Citrojim's Pixo, Saxo and Cycling Tales

[Trainman]

and i bet them there limbs cost an arm and a leg

i'll get me coat now shall i

YES

[CitroJim]

and i bet them there limbs cost an arm and a leg

i'll get me coat now shall i

And I say yes too

[Citroenmad]

Hi Chris Great to see you on here again! I trust you are well?

I can see your reasoning, especially at the moment as with the new C1 out within the next few weeks, they have some hugely temping offers on the current C1. No doubt the ease of ownership, with it being a get in and go car, was a big decision maker.

That's precisely it! And the economy!

One car has to go but both Xantias are staying. If you’re interested in the XM we can discuss in due course

I am good thanks, full of busy.

I've often considered a new small car to trundle about in, usually when I'm having constant expenses on my cars, but so far I've resisted. Though I very nearly bought a VW Up! a few weeks ago Fortunately I got over that.

I'll see you at the National Rally then, Jim?

[CitroJim]

I'll see you at the National Rally then, Jim?

You will In the Activa most likely...

[CitroJim]

Well, it couldn't last I wondered how long the Activa would last before throwing toys again and yesterday I found out...

The ignition switch is a little dodgy and is causing the blower to cut out; noticed it doing it yesterday wit the aircon on and blower working hard. Just wiggle the key in the switch and it all resolves for a while.

I need to do the blower relay mod...

Did a little spannering on Chris570's HDi yesterday. he had a problem whereby he was loosing power steering going round corners due to a slipping auxiliary belt. It was flapping a bit and beginning to shred.

As he had a long trip to do yesterday and such things are never a good idea to do with a suspect auxiliary belt, he borrowed my V6 for the day.

Replacing belt and tensioners on an HDi is a lovely job; so much easier than a 1.9 or 2.1TD It was all done very promptly.

Interestingly, all the wear was on the plastic pulley of the spring tensioner; the belt had worn it down and bedded down into it. The wear was uneven and this was beginning to throw the belt off-line.

The only warning Chris had before it got bad was an occasional squeal.

[citronut]

The ignition switch is a little dodgy and is causing the blower to cut out; noticed it doing it yesterday wit the aircon on and blower working hard. Just wiggle the key in the switch and it all resolves for a while.

I need to do the blower relay mod...

would it still require a new ignition switch as well Jim,

i tell my customers to switch all current hungry items off before switching ignition on and off,

this should save the contacts in the switch if there in good condition in the first place at least,

granny to suck eggs and all that

[Mandrake]

When you do the ignition switch blower fan relay mod in a series 1 Xantia, you don't have to power the relay coil off the same worn out contacts that originally powered the fan - when I did mine I powered the relay coil off the the main ignition feed contacts.

The only difference is that the original contacts are live during ignition and disabled during start, while the main feed is live in both ignition and start - it doesn't matter though because the Aircon ECU will not turn the blower fan on until after the engine is running and the alternator is generating a charge.

So as long as you have an air con ECU (not manual fan control) you can power the relay coil from the other set of contacts and the fan still won't come on until after the engine has started and thus won't be drawing extra current during cranking. I don't remember the pin numbers but I still have pictures somewhere of my version of the mod.

Edit: found. Unfortunately the original forum thread with the description and pinouts got lost when the forum moved over from Andyspares...



The relay contacts go to the brown plug, (wires from the switch both cut) and the coil feed piggybacks on pin two on the grey plug.

[CitroJim]

Simon, thanks, that's a great help to see how you arranged and mounted the realy. Looks neat

Malcolm, yes but the blower is off until authorised by the engine when it's established to be running anyway so in reality it's not on when the ignition switch is first turned on.

I do take your point about switching off everyting before though and it will help...

[Chris570]

Well, it couldn't last I wondered how long the Activa would last before throwing toys again and yesterday I found out...

The ignition switch is a little dodgy and is causing the blower to cut out; noticed it doing it yesterday wit the aircon on and blower working hard. Just wiggle the key in the switch and it all resolves for a while.

I need to do the blower relay mod...

Did a little spannering on Chris570's HDi yesterday. he had a problem whereby he was loosing power steering going round corners due to a slipping auxiliary belt. It was flapping a bit and beginning to shred.

As he had a long trip to do yesterday and such things are never a good idea to do with a suspect auxiliary belt, he borrowed my V6 for the day.

Replacing belt and tensioners on an HDi is a lovely job; so much easier than a 1.9 or 2.1TD It was all done very promptly.

Interestingly, all the wear was on the plastic pulley of the spring tensioner; the belt had worn it down and bedded down into it. The wear was uneven and this was beginning to throw the belt off-line.

The only warning Chris had before it got bad was an occasional squeal.

My Activa does this as well. fun isnt it.

Your V6 is a pleasure to drive, ice cold aircon, silky smooth changes from the slush box and when given the beans she does fly.

Such an odd failure of the tensioner really but once looking at it you can see the damage, for all you HDi drivers out there its worth running your finger across that pulley and make sure there isnt a lip on each side of the wheel. The bearing on mine was perfect still and had done at least 110k so a bearing failure isn't the only thing that can cause concern.

So with 247k on the clock she'll soldier on for a little while yet.

[Mandrake]

Simon, thanks, that's a great help to see how you arranged and mounted the realy. Looks neat

Just thought of a simple tweak to my approach Jim - instead of running the relay coil negative straight to ground, you could piggy back it onto the switched positive supply to the starter solenoid.

With the ignition on but not in the start position the the relay coil negative will be "earthed" through the starter solenoid coil - enough current to turn on the relay, but not nearly enough to pull in the starter solenoid. (Hopefully! I'm pretty sure on the V6 the relay coil that runs the cruise control gets its earth return through the starter solenoid coil without harm ?)

However when you turn it to start there will be 12 volts on both sides of the relay coil so the relay will drop out and exactly simulate the original switch contact behaviour (eg on only in ignition and not during start) without actually using the original burnt switch contacts...

This would work with a manual fan control system too, unlike the original version of my mod which relies on the Climate ECU not to run the fan during starter engagement.

[CitroJim]

Chris, thanks for the kind words about my V6 It's always good to let someone else drive and have a second opinion on things and perhaps discover issues not previously noticed or just grown used to... An example is my very lazy cruise control

I'm not sure the gearbox being in 'old git' mode is a fault of the car or of me It is where it spends almost all of its time

Simon, excellent idea indeed, well thought out There is another relay that earths via the starter motor - the start inhibit relay - and the cruise control does too so it will drop out instantly if the starter is operated...

[RichardW]

Citroen like earthing relays through other things - I remember that the dim-dip relay on BXs (and probably others around the same time) used to earth via the main beams. No idea why - perhaps it was to prevent you having main on with dim dip, but then the switch should prevent that. Caused all sorts of mayhem if you tried to relay the dip beams, as they would tend to stay on all the time once the relay was switched once

[CitroJim]

That's nearly bizarre Richard!

[CitroJim]

Beware. Disturbing content follows:

I had my hair trimmed today and then got a quick picture of me in my karate uniform...

This really is me



Grading tomorrow and I hope the next picture taken will be of me with a different colour belt

[Trainman]

Beware. Disturbing content follows:

I had my hair trimmed today and then got a quick picture of me in my karate uniform...

This really is me



Grading tomorrow and I hope the next picture taken will be of me with a different colour belt

I'm going to put this picture on the door at Halloween.......... if that doesn't frighten the kids nothing will..............just think a picture of some random old geezer in his jimjams..........