V6 cam belt replacement

[addo]

My first reaction to this was an off-colour word involving spherical objects...

Soccer?

[CitroJim]

My first reaction to this was an off-colour word involving spherical objects...

Soccer?

Close but no coconut

[Hell Razor5543]

My first reaction to this was an off-colour word involving spherical objects...

Soccer?

Close but no coconut

Young male bovines?

[CitroJim]

Young male bovines?

Yes!!! Just pronounced slightly differently

[Stempy]

Just to get the thread back on track, I collected my new rad from GSF Heathrow today, a bit eye watering at £130, but I did get it discounted down from £165. Looking at ECP, they wanted £212 for theirs. Could have got it cheaper mail order but no knowing when it would turn up, whether it would arrive in one piece or even if it would be the correct type.

Hope to fit it tomorrow if the rain gives me a break, then we should be back on the road.

[CitroJim]

Hope to fit it tomorrow if the rain gives me a break, then we should be back on the road.

It'll be a better day tomorrow they say. The weather stopped me in the middle of a wheel bearing job on my Activa for two hours. It's lovely again now but earlier on it was raining glass stair-rods with a distinctly electrical theme.

That was a good price for a C5 V6 rad Stempy. I thought they were massively expensive - maybe just the genuine Citroen ones...

[Stempy]

What was I saying about being a blessing in disguise???!!!! Will be going for a test drive later, hopefully all new the new parts will work in perfect harmony.

[CitroJim]

Replacement was not one moment before time then Stempy!

A blessing indeed. Like when I punctured my first V6 rad. That was a blessing as it was full of rad seal to try and stem a heater matrix leak. They must have tried every variety about three times over. It blocked the transmission cooler and may have contributed to the gearbox failing.

Had i reused the rad it may have caused more problems.

[Mandrake]

Interesting Jim, I've sometimes wondered if my transmission cooler is blocked (on the water flow side) causing my gearbox to (all but) fail due to overheating...

The oil was certainly BLACK and burnt when I first changed it, and I have noticed that the gearbox oil temp can get as high as 105-108 degrees on the Lexia on a hard run, it heats up quickly with torque converter use but takes a very long time of gentle cruise to drop down to 100 degrees again despite the coolant temperature being between 80-90 the whole time. It doesn't seem to cool nearly as quickly as I would expect with a heat exchanger and a nearly 20 degree temperature differential.

Mine used to loose coolant due to the expansion vessel leaking, I wonder if someone threw in some rad weld or similar in an attempt to stop the leak, but only succeeded in blocking the oil cooler!

If I get another V6, how hard is it to disconnect the gearbox oil cooler (on the coolant side) and try to flush it to see that it flows easily ?

[CitroJim]

It's easy enough Simon, the cooler is very visible and get-attable with the airbox removed... Slip off the noses and away you go...

[xantia_v6]

Yes, there is. Remove the valley (the one at the top between the banks) jockey roller and fit the belt and then fit the valley jockey roller. You should then be OK...

For future reference, there is another way...

On the new style tensioner, one of the mounting holes is slotted, so if you just fit the bolt in the slotted hole, and the forward bolt, the tensioner will pivot to give a bit more slack on the belt. But then I hear you ask, how do you get the last bolt into the tensioner, when the belt is fitted and under (a bit of) tension?

Well someone thought of that, and just above the relevant bolt hole, there is a square hole in the tensioner body that will take a 1/2" drive bar, with which you can swivel the tensioner back into position and fit the last bolt.

BTW, I only know this because I changed the belt on my XM yesterday.

[Stempy]

Ah, but I tried that and still couldn't get enough slack to get over the final roller, but just slackening the valley roller did the trick. Maybe your new belt was more fexible than mine, or maybe C5's are just a bit different.

If you follow the manual you are supposed to remove the valley roller anyway, even if you aren't replacing it, then refit it after the belt has been wrapped round the front two cam pulleys. The trick is obviously not to completely tighten it until the belt is on.

It took me a couple of attempts to get the belt on so that the pulley retaining bolts weren't at the ends of the slots on any of the pulleys, would have been easier with the proper Citroen tools, but it all timed up ok in the end. Bloomin' hard work having to keep rotating the crank by hand though. If there's a next time I will consider removing the plugs.

[CitroJim]

For future reference, there is another way...

Excellent Mike. I was unaware of that slot. Never noticed it but then things are good at hiding from me in plain sight!!!

Always delighted to learn such things. I still have one to do...

[Stempy]

Well we made it from Surrey to York without mechanical incident. Must have done something right as it returned 32.1mpg average for the journey. Never been that high before and not bad for such a big lump.

[CitroJim]

That's excellent Stempy

hat, on average, did you get out of your Xantia V6 on a run?

Best I've ever got is 35 and that was driving like an old git... Mind you, some would say that's my normal style anyway