Xantia radiator fan bolt - spline fitting?

[evilclive]

I've now worked out the LH fan motor is unhappy, so am following VertVega's guide to removing the motor. Except the 10mm spanner doesn't work

Looking in a mirror, it seems to be some kind of spline fitting - the opposite of a torx (*). Does anybody know what size it might be? Any handy tips on getting it off?

(wondering about getting a short torx bolt with some locked nuts on it and using that)

X reg Xantia II.

(if only the mirror would invert the fitting, then I could just use a torx bit )

[myglaren]

Perhaps you need something like this female torx set?

[evilclive]

Now why didn't I think of the word female when searching. Yes, that would work.

Sweet serendipity intervened though. Another job I had was to replace a grab handle which had come off in a friend's hand. These are held on with Torx screws - T30. I took one off, had a wobble and lo! it fitted. So a couple of lock nuts on that, and I could use it to undo the bolts on the fan. T30 = E6 according to wikipedia (why? But it does explain why finding torx T30 never gave a female.)

Now, although I have succeeded, it was jolly tedious. And putting it back together, I'm not sure there's space to put a socket and driver - it would have to be the plan to take a shiny new E6 socket, and mangle it to allow it to be turned (slot, grind flats on, something) - so my T30 screw-based tool could still be best.

Has anybody tried drilling out the fan mounty bits and using bolts pushed in from the other side? M6, then could spin the nuts on on the accessible side nice and easily.

[evilclive]

I've now pulled a motor off the spare Xantia, which had the 10mm nut/M6 stud as per vertvega's post. Which answers the question - on that, it's not an immediately obvious thing to do, unlike on the newer one.

The spare motor spins with some volts, so I might get to use my sawn-off offset spanner after all

(removing the motor from the spare car was quite a lot easier. One of the plastic arms was already broken, one succumbed to a set of garden loppers, and the other one snapped with a bit of wiggling. It's quite a lot easier when you don't care about the motor mount )