1997 Xantia 1.9TD Estate - 05/07

[vulgalour]

Hooray, Mike has successfully bled the LHM system through after replacing the damaged seal, the car goes up and down as it ought. Lots of black stuff came out of the rear calipers and lots of air came out of the front, the pedal is now apparently very hard compared to how it was, I need to see how that feels to assess it for myself, but it sounds like it's normal for Citroen now.

The rear driver's caliper seems to be sticking half on so that needs investigating and the front driver's ball joint has stripped the thread to such an extent that it can't even be re-cut, so a new ball joint is going to be got for that. I've got the relevant castellated tool somewhere.

All the bleed nipples are made of brie and quite round, rather like a wheel of brie. We will likely replace those too.


Missed the MoT deadline but that's to be expected. At least the car can be moved out of the unit under its own power now so it's not going to be in the way. We'll order a new ball joint, find the tool and get it booked in once that's sorted.

[vulgalour]

Right, another update for you. I've been a busy bee working from home so Mike has been fettling in between other customer cars to get the Xantia sorted. The suspension used to take 30 seconds to rise from low, Mike believes it's now taking about 10. The nose end is still lazy, but instead of just being slow to rise it does so in a jerky motion... we're going to lubricate that height adjuster which should put paid to this issue. That means that the suspension is now rising far better than it was, which bodes well, and no LHM is coming out which bodes even more well.

The brakes are quite responsive, I am told, though there is a squish noise at the pedal. It's not as loud as it was and can be heard even with the engine off, it seems to be related to the pedal itself rather than the braking system now so we'll investigate that.

To celebrate all this good stuff, one of the gear linkages decided it didn't want to stay on the ball joint properly and has become irrepairable, so we have a replacement on order. Oh, and we found the ball joint tool... in my brother's garage 100 miles away in Derbyshire.

le sigh.

[Hell Razor5543]

I would grease the front struts as well (as they do not self lubricate, unlike the rear struts). Raise the car to full service height, pop the plastic gaiters off, and smear a load of LHM on the shiny struts. Then re-fit the gaiters, and give it a go.

[vulgalour]

Pictures this time. First of all, a picture of the clutch plate. Changed it really as late as I could before damage happened, this is the flywheel side and while the flywheel was free of scores you can see with the single rivet that's started to go shiny that it wouldn't have taken much longer for it to start scoring.


On the pressure plate side the rivets were much more worn.



The brake pedal squelch described to me is much more of a spring-covered-in-oil sort of noise and barely audible, so I'm not worrying about that. The suspension rises seemingly properly now, it's not 'jerky' but it goes rise-pause-rise-pause-rise until it gets to the correct height. Even better, the front end sits higher now than it did without having to go past the proper setting. Tyre pressures are a bit off and I've got some positive camber on the front which is most likely just due to the car being up in the air. The car isn't filling with water even though it's sat outside in the rain, but it does feel a little damp. I noticed that the skinny outer door seal that goes around where the window frame seals has deformed on the rear driver's side and on lifting it free, on lifting it off the rail it sits on I found it was absolutely full of mud and grime so I'm pulling the whole thing off, straightening it as best I can and then reseating it anew.

Overall, I'm much happier with how the car is now. Even the front end comes up to the proper height, no longer having a saggy nose, as you can see in these rough pictures.




All feels like it's on the right path. But it seems the number pad might be dying now as a couple of the numbers are pretty stubborn. Going to have to see about replacing it I think.

[vulgalour]

Went for a belated MoT today, I was fully expecting a fail but to my surprise got a pass!  Not only that, advisories were really minimal:
 
1: Nearside rear brake fluctuating, but not excessivey
2: Rear registration plate deteriorated but not likely to be misread
3: Offside front Anti-roll bar linkage has slight play in a ball joint
4: Slight bind on rear brakes
 
 
There's nothing surprising there, I didn't get opportunity to sort out a new number plate and I know there's some issues with the rear brake calipers which we will look at, possibly slightly corroded pistons or similar.  The front end may well be the lower arm bushes I didn't get replaced but will so we'll continue going through all that.
 
Delightfully, just after loading the car with the fortnightly shop, the keypad decided to fail putting both lights on static.  We had meant to disconnect it before the MoT and completely forgot.  Mike and I were near the unit so we picked up tools and headed back to the car.  Disconnecting and reconnecting the battery didn't resolve the issue and after a while we were stumped so I called the AA.
 
While waiting I decided to pull the number pad panel out of the car and that, somehow, fixed it.  Quickly inserted the code and unplugged the pad and now the car starts fine every time.  Pretty satisfying day all round, but now I'm trying to figure out what to do about the keypad, I don't like just deleting it so I may just put it in and leave it disconnected for the sake of tidiness.
 
Next important jobs are to resolve the alarm so I can have the radio back and investigate those rear brakes.  I have stalled the car MANY times while trying to get used to the brand new clutch but other than that the car drives like an entirely different car, I'm very pleased.

[vulgalour]

Yesterday the blower fan started being intermittent. Today it has stopped working completely. I'll get the relevant bits of dash apart to investigate further. The fan bearing could occasionally be very noisy so it's very likely it's conked out and needs replacing. No demist is just what you need in the middle of winter, thankfully it's quite mild up here at the moment.

I have a list of items in the cabin I want to attend to.
- Steering wheel controls inoperable (I doubt I'll ever use these, first car I've had with them fitted)
- digital clock inoperable (bit of a nuisance, can live without it)
- immobiliser keypad inoperable (bypassed, so not an issue, but be nice to have it working)
- air conditioning weak, needs looking at (been like this since I got the car)
- blower fan inoperable
- blown dash and centre console bulbs (being a '97 car should mean I avoid the woe of solid-state cluster here and can just replace bulbs)
- lazy passenger door lock
- remote central locking inoperable (key fob issue, central locking still works fine)
- alarm won't reset (bypassed by pulling a fuse, but I'd quite like the radio back)

In addition, there's some mechanical bits and bobs to investigate and improve
- front tracking feels like it's toeing out ever so slightly
- front lower arm bushes to replace
- rear calipers to investigate and possibly replace
- cambelt to change (I think its' due in another 2000 or so miles, I'll double check the history folder)

There's also a bit of paint attention required here and there and a new rear number plate to sort. It's all very doable over the course of the coming year.

[Xantia97]

The blower could be the known problem of the ignition switch, mine has just gone on Snoopy. Rear window heater will not work or be intermittent as well. Just needs a relay, this was corrected on S2 xantias.
See post http://www.frenchcarforum.co.uk/forum/v ... =3&t=50146" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Happy Christmas,
Juliet

[vulgalour]

That's a very useful link, I can understand what's actually gone wrong now. That would have taken me ages to figure out otherwise! With the failures I've had so far it feels very 'text book Xantia' so I'm wondering what's going to conk out on me next.

[Xantia97]

I'm wondering what's going to conk out on me next.

You and me both our Xantias are the same age

Plenty of other threads about the ignition switch problem on the forum as well, so a very common problem.

Juliet

[vulgalour]

Day before yesterday we needed to try and use the demist, which worked perfectly fine. Still no blower fan... until we'd driven about two miles and it suddenly sprang to life. Car has fixed itself. I suspect this means the ignition switch is breaking down from what I've been reading up of people with similar problems so we'll get that relay installed anyway to prevent the inevitable.

Tell you what else too, the suspension is now unreal, the car feels like it's literally floating even on pretty rough roads, I'm amazed since all we did was change the LHM to achieve that.

Brakes are taking some getting used to now, before they felt rather like those of a normal car but now they have that Citroen sharpness. This wouldn't bother me, I got used to it really quickly in the BX (and was shocked when I then drove a car with regular brakes!) but in the Xantia sometimes it feels like there's quite a bit of unnecessary pedal travel before, without warning, the brakes are on. My suspicion is the spring in the pedal is causing this weird sensation, I am getting used to it, but it's difficult to control the car gracefully to a stop without it being a bit jerky sometimes. This could also be related to the advisory on the rear brakes which, when the weather isn't so icy, we shall be looking into.

[vulgalour]

Xantia is now blessed with a towbar, which makes it a proper estate car. The blower fan and demist have cause no problems at all and while we do plan to fit the ignition switch relay upgrade, it's pushed down the list of priorities at the moment.

It was determined to sort out the radio in the meantime, it's been inoperative since pulling the fuse as the only way to disable the alarm. Past few days I've not been so well and Mike has been a godsend getting things like the towbar fitted and sorting out niggles on the Xantia in preparation for it's first towing mission of 800 miles, so the work had better be up to scratch! I knew the theory of disabling the alarm module which I passed on and Mike found quite a lot of water surrounding it under the carpet where nobody had realised it was sitting. Alarm bypassed, radio given a fresh fuse and tunes back, which is a pleasant novelty after having several months of just diesel car noise for company.

Seems likely that it's something to do with the fan heater letting water in from outside and pouring into the passenger footwell, another text book issue that we'll resolve... later. For now the passenger seat has been removed and the carpet will come out in the next few days when we have some time to do it so we can get everything dried out properly before tackling whatever the problem is.

Water ingress had begun in the boot again too, but this time not from the rear. A scout around found a missing rubber bung which has been reinstated in the hope the water ingress stops. In the meantime the carpet is out of the car drying out and will remain out of the car until we know that no more water is getting in. Trouble with the Xantia is that the soundproofing foam on the back of the carpets is so thick you have no idea there's water in the car until there's really rather a lot of water. With just the boot carpet removed it's quite a lot noisier, almost like having a van rather than a plush estate car.

[vulgalour]

Today marks the first day in a while that I've properly had off with the bonus of it being rather a pleasant spring-like day outside so I felt I could risk giving the Xantia it's first proper wash and first polish of 2015.


Last year I removed the roof bars as I didn't need to use them and earlier this year a tow bar was fitted (and has been used in anger, as it were). Clear side repeaters tidy the front wings up and the monochrome vibe is getting there. This is the car's bad side and it still doesn't look that bad in photos or in person, I'm just picky.


The roof, finally, takes and holds a shine. I remember when my brother first got the car and this was like chalk.


Car goes up, and more importantly, car goes down.


Sometimes, just sometimes, this car gets me excited down to its good looks. You can't see it in this picture but after not refitting the undertray when we did the clutch there is no longer any unpleasant motorway speed lift from the front end. I recall my Dad's old Xantia hatchback was similarly improved, that one had the habit of trying to lift the nose off the road if you had undertray fitted, sunroof and windows all open on the motorway... not fun!





I'm still having water ingress problems, but at least they're much reduced.
> windscreen bottom edge trim - might need resealed, but water is no longer pouring in since we siliconed this.
> Tailgate surround - I think the water is getting in through the high level brake light and then definitely dripping through a broken trim screw (which are plastic) onto the roller blind parcel shelf, I can't see another way it's getting in, this is a really minor leak but an annoying one.
> Tailgate membrane - Still had no time to reseal this

I've had difficulty getting the soundproofing pad on the lower portion of the bulkhead to dry out. There's water in the foam which is very difficult to get out and I don't think more water is getting in after we silicone sealed the trim at the bottom of the windscreen. Certainly, if water is getting in then it must be in miniscule quantities, the car has had several buckets of water, a jet wash, driven through appalling weather and hasn't made puddles inside.

The carpets are in the house drying out, while the front ones and the boot carpet have (this took the better part of a week), the rear carpet is still not dry. It's really frustrating because the car looks horrible without the carpets.

Finally, the previous owner had to scrap his nearly 250,000 mile Peugeot 405 estate (which he's replaced with another Peugeot 405 estate, good man) and has set the front seats aside for me. After a particularly long no-break drive in the Xantia I was in absolute agony with my back. The Xantia has given me back grumbles before and I always made sure to take a break once an hour to drive around the issue. After a lot of measuring I've found that when I've got the seat set right for my back and legs I sit 2" too far away from the steering wheel to be comfortable, resulting in a permanent but not very noticeable stretch while driving. If the replacement seats don't do the trick I'm looking at different steering wheel options, I know a Mk1 XM wheel drops on and looks to have better reach. For now, I just drive the car for no more than an hour without a break.

[chinkostu]

I know what you mean with the seats, although being short I didn't have to worry about reach. Its took me about 3 months to find a position that isn't too taxing on the body. I did have it at a point where, like you, id get backache after 10 minutes!

See if you can find a decent leather set?

[CitroJim]

See if you can find a decent leather set?

I may be able to assist in that pursuit

[vulgalour]

I don't like modern leather seats, their only redeeming quality is the easy cleaning, I much prefer cloth and velour. The Xantia velour is some of the nicest there is in my humble opinion. I'm glad I'm not alone with the seating position issues, there was a point where I was beginning to think I was alone with the issue.

I'll try out these Peugeot seats once I've collected them, they look a different shape which might help. Just having a bit more knee support would help and the Pug seats might offer that. Doubt the Xantia is going anywhere, I've started looking into a single wiper conversion, something I loved about my old BX and that I miss having on the Xantia, plus it'll look cool in a 90s way. Current contenders for a motor donor are BX, ZX and AX, I'm open to other suggestions if folk have any.