Simon's new Xantia V6 and Leaf blog

[Skull]

[url=chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/ IFHS

Edit 2: This document seems to suggest I'm looking for XA 30 RK ?

Agree with your selection

Available next day usually from https://www.aepdirect.com/

XA30RK In Stock £41.94 each

[Mandrake]

[url=chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/ IFHS

Edit 2: This document seems to suggest I'm looking for XA 30 RK ?

Agree with your selection

Available next day usually from https://www.aepdirect.com/

XA30RK In Stock £41.94 each

Thanks,

I think I'll just order them from AEP then. Don't know why I didn't do that in the first place because I think I got my previous set in 2014 from AEP! Probably because I mixed up Citroen Services with AEP, and Citroen Services are now gone.

Waiting to hear back to confirm that I can get a refund on these ones first though.

[DHallworth]

AEP are great and are dead easy to get to being just off Junction 2 of the M74 if you don’t want to wait for postage.

David.

[Mandrake]

Haven't heard anything back about sending the spheres back but I've just gone ahead and ordered the IFHS ones from AEP and will worry about sending the other ones back later. (If necessary I'll just send them anyway, registered post) Fingers crossed, third time lucky!

Just remembered I had to order a rear windscreen wiper blade before the MOT as well - last time I used Euro car parts so I checked there again and to my surprise "collect" was an option - I wasn't even aware that they had a store presence.

It turns out my nearest one is only two miles from home right next door to Screwfix in Bellshill! It must be new because I've been to Screwfix loads of times and never noticed a Euro Car parts next door.... ?

Could be handy having them nearby for on the day purchases of various types like wiper blades etc... I wonder if its a walkaround store or whether it's just a counter like Argos or Screwfix...

[RichardW]

Rear wiper is not testable...

ECP was certainly there a year or so ago, as I bought a spring from them (which was a farce involving me not taking my wallet....!)

[Mandrake]

Rear wiper is not testable...

I'm surprised to learn that ?

In any case I replace all wiper blades at MOT time so I can see properly because they seem to stop working effectively within a year, on both cars! The ones on the Leaf fitted 12 months ago are also smeary and useless now too and will be replaced next month...

I don't remember wiper blades being so useless years ago but maybe its the cold winters over here which kill the rubbers.

ECP was certainly there a year or so ago, as I bought a spring from them (which was a farce involving me not taking my wallet....!)

I must have had a big blind spot then. For many types of "on the day" parts I would probably trust them more than Halfords to be honest...

[myglaren]

The ones I had on my last C5 were on when I bought it and I only changed one just before scrapping the car (six years later) as it ripped.
The ones on the Civic have been there at least two years, just had its third MOT.
I think the trick is keeping them and the screen clean. I went to buy new ones for the C5 and the bloke wouldn't sell me any, said they were too expensive for something I didn't need, and proceeded to clean my screen and wipers with his Glasgae Brandy* (he is Scottish). Worked a treat and as he said, I didn't need any wipers.







*Meths

[RichardW]

Our Picasso is still on it's OE wipers at 5 years / 45k miles - but older cars with worn / scratched screens wear them faster. Screen in my 3008 was really bad when I got it - I tried everything to clean it to no avail. Eventually I found someone mentioned Sugar Soap so I tried that, and it worked pretty well - have just had to do it again as it has not been used much and collected all sorts of smeary gunge on it. Driving on mways and cities makes it (much) worse.

[Armidillo]

Well! A day of ups and downs!

...

Of course after doing work like this I needed to do Citrerobics to clear the system out, and this is where everything went wrong. I was watching the top of the reservoir and it was looking very clear on the first two cycles, but on the third down cycle when the car was already down on the bump stops there was a sudden "woosh" of bubbles that took a while to dissipate. I turned the engine off and went to get a drink assuming that maybe I hadn't bled the rear suspension properly when I'd fitted the spheres a couple of weeks ago, however when I came back it was doing this:

....

I have NEVER seen this happen on a Citroen before so I grabbed the phone to record it. It probably kept doing this for about 2 minutes. I should have realised at that point what had happened but I carried on doing Citrerobics until everything was clear and then went for a test drive. It was at this point that I realised the rear suspension was rock hard in the firm mode.
...

I'm really shocked that both rear strut spheres have failed, so I've emailed Westereon to let them know and ask what they can do about it.

Has anyone seen this mad bubbling in the LHM tank before ? Has anyone had rear strut spheres fail in the middle of a Citrerobics session before ? Is this a risk of a sphere being New old Stock ? (They're both Citroen OEM types whereas the hydractive sphere was an IFHS branded one, presumably newer)

...

How long can an MOT be overdue before you have to SORN a car ?

Hi Simon

Yes, I have had "boiling" LHM.

Bought an XM in the Blue Mts (west of Sydney) in March 2019. Spheres had been regassed, ride initially seemed great! However by the time I had reached home (600km/370 miles) over some indifferent roads, I wasn't so sure - things just didn't seem as good as they did at first.

Having a look around next day, with bonnet up and engine running, there was an almighty bang! I nearly had heart attack, and LHM tank cap vanished (later found in scuttle), and hearing a boiling sound, I looked in the tank to see it boiling just as in your video.

Not NOS spheres in my case, but old spheres regassed exactly 4 years previously - diaphragms in 8+ yr old spheres obviously no longer up to the task. On removal at least a couple were squirters - proving the point that they were bursting diaphragms one by one. I fitted a full set of nice fresh IFHS spheres purchased from the online sphere shop (now defunct) and no further problems.

As a side note - also bought a set of spheres for my SII Xantia SX wagon at the same time, as ride was getting a bit hard, and have had 3 years of lovely compliant ride, but it has recently developed heavy steering, which I am inclined to blame on deteriorating (original) strut tops. That car has done 330,000 km. XM is just 22 years old/180,000 km (112,000 miles) - it's strut tops seem fine.

Cheers
Alec

[Mandrake]

Our Picasso is still on it's OE wipers at 5 years / 45k miles - but older cars with worn / scratched screens wear them faster. Screen in my 3008 was really bad when I got it - I tried everything to clean it to no avail. Eventually I found someone mentioned Sugar Soap so I tried that, and it worked pretty well - have just had to do it again as it has not been used much and collected all sorts of smeary gunge on it. Driving on mways and cities makes it (much) worse.

Prior to cracking the window I'm not aware of any scratching on the Xantia's window - and there certainly aren't any scratches on the Leaf's windscreen.

It just seems like rubber deterioration from UV light to me - perhaps poor quality rubber that is not UV resistant.

When I swapped the rear wiper blade on the Xantia yesterday - which was only replaced a year ago (!) the rubber on the old one was dry, hard and cracked, and the car has seen hardly any use. Incidentally, the wiper blade that I picked up from Euro Car Parts was not even remotely close to compatible despite the listing assuring that it is...

It not only doesn't have the side mounted pivot, (to clear the spray nozzle) the whole thing is longer and can't be fitted at all: (the original, correct one is on the right)

I was going to take it back but at £3.57 it was hardly worth bothering - however I then realised the rubber insert was compatible so I disassembled it and transferred the rubber over successfully - it was at this point that I remembered I'd done the same thing last time!

It boggles my mind that so many suppliers are so absolutely awful at getting parts compatibility right, and they sometimes won't even believe you when you try to send stuff back that doesn't fit. I remember having a real hassle with Pagid handbrake cables on the first Xantia V6 which weren't even remotely compatible with the car...

[Mandrake]

So, the IFHS spheres from AEP arrived on Friday (that was quick) and I fitted them on Saturday - and the good news is they are the correct spheres and damping/ride feels fine.

They have date/serial codes on them that seem to suggest they were manufactured in mid January this year if I'm interpreting it correctly, so if they were manufactured this year I'm happy with that!

I would say the damping characteristic of the IFHS spheres is slightly different to the Citroen branded ones that went well for a while before they went pop - perhaps just a smidge less damping making them a little more "lively" on bumpy roads, but the difference really is very small, and light years away from the wallowy vomit inducing ride from the other spheres that are probably non-Hydractive spheres. The stamped numbers on the damper valves are different - the ones that were incorrect had 3,7 either side of the hole, I think these ones were 3,2 or 3,4, can't quite recall, but the second number was much lower, which I presume is something to do with the hole diameter.

Interestingly when I do Citrerobics after doing rear strut sphere swaps I don't see ANY air bubbles returning to the reservoir - not during this swap or during any of the other recent swaps performed after the hose clamp on the pump was adjusted. Just a calm millpond in the reservoir at all times.

As I felt I was finally finished with all the sphere swapping (here's hoping!) I bled the rear brakes one last time - and got no air out of them. The rear brakes are still biting well since the pump hose clamp adjustment, in fact after a 10 minute test drive at the end of everything where I gave the brakes a few good stabs I noted that both rear discs were quite warm indicating that they are indeed working.

So it will be interesting to see if I still get an MOT warning about rear brakes this time - it's looking very much like the root cause was the air leak on the pump allowing air to keep building up in the rear brake lines, and the cure was simply to re-position both the jubilee clips to bite onto the flared parts of the pipes.

Now I just wait patiently for a windscreen.... In the meantime the car is getting some use which is good - although the absence of working air conditioning is certainly noted!

[Mandrake]

So, I have Autoglass booked in for Tuesday, fingers crossed that they do actually come out and do a good job!

I await with interest to see how they deal with the scuttle that is in many pieces... my black silicone job seems to be holding up well - if the window wasn't cracked it would be fine! No leaks that I've noticed anyway. Hopefully the regular silicone is much easier for them to cut away than the original window bonding stuff to minimise further damage to the scuttle.

My mum who is over visiting will be waiting in for them though - I won't be home on Tuesday unfortunately as it's the start of the school term so a very busy time for me at work!

I also have the MOT and aircon check up booked for the following Monday, (for various logistical reasons I can't get it done any sooner) so fingers crossed it passes and they can do something with the aircon! When I was trying it today in 27 weather there is a small amount of cooling that wasn't evident in the cooler weather however it's barely working.

I decided I needed to fix the light in the aircon button before they test the aircon otherwise it's not obvious what is on or off... so I pulled the switch apart again and replaced the bulb with a 5mm green LED!

I was originally going to use a 3mm LED but a 5mm LED turns out to be a good fit and will be brighter so I used that. Of course when replacing the bulb with a coloured LED you want to knock the front out of the colour filter - no problem with mine as the colour filter was completely black and charred and disintegrated on touch! (Hence why the light was so dim - although the bulb failed later as well)

Squeezing the 1k resistor in is challenging though, there is just enough room for it to fit in a slot to the side in the sliding part of the button front! I soldered onto the old bulb legs so I could leave those wrapped around the posts. The resistor is connected to the positive of the LED.

And here is the end result - very nicely lit in daylight.

Hopefully it won't be too bright at night...

Potentially all of the button lights could be repaired like this with suitably coloured LED and the charred colour filters knocked out, but it's a very fiddly job so I'm probably not going to bother with the others. The rear window demist and hazard light buttons are both somewhat dim but visible and are still good enough, the only one I use that doesn't light up at all is the cruise control button, but I'm not sure I want that glowing all the time anyway as I always leave that button on!

A small tip to anyone doing this job - don't plug the bottom half of the switch in and turn the car on with the switch disassembled as it will cook the 40 ohm resistor on the PCB! Fortunately I noticed it right away when the magic smoke started coming out and switched it off before the resistor was damaged beyond discolouration.

When the "PCB" is not inserted into the top half of the switch there is nothing to keep the various switch contacts sitting in the right positions so the spring tension causes them all to close at once, which presumably puts 12 volts directly across the 40 ohm resistor and would burn it out if left for more than a few seconds. Ouch.

I think this resistor might be there to supply the original bulb, so potentially you could replace the 40 ohm resistor with 1k and fit the LED without having to shoehorn a resistor off to the side, but I didn't bother tracing it out to see if this was correct or not. If I fix any more buttons I might do it that way if that resistor proves to be supplying the bulb as it would make for a tidier job.

[Mandrake]

Windscreen day arrived today and I'm now quivering with rage.

I can't get any time off work this week so I had to leave it with my mum to deal with. The guy arrived and the first problem is that he needs to park his van beside the car to do the job - so mum ended up driving the car up the road to an area with some parallel parking (with no MOT... ) for him to do the work there then walked back to the house.

When he was finished he brought the keys back and then was on his way, with mum having to walk back to the car to bring it home. It wasn't until I got home that I realised he's completely buggered the scuttle and did not make any attempt to bond it to the glass at all - he just shoved it back in and sat it in place loose.

To say I'm angry is an understatement. Yes, the scuttle was in poor condition before but I'd managed to do a fairly good job of gluing it back in, however apart from not gluing it in at all (thus leaking into the heater fan) an entire strip is missing now:

I drove up to the location where the work was done and searched the ground - I found a few other bits from the job but not the missing strip. I also lifted out the scuttle and looked underneath in case it had fallen in there but nope. He's thrown it away.

So now I can't even glue it in myself because I'm missing a big chunk.

So, does anyone have a spare scuttle ?

[mickthemaverick]

Ebay item number 164376997247 any help Simon?

[Mandrake]

Ebay item number 164376997247 any help Simon?

Thanks for the spot - I've emailed the seller to see if the scuttle is still intact (might not be judging by the damage to the bonnet) and said if they can get it off without breaking it I'll have it!

Mind you my scuttle was already broken into two pieces (left and right) so even if that one is not fully intact I might still be able to replace the half of mine that is damaged!