Citrojim's Pixo, Saxo and Cycling Tales

[CitroJim]

And miss the worst of the traffic for the trip home as well i guess Jim

Absolutely I was staggered to see what the time was when I got in the car! That one hour planned, two hours expected turned out more like three Delayed again at the level crossing Two big freight trains one after the other. Delayed so much, I had time to set up my iPod and listen to three tracks on it before the barriers went up...

Apart from the torrential rain as far as Leicester it was a great run home. Been dry all day down here.

It was great to meet you, Rachel and the little 'uns today. Real Yorkshire hospitality In fact, all in all, an excellent day out and an excellent haul of 2.1 stuff. Very, very much appreciated Will

Hope the sump repair is successful, at least until another can be sourced and fitted.

I very much enjoyed an intersting natter to Martin when I visited Pleiades on the way up to drop in some Activa spheres for a recharge. Being immersed in the world of Citroen hydraulics for an hour or so was rather special. Thanks Martin!

[KP]

Your more than welcome Jim and glad to hear you got home safe if not a tad late!

[CitroJim]

Martin at Pleiades very kindly lent me a sphere tester and on Wednesday I spent a happy hour or so testing my stock of (mostly) Activa second-hand spheres. I was happy to find all had a bit of residual pressure in them and even happier to find that the stock yielded a good set of front corner spheres and a good front Hydractive centre sphere. Also a couple of rear Hydractives that were 5 bars down All the rest are not totally flat and are therefore regassing candidates.

The good ones were all the 3-layer ones with the three dimples. They do hold their pressure well it seems although Martin tells me they tend to keep good pressure for a long time and then fail suddenly.

I also pulled off the temporray spheres I'd fitted to my Activa and found although the rear felt OK (well damped) but rather hard, the rear corners were 50% down at 15 bars although the Hydractive centre was only down by 5 bars.

I'm on a bit of a quest with spheres now and yesterday, in a flash of wanting to know an answer to a question that had bothered me for some time, I sported out and bought a set of new Amtex normal Hydractive rear corners and Hydractive centre spheres. These are similar to genuine Activa items but do differ slightly in pressures and damper hole sizes.

I fitted them and was pleasantly surprised to find they work really quite well. The rear is now well damped and generally feels good. Not too soft or hard really. The main thing is the damping is spot-on as a spin around my Activa test track nicely proved My test track is a circular run of lightly used back roads full of tight bends, poor surfaces and dips, some hidden.

Speaking of hidden dips...




In an earlier post, I pondered why the Hydractive Centre Spheres retain so much pressure. Today I worked out why. Basically, when the main hydraulic system is depressurised, the pressure in the Hydractive Centre Sphere will press on a piston in the Hydractive block and effectively shut the sphere off from the main circuit as it does when the electrovalve is switched to hard mode. Even operating the electrovalve to soft mode won't release the pressure as there is no main system pressure to shuttle the electrovalve piston across. I now see why MK2 Xantias have bleed valves on the Hydractive blocks. I don't mind undoing a sphere under pressure (and it's easy with a Pleiades tool) but it is messy Mind you, LHM is a great hair conditioner though. I got a load in my hair the other day and when I washed it, my hair felt all silky and smooth!!!

[CitroJim]

I knew there was a job to do when I was on leave last week and I forgot to get it done That was to have my Activa MOT'd I thought I had plenty of time and that the MOT expired in November. Gareth's does but not mine

Last night I discovered the MOT was just on the verge of expiring Normally I take them a month early. Anyway...

I booked a test for this afternoon, took a couple of hours of casual leave and gave the car a quick check-over. All fine except the centre rear lap belt was a bit reluctant to latch when pulled hard. I whipped it off, looked at the inertia reel, gave it a quick clean and all good.

In for MOT and happily it sailed through without any advisories

I've just looked at the emissions test sheet and got quite a shock at just how clean it is.

CO on fast idle (2700 rpm) was was 0.079% (pass limit 0.2%), HC on fast idle was 6 (pass limit 200) and Lambda at 0.999! How much nearer to one can you get? (Lambda limits are 0.970 and 1.030)

CO on natural idle was 0.007% (pass limit 0.3)

So clean you could use it as an air-freshener

Rumours that a decatted Activa can pass the MOT on emissions seem perfectly feasible on that basis.

Richard, did the car have a new Lambda probe fitted fairly recently?

Very happy. All ready for a journey to Bristol and back on Friday now.

[DickieG]

Richard, did the car have a new Lambda probe fitted fairly recently? All ready for a journey to Bristol and back on Friday now.

Good news on the Activa there Jim, yes I did fit a new Lambda sensor in order to reduce the slight hesitation those engines suffer from on motorways, I believe it helped and looking at your emission figures that does seem to be the case.

Pop in for a cuppa on Friday if you get the time, I'll give you a "waft along" in the DS

[CitroJim]

I'll give you a "waft along" in the DS

That is a great description of the DS ride Richard

I made a typo. Goodness knows where I got Friday from. It's Saturday we're off to Bristol. Going to see some of the family I've not seen since 1989 and the girls have never met. They have a lot of cousins to catch up with. It's all to celebrate one of my maternal Aunt's 80th birthday. She's remarkably sprightly and carries on like somone 20 years her junior. Should be a good day.

We're leaving early and will be back late.

I really do want a "waft" in the DS. Looking forward to that

[XantiaMan]

Just a quick reply, since the faults have been cleared there is a big difference in sharpness and response, thanks again jim fof sorting it.

[CitroJim]

since the faults have been cleared there is a big difference in sharpness and response, thanks again jim for sorting it.

No worries Gareth,

Mine too has been pin-sharp since as well so I reckon that more or less proves that if the Hydractive ECU records a fault, it'll slip to defaults and handling will suffer.

This blog entry is late, very late. I've been pretty busy though and for the whole weekend I was denied internet access at home. Basically as I sit on top of the forum databases, I cannot use my IP address to both serve the databases and post in the forum without risk of crashing the forum. I can read it at quiet times but I dane not risk posting. Normally I look at the forum through a VPN connection but due to weekend engineering works at the other end of the VPN, I was denied it

Last weekend the kids and I had a brilliant run down to Bristol and back in the Activa and thoroughly enjoyed every minute of the family get-together The Activa ran brilliantly and very economically. Although I've collected my refurbished Activa Spheres from Pleiades I've not yet fitted them as the standard Hydractive spheres work so well and give a beautiful ride. It's still a tad hard but very comfy all the same. I'm going to experiment a bit and try to soften the Activa a bit. I'm at that period in my life where I'm after comfort I intend to experiment with different pressures of Activa Balancing Sphere. This sphere acts as a spring between the two anti-roll bars and softening this spring by putting a higher pressure sphere is worth a try. It should not affect cornering as the Activa Electrovalve switches it out when going around a corner. By standard it's a 30 bar sphere. I'll report back.

The 2.1TD had a quick bout of coolant leakage from a popped-apart heater matrix connector as detailed elseware. All fixed now but it was fun doing the job in the dark and cold At least I managed it without removing the manifold I did have a small worry when water was still dripping two days later. Luckily it was just residual water that had leaked and spilled previously. Amazing how it can hang around in the cold!

Xac popped in for a strut top swap on Cassy on Saturday. The weather just held out. Jenny is next...

[CitroJim]

I've just been out doing a bit more on the diesel pump and taking a few pictures. I took some general views of my workshop.

It looks so cluttered in the photos and a mess too but this is where I do a lot of my work and spend some very enjoyable time.

In reality it is quite tidy and organised but somehow it just does not come across in the pictures

Look carefully and you can see the diesel pump in it's jig mounted in the old blacksmiths vice.







Wish it was bigger

[DickieG]

You've got a lot of those funny green balls littered around the place, you could start a "Spot how many sphere's can you see" competition

[red_dwarfers]

I could nose around other peoples workshops for a pastime! I love going around to friends house and nosing through their toolbox...mind you they like to nose through mine too! I'll have to stick a couple of pictures up of my workspace at some point.

Think yourself lucky that you have the amount of space that you do have. I still live at home and share with me Dad, the stuff I can't put in the shed, celar or garage goes in me bedroom (RE: post a while back involved a picture of a steering wheel shrouding on my desk) And thats shared with me brother

[CitroJim]

You've got a lot of those funny green balls littered around the place, you could start a "Spot how many sphere's can you see" competition

They're everywhere, even in the conservatory I never realised there were so many littered around until you pointed it out Richard

Cue a new blockbuster film - "101 Spheres" (with apologies to Disney...)

Going through some more pictures, here's a rather moody shot of my beloved 2.1TD

[jgra1]

will have to put a pic of my shed on

[ACTIVE8]

You've got a lot of those funny green balls littered around the place, you could start a "Spot how many sphere's can you see" competition

Well they do say it takes some balls to run/own a Citroen.

[CitroJim]

Well they do say it takes some balls to run/own a Citroen.

Oh dear, what a week It's been crazy. I've barely had time to do the routine forum admin recently, let alone make any reasonable contribution to all the really good threads running at the moment.

All is very happy and good in CitroJim land, just very hectic and busy. The old adge that there are just not enough hours in the day is spot-on for me right now. sadly, the FCF has had to take a bac-seat. Even if I'm not actively posting, be sure I still look in a few times a day and always make time for the backups and routine forum admin.

I've taken on a new role at work and at present I'm doing both my new job and most of my old one as well. It's great fun and teriffically enjoyable and in time it'll settle but for now, both aspects of my job are very busy. I've been working long hours and my new job does not allow such free access to the internet as the old one did

Then there's the family who have been keeping me very busy, both the young 'uns and the very old 'uns - in fact tomorrrow Activa and I have to take a spin down to Somerset...

Over the months I've been getting more and more involved in our local Majorette troupe, the Black Diamonds. Our troupe is going from strength to strength and following our competition success in Clacton the other week we've been considered good enough to join "Twirlers UK". In fact we did not have a choice really but that means we must take part in six competitions next year and host one of them. Busy times ahead and I, by stealth, have become involved in the planning and organisation of all of this. Basically my girls volounteered me and the troupe leader sort of assumed I'd be keen to get involved after generally showiing myself to be a willing and helpful parent in the past. In truth, I had no choice. You don't argue with our troupe leader and live to tell the tale

Nothing of note to report on the Xantia front except to say that all three are going fine. My friend who currently has custody of my 1.9TD loves her to bits If he were not off on an overseas posting in April I think he'd have her for good.

Let's hope next week will be a bit quieter on both work and home fronts but somehow I fear it'll be even busier..

And then it'll be Christmas. I hate Christmas Well, not Christmas itself, I love that but all the preset buying, the crowds and general silliness really does my head in big time. I'm the worlds most terrible present buyer - I havn't a clue. Birthdays are the same. Robyn is 16 next week and I'm still struggling for a present for her.

Enough rambling. I'll try to make my next entry a bit more about my cars rather than about me I've still got a diesel pump in a million bits strewn across my bench patiently awaiting my attention