1997 Xantia 1.9TD Estate - 05/07

[Stickyfinger]

Glad you like them mate and that they fit you..... you have the best cloth in the whole range, that's why I hate throwing stuff like that away...result

[chinkostu]

The bolster adjust took a bit of fiddling! But genuinely i wasn't at all sore on the way home, feels like a decent sofa, not too squishy, not at all firm, supports all the right bits

[vulgalour]

I'd love to make a day of it, but it has to be something I really want, like that sorry looking Renault 6 I went to Wales for.

---

I'm getting annoyed with this rear arch that I repaired. It's doing the paint lifting thing it was before I repaired it all around the repair I let in. If I clean it back to good metal and repaint it takes just a few days for it to come back like this again. I've done some asking about on this one and the general consensus is that the metal on the arch here has gone porous so no matter how many times I clean and paint it, this will always happen. The two solutions are to let a whole new section of arch in or to clean it back and seal it from the inner arch side with fibreglass or seam sealer before painting anew. For now, I just keep cleaning the rust stains off every time I wash the car and put up with it as it's all I can really do about it. You can see the blisters where the paint is lifting too, these come off and reveal clean metal underneath which is really strange. I've never known anything like this on bodywork before. The other thing is that if anything the white trims are getting brighter rather than mellowing out so I'm going to give them a top coat of Polar White so they match a bit better, colour coded wheel trims are a tricky thing to get spot on I'm finding.


Oh well! Today I was on an art supplies errand and something zebra print fell in my basket. I had an idea I wanted to try out both on the car and on a picture frame. Since getting the car, the chrome insert on the driver's front door rubbing strip has been in really poor condition and while I could source a fresh length I wanted to try something different out. I haven't a picture of the state it was in, but the chrome bit had gone powdery and was getting worse with each wash. So, off with the rubbing strips and dismantle them like so.


Then you lay the tape on the insert wrapping it over the edge but not entirely over the back. It's easy to trim to shape, you just put a small snip in the edge and tear. The tape isn't quite thick enough to do two inserts out of one width. End result is rather smart.






I also noticed the Turbo D badge is removable. Rather than using the large Xebra decal I was thinking of applying a smaller sticker here that reads 'Xebra' in the Xantia font as something decidedly more subtle. I don't know whether or not I'm doing the bumper inserts to match the side trims, I think it's okay as it stands. I'm also not sure how well the tape will wear so I'll keep an eye on that. It's a bit of fun at least, and relevant to my interests.

[vulgalour]

That Xebra decal I mentioned is this one. Was planning to fit it to the lower front corner of the front doors 'leaking' down from the rubbing strip. I'm undecided now as to whether or not to go with it. I suspect I'll get the pair printed up and try them out on the car, if I then don't like them they're easy enough to remove.

[lexi]

Mmm. You have lost me with that tape. Have you been watching old Born Free movies, or maybe.....Daktari ?

[Stickyfinger]

That rust breaking out is because you have not cleaned out the rear of the panel and I would also think you have got your primer wet and it has soaked thru. Use a zinc two pack primer from a can, also, what is behind all the filler, if its open in the arch again it will soak, you have to use water proof fillers and primers as well as cutting away ANY metal with rust on it (ALL should be bright).
Do not leave your primer exposed...ever....it absorbs water then your top coat seals that water in.....apply low heat to dry it for more time than you think and warm the whole area ....Paint a top coat IMMEDIATELY it (the Primer) flashes off.

[vulgalour]

The repair wasn't done under ideal conditions, it's true. I had cleaned everything back to what looked like shiny metal and the new metal I let in hasn't rusted. Really, I'm going to have to chop the entire outer skin off this area, clean it out and refit and repair section to get it done right. I'm not pleased about it, that's for sure, it's the first time I've had bodywork go this badly on me but it's also the first time I've tried to do it in rubbish weather over several days instead of in one go in the dry.

----

Yesterday, I finally got the right tool to sort out the seat base on the driver's seat in the Xantia. On the Peugeot seats there are only 4 long bolts holding the cradle to the frame so I started with that rather than removing the seat from the Xantia, just in case. Fortunately, there are 8 holes in the seat frame where you need them to accept the shorter Xantia bolts. You can see the seat bolts here on the Peugeot seat in gold.




Getting in at the 8 black-ish bolts on the Xantia seat is much more difficult. I contrived this medley of tools to get in at them and only skinned my knuckles several times.


After not too long I had both seats stripped and the relevant bits swapped over. Happily, once refitted the airbag system now works as it should with the light illuminating when ignition is on and extinguishing when the engine starts.


You can't fit the Peugeot trims over the Xantia frame where the pretensioner bolts are, so you have to put the Xantia one on.


Same with the seat height adjuster. Happily the seat isn't too different a shape to prohibit fitting. Interestingly, with the Peugeot seats I don't have to have the height adjuster all the way to the top to be comfortable like I did with the Xantia seat which makes getting my knees under the dash that much easier.


Today gave the car its weekly wash and inspection. I can't decide if the bubbles and spiders around the roof bars is getting worse or I'm obsessing about it more. I can decide it needs sorting out soon and now I have these better torx keys I got for the seats I stand a chance of being able to remove the roof rails. Not looking forward to what I might find underneath them, though with the weather improving it's a more sensible time to crack on with it.






The back driver's side is the worst, the paint has actually split here recently letting the rust out.


Continued looking for trouble and found some stonechip damage on the rear arch.


Fresh ones on the bonnet and grille too.


Then this. I hate this sort of damage the most because it's not related to age or driving, it's someone else's carelessness. Looks like someone's jabbed a key in or something similar and it's gone right down to the metal. Quite recently done by the looks of it too.


Finally, the primary reason I bought that zebra tape paid off and I really like how this frame has turned out. This is a tiny watercolour miniature I did of a zebra which has pride of place in the front hall. It's also a terrible photograph.



I guess my next spend on the Xantia is going to be some more white paint and some brave pills to get the roof sorted out. It'll be worth doing.

[vulgalour]

Decided to crack on with the roof paint bubbles today since the weather was glorious. Getting the roof bars off was fairly easy apart from one bolt that needed a bit more grunt to remove. Underneath the bars is a big old dirt and water trap.




It dried fairly quickly and was easy to clean out, it was also far too easy to lift large sheets of paint from around the fixing points where water had got between metal and paint.




Nothing for it, I had to get that cleaned up and couldn't very well put it together now I'd found what I had. Happily, the rust wasn't serious enough to require more than a blitz with the wire wheel, it was almost exclusively orange surface staining rather than anything to really worry about. Perhaps it would have been more worrying had I left it alone. I was given some Jenolite to try, don't really like it as it's not as easy to use as the thinner products like Kurust are. Does the trick, nonetheless.




Unable to do anything further on the roof I got the corrosion and what I assume is bubbling powder coating removed from the end of the roof bars before giving them a fresh coat of satin black. This really made a difference to them, I was surprised how faded they'd become. Here's a side-by-side. I need to do a little more work to them to make them look as good as they can, shouldn't take me too long.


Went away for some well earned nosh and came back to get the primer and top coat on. Primer went well, and the top coat looks reasonable here...


Unfortunately, part way through the job the wind picked up and was unpredictable which meant the paint became a bit of a mess. Getting it waterproof was more important than pretty so I perservered until it was as done as it could be. I'll go back and do this hopefully later this week when I can get some inside space to work in.




All I'd intended to do today was make use of the touch-up pen I bought and give the car a wax which it's never had in my ownership. I suppose the above was somewhat more important as it cures what could have become a more serious problem. A couple more afternoons and I can prettify this so it's up to the standard it needs to be. My wondering next is whether or not to apply some sort of sealant when I put the trims and rails back on to keep the water out or to put it back together as standard so I don't make a bad design worse.

[vulgalour]

Since my last post I revisited the roof and tidied it up further, resolving the paint issues and reinstalling the roof bars after applying seam sealer around the fixing posts so they hopefully won't rust up again. Apart from needing a polish all over, the roof has been free of any evidence of rust since doing this and looks much better so I'm pleased with that. The car has been predictably reliable since then.

That was until a few days ago my brother drove the Xantia and his Gypsy Curse struck again, rendering something broken for no good reason. We suspected glow plug relay as it had been making funny noises and the glow plug light wasn't coming on. I could have got a reader and found out for definite but decided to gamble on purchasing a second hand relay for a tenner against the £18 or so for a reader and that gamble paid off.

The relay is located to the front of the passenger inner wing and is held in by one bolt and two wires, you have to take the battery out to get to it but access is quite good once that's done.


The part I got wasn't from a Xantia but a Xsara Picasso, just happens that it's the same thing. The original was a Valeo relay, this one is stamped Cartier. The only other difference is that this has four teeth for the plug where the original has five, but given than the plug that attaches to the relay only has four sockets in the right places I thought it a gamble worth taking. A brand new relay was going to set me back £40-60 depending where I bought it from and I was loathe to pay that much if I could solve this for a tenner.



Plugged it in, put the battery back on and the car fired up without hesitation. Not taken it for a test drive yet but I'm quietly confident all shall be well.

[Stickyfinger]

Grand job getting her all "perdi" again

[vulgalour]

Got a few hundred miles out of that relay and it's started showing the same breaking down symptoms as the one it replaced. Occasionally it clicks, even less occasionally the car won't start, (we're looking at one start out of every 40 is a fail rather than it being one in every 3 as it was with the old one) but it doesn't affect the rev gauge like the old one did.

First I tried cleaning the original one with shiny paper and WD40 as recommended variously online. This got the visible corrosion/dirt off the contacts and made the old relay at least ignite the glow plug relay bulb on the dash, other than that it wouldn't work at all. So rather than attempting to clean up the replacement I ordered a brand new one for just shy of £40 which is arriving later this week.

Normally, I'd eke out every last mile I could from it before replacing. This time I don't want to do that, my brother has enlisted my help moving house next weekend or thereabouts (just waiting on that final move date) and I don't want to let him down. He's using the Xantia and a borrowed trailer to lug the sproglets, a family pet and various other bits and bobs so it's vital the car is in the rudest health it can be so his 100 mile move goes as smoothly as possible.

The only other item of note was seeing this Xantia estate recently just a few parking spaces from mine. It could be one that was spotted earlier in the year or there could be three dark coloured Xantia estates in my locality. Anyone know it or the owner? It has a crack in the windscreen and some rust bubbles which you can't see in the picture, makes the car distinctive to anyone that knows it I would think.

[vulgalour]

Well that was lucky. Today the second-hand relay I'd fitted conked out utterly and the brand new one I'd ordered arrived. Didn't especially enjoy swapping the relays in the street while it was raining (the joy of living in a terraced house) but it's done now. Car takes much less time from key in to engine start and of course the new relay has none of the issues of the previous two.

Another bleed of the brakes and getting those front lower arm bushes replaced are next priorities. Cheap jobs, just a case of finding the time lately.

[harryp]

Was enjoying this.... so 11 months on and where are we at/ where be 'e too?

[falling-out-with-my-car]

try a model shop for two sided tape modellers fix powerful servos
inside model aircraft with it.
the problem is finding something waterproof but I'm sure they cater for model
boat enthusiasts to. or try this.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/tesa-55750-Out ... B0024NKDFI

[falling-out-with-my-car]

have you had the rear wiper not working curse yet ?