakes are load sensing and very rarely work when the rear of the car is unloaded.
Putting something like a fridge over the rear axle would cause the suspension pressure to increase significantly and therefore the braking pressure.
If you haven't had a load in for a while and the rear brakes have not been used then the alteration of the loading may have been responsible for the unusual behaviour.

I found with my GS, BX and Xantia that it was beneficial to load the thing to the eyeballs once a month or so and give the rear brakes a workout.

Could also be that the rear brakes are due for a bleed.

[Northern_Mike]

Regarding the brakes, in case you aren't aware of it, Xantia brakes are load sensing and very rarely work when the rear of the car is unloaded.

I think you've missed some words out there Steve!

[myglaren]

Regarding the brakes, in case you aren't aware of it, Xantia rear brakes are load sensing and very rarely work when the rear of the car is unloaded.

I think you've missed some words out there Steve!

Indeed! (and not unusual)

[oscar]

Hi try Tiger seal that sticks things to things that never want to come off again(like jag bumper when bolts sheared off still on there) it's a polyurethane glue not unlike screen bonding has a bit of flex so gives a bit.
Try injector cleaner or carb/brake cleaner than white spirit as that's an oil.

[vulgalour]

Well the brake thing didn't happen again and since transporting a cooker and then all my stuff that wouldn't go in the Transit Jumbo we hired for the house move they seem improved, which is good. Slight issue since moving house is having my insurance premium jump to a ridiculous £1500 pa. This is so expensive the Xantia has come off the road until my housemate has sold his Porsche as it's only £550ish for him. Nobody can explain this stupid price beyond the high risk post code (which wasn't high risk when I researched for the house move) so it just means I don't have the Xantia to use for a month or two. No big deal.

The handy thing is that I'm now volunteering at a classic car garage that my housemate owns and runs. New business, still finding its feet, but I'm hoping to bring my upholstery, cleaning and welding skills to help save money and time. My welding skills need a fair bit of practice to get up to the standard I need them to be, so I thought it best to practice on my own car rather than something belonging to the business.

I've been putting off going to the unit in part due to the work I've got on art-wise but also because we had no hot water here, so I didn't want to do a day's work on cars and not be able to have a good long soak in the tub at the end of it. I've now spent most of a day there piddling about with little bits of metal and trying to get my bodyworking skills up to scratch again.

The Xantia had two areas I wanted to address, the first was a small rust scab on the rear arch, something I'd treated before moving house but which had come back shockingly fast which led me to believe something was up. A blitz with the flapwheel and the outer arch just sort of went ker-poof in a cloud of rust dust leaving me with a rather large hole to repair. I cleaned this up, made a repair patch and found I'd somehow got the template wrong so had to make a second patch but didn't get to repairing it today. Fiddly thing to make and I couldn't get the shape exactly right, but what I've made is a close enough fit to the original profile that a light skim of filler will help blend the repair in neatly. The gaffer tape was a temporary thing to protect the hole from the weather as we weren't sure if it was staying in the unit or going outside before I got to finish the job.



The other part was the door jamb section, which I'd already cleaned and hadn't got worse. There was some thin metal to cut out from the outer skin, but the inner skin was absolutely solid. I gave as much as I could of it a go over with the dremel, flapwheel and then rust converter to keep it nice and solid before making a patch to fit the surprisingly small hole. Had some issues with the welder playing up, but I think that's down to needing to clean the earthing clamp and earth location (used the door latch). Yes, I remembered to disconnect the car's battery! I was a bit miffed that the patch moved a smidge as I was welding it in and the top of it stands proud. I don't especially want to entirely redo it, I just want this solid, but there's a chance I'll go back and redo it at a later date. Splashed some Hammerite on it just to prevent any flash rusting, I'll clean this back before finishing off the job.




It's a bit of an ugly repair to me, I was trying to make it flush fit because it's such a visible location and to achieve that I'll likely have to redo the top half of the repair unless it dresses back really well. The welding bit takes no time at all, it's the fabricating of complicated patches and dressing that seems to eat up the hours, that and getting used to unfamiliar tools and workspace.

Biggest mistake I made was probably using donor metal from an Alfa 75 to repair a Citroen, the two metals are more keen to have holes blown through them than to be stuck together, even with the MIG on the lowest setting. I suspect the welder Ratdat gave me will be better suited to the task, the shop MIG is a bit on the powerful side but it is a very nice bit of kit all the same.

In other French car news, a friend of mine bought a Peugeot 106 recently that's a superb little motor. He's looking to purchase something like a Transit Connect - he does landscape gardening and the like - and wanted it to go to a good home so offered it to me for free. I love it, it's a fantastic little car, and actually went with him when he bought it so I know it's a cracking little thing. Best of all, insurance is very cheap on it and its ideally suited to my needs up here while I do the restoration work my Princess needs. The Princess heads up here on Sunday, but that's news for a different forum I suspect, it being about as un-French as you can be.

[Eroe]

Hi, just wanted to say, that I think your devotion to this car is amazing and inspiring. I have very low days about my Xantia, which like yours started as a stop gap car, and has got to 217000 miles and is feeling a bit tired and starting to be a bit unlucky for me. (see key posts) Good to see you just keep going.

[vulgalour]

It's a surprisingly good car, I had just expected to clean it up and punt it on once I moved house but it just kept being really good at everything I asked it to do and I sort of ended up liking it rather more than I intended to. Strangely though, I feel I could easily part with it if I had to, doesn't have the same grip on me as my ancient and crumbling Princess.

I was at the unit today sorting out the Princess after she arrived late last night, tomorrow I'm working from home and the day after I hope to get to the unit to do some more of the welding repair on the Xantia. Here's a pretty picture of my two floaty boats waiting their turn.

[vulgalour]

It's welded. I don't ever want to weld this car again.

I need to give it a second fill just to get the finer profiles sorted and a top coat of white paint instead of the temporary Hammerite finish it currently sports. I'm happy that it's solid enough but the welding that I did left a lot to be desired because I couldn't get a decent continuous seam going between the initial stitches.

This was the least fun bit of welding I've done to date. The Alfa metal welded really nicely and predictably, no blow through, no strange spittiness, and even the ability to nicely seam weld. But the Citroen metal was a nightmare and easily the most unpleasant bit of metal gluing I've had to do.

At least it looks passable, the final fill and colour will make it look reasonable but I doubt it'll be what you can call an invisible repair.

[Xantidote]

the Citroen metal was a nightmare

Interesting. When I had a light skim of the TD's cylinder head done a few years ago, the guy commented on the crap metal the head was made of. He said it was rubbish metal compared to german cylinder heads

[oscar]

It's welded. I don't ever want to weld this car again.

I need to give it a second fill just to get the finer profiles sorted and a top coat of white paint instead of the temporary Hammerite finish it currently sports. I'm happy that it's solid enough but the welding that I did left a lot to be desired because I couldn't get a decent continuous seam going between the initial stitches.

This was the least fun bit of welding I've done to date. The Alfa metal welded really nicely and predictably, no blow through, no strange spittiness, and even the ability to nicely seam weld. But the Citroen metal was a nightmare and easily the most unpleasant bit of metal gluing I've had to do.

At least it looks passable, the final fill and colour will make it look reasonable but I doubt it'll be what you can call an invisible repair.

Think you will find it's because the Citroen metal is galvanized and galvie don't like being welded as gives you a nice bit of poisoning!

[vulgalour]

I know about the galvanising making things difficult, but even with the metal cleaned up and supposedly free of the galvanising coating it's still a nightmare because the metal is so very thin. Thankfully, no other welding is required, but I can see why people just don't bother doing bodywork on Citroens, it is pretty nightmarish stuff.

[vulgalour]

Xantia has been off the road since just after I moved up here because of the craziness of insurance. It's due for new tax and insurance on the 1st of October and while I've been ferreting away at jobs that needed doing, like welding the rear arch, it seems a shame not to treat her to *something* in preparation for many miles of winter service.

I've already priced up brakes, clutch, glow plugs, &c. and that's a lot of money. It'll all get done, of course, but I wanted to find something a bit better than all that boring everyday stuff so I hopped on eBay and what should I find but something I've been after since I first got the car...





Mk1 GRILLE! I'm super excited about this and really hope it arrives safely, I've only *just* bought it. Yes it's the wrong colour, but it looks in good order and it's an easy swap to make. That gives me the debadged nose end I've been after to match the debadged rear. I need to get some paint to tidy up the repaired arch anyway so I can do them both together.

If anyone out there has a pair of clear side repeaters they'd like to swap for some orange ones, do shout. Saxo, 106 and Xantia all have the same side repeater lens so finding a pair isn't difficult, or particularly expensive, but I used some of my glowplug budget for that grille.

Other thing she'll be getting are the Fido Dido stickers I got before moving house, I just haven't figured out where exactly I'm putting those yet.