Well ive had quite a productive day with the XM.
The turbo is now working properly and consistently, it pulls like a train now. Im very impressed that I got the turbo working, that is a major tick off my list. After my earlier post I went back out and did some more freeing of the wastegate lever, it was quite free by then but its much better now and has not stuck again. Ill see how that goes over the next few uses of the car. Oddly enough the car is much happier at pulling away from rest now, its not the slug it was this morning.
Andrew, im sure that is sometimes the case. However the wastegate lever was so badly stuck that it took me a lot of force and time to be able to move it at first. It was jammed tight in almost the fully open position.
I also checked the spark plugs but they were fine, nice and clean and not worn, they don't look that old. I replaced the air filter too. I then set about checking the tracking, which was about right but the steering wheel was to one side slightly. I fiddled with the tracking until it and the wheel was right.
I then set about some of the front end cosmetics. The front bumper and nose cone had been spray painted in the past, the nose cone in particular had gone very dull in places and it does have quite a few runs in the paint. The front bumper was scuffed on both corners and quite badly in the centre, it looked very tatty. It was also missing the front bumper tow eye cover.
I had a spare tow eye cover but in Mandarin Red, so I painted that black and it turned out very well indeed.
I then swapped over one of the front indicator/fog lights for a much better one, which I already had. How the fog light was working I have no idea, the connections were rusted together.
As the lower bumper lip had suffered quite a lot of scuffs and chips and seeing how well my tow eye cover turned out, I thought why not, Ill paint the bottom bumper lip. It looked much better with a fresh coat of paint and no more scratches and chips. I wouldn't ever attempt painting bumpers usually, but as the front of this car was looking very shabby due to scuffs and also previous attempts at spraying I didn't really have much to lose, especially as Ill get getting it to a bodyshop at some point to have a proper job done. So took the opportunity to have a bash at it.
However, I then thought I might as well do the scruffy bumper rub strip, as its rough looking and can't get anyworse. The corners have been badly filled with filler in the past and it was flaking off. I sanded it back slightly and did an attempt at preparing the bumper for paint. After a couple of coats it was looking much better and the finish slightly imrpoved too. Im quite pleased with that. I should have sanded back the NS corner a bit better, but at least it has paint on it now!
Before:
During:
At this stage the dull nose cone was letting the front down, Im not up to painting that myself so set about with some cutting polish. It came up very well and has some shine about it now. The runs in the paint from someone previous attempt are obviously still there, but its much more tidy looking now.
Before:
After:
All finished:
A front OS sidelight unit is on my list of things to get.
The car will go into a bodyshop at some point and have the front end resprayed and the dent in the rear wing repaired too. So this is just a temporary fix until then, its looking much smarter for now though.
The next jobs will be a geabox oil and filter change and to send the speedo cable away to speedycables for them to make up a new one. Its coming along nicely
Im off to wales for the week on Saturday, then to the DSM the following weekend and back home on the Sunday. That might be something like 800 miles, plus. I am very tempted to take the Prestige
It's already looking a lot better,you've made good progress so far 
Is it both you and Chris going to see Paul then?