Simon's new Xantia V6 and Leaf blog

[RichardW]

You have mail...

Both sensors are on the box, and are adjusted by rotating them on the gear box. The primary one is activated directly by the selector; the secondary one by a short rod external to the box. You can also adjust the cable at the control end.

[Mandrake]

You have mail...

Both sensors are on the box, and are adjusted by rotating them on the gear box. The primary one is activated directly by the selector; the secondary one by a short rod external to the box. You can also adjust the cable at the control end.

Thanks Richard, you're a champ.

A combination of too many errands to run and unrelenting rain eventually made me gave up on trying to do the job on Sunday, but I will do it at the first opportunity. In the meantime I just need to be careful to double check the car is charging a while after I have put it on charge!

Having two switches mounted side by side (?) with a link rod connecting them seems rather overcomplicated to me, its no wonder they deleted the second potentiometer in later RPO's! So the later one just has one switch with two sets of redundant contacts and wiring ?

The special tool is just setting the rotational alignment of the secondary switch - I have a better solution which is probably more accurate and doesn't require the tool! The Lexia reports both switch contact positions in real time, so by very slowly moving the gear lever I can find the exact point where the two switches switch between reverse and park...

When I checked it I found the primary switch seems to be correctly aligned with the gating of the gear lever but the secondary one seems to be out. So I'll just loosen the two bolts on the secondary switch and tweak its adjustment until the Lexia reports they switch at the exact same position.

That and greasing the cable and mechanism should do the trick I think. On an old speakev thread a number of people have had this problem and some of them used "white spray grease" on the linkage joints and cable successfully - I assume that is a silicone based grease ? Perhaps I should get some of that for the job as normal lithium grease may not be kind on the rubber boots on the linkage and cable ? Does the service citroen data say anything about what to grease the joints with ?

[Mandrake]

Well it was playing up again today and as it wasn't raining tonight I thought I better do something about it, even in the dark!

When I left work the lever was quite stiff and "springy" at the ends of travel and I found I couldn't push it fully into park - and it triggered a fault immediately. It also felt like it was trying to spring out of drive. So I backed it up onto the ramps tonight and saw this:

The switches themselves can barely be made out from the dirt and corrosion. The two switches are quite a long way apart (about 6 inches) with a long link rod with a ball joint at each end joining them. I just gave all the pivot points and ball joints a thorough douse of standard cheapy halfords spray grease I had on hand:

After greasing it like this and giving it a good working back and forth the gear lever feels like new again - it travels easily right to the ends with no springiness and there is a nice satisfying engagement when you go between drive and neutral instead of it feeling like its trying to jump out of drive. So far, I can't reproduce the problem with it reporting an error in the park position.

The bowden cable itself is completely enclosed with a large rubber concertina boot (at the top) so I wasn't able to get any grease into that, but it doesn't look like the cable is to blame anyway.

From what I can see the issue is the ball joints seizing up - probably due to dirt and moisture building up in the cups, as they look somewhat exposed to the accumulation of dirt and moisture! Although I sprayed grease on the shafts themselves, I'm not convinced that that actually did anything. It's possible corrosion at the top pivot point where the cable attaches to the lever arm was also a potential culprit. I greased all the pivoting points just to be safe.

Touch wood this has fixed the problem and it looks like due to the silly exposed design of these levers and ball joints a bit of spray grease on the joints should be an annual maintenance activity. With the car backed up onto ramps it only took a few minutes, I didn't even have to remove a wheel!

I'm not going to try to adjust the switch position - with all the build up of aluminium corrosion and dirt around the switch I'd probably have to remove it completely and scrape it clean before I could rotate the switch body, and I don't really want to do that!

[CitroJim]

Looks like that lot will require the same sort of regular maintenance as Xantia height correctors Simon

Pleased you've got to the bottom of it

Surprised at the levels of corrosion under there; your Scottish atmosphere certainly seems to like eating cars

[white exec]

Simon, you ought to get some underbody wax on that underside. Not only will it protect surfaces and parts from rust, but it also helps keeps water and grit out of mechanisms.
I know underbody protection is something owners queue up to avoid.

Glad you managed to free up the moving parts.

[Hell Razor5543]

I wonder how easy it would be to make some protection guards for that mechanism (including mounting points)?

[Mandrake]

Simon, you ought to get some underbody wax on that underside. Not only will it protect surfaces and parts from rust, but it also helps keeps water and grit out of mechanisms.
I know underbody protection is something owners queue up to avoid.

A few on SpeakEV have commented that these cars seem to have "Japanese Spec" underbody protection, in other words they are not very well protected for salted UK roads! There are reports that the brake lines - which are mounted above the traction battery and thus inaccessible over much of their length can suffer from corrosion problems in the UK.

Can underbody wax be applied to anything other than the body though ? The problem in this instance is corrosion of moving linkages not the body itself.

[white exec]

A good quality protection wax is fine to apply to underbody moving parts and linkages - Xantia/XM height control rods are a good example. At least on an EV you don't have an exhaust system that needs masking off!

A wax I particularly like is "4CR" brand: 6.5300.1000 Cavity Wax Brown - 1-litre containers. Cheaper and better than Waxoyl.
http://www.4cr.com/en/products.html?product_id=517
Click for the box for Technical Data Sheet

For easy application, if you have/can borrow a compressor, Sealey's SG18 wax injector/spray gun is terrific, and makes easy work of underside, door interiors, cavities and sills. Alternatively, for the underside, use cheap and throw-away plant spray trigger-bottles, usually about £1 each. Leave the bottle in a bucket of hot water, in cold weather; fluid goes on easier when warm.

[lexi]

It does sound like something that would benefit from a good lubing at start of winter with salt around.
https://www.toolstation.com/shop/Automo ... ray/p66808

There are a few other cans of stuff in the range. I think a tenners worth of stuff is free post.

[Skull]

Might be of interest to EV fans SALVAGE PEUGEOT ION

[Mandrake]

Might be of interest to EV fans SALVAGE PEUGEOT ION

Yes I noticed that listing - and the owner of the car is actually a member of SpeakEV so I remember his original thread when the car first broke down.

He has the dubious honour of being the owner of the only C-Zero to have a drive inverter fail that I've read about!

If I had tons of space and it wasn't far away I'd be tempted to grab it for parts - the cells in the battery alone would be worth a lot to break and sell as individual cells or groups of cells... but I already have two cars and nowhere to put a parts car that wouldn't lead to me being booted out of my own house.

[white exec]

Are these inverters repairable?

[Gibbo2286]

Are these inverters repairable?

Everything is repairable Chris fancy getting inside one of these? This is a Seimens example.

[CitroJim]

Are these inverters repairable?

Everything is repairable Chris fancy getting inside one of these? This is a Seimens example.

I'm up for having a go at repairing anything electronic (within reason) but even I'd balk at this one... The scope for epic fireworks and injury are very, very significant...

I say that, knowing the principles of operation of these things; the chances of a successful repair are low. Many try to repair switch-mode power supplies - they operate on similar principles - and invariably even the most skilled have to give up in frustration at the continual failures, almost fixes and lots spent on new components...

They injure their fingers too from the continual crossing of them they do...

[RichardW]

How much is a new inverter... car up to £1300, could be a few quid to be made in repairing it! I'm making a space in my garage.... a narrow Ion would hide in there no problem