Tales of a C3, a Goddess and some BMW's.

[CitroJim]

Gosh Richard, that is remarkable!

I've seen a similar happening on a 1.9TD Xantia and that corroded the ECU pins a treat too...

If it were my car I'd be inclined to do a few wiring modes on it like putting a replacement (but non-standard) connector on the ECU and making up new harness wiring where necessary..

A lot of work but nothing to loose and a lot to gain. At least you know the ECU is basically OK..

[DickieG]

I've had a relatively busy time car wise recently, the clutch on my daughters C3 started slipping so I spent a day spannering fitting a replacement, interestingly the difference between the thickness of the old and new clutch plate was only about 2mm with the old one not looking bad at all. This job highlighted the issue with the price Citroen charge for parts from dealers, they want £200 for the clutch yet I sourced a genuine Citroen one from Neat Autos for just £75.

The DS has been out of hibernation now decent weather has arrived, last Saturday she flew through the MOT maintaining her record for never having an advisory so hopefully that will continue in the future, not bad for a 43 year old car

The C5 had a little hiccup in that I noticed a couple of spots on grease on the inside of the O/S/F wheel when I arrived at work recently, a quick inspection revealed that the large metal securing ring had failed, simply fitting a replacement sorted that out. A benefit of the 19" wheels is that they have large openings which allowed me to spot this problem right away before any damage was done.

One of the cars I look after at work is a 1948 Wolseley 18/80 that recently had a major restoration done by volunteers, the car looks wonderful with immaculate black paint and a completely new interior it gets all manner of wow's from onlookers, however like many old cars I've come across over the years underneath all the polish lies a horror of bodges.

The latest few include no seal on the gearbox input shaft so the gearbox dropped all of oil on the clutch, get that sorted try to start the engine to road test the new clutch and discover that the fuel tank is so full of crud that not only had the filter become blocked but the fuel line had as well this necessitated replacing the fuel line and sourcing a replacement fuel tank. Needless to say it's impossible to find a a fuel tank for a 1948 Wolseley so I'm having to get one made by a company called Pro Alloy when I dropped off the old tank there last week I was given a tour of the workshop, one little beastie in there was this Camaro where the engine produces something like 2,000 bhp, just look at the size of those turbo's!



I was very impressed with the bespoke work done by Pro Alloy who are incredibly helpful by spending time with customers ensuring that every possible detail is covered, the quality of their work was a real pleasure to observe as they not only do one off's but also produce items for companies such as Ford for Fiesta and Focus ST's. As I left there I couldn't help thinking that when the supply of V6 header tanks runs out this company will be the perfect place to get replacement ones made up.

[Stickyfinger]

@header/SwirlPot @
I have a set of "pattern ones" if you need them.

[CitroJim]

Excellent news on the DS MOT Richard And a very interesting blog all-round Most enjoyed!

[DickieG]

It appears that it's not only French cars that suffer from weird electric maladies as earlier this week I came across a very odd one on one of the year old year old Mondeo's I look after at work, the fault as reported was a flat battery as in non start due to the starter not being able to turn over the engine, even connecting up jump leads from a car with the engine running didn't make any difference, turning on the lights was met with the typical dim lights of a flat battery. Strangely enough after leaving the car for several hours, when I turned on the lights they illuminated as normal but still the starter didn't have enough grunt even with jump leads.

As far as all normal common sense would dictate the solution should be either charge up the current battery or fit a new one, however not in this case as the solution is to remove the battery positive lead then earth it out on the bodywork and connect it up again, after which normal service is resumed, try working that one out

[Stickyfinger]

Residual charge in modern solid state electrics is so strange it baffles me totally.

I was told by my local AutoSparkie that when he does any work on cars that likes to rid the car of it.........the subject came up as he commented it was the first time anybody had given him a paper sheet with the BSI reset/Battery removal procedure to follow before he touched my airbags,

[DickieG]

I spent some of the weekend sorting out a couple of minor niggles on the DS, first was a leaking clutch slave cylinder which was allowing a few drops of LHM to pass through the outlet pipe (doesn't have a return to the tank on a DS, just drops it on the floor!) the cylinder is like most things on a DS hidden from view behind the hydraulic pump so you have no option but to loosen various items, remove belts etc then remove the cylinder complete in order to replace the seals. As removing the cylinder also involves altering the clutch lever arm setting I set it up as per the workshop manual which involves using the starting handle to judge when the clutch starts to engage, can't say I've ever used a starting handle to effectively tune a car.

Having sorted that out next on the list was the centre exhaust box as the flanges for the rear pipes had rusted and I was getting fed up with having to periodically seal the joint's with exhaust paste. As with most things on a DS what appeared at first glance to be a 1/2 hour job turned into a couple of hours as I had to remove the whole system and dismantle it in order for the two centre pipes to line up correctly onto the new centre box.

With those two job's done, I was under the car checking for any leaks from the exhaust joints when I noticed a few drops of coolant passing close to my head, oh deep joy I now have a leaking water pump to replace which on a car 43 years old isn't one I'm looking forward to, thoughts of studs snapping off and threads stripping comes to mind with such a task, old cars can certainly test my patience at times.

[citronut]

however not in this case as the solution is to remove the battery positive lead then earth it out on the bodywork and connect it up again, after which normal service is resumed, try working that one out

https://www.dropbox.com/s/zuf7sx37aiae5 ... 6.png?dl=0" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Stickyfinger]

Or as my Activa has done to me all weekend

[DickieG]

Blasted water pump, why oh why did I start on this job this afternoon after spending a number of hours teasing off the nuts securing the water pump (several of them required direct heat to ease them so I made use of a little Creme Brûlée' blow lamp, worked a treat), I tried levering off the water pump from the housing behind it, both are aluminium so gently does it was the order of the day but it quickly became obvious that the pump wasn't budging at the bottom and most difficult to access stud as it has suffered different metal corrosion between the steel stud and aluminium housing. After spending about an hour grinding away with my Dremel at an acute angle I've now come to the point where the radiator needs to come out in order to access the troublesome point of the pump from a 90 degree angle, great, that'll be another couple of hours pulling the front of the car apart, anyone fancy buying a DS before I set light to it?

[citronut]

Richard
maybe this would warm your nuts up better than setting it alight

[Stickyfinger]

But you cannot use that to brown your sugar topping on the Creme Brûlée' or scorch your buttered Asparagus can you.

[DickieG]

Great idea Malcolm, we use an induction hob at home and it works a treat so whilst I quite fancy getting a nut induction heater the £1,000 price tag is putting me off at present.

Update on the DS, after removing the radiator I managed to grind away enough material from the water pump to eventually remove it, fitting the replacement was straightforward enough but I noticed that the tin plate used to time the ignition (it's attached to the water pump studs) was rather bent so possibly giving inaccurate reading's so whilst I had the opportunity I checked the timing by removing a spark plug and popping a long screwdriver onto the piston then rotating the engine to find TDC. I discovered that the plate was out by about 2° so I bent the plate into correct alignment then put the car back together so to speak, having done so and checked for water leaks I adjusted the ignition timing accordingly and noticed that despite the adjustment only being 2° the engine now runs far smoother than you would expect from such a small adjustment. However having since thought about it, unlike a modern fuel injected car that has a TDC sensor fitted to read the engine position directly off the flywheel, on the DS EFi the fuel injection get it's signal to 'fire' the injectors directly from the distributor so at the same time as you adjust the ignition timing on this car you also adjust the timing of when fuel is injected possibly making accurate ignition timing far more critical on a car using a similar system. Time will tell if I'm simply suffering from the 'placebo effect', anyway all is now well with the DS for the time being.



The original water pump showing the area around the seized stud.



The front end of the DS with the radiator and ducting removed showing that this car is a bit like Triggers broom with the number of new parts now fitted to it, water pump, lower water pipe, steering rack, sphere's, hydraulic pump, clutch re-engagment tool, 123 ignition distributor, coil, manifold pressure sensor, alternator, battery and brake pads, I don't even want to think about the cost of that lot!

[lexi]

Is your back holding up with all the ant mechanic stuff?

[elma]

I don't think it would be hard to make a nut induction heater, its on the project list. I'll put up some build instructions when I've got around to it. What I have in mind should be under £50.
Have to see if it will work with less kilowatts. Love the idea though as I've accident my burnt the odd component when blowtorching.