Citroen Xantia not turning on - cabin fuse box

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JohnnyUndercover
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Citroen Xantia not turning on - cabin fuse box

Unread post by JohnnyUndercover »

So today I did something that was long overdue on my V6 Xantia Activa. I've had a problem where the car won't start for a couple of years now but in the past 2 years or so I rarely got a chance to drive her. The problem happened once every couple months as the car wouldn't start. You could not hear the fuel pump on ignition and on the keypad both the red and green light were illuminated which indicate a problem with the communication between the engine ECU and the immobiliser (could also mean no power to the ECU). I've learned that a couple of love taps on the fuse box would fix the issue for me and I'd be ready to roll for another couple of months and so I neglected it until today. This morning I was about to start her up a bit and sure enough the fuel pump wasn't kicking in. Tapping on the fuse box didn't fix it this time so I decided to pull it out and take a better look.

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As the outside looked fine I decided to separate the PCBs. Luckily it's only the outside row of pins holding them together so I cut them to expose the underside of both PCBs:
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Some of the solder joins looked lightly cracked so I decided to go over all of them with a soldering iron to make sure since I'm already here.

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For the assembly I sadly didn't have more time nor material so I just soldered the pins back together, triple checking all of them and making sure the solder flows to the side where the cut was. If I've had more time I'd have pulled out all the cut pins and replaced them with a 1.2mm solid copper wire (which I didn't have on hand at that time)

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And fully assembled:
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Aaand, nothing. This time it wasn't the fuse box at fault but I'm glad I did this finally.

So upon further investigation I saw that one of the two relays located next to the ECU wasn't getting power. I pulled out some ignition schemes and found that 3 fuses located in the engine bay go towards the two relays. Checked all of them and they were good. But while playing around the fuse box I suddenly heard some clicking around the ECU. Went back in the car, ignition on and only the red light on the key pad was illuminated, after putting in the pin it went to green. At that point I knew she would start so I did not even try it.

I went back to the engine bay and pulled out the fuse box housing, at that point it was already dark and late so I didn't take more pictures except for this one:
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After pulling out the fuse box itself and disconnecting the 3 plugs (in my case) that were connected to it I could see what the problem could've been. One thicker red wire looked a little bit burned leading in the connector itself.
This picture was taken from the internet, this is what the underside of the engine bay fuse box looks like:
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I pulled out the wire out of the plastic and the inner crimp was a bit loose, so I pushed in the contact pins and put everything back together.
This is what the inner crimp looks like:
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Couldn't find the exact one but it is really close to this one, the same type at least.

After that, assembly and voila! The car starts.

I just wanted to share this here hoping it will one day help somebody as I know the cabin fuse boxes are prone to failure.
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xantia_v6
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Re: Citroen Xantia not turning on - cabin fuse box

Unread post by xantia_v6 »

Well done on finding that.

I would have put money on it being the cabin fuse box, I have had a couple where a cracked solder joint on the pins holding the boards together would cause intermittent, temperature-dependant failure.
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JohnnyUndercover
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Re: Citroen Xantia not turning on - cabin fuse box

Unread post by JohnnyUndercover »

Thanks!

That is why I rushed for the cabin fuse box instead of measuring around first...
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CitroJim
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Re: Citroen Xantia not turning on - cabin fuse box

Unread post by CitroJim »

Good work :D
Jim

Runner, cyclist, duathlete, Citroen AX fan and the CCC Citroenian 'From A to Z' Columnist...
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Stickyfinger
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Re: Citroen Xantia not turning on - cabin fuse box

Unread post by Stickyfinger »

Nice job....

Nice to see another Activa V6 (1997 as well !) owner as well :)
Alasdair
Activa, the Moose Dodger