Xantia air in fuel system

[CitroJim]

i suppose it could have been hanging around in the dealers for a while before being registered Jim,it may not really be that late a MK1 ??

Maybe? Although today I found a date sticker behind the tailgate trim. 21 July 1997. My birthday Well, not the 1997 bit or I'd only be 10. My real birthday is the 21 July 1959.

[juraj]

hi all

surely the inlet side of the pump is not freely joined to the outlet side? what im getting at is if the primer bulb's one way valve is working fine then even if there is a leak in the system from the bulb to the inlet then significant amounts of fuel can not surely leak back to the tank via the return, the pump must be full of tight tolerances right?

if the return line has a leak then is it the case that only fuel in the return line can drain back to the tank, the pump should stay full, in which case a return line leak shouldnt matter, unless the pump itself leaks internally and allows both sides of the pump to drain away,

what i am aming towards is that as long as the pump is good then surely minor leaks allowing air will only matter if the one way valve in the pimer bulb is stuffed,

anyway the car i bought apparently has an air leak as apparently it wont start the next day and needs a prime, when i bought it i had to drive back to london and noticed that even after 10-20min of non running pumping the bulb it was quite soft and i heard a gush of fuel, presumably as it ran into the filter housing, (as opposed to a car at the breakers that had sat there about 1 year, after pumping the bulb maybe twice it was hard already, perhaps someone just did it b4 me?). interestingly the car starts fine after a few hours standing, without priming, despite being able to pump in about 2-3 bulb fulls.

After getting it home i went to start it the next day, around 20 hrs of standing and decided to NOT PRIME WITH THE BULB but instead to cycle the glow plugs about 4 times, and it started first thing!!

i am now thinking it could just be that, glow plugs, but in that case why would the previous owner have succes with priming, surely malfunctioning or weak glow plugs wont be influenced by a primed or unprimed system, even a fully primed air free system wont make a difference if its glow plugs - right? wrong?


bye all

[MikeT]

Looking very smart Colin, I'm pleased you're making rapid progress fixing the car problems - is it finished now or are there more jobs to do? It's good to see the pictures too, well done there mate.

[XantiaMan]

Yours begs a question. My Estate is an R reg one like yours but it has black bumpers and side trims. It's the only late MK1 I've seen like this as all others seem to have colour-coded bumpers and side trims. Perhaps it's because my estate is a poverty-spec one perhaps... Or is it because it's white?

I think its the last of the line Mk1's badged as LX's and Sx's but were also special editions like Temptation, Dimension,, Sensation etc. I'm pretty certain mine is a special edition too and seeing them on ebay they are sometimes listed as such. I'm not complaining though, as i like the colour coded trim and bumpers!

[CitroJim]

Yep, that's it Gareth. I believe mine is one of those. It was de-badged in a pervious commercial life to take a decal across the tailgate but I believe it's a Desire.

I'd say it was an LX in relatity...

A MK1 run-out model. Lets chuck all the stock of old trim on it, put alloys on it and give it a fancy name...

I'm not complaining mind, a white estate with colour-coded trim would be , well, just a bit too white if you know what I mean. the black breaks it up rather nicely.

[admiral51]

Hi all
just another update on the air in the fuel line
things have been fine since i changed the pipe but just wondered if having the feed to the filter higher up than normal will actually mask the problem rather than really cure it
as i understand it with the pipe higher up than the base of the filter it will make it harder for the fuel to drain back.i have added some pics but they dont really show just how high the feed is as it runs past the filter housing maybe 1/2 " lower than the top of the filter






Colin

[CitroJim]

An interesting thought Colin but no, I think you can be confident the problem is cracked

In any case, however high that pipe goes, the tank is lower and if there is an air leak anywhere in the system the pipe will still empty due to syphonage and this would lower the fuel in the filter housing.

The acid test is that you can see this pipe is still full of fuel after an overnight rest. This really means there is no air getting in and allowing fuel to run back into the tank.

Now what would be interesting would be a transparant fuel filtter housing. Years back, some fuel filters had a glass bowl on them.