Simon's new Xantia V6 and Leaf blog

[xantos]

Just trying to help Mandrake, cause he likes disconnecting the battery a lot

[KP]

Yeah I've thought of that Jim but I'm not going to pay more than £30 to have it done.

I wonder if lexia could turn it off...

[Mandrake]

Just trying to help Mandrake, cause he likes disconnecting the battery a lot

If its true that disconnecting the battery when you have a disabled/removed immobiliser will re-lock it and make it impossible to start the engine without refitting the keyboard, then that's no use to me! I'll just have to live with it then.

Thanks for those pages Steve, very useful especially the service code function - wish I'd known about that before the MOT. Also good to be aware that there is a 30 minute lockout after 3 failed attempts!

[Northern_Mike]

You could still disconnect it and leave it in place for when you do remove the battery.. That way it still looks stock too.

Enviado desde mi GT-I9505 usando Tapatalk

[CitroJim]

I wonder if lexia could turn it off...

No, sadly not Will

Just trying to help Mandrake, cause he likes disconnecting the battery a lot

If its true that disconnecting the battery when you have a disabled/removed immobiliser will re-lock it and make it impossible to start the engine

No, that won't happen. My old V6 (now owned by PavlosV6) has never had a keypad connected in all the years I've known the car and it has never locked despite the battery having been off many times and once for a very extenerd time whilst the gearbox was rebuilt.

We'd be a bit snookered if it did as we have no idea of the code...

[bxzx16v]

I had a 1.9td sx with a disconnected keypad with no problems at all.

Mark

[Mandrake]

Jim if it came without a keypad I suppose you can't be certain whether the ECU has been permanently unlocked before you had the car though ? As my S2 came with an unlocked ECU for some strange reason...

In other trivial news I fitted a new drivers door lock button today - the original was missing, sitting broken in the glove box, I had tried to fit one from the old car last week but it too has the tab broken and couldn't be reused... surprisingly they are still available new for £5.70 - not exactly cheap, but not a fortune either for something that breaks so easily and is often unusable second hand so I had ordered one from Citroen while I had it there for the MOT last week.

Of course the morning I planned to fit it the lock decided to jam because the button was missing We park on a hill so the unsupported rod had tilted forward and thus jammed when unlocking the door making it impossible to open that door from the outside...so now that there is a button in place that won't happen again. (On a previous Xantia with a missing button we had a cork pushed onto the rod to stop the same happening )

The broken bonnet stay catch is also fixed now Jim - I ordered one from Citroen together with the door button when it was there for the MOT and they had one in stock, I asked the parts guy if I could pay for it together with the MOT when I picked up the car, (since I didn't want to do a £1.28 debit card transaction) and to my surprise when I picked up the car they had already fitted the catch for me and removed my cable tie. Only two seconds work to fit I know, but a pleasant surprise.

Slowly all the little things are getting done on this car

[CitroJim]

Excellent That's great news Simon. f you're doing the little bits then we can only assume all the big bits are in fine fettle

[Mandrake]

Well, there's still a number of bigger jobs that need doing, but with poor weather (and incremental dolling out of money on the car) they have to wait so it's nice to get smaller jobs done too.

I hadn't been happy with the quality of the gear change for the last several days - I committed the cardinal sin of tinkering with something that was working perfectly by doing an unnecessary auto adaptive reset last week... It started to exhibit some similar symptoms to the old car with rough gear changes and slightly odd torque converter lock-up behaviour (not transitioning smoothly during acceleration) so I decided to have another go today.

From previous experiences, after a reset there seems to be a relatively short "learning window" where you have to put it through it's paces in a number of specific ways to ensure that it properly adapts to the gearbox - if you don't do that during that relatively short window of opportunity it doesn't adapt properly and you're permanently stuck with poor quality changes...

The type of test drive you take it for after the reset critically affects the quality of the gear changes when you're finished. I don't know exactly how long this window of opportunity is and whether its measured in miles or minutes, but either way its only about 2 miles and maybe 5 minutes driving time at the most.

The key is to find a long deserted stretch of country road where you can accelerate up to 60 and slow right down to an almost stop multiple times to change up and down through the gears. You need to accelerate relatively hard up through the gears to 60mph/4th, then slow down, do some kick-downs into 3rd, 2nd and even 1st so that it learns the clutch pressures for the high loads of a kick down etc. I also throw in some deceleration in sport mode so that it does forced down shifts on the overrun etc... basically you need to work it up and down through the gears rapidly both in acceleration and deceleration, all within the space of a mile or so.

It's also absolutely critical that the reset is done immediately before the stretch of test road - if you do a reset a couple of miles away and drive sedately in traffic to get to your test road, by the time you get there the learning window has passed and the ECU didn't get a chance to learn what it needed. The result is poor gear change quality. That was my mistake last time - doing the reset at home then driving a mile or two to the road where I normally do my test drives.

This time I drove there first, pulled over to the side of the road, did the reset with the Lexia then immediately commenced the gear changing regimen without delay, and the result is that the gear change seems to be silky smooth again and torque converter lock-up is once again smooth.

Moral of the story - do NOT do an auto adaptive reset unless you are replacing the gearbox, the ECU, or you have fixed a major engine performance problem such as a misfire. Don't just do it for fun and if you have to do a reset you MUST take it for a very particular test drive regimen immediately after the reset.

It still needs a full set of spheres and something doing about the tyres. For budget tyres they seem to grip ok, I was testing the brakes in emergency stops today to check the ABS function and it stopped very well, if I can get them balanced they will stay on there for now otherwise I might need to get a couple of new ones.

The seized ICV still needs fixing - I was looking today to see if I can get it out in-situ - it looks like if I disconnect the small hose on the top left of the expansion vessel and move it aside I might have just enough access to get at the left hand hose clamp on it. I see someone has replaced the bottom allen bolt with a normal hex head bolt, so apparently it's been out before... That job will have to wait for the weather though as it's been raining most of the time the last few days.

The o-ring in the main suspension/brakes output of the hydraulic pump needs replacing - its got a significant weep there and as far as I can see it's the only hydraulic leak on the entire car. I might be lazy and try to replace it in-situ and leave the bottom one (which I don't think is leaking yet) until I have a garage.

And speaking of that, we just bought a house last week! Well, at least our offer was accepted by the seller and we have an agreement in principle for the mortgage, so its now in the hands of the bank manager and lawyers to push the paperwork through and make it official. Hopefully by the end of this week we'll know for certain. We move in in October.

Fully detached 3 bedroom Villa on the corner between two streets with converted loft, driveway, garage (single, but a decent size one by miserly UK standards) decent outdoor privacy and grassed areas at the front, side and rear, with hedges on three sides.

To say we're over the moon is putting it mildly. It's been a long time coming...

[DHallworth]

Fantastic news on the house Simon!

Now you've got somewhere to work on the V6 you'll need to get a C1 as a run around now to let you do those bigger jobs you want to do

David.

[CitroJim]

Indeed Simon, that's excellent news on the house!

I specifically looked at the pump and alternator and they were bone dry so that weep must have developed recently and in your care! Mind you, they do.

You can try doing just the top seal but the bottom will need dong. I have the same on my V6. The top has been replaced and is dry but the bottom weeps. I'm just stealing myself to do it.

Interesting on the auto adaptive reset

Now you've got somewhere to work on the V6 you'll need to get a C1

Agreed. A C1 is a fine choice and they and a V6 make an excellent pair

[Mandrake]

Thanks Jim.

As Richard said to me though, the stress doesn't stop until you have the keys...

There is quite a weep on that o-ring now, bear in mind that the car has done close to 1000 miles in 10 days, prior to that it had done 40 miles for an entire year and only 1000 miles a year for the several years before then, so I think I've given it a fright after its lazy garaged slumber. Also the accumulator sphere is near enough to dead flat (the regulator clicks every time I press the brake hard) so there may be quite high pressure spikes that are putting higher than normal stresses on the o-ring.

I really need to get that accumulator sphere done ASAP but because all money is concentrated on securing the house at the moment it's probably going to have to wait until next month. I will try to wrangle to get a complete set of spheres then though as I don't think I can take much more of the hard bouncy ride at the rear. (Not completely punctured but really close)

Yes I'd previously noticed that the auto-adaptive reset is very fussy about the following test drive - I've done a reset on the old car at least a dozen times and I experimented with different test drive techniques but I'm still really just trying to reverse engineer and second guess the programming of the ECU - all that the documentation says is its critical that you take it for a test drive that "changes through all the gears" immediately after the reset, it doesn't describe the driving style or how long the test drive should be... I've had to try to figure that out experimentally.

You can feel the quality of the shifts start to change and get smoother after a few minutes (they start off abrupt after a reset) but if you don't put it through all scenarios, (all gears up and down, light throttle changes, heavy throttle changes, kick down changes etc) and fairly quickly then some scenarios remain "un-learnt", for example if you never do a heavy throttle kick down into third during the initial learning process it will never learn how to do that smoothly and just use inaccurate default figures...

[Hell Razor5543]

I just replaced all 6 of Gracies' spheres with ones from AEP Direct (cost to me of £142). The ride comfort is massively improved. As they are based in Rutherglen, Glasgow they should be near to you. and an accumulator should be about £25 if you can get it direct from them (more, obviously, with P&P).

AEP Direct
Unit 2, 1 Alleysbank Road
Farmeloan Industrial Estate
Rutherglen
Glasgow
G73 1LX

[Mandrake]

Thanks James,

I bought my last set of spheres over the counter from AEP.

I'll either be getting them from AEP, or possibly ordering online direct from IFHS.

[DHallworth]

Simon, if I were buying spheres now I'd order direct from IFHS as they're more likely to be fresh spheres rather then ones that have sat on a shelf in AEP for a number of months/years.

David.