Simon's new Xantia V6 and Leaf blog

[white exec]

JOOI, what does Haynes say, wrt matrix removal ?

[xantia_v6]

Haynes has a fairly sane description of the job, with a useful guide to where the fasteners are, but as always, there are a few shortcuts... You do not need to touch the A/C evaporator assembly, just unbolt the heater box from it.

The scuttle trim is originally glued with a fairly soft silicone sealant, but they have often been re-glued with a harder sealant. I have removed a few without breaking anything, but it is a slow job with a flexible knife blade cutting the sealant behind the trim. In my experience they only need to be resealed in the section over the heater air intake, the rest of the length is not necessary to prevent water ingress into the car.

The heater hose assemblies for the ES9 are of course unique, but you can always jut and join them a few cm from the connector.

Pay special attention to the routing of the air recirculation cable, it is easy to trap it in the wrong place when refitting the dashboard.

[Mandrake]

The scuttle trim is originally glued with a fairly soft silicone sealant, but they have often been re-glued with a harder sealant. I have removed a few without breaking anything, but it is a slow job with a flexible knife blade cutting the sealant behind the trim.

Ok, given I have a water leak I think I'm just going to have to bite the bullet and try to cut it carefully off - not only will it make the dashboard bolt removal easier, I may actually get the rain water leak that has been dogging me fixed. Did you use something like a wire cheese knife ?

In my experience they only need to be resealed in the section over the heater air intake, the rest of the length is not necessary to prevent water ingress into the car.

You haven't seen my scuttle trim though. A few years ago it only had one crack on the passenger side and no leaks. Now it has more than a dozen vertical cracks across the entire width of the windscreen, and the rain water leak is definitely on the drivers side - you can actually see it dripping down onto the brake pedal...

The heater hose assemblies for the ES9 are of course unique, but you can always jut and join them a few cm from the connector.

Are you saying the bit that Neil was offering isn't a direct fit without a bit of bodging ?

Pay special attention to the routing of the air recirculation cable, it is easy to trap it in the wrong place when refitting the dashboard.

My recirculation cable is already jammed and kinked unfortunately I know how to fix the kink as I've done that before on two other Xantia's, (straighten the kink then turn the cable 180 degrees in the coupling so bending forces work in the opposite direction) however before it kinked it was badly jammed, which I have not seen before.

Guess I'll be looking at that problem too... oh what fun for October/November.

[xantia_v6]

The scuttle trim is originally glued with a fairly soft silicone sealant, but they have often been re-glued with a harder sealant. I have removed a few without breaking anything, but it is a slow job with a flexible knife blade cutting the sealant behind the trim.

Ok, given I have a water leak I think I'm just going to have to bite the bullet and try to cut it carefully off - not only will it make the dashboard bolt removal easier, I may actually get the rain water leak that has been dogging me fixed. Did you use something like a wire cheese knife ?

I have used a long blade from a "hobby knife" (the type that has break-off sections), and I have also used a flexible boning knife, the trick is that the blade needs to be parallel to the glass where cutting, but you also need to be able to hold it! Take care not to scratch the visible part of the glass and don't pull the scuttle trim with any force, as that is how you break the screen.

In my experience they only need to be resealed in the section over the heater air intake, the rest of the length is not necessary to prevent water ingress into the car.

You haven't seen my scuttle trim though. A few years ago it only had one crack on the passenger side and no leaks. Now it has more than a dozen vertical cracks across the entire width of the windscreen, and the rain water leak is definitely on the drivers side - you can actually see it dripping down onto the brake pedal...

Even with the plastic trim removed, I don't think that there should be any unsealed hole in that area, perhaps you have a blocked drain?

The heater hose assemblies for the ES9 are of course unique, but you can always jut and join them a few cm from the connector.

Are you saying the bit that Neil was offering isn't a direct fit without a bit of bodging ?

Yes. Let hope you don't break yours. I only broke one, and I think that was because I pulled too hard while pushing the latch spring the wrong way...

I assume that you have checked that it is coolant on the floor. When mine have leaked, the coolant always ended up on the passenger floor, dripping from the junction between the heater and evaporator boxes.

[white exec]

It was the smell of the coolant that gave the game away here.
Citroen's "Pro" coolant smells just like Fernox!

[Mandrake]

Even with the plastic trim removed, I don't think that there should be any unsealed hole in that area, perhaps you have a blocked drain?

A blocked drain where ? Is there a path from the windscreen wiper trough into the car if the drains in the trough were blocked ?

I assume that you have checked that it is coolant on the floor. When mine have leaked, the coolant always ended up on the passenger floor, dripping from the junction between the heater and evaporator boxes.

The new leak on the passenger side is definitely coolant - very bitter in taste. The leak I have seen before on the drivers side dripping onto the brake pedal then the drivers rubber mat is not coolant, it's definitely rain water and has no taste.

[NewcastleFalcon]

..rainwater leak

May be totally irrelevant, but a notorious ingress point for rain water (on a Corsa C....hence possible irrelevance) was the brake servo where the mounting rubber/sealant/foam when it deteriorated allowed water through the bulkhead and hence a soggy footwell.

REgards Neil

[mickthemaverick]

..rainwater leak

May be totally irrelevant, but a notorious ingress point for rain water (on a Corsa C....hence possible irrelevance) was the brake servo where the mounting rubber/sealant/foam when it deteriorated allowed water through the bulkhead and hence a soggy footwell.

REgards Neil

I had that issue on one of my BX's so worth checking out!!

[Mandrake]

Chevronics have the matrix, and engine side O-rings https://www.chevronics.co.uk/product-ca ... cba1185463

Not sure if they had them when you first posted this link but they don't have the o-rings in stock now. When I emailed they said they can't get any more.

I also can't find them anywhere else. Anyone have any suggestions on how to track down the o-rings ? There's no Peugeot/Citroen dealer in Glasgow anymore to do walk in parts collections, even if they still had them available.

[RichardW]

Not sure I got as far as actually looking, I just saw the pic.... Found this: https://genuine.tomoparts.co.uk/car-par ... 7y-6464v1/

Presumably they are nothing special, and once you get it apart you could measure them and just buy some generic O rings - although this is PSA, so no doubt they will be some non standard size!!

[Mandrake]

Not sure I got as far as actually looking, I just saw the pic.... Found this: https://genuine.tomoparts.co.uk/car-par ... 7y-6464v1/

Presumably they are nothing special, and once you get it apart you could measure them and just buy some generic O rings - although this is PSA, so no doubt they will be some non standard size!!

Nice spot!

It's unclear whether one item is one seal or two (when two are needed for the job) but they only have "two" available anyway so I chose two! Hopefully that's two pairs of seals so I can double up on seals as recommended earlier in the discussion...

[Mandrake]

Also found some in Europe (Germany) here:

https://www.online-teile.com/peugeot-er ... anguage=en

All looks good until choosing country of destination as UK then they slap £35 shipping on top of seals costing a few quid which can fit in a letter envelope! No thanks...

[Mandrake]

Ok found a second source for them in the UK here:

https://peugeotcitroendsparts.com/peuge ... al-6464v1/

So that's me ordered "two" units of 6464V1 from two different suppliers, so I'll either end up with 4 seals (which is what I want) or 8!

[GiveMeABreak]

I don't know why anybody bothers ordering from these people - they charge just the same as Citroen who have these in stock for £1.67 inc. VAT. That other place will also add £4.99 on for shipping, where you could just pop in to your Peugeot / DS / Citroen dealer and pick them up (assuming your nearest dealer isn't 100 miles away)!

[Mandrake]

I don't know why anybody bothers ordering from these people - they charge just the same as Citroen who have these in stock for £1.67 inc. VAT. That other place will also add £4.99 on for shipping, where you could just pop in to your Peugeot / DS / Citroen dealer and pick them up (assuming your nearest dealer isn't 100 miles away)!

As I mentioned earlier, there is no Citroen/Peugeot Dealer in Glasgow anymore - they closed up shop about 6 months ago!

And even if they were still open, "just popping into your local dealer" is actually a major inconvenience for me anyway during a work week. I'd rather pay a couple of quid and have them delivered to me.