Brief Encounter II - The Sequel

[CitroJim]

After far too much of a delay I was back working on the V6 this evening

Great to be back wielding spanners around it again and I have a few clear eveings now so hopefully this week will see some progress.

This evening I deviated from the gearbox to have a look at the cambelt tensioners and the water pump in preparation for compiling a list of spares I need to get.

The cambelt had been changed relatively recently and examination showed this to be very much the case as all the tensioners are in good condition, as is the water pump. I found the timing to be very slightly out but not seriously so.

With the engine out and on the garage floor, the timing belt is not difficult but would be fiddly on a par with a 2.1TD if still in the car. It's not a terribly difficult job though, especially if the later ES9J4S eccentric tensioner is fitted.

It's good to see that PSA made a better job of some aspects of the design of the V6 engine over the XUD. The first thing they did better was the auxillary belt tensioner..



This comes off easily Next, the crank pulley. It's not one of those suilly dual-mass things and is attached with four studs to a boss so no need to undo the crank centre bolt



The cambelt covers are held on with small captive bolts and they all slip off very easily, unlike say, a 1.9TD



In a trice, they're all off!



The crank is then locked with a pin...



And then the cams are locked after loosening the four studs in each cam sprocket. The special tool is used to move the cams slightly to allow the locking pins to slip in.



Then it's off with the eccentric tensioner..



And then the belt can be removed.

Before the water pump is exposed, the engine mount must come off and before this can come off, the jockey wheel between the cam sprockets (effectivly in the valley of the vee) must be removed.



Finding the tensioners all in good condition means I've saved a few bob in not having to replace them I just hope I don't live to regret not replacing them now...

I've used the Citroen special tools to lock the crank and cams but these are by no means essential.

At the conclusion of this evening, the list of replacement parts needed has shrunken considerably I will be replacing the cambelt even though it looks fine.

I'm hoping to have the car ready to roll in six weeks as that coincides nicely with the date I plan to sell my old 1.9TD. That'll mean the insurance cover currently on the 1.9TD can be transferred over to the V6.

Tomorrow I'll practice replacing the cambelt and adjusting it, removing the alternator to give it a good cleanup from the LHM that has spilt over it for a long time from a leaky hydraulic pump and then attack the very tight oil filter.

After that, it's back to the gearbox and the beginning of the rebuild.

progress is being made There is light at the end of the tunnel!

[CitroJim]

After replacing the 2.1TD Auxillary belt I could get back to playing V6...

First up was another attempt to get the oil filter off Hand tight they say I'd like to see the hands of the person who fitted that one It took my beefy webbing strap with a breaker bar on the end of it to shift it and still it put up a fight!

It's off now and looking very mangled and dented

I bought a new oil filter from GSF and the new one looks humungous. It is massive. I did wonder if it was the right one (a Mann W840) and it is but in checking I find this filter is more commonly used on lorries...

Next up was the removal of the alternator for clean-up purposes as it is truely covered in oily muck as a result of a long time weep of LHM from the HP pump dripping on it. The HP pump weep was from the usual place and a new O ring has been fitted.

Again, in good V6 tradition, the alternator is not difficult to remove except that the HP pump pulley has to come off to give access to one of its four mounting bolts. Luckily the pulley is held on to it's central boss in the same way as the crank pulley with four 10mm studs.

Also purchesed from GSF was a new heater matrix for the car. I'm going to fit it before the engine goes back in...

Interestingly, the same heater matrix is used in the Pug 306, the Xsara and the Berlingo/Partner

The evening's fun was rounded off with a trial refit of the cambelt

[CitroJim]

I took a day off today and had a good V6 session.

Given it was such a lovely, warm day I did a job I've been putting off for a while and that was to give the engine bay a good clean and degrease. It was very mucky in general and greasy enough that dirty hands were alwas a result from working in there. Years of LHM weeps were the main culprit.

I bought a 2.5L can of Gunk and got cracking. It was a mucky job, especially all the dirty water on my drive that would not freely run away after rinising but now I have a clean, if not pristine, engine bay and a nice clean drive to boot

I also cleaned up the very mucky alternator which had suffered badly from the weeping pump. It's now superficially clean but so much LHM is inside that I must strip the alternator and clean it fully before it goes back on the car. LHM actually ran out of it during cleaning

I removed the radiator and gave it a good clean and flush, only to discover I'd damaged it removing the engine Flushing revealed a small hole. The rad is not in good overall condition so no great loss really so a new one is on the shopping list. Again, it was remarkable how much muck and bits of our avian friends had accumulated between the rad and A/C condenser...

I gave the engine a clean-up but only where it needed it which was around the oil filter, HP pump and rear lower engine mount. Everywhere else, the engine is fairly presentable.

Mike (Xantia V6) came to vist this evening with his MK1 V6. We enjoyed an extremely good natter, a run through his with the Lexia and a check of the suspension. Mike offered me a drive of his V6 and I acccepted very readily

What an experience! Not having driven an auto for 16 years I was a bit shaky at first and before starting rattled the gearstick to check it was in neutral Driving without a clutch and not having to operate a gearstick is odd at first but very quickly becomes accepted.

They go rather well I'm happy to report Just squeeze the pedal and off it goes, effortlessly and very rapidly and with gentle squeezing, undramatic in the extreme; you can barely feel it changing gear or gathering spped quickly. Squeeze hard and invoke kickdown at around 50mph and wow! A monster is unleashed 8)

And it's all accompanied by that gorgeous V6 soundtrack 8) The ride and comfort of the car is supurb and the V6 burble quite muted within until you floor it and it sounds a bit like a racing car and ohh, so smooth

If ever I needed a bit of incentive to get mine roadworthy, I received it this evening I'm going to thoroughly enjoy my V6 8)

[CitroJim]

STOP PRESS!!!

I believe I have found out why the gearbox failed

Xac came to visit this evening and in looking at the gearbox valve block, he spotted a spring hanging out of the block.

On further investigation we found that the spring that preloads valve SIV was broken and the spring stop "T" piece broken in half The remains of the "T" piece exhibited a lot of fretting marks.

The picture shows the broken spring and "T" piece.. There are marks on the end of the SIV pistion that suggests it had spent time hitting the "T" piece hard, thus eventually breaking it.



Valve SIV is only active in 3rd gear emergency mode. It operates Clutch B, the one that burned out.

Our train of thought on the failure is this. The spring broke and allowed valve SIV to flutter and allow Clutch B to engage when it should have been disengaged. In 4th gear, the drum of Clutch B is prevented from rotation by Brake C. If SIV fluttered and allowed Clutch B to partially engage whilst its drum was braked, it would slip, get very hot and destroy itself.

Therefore it looks like one little spring in the valve caused all this mayhem!

[Deanxm]

Hi Jim

This is all very interesting, i swapped my valveblock on the HP 18 a couple of weeks back because of rough shifting, it turned out to be the exact same problem.

This picture shows the underside of the valveblock, the upper valve with the plastic arm is the selector and the one below that is a little more heavy duty is the kickdown/load sensor, what had happened is the return spring in the valve had snapped, so when you pushed on the throttle, in the valve would go and when you released the throttle in it would stay, the box was always shifting rough when throttling light because it thought you where pedal to the metal (or near enough) all the time, although not as dramatic as your failure it was very uncomfortable just glad i sorted it asap.

Glad you found it anyway Jim, wouldnt want to put that back in the car, clutch B wouldnt of lasted that long

D

[myglaren]

Superb bit of forensic detective work there.
Nice clean unit too.

[xantia_v6]

Very interesting development...

It does change the prognosis for transmissions that are just suffering from slightly blocked oil filters, unless the reduced oil pressure somehow contributes to the spring failure etc.

[Deanxm]

I would have said the springs fail because of fatigue, if you see how delicate and small they are and the amount of times they are compressed, in my case every time you move the throttle that spring is moving, its a lot of use!

D

[CitroJim]

They are indeed delicate and small Dean and it's not suprising they break at high mileages.

Sadly, they're not available as a separate spare part and nor are the "T" shaped retainers This sort of breakage effectively writes off the valve block unless you have a spare you can rob. I shall use the valve block complete from my spares 'box.

Reassembly has now commenced. Or rather, loose reaseembly of my working 'box has started so that I can again strip my spares 'box to extract from that the bits I need to make my working 'box good. I fear a massive mixup if I have both apart at the same time. I also have a problem that I've no space to have both apart at the same time as you'd be amazed at how much room a stripped box takes up!

Not much progress today though as Gareth's TD occupied a good wedge of time along with some essential garden work and a couple of visits from friends..

Hopefully more will be achieved tomorrow

[Deanxm]

Sadly, they're not available as a separate spare part and nor are the "T" shaped retainers Sad

Damn, the size and strength of the spring would be critical too so i doubt you could chuck any old thing in there. Its a shame such a high quality well engineered bit of kit as the valveblock is rendered scrap all because of a few pence spring

D

[CitroJim]

It's been such a frustrating week with mu V6 activities I've not had a lot of time spare in a big enough chunk to really get anything significant done Trouble is, I'm at that point now that I want to get the car up and running so i can enjoy it as I know I will!

yesterday I finally found a few hours spare and forfeited an opportunity to watch the Spanish Grand prix on TV in favour of a bit of V6 work. Well, I could miss it with no worries as it was a foregone concluison that Button would win..

It was a bit of one step forward, two steps back really My dismantled gearbox had collected a fair amount of dust whichst it's been stripped apart so that necessated another round of cleaning. I did begin the reassembly of the 'box but hit a snag when testing the operation of the F Brake piston with compressed air, I pushed the piston out too far and it sliced it's inner O ring, ruining it I now have to order a spare. That did not hold me up too far as there was plenty of other reassembly I could get on with.

I'm now happily at the stage now where all the work is reassembly and I'm sure with a few clear days of work, I'll be ready to drop the engine/gearbox back into the car

To that end, I've finally secured a few days off work this week and this time I'm going to devote tham all to the V6 and nothing, repeat nothing this time is going to side-track me

More later

[addo]

...I've finally secured a few days off work this week and this time I'm going to devote tham all to the V6 and nothing, repeat nothing this time is going to side-track me...

Not even Emmanuelle Béart in a negligee, gliding through your garage door with a bottle of champagne and two glasses?

Or the whiff of a "barn find" DS19 untouched since the late sixties? Or - even a week long strike by Gatso maintenance crews?

[CitroJim]

Not even Emmanuelle Béart in a negligee, gliding through your garage door with a bottle of champagne and two glasses?

Umm, maybe Not sure the GF would approve though

Or the whiff of a "barn find" DS19 untouched since the late sixties? Or - even a week long strike by Gatso maintenance crews?

Very tempting 8) My neighbour asked what my next project would be after the V6 I'll start looking in barns...

Well, as predicted, I've devoted a lot of time and I'm happy to report the gearbox is rebuilt, semi-tested and ready to go back on the engine.

In the end, most of the internals of my spares donor gearbox ended up in the casings of the old 'box. All the friction materials, the valve block, the B and E Clutch/Input Shaft assembly complete, the cooler, the oil pmp internals and the torque convertor. I did have a bit of fun getting the input shaft endfloat good by selecting the best fit of shims and end covers...

The 'box was reassembled with new gaskets, filter and seals. Hopefully, it'll now be good and will, effectively, be a 40K gearbox.

I did find the two 'boxes were slightly different internally which necessated some juggling of bits such as the valve block loom.

My last job was to fill it with oil and spin it over. I managed to get enoght oil pressure to fill the TC so looking good. Shame I'll not know if it is all OK until the whole car is all back together Fingers crossed!

I've now completed all the cleaning up of the engine and ancillaries so everything I touch from now on is at least grease-free I even took the loom off of the engine so it could receive a cleanup and to give access to clean the top of the engine. Someone in the past had been careless when refilling it with oil and the plug well nearest the oil filler was half-full of oil

Speaking of plugs, I wanted to inspect them and found them very tight on their threads. After nattering about this to xantia_v6, he recommened undoing them about half a turn and spraying a little Plus-Gas around them. Worked a treat

I think I'll replace the plugs even though they look good. Seems silly, given the job it is to get to them, not to really.

The next jobs is to replace the cambelt, refit all the removed engine ancillaries and marry the gearbox back to the engine. After that, make the engine ready for dropping back into the engine bay It's not really far off now..

Before the engine goes back in, I'm going to replace the heater matrix as it'll be easier with the engine out.

[DickieG]

So then back on the road by Sunday then

[CitroJim]

So then back on the road by Sunday then

I wish Unless I really pull out every stop on Sunday as I'm going up to Sheffield with the GF on Saturday

Mind you, with progress as it is currently, who knows as there's still two days of this week left

On second thoughts, I can't do the matrix with the engine out as it'll be impossible to do the job with the car up against the wall so the engine will have to go back in just to move it and give power for the seats to move back