Official blog of 'War Horse' (My Xantia HDi). It lives to fight another day!

[Rhothgar]

I'd agree with you there Roger, swap out the cable to be safe.

OK Captain!

Job finally done when car drove 100 miles back from East Anglia on battery power alone.

That cable is Norfolk'n Good, is it?

Ooooo CRUSTY!

You can see in the last couple of photos where the copper is very oxidised for a good few inches and the resistance would have been pretty resistance and eventually it has caused the cable to overheat and fail. It must have got pretty damned hot.

[mickthemaverick]

Pretty much what we expected last year!!

[Rhothgar]

Pretty much what we expected last year!!

£2.37 for the shortest cable from Halfords. It was a bit of a stretch but I made it work rather than spend an extra £1.

No-one can say I don't spoil WarHorse...

[CitroJim]

That was well crusty Roger! Pleased it's all good again

[Rhothgar]

It was a testing job. Only took me 364 days…

[myglaren]

No point in rushing these things.

[Rhothgar]

I happened upon a website yesterday evening about WW1 tank battles.

So I decided to contact the owner who it turns out was very knowledgeable and well connected to see if he could locate a photo of my grandfather’s tank that broke down on 24/03/1918.

The War History as I already knew revealed that he had unbolted his gun and set up at outpost outside of the tank to hold the Germans at bay whilst the infantry “extricated themselves from a most perilous situation”.

Today I open an email from him with this photo which shows the gun laid back inside the door of the vehicle whilst waiting recovery.

My cousin thinks the guy on the right is our grandfather but it doesn’t look like him to me.

I am surprised at just how high quality this photo is.

Despite MANY hours trying to find a photo of 8021 I never managed to find one.

And this my friends is why I refer to my Xantia S2 as WarHorse.

In memory of my grandfather and his service to King and Country.

Photo is his conscription photo from September 1916 aged 20th to The Kings Own Yorkshire Light Infantry. From there, he went straight into the Machine Gun Corps and then the Tank Corps

[CitroJim]

That's awesome Roger... I love seeing such memories preserved in photos and it shows that as an archival method of preserving history it works brilliantly.

I can't see our modern digital methods being still viable in over a hundred years time. Same with Audio. Vinyl records can last indefinitely. Audio tape too can have a long life but CDs and other digital storage methods I'm not so sure...

Treasure those pictures

[KennyW]

Great topic for the off chat lounge, my grandfather was also in WW1.He was a serving police officer when called up and joined the royal field artillery.
He knackered his back then was transferred to RMP's.

Our grandfather's story was he was on points duty somewhere (I don't know where) and met British champion boxer who later became the man who strikes the gong on the rank films!

Roger well done getting warhorse sorted It could have been toast because of that cable.

Kenny

[Rhothgar]

Cheers KennyW.

I’ll copy it over later.

Next thing to sort on WarHorse is the engine coolant heater. Must be two years that hasn’t worked. Really need it if I am to use it over winter because the windscreen is horrendous. Would be useful if the air con was working too…

Not sure if I ever uploaded the video on that. Can’t even recall how I’ve disabled it.

The rubber hose was glowing and had actually overheated to the point of ignition…

I reckon one of the glow plugs has shorted or one of the relays might be sticking on. Could do with making a load tester for them.

I could see the earrh wire is corroded this afternoon.

[Rhothgar]

So I've been reading up on the 5 pin Cartier relays.

Allegedly, they are supposed to have a suppression diode across Pins 85 and 86 ie the coil. Does anyone know if this is correct? I bet someone curios has dissected one before now.

Mine has a resistor not a diode and it measure 0.053V on diode setting. It should be seeing 0.5V - 0.7V if it has a diode.

[Rhothgar]

So I've been reading up on the 5 pin Cartier relays.

Allegedly, they are supposed to have a suppression diode across Pins 85 and 86 ie the coil. Does anyone know if this is correct? I bet someone curious has dissected one before now.

Mine has a resistor not a diode and it measure 0.053V on diode setting. It should be seeing 0.5V - 0.7V if it has a diode.

Very tempted to put 3 no. H4 bulbs in serious to test it at 3/4 load for 10 minutes.

Does anyone know how long the coolant heater on the HDi is supposed to be live for. The glow plugs ECU earth switched at the relays.

Points look fine on this one but I am tempted to break into the other one and check the ones out in that too.

[CitroJim]

So I've been reading up on the 5 pin Cartier relays.

Allegedly, they are supposed to have a suppression diode across Pins 85 and 86 ie the coil. Does anyone know if this is correct? I bet someone curios has dissected one before now.

Mine has a resistor not a diode and it measure 0.053V on diode setting. It should be seeing 0.5V - 0.7V if it has a diode.

You are referring to a back-emf protection diode I assume Roger.

Some do and some don't - the colour of the relay often denotes it. I can't recall now. Purple ones I think but maybe wrong. If you need the diode protection, it's easy to strap one across the coil outboard of the relay... A 1N4004 will do nicely...

[Rhothgar]

So I've been reading up on the 5 pin Cartier relays.

Allegedly, they are supposed to have a suppression diode across Pins 85 and 86 ie the coil. Does anyone know if this is correct? I bet someone curios has dissected one before now.

Mine has a resistor not a diode and it measure 0.053V on diode setting. It should be seeing 0.5V - 0.7V if it has a diode.

You are referring to a back-emf protection diode I assume Roger.

Some do and some don't - the colour of the relay often denotes it. I can't recall now. Purple ones I think but maybe wrong. If you need the diode protection, it's easy to strap one across the coil outboard of the relay... A 1N4004 will do nicely...

Cheers Jim. Yes I am.

I don't need one. I think you might be right though. Never opened a purple one.

Going to have a look at why the coolant heater is making the rubber hoses glow hot. Perhaps I should leave it disconnected but it would just be nice to not to have to wait 20 minutes for your screen to be clear when it's cold.

The rubber became quite crusty from the heat. I think I'm in the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" springs to mind or in this case, "it's broke, but you're gonna end up in a whole load more s**t so don't fix it" camp.

I would upload the video from 3.5 years ago but it contains expletives so might offend...

[ekjdm14]

I'd upload it behind a spoiler tag, some of us are more than comfortable with industrial language Besides, I gotta see War Horse burning rubber!

I think you may be right in the "leave well enough alone" attitude if the hoses are specific moulded ones i.e. you'd be screwed if they crumble. Maybe if waiting on the heater is an issue over winter look into an aftermarket block heater of some sort (I'd prefer something like the ones that have an auxiliary pump & mount in a hose over the traditional ones where you need to knock a core plug out. We know how Xantiae respond to core plug work lately!)