C5 2.0HDi (110bhp) LX Est - Trailer Electrics Let Down!

[wurlycorner]

Google maps shows that in April 2015, the sign was missing then, with a traffic cone in its place.

That is a long time for it to have been missing!!!

[lexi]

Shame about the car. A good Donk that might have to be scrapped? Getting harder to get good 2.0 8v.
If you can get another, that will be a good spares car?

[wurlycorner]

Been looking into it a bit more.
Looks so easy when it's off the car



If I had a 2-post lift, I'd do this no question.

Hmmm... Just rung a local citroen specialist who say they take the subframe off to do clutches ('cause it's easier) and will do it for around £200 labour

I can get a bare subframe for £45 (there's one on ebay, for a start) a sump for about the same and I dare say could pick up an arm for not much (there's a chance that side one is bent, so I'd get one anyway)



I've already done the seatbelts (so I can drive it in the mean-time).

We might have a go-er here, after all...

[CitroJim]

It'll be good if you can repair her without too much trouble Iain, given firstly all you've done to her and secondly, always better the devil you know... A new car will always come with problems of it's own and potentially worse than the ones you already have...

[wurlycorner]

Yeah I'm gonna get it fixed and claim off the council.

I'm not into the claim/blame culture, but it's been playing on my mind and I've just been out for a drive in basically identical conditions, observing what traffic islands are like etc. There are several missing round near where I live, but the council here have put cones all round the islands and big blue arrow temporary signs, sandbagged down, so they're really visible.

Leaving that bollard missing so long and not doing something similar, is just not acceptable. I don't see why I should be left out of pocket.

At the end of the day it comes out of the tax payers pocket though, so will be going with cheap used parts that I buy/supply to the garage and not looking to recover things that I was going to do anyway (e.g. oil filter) in order to keep costs down.

Used parts;
Sump
Sub-frame (incl. cross member)
Off side suspension arm
4 seatbelts.

New parts;
Undertray (this will be new/pattern because finding a good used one will be impossible and they are only around £25 new anyway)
Oil
Fixings a/r

Freebies;
Oil filter (I have one spare anyway)
No labour for the belts, because I've done them and reset the ECU myself.


While they have the subframe off, I'll see what the extra would be to put a clutch in at the same time. If it's not much, I'll get that done (makes sense since they're at least half-way there) with me covering the extra for that.

[wurlycorner]

Up date with some more little bits done/fixed on it.

Replaced the windscreen bar. All fixings intact on this one and it's from a later car with the improved bolts fixing in the centre, so it's definitely going no-where!


I'd noticed this on mine recently and thought it looked a bit odd...

While I was in the scrapyard on Thursday I checked out some others and turns out I was right - there should be a cover over the slave cylinder. So...

Duly fitted
(Yep, I admit it - largely pointless, but I'm anal and have to do things right on my cars! )

Haynes description of removing the B pillar trim and changing the seatbelts is largely correct, with a couple of notable changes.

Trim-wise, it's not necessary to remove the sill covers - the lower half of the B pillar cover is barely covered by them and can easily be flexed clear.
The upper half of the B pillar cover shouldn't just be yanked out/down - there are 2 clips at the bottom which should be squeezed first, to release them. THEN pull it outwards and then down.

Fixings wise, they have completely forgotten to mention a fixing halfway up, that is held in with rivets
So glad I started stripping this down when I was 25 mins away from my rivet gun as a result

Seatbelt reel with the covers removed;


Said middle seatbelt fixing;

2 rivets holding it on;

Only option is to drill the heads off;

Then knock the back of the rivets through into the pillar (they will fall out the bottom)

You will need short, 4.8mm rivets to replace them.

Important to vacuum up all the swarf generated, so that none of it works its way into the seatbelt mechanism (could potentially damage the belt, jam the mechanism, or cause the pretensioner to be set off).

Everything removed and vacuumed clean;



On the passenger side, it's important that the wire for the pretensioner is clipped into a holder and fed behind the belt, to ensure it doesn't get snagged;


Into Lexia, diagnostics section, Airbag Ecu, this is the fault that will have been logged;

(Ignore the temporary fault open circuits showing here - that's probably 'cause I had run the car with the old pretensioners unplugged, while I drove over to get my rivet gun)

Cleared by simply going into erase faults;


As Haynes describes, you can tell the pre-tensioners have gone off, because the inertia reel units make a noise a bit like bits of broken glass rattling inside a steel can. On mine, the passenger side reel worked as normal, but the drivers side had completely locked up, no movement either way.

Haven't got round to changing the rear belts yet (only the missus and I that use the car, so no mega rush).

[CitroJim]

Good. That's an excellent plan Iain, I'll be keeping fingers crossed it all works out..

Do let us now how it goes...

[lexi]

Makes sense after the work you put into it with servicing and seats etc. Once the mind is made up and you are doing the job in your head, you are halfway there

[wurlycorner]

I was seriously impressed with the facelift I drove earlier today and there are some more upgrades that I want/was planning to do to this one, so I may well still change car anyway now I've started looking, we shall see... But either way, this old girl will still be fixed up good as new Which is pleasing, 'cause she is a good car!

[wurlycorner]

I'm told, by someone that lives just round the corner from said traffic island and has been out and checked tonight... That a cone and temporary sign have now been erected!

Amazing...

I can only assume that the cctv camera covering the junction picked up on the accident then.

Rather vindicated I feel. But let's see how that translates into recompense...

[wurlycorner]

Righto, the airbag fault kept appearing, because of the pretensioners having activated. Despite clearing the faults and configuring the Airbag ECU to tell it that it didn't even have pretensioners, the fault reappeared after every ignition off cycle.

The pretensioners on the used seatbelts I fitted have not deployed.
Consulting this thread offered a way of testing the rest of the circuit.
So both sides hooked up with resistors;


(the power rating of that resistor is overkill, but it's the only 2.2Ohm resistors that Maplin had in stock )
Cleared the faults, re-ran diagnostics...

Bloody thing.

Looks like the ECU is a write-once affair so I'll have to change it
What a waste of time!

All the rest of the parts needed for the repair are either with me, or at the garage I've selected and it's booked in for Thursday.

[CitroJim]

Surprised about the ECU Iain

[wurlycorner]

Right, all sorted.
The garage had the car for 8 days in the end, which wasn't what I'd bargained for, but never mind - all done now.

Items done as expected - used subframe and cross member, new (pattern) sump and undertray. Purflux oil filter from my stock
A suspension arm wasn't needed in the end.

I also had a new clutch stuck in, seeing as the car was half way apart for that job anyway and I have no idea if/when it has been done. The car is on 158k so it's likely it's the original. I do a lot of (heavy) towing and the pedal was noticeably high. So it made sense.
Unfortunately the DMF wasn't fit to go again, so that also had to be changed meaning extra expense
The biting point is much much nearer the floor now.

As a result of all this, the car has had a BSI reset (battery disconnected, so done by them) and survived

Pics of the dead items;

Sub frame was more bent than I thought



Crunched back and bent down. Car still drove fine Strong old things these C5's...

Shiny new undertray;

Also, whatever that cable was that had been flapping around at the front of the engine, is now secured up somewhere - dunno where they've put it, but it's not flapping any more, so I'm happy!


So as far as the accident goes, that just left the pretensioner problem to finally sort (ECU fault came back every single time straight after clearing it).
Got a replacement used ECU from my local breakers.

This is where it lurks, in front of the gear shift lever;

Held on by 3 nuts on captive bolts from the transmission tunnel. It's a bit of a pain to get out without dismantling the dash further. The nuts are recessed inside stiffeners on the side of the ECU body, so you need a slender socket. The 2 furthest bolts are then underneath the main dash centre console. I managed to get at them using a universal joint on the socket and an extension. Fiddly, but do-able;

Old and new ECU next to each other. It's the same ECU on saloons/estates and through all the S1 range as far as I could see, checking on service.citroen before I headed off to the breakers (I didn't check the facelift part numbers).

Found an original assembly fail on the part of Citroen. The one I took off at the breakers (an '04 car) was secured with all metal lock nuts, whereas mine had all nyloc nuts.
The eagle eyed among you will have spotted that one of the securing holes is an earth point - so nyloc's are unsuitable! I just re-used the all metal nuts off the breaker.

Worked fine first time, no need to set the ECU up or programme the VIN etc. I didn't disconnect the battery, just turned the ignition off.



So that was it. All

[wurlycorner]

On the way there, the oil filler cap apparently came loose and fell off down the back of the engine :facepalm: garage think it's cause the engine cover was so loose (there was only one of the resilient mount bolts actually in place at that time, so entirely plausible)
Not a disaster, but messed up the engine bay around that area. I told them not to replace the bolts 'cause I had a load I'd bought ready to do the job, so it came back with the cover in the boot and the engine bay still to clean up.

Grubby;


Look at the pools of oil in the recesses in front of the rocker cover (not all from this incident - been like that for a while!)


Also I noticed the fuel lines weren't clipped in properly and one was broken;


Doesn't look much better, but believe me, it is.

Also four new resilient bolts for the engine cover ready to go;

One of the firewall insulator clips was missing, so got one off a breakers;

Refitted the cable into the clip on the bulkhead, replaced the broken fuel pipe clip and refitted both lines but I found that the front plastic pipe was then rubbing on the metal fuel line, so I left it unclipped and resting on top. I think they've been refitted in the wrong order when the filter was last changed, so they don't sit right. I might sort that one day...

[myglaren]

Pleased that that sorted the problem.
All fixed now?