Time for an update, and a list of everything we have done to the VSX since acquiring it..
Changed the slam panel and front bumper, replaced knackered headlight bulbs, bought new number plates to replace the broken front one and tired looking rear one.
CLEAN CLEAN CLEAN! We completely stripped the interior back to bare metal apart from the dash to clean the carpets and seats - their original smell was absolutely disgusting! It seriously smelt as though something had died in there, on the journey home my dad drove it while I drove in front in the Activa, and despite the very heavy rain he had the windows open the whole time.
We went in search of rattles at the back of the car, we found that the high level brake light kept flapping about and making a din, along with the boot solenoid rod, so we tightened up the brake light (yes.. it was loose for whatever reason?!) and made a plastic collar for the metal boot solenoid rod which stopped that rattling about.
Almost all of the interior was filthy and/or scratched to bits, so the bits that were hard plastic required replacing, for £20 we got replacment B and C pillar trim, plastic boot trim, boot lid/door seal, and the parcel shelf, billy bargain.
Then we removed the dashboard clocks to replace bulbs, while I was there we found out the reason why the indicator and light stalks along with the rest of the steering wheel surround flopped around (which made operating any of the stalks an absolute nightmare) - the small torx (IIRC) screws holding it in place were all loose - much like the high level brake light, who knows..
The passenger footwell got saturated in any rain, turned out that the windscreen scuttle wasn't attached with any sealant! Underneath the scuttle was about half a buckets worth of compost, so a BIG clean out and application of sealant has sorted mess, the rear offside footwell also filled to a couple of inches of water in heavy rain, so we had the roof lining off to get to the sun roof drains which were loose and slightly blocked. This would explain the awful smell in the carpets, especially the passenger footwell... That was a grim smell.. The pollen filter was absolutely minging, full of sticks and flies and general blackness, presumably because of the compost type stuff and water leaking past the scuttle.. Niice!
We then set about the mechanical side of things (bearing in mind I wasnt using the car at this time anyway). The previous owner neglected services, so the first job was an oil and all three filter changes, we also set about changing the cam belt and water pump, which was a first for us, we'd never done anything timing related with engines before. We also changed the AUX belt and one of the tensioners as it sounded dreadful, when we took the old one off it was practically seized! A strange thing about when we first got the car was that it was totally missing it's fuel filler cap, so after this work I had a look at the fuel tank strainer which was pretty much spotless, phew! Surprisingly, finding a replacement cap is a nightmare in most scrap yards, as they take them off to drain the tanks and presumably just lob them - found one eventually however..
The rear of the car had an LHM leak, which was accurately diagnosed by you guys as being one of the LHM return hoses being loose in another hose, a tight gap, black arms, and one cable tie later and the leak is sorted.
The spheres on the car all seemed fairly flat, especially the accumulator, the HP pump was leaking from one of the high pressure pipe unions, I assumed it was to do with the accumulator (with all the spheres on the car being the originals! 13 years old! Apart from the rear corners which were a mere 5 years old...
) So we changed the Accumulator and Anti-Sink spheres, safety ones first, along with the HP pump o-ring seal.
All this was done before I'd used the car. Since using the car I've done the following:
One of the glow plugs failed making it run like a bag of spanners when cold, we will probably change the other three one of these days!
The themostat didn't seem to be sitting at the correct temperature when the car was been driven normally, so I replaced the thermostat which doesn't seem to have done all that much, I get the feeling the sensors are slightly out.
Spheres - The 6 suspension specific spheres all felt fairly flat, not totally locked out but not far off, so I nicked all the ones I needed off my Activa and put them on the VSX and the ride is big Citroen smooth once again!
Fuel piping - the fuel lines feeding the fuel filter housing had basically turned to stone and were leaking air in - more noticable when running on WVO, so that was changed. Then I was unable to prime the system
. Turns out the priming bulb was knackered too, so after a search about to get one, screwfix were the cheapest selling a bulb for about £5! Not the best quality feeling primer I've ever used but it does the job.
Fixed the alarm - requiring a new alarm ECU relay + tell tale LED nabbed from a scrap yard VSX (
) and ultrasonic sensors (Thanks to citroenxm for the replacement sensors). Also replaced the boot locking solenoid as it was VERY noisey, the replacement is still loud but no where near as loud.
In other news, I had two very good hauls at a local scrappers over the past couple of weeks:
First trip - for £10 we got a none hydractive offside strut top and gaiter dated 08, with two 12 month old none hydractive strut spheres, a perfect condition aluminium 1.9TD radiatior, along with some other small bits.
And the second trip, again for £10, we got 2 perfect condition hydractive electrovalves, 1 perfect condition hydractive offside strut top and gaiter dated 07, an anti sink valve, an alarm ECU (of which the relay was used to sort the alarm issue), an alarm tell tale LED, a diesel primer to replace the tacky feeling screwfix one, and a washer jet. BARGAIN!!
Funnily enough both of the strut tops we got were offside ones, and both cars had absolultely knackered nearside strut tops. So it appears that the offside ones go first?
I'm certain there is more that I have missed, but you get the idea, so many things on this car were close to making the car very very scrappable, but luckily some idiot and his dad were willing to spent many many hours fixing it up. You'd honestly never know it was the same car.
Still no news on the Activa unfortunatly, other than that we have had the engine running.
The 2.1TD was bought off pazauk off here, I caught it just in time before it was going to the scrap yard. Glad I did as it seems a good car - I've not driven it since buying it though as it requires a bit of work. The rear height corrector seems to be playing up, but we're wondering if we bolted it back onto the car wrongly after removing it to free it up. And the engine could do with a cambelt change and general service. My mate might be interested in the finished article but I'm not sure what to do with it, the initial idea was to put the engine into the Activa (seeing as the 2.1 was only going to go to the scrappers anyway) but since stacking the Activa it doesn't make sense to strip the 2.1's engine.
) That and when I was in the Activa in a straight line I wasn't catching the 2.1TD, I was in the wrong gear so the revs were at about 3k but the turbo on the CT engine doesn't make much more power above that point anyway.
