Simon's new Xantia V6 and Leaf blog

[Rp0thejester]

Yes, that's the kind of tool Ryan... There, I told you I was only guessing and assuming... Wood and me don't like each other. Very allergic to sawdust.

And paint and varnish...

Is there anything your not allergic to? Apart from sitting on the sofa??

[DHallworth]

Given how active Jim is, I’d say he’s allergic to sitting on the sofa too!

[mickthemaverick]

He can't if he wanted to, he hasn't got one!

[CitroJim]

Given how active Jim is, I’d say he’s allergic to sitting on the sofa too!

I am, I'm not one for sitting down

He can't if he wanted to, he hasn't got one!

Very true!

[Mandrake]

So I put the oil in tonight and took it for a quick test drive to heat it up, came back only to find drip, drip, drip drip from the sump with a fairly major, certainly undrivable for any distance leak....

I was right to question the efficacy of the seal. It's gone from a minor leak that weeps slightly over time that probably would have scraped through the MOT to one that drips constantly when the engine is hot and has had to have an oil pan put under the car while it's parked.

I have no more fine weather or spare time for a second attempt before the MOT runs out in a couple of weeks time so I'm going to have to raise the white flag and sheepishly get the garage to re-do the job for me when I take it for the MOT.

Even if I had the free time and weather I have no confidence in my ability to get a good seal the second time, at least not unless I buy the expensive cartridge gun version of the sealant (£60+) as it's just impossible to dispense a neat, uniform bead from the toothpaste tube type where you have to squeeze with all your might just to get it to come out at all.

By the time I'm spending that kind of money for a tube I'll use only a tiny portion of with no guarantee I'll get it right the second time I'd rather put that money towards someone else taking the problem off my hands as I have far, far too much on my plate between work and home at the moment.

[CitroJim]

Sorry to hear this Simon Hopefully you can find some good quality local assistance to fix it once and for all...

A local FCF member perhaps?

[Armidillo]

I have just found that my 406 (ES9J4S) sump is also leaking again (and has failed it's rego check). I used a silicon gasket product - next time was planning to try the Loctite product - but now I might wait and see how yours pans out - let us know what product the garage uses.

Cheers
Alec

[xantia_v6]

I have done 3 or 4 of these, and only once had a leak because of a tiny gap in the sealant.

Simon, maybe you got some old stock sealant which did not flow properly?

[Mandrake]

I have done 3 or 4 of these, and only once had a leak because of a tiny gap in the sealant.

Simon, maybe you got some old stock sealant which did not flow properly?

Maybe, hard to know as I have never used this sealant before.

It was in a metal toothpaste style squeezy tube - with the nozzle cut to a medium size hole that looked about right to emulate the original bead (which is surprisingly small in diameter) it took all my strength to squeeze anything out and I was unable to squeeze it out in a uniform, continuous fashion. I then cut the nozzle a bit bigger to make it easier to squeeze but that then caused the bead to be bigger than I wanted and it would not stick to the steel because it was too far away, and kept trying to float as I slid the nozzle along. In the end it looked like I'd been sealing the edge of a bath tub rather than creating a gasket.

In hindsight anything other than a cartridge dispenser for this job (which gives leverage and the ability to accurately aim while squeezing) is folly, I don't see how it's possible to do a neat, uniform bead with a squeezy tube that is so difficult to squeeze and direct.

The cheapest cartridge dispenser tube of this stuff was over £60 and I refuse to pay that much for a tube of sealant. At the end of the day I used up the one day of fine weather before the MOT is due and I've just run out of opportunity to attempt a repeat even if I wanted to.

I'll step aside and let the experts deal with this one.

[mickthemaverick]

I realise this is too late for you now Simon but I couldn't find a listing any sooner. This is the canister I used for my old Jag sump and it went on easily and did a proper job. May be helpful for others or you next time!!

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/392126328534 ... 1034596910

[Skull]

Also probably too late for you Simon and too far to travel .....

SCUTTLE

[Mandrake]

So, since I last posted things have not gone well with the Xantia and I fear maintaining the car is starting to get out of my depth.

It has been off the road for around 3 months now with (probably) two different engine faults and I've only just had a chance to have a quick look today, and it's not good.

First some back story. For years there has been an intermittent problem causing momentary cut-outs in the engine which are occasionally enough to stall it if its idling. I haven't been able to identify any cause and it has gradually got worse.

On our big trip down south last year the first part of the trip went fine but it started intermittently "tugging" as if the engine was cutting out slightly - it got bad enough at one point that I was sure we were going to break down. On the return trip it did the same for a while and then went away again.

A month or two later in local driving it took a major turn for the worse - where it would be running fine one moment and then instantly felt like it was running on only four cylinders with barely enough power to pull across a junction, and making a kind of "putt putt" noise when you tried to put the accelerator down.

It continued to do this until I pulled over on a safe spot and was struggling to even idle. However I turned the engine off and back on and it was immediately running smoothly again. I then set off and about 20 seconds later the same happened - it felt like it was two cylinders down on power.

It did this a couple more times and then started to behave and we made it home uneventfully and I parked the car up and decided not to drive it until I had time to investigate.

When I did look into it nearly a month later I found two very worrying problems - one was LOTS of scary looking engine fault codes on the Lexia.

This seems to be too many separate faults not to be related ? I suspect the core problem is the "Intermittent fault, Cylinder 1-5 ignition short to -ve or open circuit" ?

I'm assuming that would be a fault in one of the coils in the coil pack so I could be needed a new coil pack ? I think I have a spare one somewhere I have previously removed because I wasn't happy with the way the car was running with it, (I think that one was playing up when it got hot) so I'm not sure if I should try swapping the coil pack over.

I'm assuming the knock sensor code is not actually a faulty sensor (god I hope not given where it is) but a result of the engine presumably running on 4 cylinders ?

No idea what the "Ignition shunt" error is reporting ?

The second thing I found while I was warming the engine up is I noticed the cabin heater was not getting hot at all. With a sinking feeling I checked the expansion vessel and it was empty. It turned out that it needed well over a litre of coolant to top it back up again. I let it idle for a while until it could get hot enough to open the thermostat and bleed itself and the heater and radiator both started warming up as normal.

Now another month later I went out to check the car and the coolant was not visible again - despite the car not even being driven. It took around half a litre to top it up this time. I let the car run for a while until the coolant was maybe 60 degrees and I think I've found the culprit:

With the engine running and the coolant hot/pressurised there were two tiny streams of coolant squirting out the side of this "Bulb" connector along the seam indicated by the red box.

As soon as I cracked the expansion vessel cap it stopped leaking so it only seems to leak when hot and under significant pressure.

So what is this thing and is it unobtainium now ? How difficult is it to replace it ? With the coolant expansion vessel removed is there sufficient access to replace it just through the top or does it take some significant disassembly like removing the throttle body ?

Anyone know where I could get one of these ?

I'm also concerned that if the car has been driven 10 miles or so with the coolant level so low that the radiator and heater were no longer working (thinking back the heater was NOT working on the day it was being driven where it keep seemingly dropping to 4 cylinders!) that there could be damage to head gaskets etc...

[Skull]

I think that's what stickyfingers has trouble with a 'swirl pot' I think he called it ....I'm sure he had one made out of alloy if it's the same part Send him a message and check ...

[xantia_v6]

I think that the plastic degassing tanks (1307HJ) are being remanufactured now, but a quick search does not find them. I have a spare used one (in good condition) that you can have, but I can't get it to you until the beginning of May, as it is in France and I am in New Zealand.

For your fault codes, I would try cleaning all of the wiring connectors that you can find in the engine bay and ECU box.

[CitroJim]

The coil pack is a good call for all the ignition issues Simon. I had two fail on me when I ran V6s... They are not the most reliable bit of the V6.

Certainly the first thing to eliminate.