Citrojim's Pixo, Saxo and Cycling Tales

[CitroJim]

I have no idea I'm afraid Mark. I can only take a guess. I just replaced the belt on mine as I made an assessment of the condition of the tensioners, jockey and water pump and decided they were good for another round..

The belt I bought from KP

Commercially, a V6 belt is an expensive business as they will insist on changing belt, tensioners, jockeys and water pump. It involves a good bit of labour too.

Factor that into any offer you make on a V6. I reckon a good ball-park would be £600-700 for the whole job.

[xantia_v6]

Up to late 1999, the timing belt had a manual tensioner, which needs SEEM gauge to adjust. After that an automatic tensioner was fitted, which doesn't need the gauge. To convert from early to late tensioner, you need to change the tensioner and change (or modify with as hacksaw) the water pump.

[CitroJim]

I was lucky with mine Mike, it already had the later tensioner fitted..

[bxzx16v]

I've seen the belt kits for £200 (dayco), my mate works for the local pug dealer and says it's quite a job. I'll check the date on Monday of the last belt replacement.

Mark

[CitroJim]

The job itself is not that bad Mark, it's all the stuff that needs to be stripped out of the way to get at the belt in the first place!

That's what takes the time and costs the money really. For a V6 the job really is quite straightforward as long as the later C5 type automatic tensioner Mike was referring to is fitted. The old Dynamic Tensioner is a bit of a different kettle of fish..

[bxzx16v]

Thanks Jim I shall bear it in mind.

Mark

[CitroJim]

Took my V6 to karate this morning. It's definitely running very beautifully and better than it was before the new belt and all the recent TLC

Is it the new plugs, all the cleaning of the inlet tract or the fact the engine ECU has been reset for the very first time in my long ownership of the car? It was the first time for me the battery had ever been disconnected...

It isn't valve timing as with the old belt the timing was observed to be spot-on..

Simon, I'd be interested in your views as the difference is tangible

Off to swap the oil in the Activa and do a pre-MOT on kit in a bit...

[CitroJim]

That's the Activa done.. Oil and filter changed and a full pre-MOT carried out..

All appears to be fine bar the front fogs have died.. Whilst they're not strictly mandatory I want them working as I assume if they're fitted they should work.

Ran out of time today so that's some fun to be had another time...

[xantia_v6]

I think I may just add an activa onto my wanted list Jim, along side a V6 xantia, pug 406 V6, xsara vts (mk 1), C4 vts, possibly another Zx16v, Bx16v, celica gt4, laguna V6, infact anything odd and unloved really .
Mark

How about: http://www.leboncoin.fr/voitures/698364868.htm?ca=5_s" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; ?

[CitroJim]

That sounds like a potentially nice one at a bit of a price Mike Shame the price doesn't include removal of the dented sill and a belt change

Identical to mine except it has a V6 Shame the vendor does not seem to say if it has a leather interior. I guess as it's a V6 it will.

I'm concerned it only has eight spheres though. Mine has 10!!!

And that it has shrapnel damage. I take it that's just a bad translation of stone chips...

Mark, the price difference 1750 Euros vs. 3400 Euros with belt and dent done might give a hint at how much a V6 belt swap can cost...

[xantia_v6]

"dont sièges en cuir réglables" = electric leather.

That seems to be a reasonable price for an Activa V6 in France (except those with intergalactic mileage or documentation irregularities). Still cheaper than buying a TCT and converting to ES9

[Mandrake]

Took my V6 to karate this morning. It's definitely running very beautifully and better than it was before the new belt and all the recent TLC

Is it the new plugs, all the cleaning of the inlet tract or the fact the engine ECU has been reset for the very first time in my long ownership of the car? It was the first time for me the battery had ever been disconnected...

It isn't valve timing as with the old belt the timing was observed to be spot-on..

Simon, I'd be interested in your views as the difference is tangible

Interesting Jim - you'd have to describe the nature of the difference in performance in a bit more detail to make a guess, but it could be a combination of all three.

As you say it's probably not the valve timing, assuming all the cams were able to pin perfectly - on my old V6 the timing was basically right, but two cams were about 1/4 of a peg out so wouldn't quite pin down until being tweaked - after we fixed that there was little if any improvement.

Cleaning the intake tract around the butterfly can make it a little bit more snappy and responsive when you take off from stationary with a very light throttle as a gummed up butterfly introduces some dead band in the bottom end of the throttle range.

How were the old spark plugs, and did you change them to a different type ? I've come to the conclusion recently that the ignition system on the ES9J4 is a wee bit marginal for the job at hand in terms of spark voltage/strength - it's a very high compression ratio engine (which means high peak cylinder pressures and high required spark voltage) plus its waste spark which increases voltage demands further as the spark has two gaps to jump in series. When everything is in tip top shape I'm sure its fine but throw worn plugs, leads or coils into the mix and an intermittent misfire can easily develop especially at full throttle...

The spark plug leads don't seem as tough and reliable as you'd hope - I had quite a bit of trouble with the plug leads on the old V6 (the originals had intermittent breaks in two of the wires that could be measured with a multimeter and one replacement set were faulty in some way too) and I'm pretty sure that the leads on the new V6 are faulty too. A couple of times now the performance of new V6 has gone down hill quite a bit especially at full throttle and I need only wiggle the broken spark plug lead guide around on top of the manifold and the performance is instantly back to normal - so I'm guessing it too has intermittent breaks in one or more wires.

Is it possible one of your spark plug leads is the same and has an intermittent internal break when flexed in a certain way which has just found itself sitting in a more favourable position after the manifold has been out and gone back in ?

The battery off ECU reset definitely can make a difference - but only in cases where the ECU has learnt bad data due to a pre-existing condition. For example when I first got new V6 the performance was really flat and poor all the way that I drove it home, until I did an ECU reset when it came back to normal for a few weeks.

I'm not sure how it had got itself into that state - one theory is that a combination of very hot (28+ degrees) sunny weather and the long trip back from Plymouth on 95 octane fuel was enough to force the ECU to knock the timing back quite a bit, since knocking can be worse with very hot temperatures...

If I had to guess I would say the change that you see is mostly ignition related, as I'm certainly seeing a big change in performance with my new one just by moving the plug leads around a small amount...if the improvement in performance on yours disappears again I'd suggest changing the spark plug leads next time the manifold is off if you've never replaced them before...

[CitroJim]

"dont sièges en cuir réglables" = electric leather.

Giggle translate failed on that Mike.. Thanks! You're right it's cheaper than doing an ES9 conversion!

Simon, the thing seems smoother, livelier and more responsive now. I could of course be placebo but it even sounds nicer..

The plugs looked fine but they’d been in a long time. For all the 30,000 miles I've done in the car since I've owned it and whatever they'd done previously so they were well due a change. Not sure if the interval when they should be swapped now.

I'm now running some posh Bosch 4 electrode jobs...

One thing that prompted me to get on with the job was that she wasn't starting quite as readily as normal and as Chris will attest, one day after a not overly long rest at WFA's Barford branch she ran on five on first startup...

Now she's a lot more eager to start and idles more smoothly..

The intake wasn't badly mucky but it got a good clean none the less. The inlet manifold gasket was fully intact. In fact I was tempted to re-use it but thought better of it and treated her to a new one...

Eyelashes is presently parked up in the V6s normal space as the V6 is going to be used for the next couple of days to take me to work and back as a shake-down for the trip to Nottingham on Wednesday...

It's a long time now since either of my Xantias have been to work!

[Mandrake]

Simon, the thing seems smoother, livelier and more responsive now. I could of course be placebo but it even sounds nicer..

The plugs looked fine but they’d been in a long time. For all the 30,000 miles I've done in the car since I've owned it and whatever they'd done previously so they were well due a change. Not sure if the interval when they should be swapped now.

I'm now running some posh Bosch 4 electrode jobs...

One thing that prompted me to get on with the job was that she wasn't starting quite as readily as normal and as Chris will attest, one day after a not overly long rest at WFA's Barford branch she ran on five on first startup...

Now she's a lot more eager to start and idles more smoothly..

Sounds like you've fixed a minor ignition related misfire then Jim.

If the lack of power is caused by retarded timing (as was the case on my new V6 when first driven home) it makes the engine unusually quiet and smooth - so restoring normal performance by fixing whatever is causing the timing to get retarded actually makes the engine noisier and more rawty sounding...

On the other hand if the lack of power is due to a misfire the engine gets noisier and rougher when the power is lacking, especially under heavy acceleration - fixing the misfire and restoring normal power then makes the engine quieter and smoother.

Since your engine got quieter and smoother when the power increased its a safe bet that the problem was a misfire not retarded timing.

Funny you mention starting improvement - old V6 shortly before selling it was very good at starting and caught instantly, and I think the work I did on the ignition system was a major part of that as it had new plugs, plug leads and new coil pack in it.

On the other hand new V6 doesn't start quite as well - it always starts but it doesn't catch quite as quickly and doesn't start quite as eagerly, and I think the reason is ignition, and possibly the plug leads.

Do you have the exact model number of the plugs you fitted Jim ? I'll be wanting to replace the plugs when I do the leads in a month or so and was going to stick with Bosch FR8KDC but I'd consider a four electrode type if you're getting good results from it...

[CitroJim]

Thanks for that Simon It all makes a lot of sense. I really appreciate your views on this.

Do you have the exact model number of the plugs you fitted Jim ? I'll be wanting to replace the plugs when I do the leads in a month or so and was going to stick with Bosch FR8KDC but I'd consider a four electrode type if you're getting good results from it...

They are Bosch Super Fours HR78X.

Here's an ebay listing for them.. Good price too!

EDIT: Just noticed the ebay picture is wrong!!! The picture shows ordinary single-point sparkers...