All Things V6...

[Hell Razor5543]

Will people stop showing me nice XM's please......I am getting too many little voices in my head.

"You need to enhance your fleet. You need to enhance your fleet. Your next project will be an XM. Your next project will be an XM".

[CitroJim]

Will people stop showing me nice XM's please......I am getting too many little voices in my head.

"You need to enhance your fleet. You need to enhance your fleet. Your next project will be an XM. Your next project will be an XM".

[Stickyfinger]

I need to enhance my fleet. I need to enhance my fleet. My next project will be an XM. My next projeeeeee.........................HEY STOP That !

[CitroJim]

Pray be careful Alasdair... I'm getting worried about you....

[DHallworth]

Well, it's the first weekend since the XM has been home. As the C6 and the Range Rover both passed their MOT's without any advisories yesterday morning I thought I'd give the XM some attention as I'd told Paul not to bother with the trivial things that I could sort as it had already taken more of his time then I ever thought it would.

First up was the two front spheres and the front centre. The front spheres walked off by hand and were a doddle to change, the front centre was a different story though. Paul had warned me that this one was TIGHT as when he'd tried to remove it on the car it was bending the bracket that it's mounted to. With this in mind I attempted to undo the two 3.5mm and two 17mm pipes going into it, to my amazement these came undone without any problems. With the regulator strapped tightly in a vice I got a hammer and cold steel chisel and after a few minutes of abuse the old sphere became loose and was changed.



After re-assembly the front of the car is totally transformed, it's gone from having virtually no movement whatsoever to floating like an XM should.

http://vid15.photobucket.com/albums/a37 ... ltz24f.mp4

After these were done I turned my attention to the speedo. As Paul couldn't drive the car until he was going to the MOT we had no idea that the speedo didn't work and unfortunately he didn't have time to sort it as he was leaving to meet me with the car the next day. We both used a sat nav so we knew what speed we were doing on the way home. The trip computer on this car never worked when dad had the car the first time around so I changed the speed sensor in the gearbox and checked the lower cable, this was ok. I then took the dials out of the car and found that where the cable goes into the back of the speedo was totally sheered. Thankfully I had one to replace it with so I set about doing that this morning.

I tied a Nylon fish tape to the end of the cable where the dials sit...



I also tied a bit of rope to the end under the bonnet as it gave me something to pull again as the cable is quite awkward to get to.



This came out without any hassle at all so I tied the new cable to the fish tape and pulled it back the way it had come out. This was a little bit fiddly as I had to feed it from under the bonnet and pull the fish tape at the same time. It did however come right through in one go and it was so easy to do. Fitting that cable without doing that I'd imagine is a right bugger of a job!

You can see the broken one beside the new one here...



New one threaded through poking out of the hole in the dash...



The third and final job for this morning was the spare wheel carrier. The bolt in the carrier sheered when Paul tried to take it out. I told him not to worry about it and that I'd sort it when the car came home. He did the work he needed under the car and put the spare wheel, carrier and tool kit in the boot when I picked the car up. Thankfully where the bolt had sheered there was enough left to get a pair of mol grips onto it. It was stuck solid! Thankfully though, some heat from the blowtorch and it freed up nicely allowing me to unscrew it without having to drill it out and tap the whole again. The carrier is now back in place with a new bolt holding it in. I also put a new bolt and hanger through the boot floor as that was fairly stiff and s**t looking. I've covered the long bolt in copper slip so hopefully that should prevent it seizing for a while. I tend to drop these down on the other two cars and lubricate them once a year to keep them from seizing so I'll start doing it to this one as well



All in, she's riding and driving great now apart from the throttle being a bit stiff. It does appear to be freeing off with use though which is good. The bodywork could do with a bit of tidying but if she proves herself to be mechanically reliable then I'll get some bodywork straightened out and resprayed next year. Now this 24v has had some life saving surgery she's not going to be let go of again

David.

[bxzx16v]

Some good jobs ticked off the to do list David .

Mark

[CitroJim]

Fantastic work David

I remember the one time I replaced an S1 XM speedo cable... What a bloody horrendous job! You made it look easy there

A bit of heat works wonders on rusty bolts doesn't it? My investment in a small MAPP gas outfit has proved a good one... Rarely does the old 'hot spanner' fail and as a bonus I can get just enough heat out of it for small welds... It's brilliant for brazing too...

[Stickyfinger]

That looks a PITA job....

[CitroJim]

That looks a PITA job....

The speedo cable really is...

[citroenxm]

Good additional work there which i did not have time to do...

[DHallworth]

A fortnight before the C6 10th Anniversary Gathering I had the C6 into Pristine Machine to be detailed. I've only just seen the pictures he took of it. I can't say how pleased I am with the results from it

Anyway, a picture speaks a million words...









David.

[CitroJim]

That looks lovely David

[Stickyfinger]

missed a bit


, nope, that was a fly

[CitroJim]

missed a bit


, nope, that was a fly

[DHallworth]

There are nights when I really hate cars... Tonight is one of them!

Whoever decided to put a steel balljoint into an aluminium pivot deserves to be shot!

All of the parts I'd ordered arrived into stock yesterday so I thought that tonight would be a fairly simple job of reassembling the car.

My shopping list comprised of:

2 upper ball joints
4 upper hub bushes
2 rear abs sensors
1 front abs sensor
2 bottom hub bushes
and a handful of replacement locknuts that I'd taken off when stripping the car down.

Tonight I tried to get the upper balljoint off the N/S/F hub. It didn't play ball...



I applied some heat from the blowtorch and tried again...



After this failed I removed the whole pivot assembly from the car and put it in the vice. I upped the ante a bit this time and moved from the blowtorch to the Oxy Acetylene rig... I got the hub hot and used a big pair of stilsons, it still wouldn't budge. I slipped a 6 foot scaffolding pole over the stilsons and finally the balljoint moved.

As soon as the heat escaped from the hub the balljoint got tight again so I had to keep the hub constantly hot to keep the ball joint moving. It was tight all the way out. Once the balljoint got half way out of the pivot I noticed that when I pulled the stilsons the balljoint went off square, the next pull of the stilsons saw it just tear out of the pivot leaving half of the threads knackered.







Annoyingly now I'm going to have to buy the whole pivot from Citroen which retails at £252. It comes with the lower bush, balljoint and upper bushes that I've already spent about £90 on...

I've bought all the parts to do the N/S/F as well but after all of these problems doing the drivers side I'm tempted to keep them in the box until it fails it's MOT on them Larf!

Anyway, seeing as I'm now on first name terms with the parts guys I'll go and see what they can do in the morning. It never rains but it pours!

David.