1997 1.9TD Estate - A Tyre-ing question about handling

[Paul-R]

I have found that the speedo on my C5 is the most accurate I have come across.

I concur. The Mk1 C5 I had was only about 1mph out at 70mph, close enough not to "try it on" with an extra 5% over. My new X7 is similarly accurate and I treat it as being spot-on.

[myglaren]

I have found that (according to my SatNav) the speedo on my C5 is the most accurate I have come across. If I get done for speeding I cannot blame the car!

I have found that too James. It agrees very closely with the satnav.

[beko1987]

I've never compared it. I don't doubt I was over the 30 limit, but I want to check now!

No, I was caught by 2 seperate cameras on 2 days, one on Tuesday the 4th, and again on weds the 5th.

Glad I've got no points already, so I won't be up to 9, but finding the £200 worth of fines will be fun... Might be getting part worn tyres for the intrim rather than brand new...

[CitroJim]

Does it also play havoc with your insurance next renewal?

[elma]

When new they all read at least 1.5% over because of some EU legislation. Of course 1.5% is the minimum and they all age differently.

[beko1987]

Does it also play havoc with your insurance next renewal?

Of course it will! By much I don't know, as I has an sp30 in 2010, 3 months after passing my test, driving to Peterborough in my w reg 206 2.0hdi 3 door, that was a nippy car! They've gone now, but Aviva keep them on record for 6 years 9r some such rubbish, so it depends if it goes up more or they just class it as 'has points' rather than 6 (technical in their eyes, my paper part has nothing, they came off last year when I had to renew my license, I could have laid £20 or something 4 months earlier but I waited for the renewal to happen.

Still not driven the car, must do that tomorrow before I find out something isn't right on monday

[CitroJim]

Sounds to me like the insurance companies use this as a good excuse to rake in more and more money from the ever-squeezed motorist...

These days it's so easy to accidentally get a speeding ticket what with the ever-changing speed limits and especially when driving in unfamiliar places...

[beko1987]

So, an update

After re-doing the cambelt on Saturday morning, the car runs as it did again, with it's poke back, and blowing pretty clouds out the back on high revs...

However, I now have an annoying loud ticking that rises and falls with the revs, becoming a drone at 70mph/2800k revs. I need to investigate this, and my initial thoughts are either the aux belt or a cover somewhere. So I'll have the aux belt off and run the engine and see, if it's not that I'll take the cambelt cover off again (my god I hate removing the intercooler pipework from the back of the engine!)

Any ideas? Like I say, it runs fine again, has it's poke back but now there is an annoying sound!

The list of other jobs it needs stays on pause....

[CitroJim]

I've had exactly this in the past and often it is just a cam cover not quite in place.

Firstly, slip off the auxiliary belt and see if the noise then disappears and take it from there...

[beko1987]

So this morning was MOT time! Did not go well:

One of the numberplate lights doesn't always work, and chose this morning to not work. Easily fixed
Drivers seat insecure... It's a peugeot 405 seat welded to the xantia runners. It does rock about, but the runners are secured to the floor. I'm going to have it out and see if it's anything simple, but if not I have 10 days to find a new drivers seat...
Parking brake has little or no reserve travel - the lever goes right up to the stop. I'm hoping there's some adjustment left in the cables, how do I adjust it? Never done a Xantia before

Then the big annoying one, the exhaust. Currently its a cobbled together mess of pipes, with no cat or silencer, and it failed on:
Noise
Smoke
more smoke

The fuelling has been played with on it before, can anyone hold my hand on how to turn it down? Not fussed about if it de-tunes it or anything. I did find the fuelling screw before, but could not get a spanner on the lock nut to undo it, is there a knack to it? I ragged it to death on the way to the test, and that wasn't enough. Then I need a new exhaust, anyone local got one for cheap/free off a breaker estate?

TL;DR - Need a drivers seat and exhaust within 10 working days for a free re-test, then hope everything else is an easy fix!

[ekjdm14]

If it's something to do with the height adjustment of the driver's seat (that always seems to be the bit that develops slop, in my experience) you could just make sure the seat is at a comfortable height and weld the pivots up. Don't be tempted to zip up the runners though as the MoT requires fore/aft adjustment to work.

Wouldn't have expected the exhaust to be that loud on a 1.9TD to be honest, only time the volume of our ZX increased noticeably was when the pipework was off from the turbo back...

[beko1987]

Ah, well my exhaust is a straight through pipe, no cat (was shelled out) and no backbox. That it failed is no real surprise, my dad's offered to buy me one for Christmas, the whole thing (bar the cat, just a straight pipe a d backbox) isn't too bad on ebay.

Trying to undo the fuel screw lock nut but can't get anything on it, the black box sitting around it is hindering things. Can I take the black box off? Or is there something else to do it?

[CitroJim]

Sorry to hear about the MOT...

I have 90% of a good passenger's seat that may yield the parts you need... All it's missing is the seat foam..

The driver's seat I had from Gabriel has already been rehomed...

Remind me, what engine and what year is your Xantia? Need to know that to help diagnose the smoke issue...

Be aware that the exhaust will need a cat if there was a cat fitted as original equipment. This was the case with Gabriel...

[CitroJim]

Beko, sorry, I see it's a 1.9TD... My bad...

Black Smoke... lack of air to ensure complete combustion. Fuel burned in an oxygen starved environment. Check the air filter is clean. Check the inlet tract is totally clear and no turbo boost pipes have collapsed causing an air restriction. If not that, turbo may be seized or partially so but that will cause a massive loss of performance... Partially blocked/obstructed exhaust full of soot (yes, really!) and finally, dribbly injector(s).

And not forgetting over-zealous tweaking of the pump boost regulation and fuel maximum fuel screws. The latter is very dangerous as it can cause the engine to over-rev and at MoT test time that could spell a lot of trouble... Always ensure the governor limits maximum engine speed to just before the red-line and not one rpm more... If you have tweaked, then tweak back for the MoT test

Grey/white smoke: Incomplete combustion. Grey smoke is unburned fuel... Low compression/tight valve clearances. Bad injectors.

Blue smoke: Oil being burned. Rings/valve stem seals..

A good service and an 'Italian Tune Up' may make a big difference...

A good 1.9TD should not smoke and should be as clean as a whistle... The only times it may puff is on initial start-up and being floored after a long period of light-duty or idling - say when overtaking a slow-moving vehicle you've had to follow for ages...

[beko1987]

Thanks for the pointers Jim. I peeked out of the window whilst they were doing the smoke test and it was billowing out black clag. But it always has done, it has had a good tweak up of the fuel pump. Some of the internals were played with, and air anf fuel tweaked with too. It drives alot like a petrol car, if I boot it up the revs it surprises alot of people, certainly does 30 to 80 VERY quickly joining the M40..

Anyway, sit rep (I'm back in now, washed and changed)

Handbrake is sorted, there was ALOT of adjustment in the cables at the caliper end, so I wound both up quite far and now on 2 clicks if I try to pull away on tickover it stalls. Before the handbrake lever went right up near vertical with no resistance (it did hold though, but the failure was excessive travel). I can just make it do 4 clicks. If anything I may have adjusted it a bit too much, but both cables are due replacement, and if it does create a tiny bit of drag from the front that's no bad thing, the pads are in need of a cleanup, it squeals coming to a stop (brakes fine and evenly though). Will see how it feels on a drive.

Drivers seat - is actually snapped (Pug 405 seat on xantia runners remember). 2 bolts were missing on the snapped side too, and the frame had snapped around a bolt hole. To fix this, I took a bolt from the other side where there were 2 together and fitted it to the cracked side, which has clamped the break down nicely. All the other bolts I found were loose too, so everything has been tightened up. One of the seat mounting holes in the chassis is ruined though, I hasten to write it's just about tight, but that's what it is. However, the whole thing is alot more rigid now, the only flex is through the seat mechanism itself now so it's as good as I can get it.

Rear numberplate bulb - I cleaned and checked the buggars last weekend and they do light, one side just needs a thump sometimes. I'll try another bulb, but otherwise I'll put the lights on before I get to the station and check the bulb is on before it goes in... I checked it at various points in the week to oand it was lit. Little sod...

Black smoke... I turned the fueling screw down a bit. With the engine running and chugging away due to the intercooler pipe being off, I wound it down a whole turn then left it for a minute. After 5 minutes the idle went a bit lumpy, and little white clouds chuffed out of the exhaust (the exact same colour I had when the cambelt slipped and messed up the fueling). Half a turn back the other way and it seemed fine. I put it all back together and had a friend stand by the exhaust, and took it to the redline 5 times. Then I stood by it whilst he did it twice. Now, there is no more general smog, however at (and a guess here) when the revs shoot up past 2.5k up to 4k a dark black cloud comes out, but then it clears. I'll drive a bit harder than I usually do (being perpetually poor I like to conserve fuel, but that'll have to go out of the window for now) and boot it every chance I can. I can take it to the redline throuhout 2nd, 3rd and 4th easily enough joining the motorway twice a day.

My dad has kindly offered to buy me an exhaust, so I'm about to send him links to the ebay stuff I need (may post it here first incase anyone can check). That will hopefully sort the noise out, and help the smoke maybe as alot of the welds on the home made exhaust have failed. After that it's down to the chod gods to smile on me!

I don't think I need a cat AND a backbox on a pre 2001 diesel, certainly my 1994 ZX did not have a cat (and it was fitted with one when new) but it did have a backbox. I was going to buy a straight pipe and backbox (and a clamp and new fitting kit as one of the bolts is loose and seized where it joins the turbo). One plus will be ease of access, it's a right tight sod on a ZX, seems to be much more room on a Xantia!

So there we go, 3 things fixed (and an advisory too, both front brake pipes were not clipped in, sorted that), exhaust to go. At the very least, I'm hoping that when they see it re-presented with a shiney new exhaust and other things fixed they may *overlook* borderline smoke, but I won't expect it.

I have 10 working days to re-test it for free. I have friday and monday next week/week after booked off work as I had annual leave to use up, so as long as th exhaust arrives we should be dandy. Although 'legally' I don't have a re-test to use, the tester told me that the 'handbrake doesnt work AT ALL' when he told me it failed. Odd I thought, it's rubbish, but it does work, you did test it on the front wheels didn't you?... nope! Sadly it made no difference as he then came back saying about the excess travel, and had to use the 'retest' option to update the test, but said when I go back in he will just do a full re test for free, which seemed fair enough to me. I also had to help them out when they got it down from the jacks, guess what they had not done... that's right, put it in high. I felt very clever as I lent in, popped her into high, waited 3 minutes then down to normal, he called it 'air suspension' too, I don't think they see many green blooded cars there! Sadly my knowledge did not mitigate the fails (which they shouldn't have done anyway, but I hoped they might!)

It needs to pass, I have alot of things lined up for it next year!

Sam