Citroen C5 1.6 VTR (2011)

[IntoTheValley]

Hello everyone. I'm new to the forum and would like to give advice on issues which may come across other C5 owners. I have a 2011 (61 plate) C5 1.6 VTR and over the past few months some serious issues have arisen with the car and any help I can give to owners I would be more than welcome to give advice.

Saturday morning (1/2/14) I tried to start the car to no avail. Everything was ok till then. I phoned the AA and the technician thought it might be the ignition key as he checked out all possibilities of the 'no start'. As a matter of interest, he pulled back the top timing belt cover and quickly noticed, whilst trying to turn the engine over, the camshaft was'nt. Pinged timing belt? Dropped valves? Burst camshaft? Neither. Towed it down to my mates garage and we started to strip the bits and bobs off and eventually got the whole timing belt off, it was found to be ok. Took the rocker off to find one of the cam followers was pinged. Got a new Gates timing belt with water pump, pulley and tensioner. Now where do we begin about the timing of the crank, cam and fuel pump. Gates' diagram clearly illustrated that this belt kit was for my car. Firstly, make sure the crank peg hole is at 12'0clock, no problem. Secondly, ensure the flywheel alignment peg is in place, no way, 10mm out. Driftwood to be at 11 O'clock position, no way, position was at 3 O'clock, cam ligning peg at 10 O'clock, that was fine. Since these timing marks were all to cock, a mate of mine copied a Citroen garage auto date timing marks for the car, same action with flywheel and crank positions being out of sync. We got the timing done manually, forget about the fuel pump being lined up, its a high pressure pump and doesn't need aligned, peg the crankshaft through the round hole, there is only one on the pulley, into the hole at 12 O'clock. line up the the cam, there is an alignement hole in the pulley, position that at 10 O'clock at it will mate with the hole on the rocker, fit a lining up tool or a 6mm drill bit and thats it fully lined up at TDC. Now for the Citroen C5 timing belt for model and year of my car. Forget that one, its too short. We ended up getting a timing belt for a Citroen DS3. So, there you go, do not rely on diagrams for cylinder head build ups or a situation I experienced for a 2011 Citroen C5. How the cam follower broke, as the say in France, je ne sais pas!

[citroenxm]

Out of interest is this the newer 1.6 8v engine?

I know the 16v engine has timing pins positions just like the old xud engine that you can't go wrong and also on the 16v the fuel pump IS timed too...

interesting if thé fuel pump isn't again.

[IntoTheValley]

The fuel pump does not need to be in any position. Its a high pressure lift pump. As for the engine, it's the new engine in this particular car. Its an 8 valve engine, there must be some variations because all the timing diagrams I sourced contradicted each other like what I posted.

[citroenxm]

That's further interesting.. as the 16v engine mounted pump was a lift pump aswell as a rail pressure pump but they are pinned.

excellent discovery for future work

incidentally the original Xantia 2.0 hdi engine fuel pump was not pinned but these had a lift pump in the fuel tank.