Simon's new Xantia V6 and Leaf blog

[RichardW]

That's basically my plan Lexi, but as this one is comically tight (it laughed at the 450NM impact driver remember) it will be much easier to get it in the vice. Are you saying that the bit with the slots in it can be removed to reveal something more solid underneath? I will need to prepare my extra long scaff tube as well (well actually it's an old washing line pole, but the end is bent and needs cutting off) - the 3ft long one I normally use is under-spec for this!! I had similar trouble with one of the ones on my 307 - that needed approaching 1000 lb ft to get it undone.....

[spider]

As said those exhaust clamps will usually undo if treated to plus-gas in advance (plus-gas not WD40 please!)

They can twist and snap if they are rotten though. I'm still unsure why they usually chose 16mm for them too.

I would sometimes use a non-gen replacement for these types that was two semicircular halves, this would work well and seal properly provided you got the correct size and filled the recess in both halves with suitable paste first. Plus they are a bit easier to fit (sometimes) too. 254-930 Bosal part number although this may be the 'smaller' size one. 13mm captive heads, straightforward in most cases.

The part number is permanently etched into my mind as it was such a common item I obtained. As said it might be too small for the V6 so hopefully there is a larger one available.

This may hopefully be of some help...

[lexi]

Richard: I sectioned right across the ball joint at the bit where spring clip holds rubber boot on.....the thin blade on grinder eats it. That let me get a really big hub nut on it. I welded up through nut and around perimeter to catch in that metal at slots. Careful not to tack it to body of arm. If you don't have proper size nut, then a metal plate can be made . Weld your biggest nut on the underside of plate and the plate to your ball joint casing. The heat from welding and the fact you have a hex nut now , will shift it.
The best shifter bar is 4ft of ally scaffold pole.....better than steel. It is light, and about 5mm thick with a good opening for breaker bars and all else. A scrap yard usually has stuff.

[Mandrake]

As said those exhaust clamps will usually undo if treated to plus-gas in advance (plus-gas not WD40 please!)

They can twist and snap if they are rotten though. I'm still unsure why they usually chose 16mm for them too.

I would sometimes use a non-gen replacement for these types that was two semicircular halves, this would work well and seal properly provided you got the correct size and filled the recess in both halves with suitable paste first. Plus they are a bit easier to fit (sometimes) too. 254-930 Bosal part number although this may be the 'smaller' size one. 13mm captive heads, straightforward in most cases.

Thanks, I already have three brand new OEM Citroen ones on hand for if/when I need them - they're only about £4 each so while I was ordering o-rings for the hydraulic pump from Citroen I thought I'd get some clamps to build the order up to a worthwhile amount and have some clamps on hand that I know for certain will fit in case I need them.

As of a quick blast on the road tonight there is now a hole about 5mm across in the outer skin of the pipe the inner skin that I can see through it looks shiny and clean and looks like stainless steel although it's hard to be sure. Still not leaking yet...

I have just looked at GSF. Are these of any help? They are for a 1997 V6 Xantia;

http://www.gsfcarparts.com/422pc0270
http://www.gsfcarparts.com/422pc0280

If I was doing the lower arm bushes then I would get a complete arm and fit it, yes, however GSF's Vetech parts get really bad reviews so I wouldn't consider those particular arms. I'd hate to fit a replacement arm with cheap bushes that wear out quickly only to find it didn't cure the noise! So a bit of research on what make of arm to get would be in order...

I've been giving a bit more thought to what the noise could be and I'm still leaning away from the lower balljoint, because the noise never appears when going over bumps straight ahead, only when cornering. Also now that I take careful note it does seem to do it on left corners as well as right (albeit less) and I think it occurs when the left wheel hits a bump on a tight corner as well - but the noise comes from the right hand side of the car!

So I have another theory. What if there is a problem with the steering pinion such that the rack and pinion mesh has a lot of slack ? If so, that would explain why hitting bumps head on doesn't cause a noise, as the steering is not under any load.

However hit a pothole on a tight lock when there is significant cornering force on the steering rack and the bump may cause the pinion slack to clonk back and forth. It would also explain the kickback I feel on the steering wheel, and explain why hitting a pothole on the left hand wheel when cornering still causes the noise to come from the right hand side (where the steering pinion is) as well as kickback on the steering.

So does anyone know whether it's possible for the rack and pinion mesh to be out ? Is there an adjustment for it ? When rocking the steering back and forth without assistance (engine off) there is quite a clonk - even after the new track rod ends went in.

In other news I had the hydraulic pump out today to fit 3 new o-rings - the two small black ones and the one large black one at the end. (I don't bother with the six green ones - they never leak and are virtually impossible to remove!) It took me all afternoon from about 2pm until 10pm thanks to also having a 2 month old to look after on my own for the day, who added at least 3 hours to the book time of the job.

Naturally the fibre washer under the power steering section at the end disintegrated when I took the end cap off - although I've found from past experience that they don't leak without it with a new o-ring I decided to put a bit of hylomar blue on the faces as a precaution. So far not a drop.

The alternator was well and truly soaked and now that everything is cleaned up and the leak stopped oil is still coming out of the alternator when the engine is run... It will take a while for it to drain itself. I might have to buy a couple of cans of carb clean to flush it out.

The 50mm rubber joiner stub on the pump inlet pipe at the pump end was absolutely impossible to remove from the pump as it had moulded to the spigot and gone as hard as concrete, and when I tried to remove it it split so I ended up having to cut it off. Luckily I still had some spare hydraulic hose of the right size to replace it, which seems to be a much better fit.

The ride seems much better after replacing the joiner stub and o-rings - lets see if it stays that way though...

I also replaced the badly cracked auxiliary belt on reassembly so that's two jobs done today.

[lexi]

This is the weather for it Simon.................eases the struggles.

[superloopy]

What!! No summer weather for us here on the northeast coast. In fact it was warmer on xmas day last year than it was one day last week!!! Brrrrrrrrr [emoji16] and no sun again today.

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[Mandrake]

23 degrees and 11.8 hours sunshine forecast here today, similar to yesterday... In fact it has been brilliant for the last couple of weeks apart from about 2 days.

[superloopy]

Stop it ... stop it now [emoji35]

Down here on the east coast 15 degrees max and sun? .... no chance. Been the same on and off for past 3 weeks. Far too cold in the wind to even think about cutting the grass nevermind getting down and dirty fixing cars [emoji20]

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[superloopy]

BREAKING NEWS, BREAKING NEWS : Sun's now out on the North East coast [emoji33] [emoji33] [emoji33] .... hordes of scantily dressed people observed heading the 50m down my street to the sea.That's how i know. Now where's that lawnmower?

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[CitroJim]

Sun's out here for the first time in days and days too Mike... Us poor eastern dwellers, even us southies, have had it rough...

Today was the first time in days I've ridden my bike without resorting to wearing thermal base layers, a thermal skull cap and full-finger mitts!

Been absolutely sensational down here today!

[Stickyfinger]

Boiling down here.....6.30 and still sunny and hot

[CitroJim]

Same here For a change!

[Mandrake]

Stop it ... stop it now [emoji35]

Down here on the east coast 15 degrees max and sun? .... no chance. Been the same on and off for past 3 weeks. Far too cold in the wind to even think about cutting the grass nevermind getting down and dirty fixing cars [emoji20]

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Took this in the car on the way back from Adsa yesterday:



Ok so that's cheating because that's in-the-sun temperature... How about this one then:



The bottom figure is outdoor temperature measured by a sensor located underneath the edge of the eaves on the north side of the house and not exposed to any direct sunlight.

Sorry, but we don't get much chance to gloat over such matters up this way so I had to make the most of it...

[CitroJim]

Enjoy it Simon!

[Mandrake]

I'm not sure if I'm the only one who has experienced this, but both V6's I've owned seem to have their up days and their down days.

The silver problem child in the second half of the time I had it was notorious for having "bad days" where the performance just seemed flat for no apparent reason and it spawned probably the longest thread on the entire forum in my failed attempts to fix it... It was running badly more often than not.

My current V6 has been vastly better behaved in this regard, but it too is not entirely free from guilt. I would say as much as 10-20% of the time I don't think it is performing as it should. In other words most of the time it is absolutely fine, but now and then, seemingly unpredictably it has its off days where it feels quite flat, to the degree that I'm wondering what has gone wrong. (Only for it to seem fine again a couple of days later)

The symptoms seem to happen more often if you are always driving the car conservatively, eg the gearbox is left in "normal" mode and you are driving lazily. It happens far less often if you give the car the occasional blast in sport mode or drive in a sporty fashion semi-regularly, which seems to "wake it up". Does anyone else notice their V6 needs to be driven with some enthusiasm now and then to keep it performing in tip top shape ?

Possibly connected to this I have sometimes observed - on both cars, that the acceleration is very muted at lower RPM (below about 3000) for a period of time after a cold start. For example I might start the car in the morning, idle for 30 seconds waiting for it to rise, reverse out my gate, then move up to the nearby junction. When I go to accelerate quickly across the junction (say half throttle) and up hill slightly it will sometimes feel like the acceleration is really strangled up to about 3000 rpm then suddenly roar away like an invisible boost button was pressed. The old V6 did this too - and far more frequently.

In similar circumstances if I accelerate gently (not exceeding say 2500) then the performance of the car may remain somewhat mediocre for a couple of miles up the road at least, where you can feel it doesn't have the low down instant torque that it should have. Usually it will come right eventually.

This morning I tried something different - I put the gearbox in sport mode and when I crossed the junction I accelerated relatively gently (maybe 1/4 throttle) but because it was in sport mode it held the revs to about 3500 in each gear. The aim was to rev the engine higher than I normally do but not necessarily accelerate hard. On first gear take off it did the same thing where it felt very restricted until about 3000 rpm but then roared away. I drove up the road for about 1 minute leaving it in sport mode to let it rev but I wasn't accelerating any quicker than I normally would, so just casual driving but at higher rpm.

I stopped at a shop for a few minutes (thus the engine was stopped and restarted) then resumed my journey - but this time not in sport mode. I immediately noticed that the performance was fantastic. No sign of reluctance below 3000 rpm at all, and it had loads of low down torque and pull with the gearbox in "normal" mode. In fact I would say it was extremely eager, and it remained that way for the remainder of a 10 minute drive.

So what is happening ? It seems that giving it a bit of revs initially even though you're not accelerating hard "wakes it up" for the day... I have observed a similar behaviour in the past on both cars hence deciding to try it on purpose this morning, and sure enough, it worked. So what is the mechanism behind what is happening - does anyone have any idea ?

I do have speculation of my own to present of course...

On the old V6 it had major problems with loss of low down torque particularly below about 2500 that was intermittent but evident most of the time that I could never really get to the bottom of. A lot of things were replaced or ruled out but without resolution. My final verdict was that there was a valve gear problem in the engine such as burnt valve, sticky valve guide, collapsed hydraulic tappet or broken valve spring that was causing an intermittent misfire due to a valve either sticking slightly open sometimes or having a delayed and reduced opening period. (completely collapsed hydraulic tappet that will not pump up)

In fact I graphed the MAP pressure sensor on a scope, giving this intriguing picture of the manifold pressure pulses during the engine cycle, which gives some indication of what the valves are doing, which I posted in the old blog thread:



Cylinders are numbered A to F in firing order and you can see each has a distinctive pattern. The peak pressure (up in the graph) occurs just before an inlet valve is about to open and the drop of pressure occurs as the valve opens. This should be a fairly straight slope with maybe a little bit of ripple on it due to resonances in the intake runners. D and E are what I would consider to be "ideal" patterns, but A, B and F are probably acceptable too.

However C is a clear outlier from all other cylinders. There is a long horizontal stretch where the pressure is not dropping when it should which to me suggests that an inlet valve (maybe both) for that cylinder has had its opening delayed. You can also see that when it does start dropping that it drops quicker to "catch up" with where it should be in the piston stroke. A possible cause for this would be a completely collapsed (faulty) hydraulic tappet for the valve, which would effectively cause the valve to open less than it should (maybe by a few millimetres) and open for a much shorter duration than normal, due to opening too late and closing too early - effectively there is massive valve lash on that one valve.

Thinking about this my speculation is that the poor low RPM running on an initial start could be either a hydraulic tappet that is reluctant to pump up (partially blocked oil ways to the tappet, dirt in the tappet etc) or possibly a valve stem that is slightly sticking and won't quite close and seal fully after a cold start. If you drive the car gently at low rpm it continues to misbehave for a while, potentially quite a while, however if the car sees higher revs fairly soon after starting - even with a fairly low throttle opening and not much acceleration the higher RPM and more rapid tappet/valve movement may be enough to either cure the stickiness on the valve stem (if its that) or increase the oil pressure to get the tappet to hurry up and pump up properly. Once either of those is done the car then runs well.

Anyone have any opinions on this ?

The oil was changed less than a year ago by the way for Castrol Magnatec 5W-40 and it has done only about 5K since then, so while it is coming due for another change soon it is not overdue by any means. I'm wondering whether its worth using a flushing oil or a hydraulic tappet additive for a few days before the next oil change in case the problem is varnish in the tappet oil ways ? I'm also considering going back to 10W-40 next time so the oil is a little thicker on a cold start as that can apparently help for marginal hydraulic tappets. 10W is still more than acceptable for cold starts in a Scottish winter so 5W may be overkill...

I must put the scope on the MAP sensor on this car and see what patterns I get compared to the old V6...