Citroen XM 2.1 TD Now for SALE! £900

[dollywobbler]

If there are no obvious puddles, my first port of call would be the strut return pipes. They're on the opposite side of the strut to you as you kneel in front of the wheel. Ebay ones are generally utter shite. You won't lose much in general driving but will every time the car sinks. An absolute nightmare of a job the first time you try it, without the proper tool for fastening the metal clip. You just need to learn the knack.

[philibusmo]

Thanks for the info, I'll have a gander at those next weekend. Its certainly not loosing it quickly so they seem like a likely candidate.

 

It needs an oil change, possibly a coolant change and I'll lob the winter wheels on at the same time, so it will already be up in the air with the bits normally behind the wheels visible and easy to check for leaks.

 

I think I'll also try and find the pollen filter as the interior fan is a bit pathetic. I may even do an LHM flush and clean out the filters like Beko of this parish.

[dollywobbler]

If you do a fluid change, my advice would be to park the front end on a set of ramps first. Assuming the pressure regulator is in a similar place to a BX - where access is easiest from beneath. Which I first discovered when the fluid had already been drained and replaced and the car then wouldn't lift... (they can take a while, and it's always stressful wondering if it's going to sort itself out!)

[beko1987]

I can just about reach the regulator bolt with the car on low on the ground, but it is a face mashing exercise. Is far easier with the front up on ramps or stands!

 

Good luck finding your leak!

[philibusmo]

Last weekend the XM got an oil and filter change along with a coolant change. At the same time I had a gander to see if I could work out where the LHM leak was coming from. This area behind the drivers front wheel was pretty damp but I couldn't see exactly where this was all coming from.

I topped up the LHM and decided to ignore it until it fixed itself. Sadly my carefully made plan failed and on Friday the warning light appeared again and on checking it had lost more than a liter of LHM in 5 days, still I got to work just in time and parked up. On leaving at the end of the day I noticed there was a trail of spots around the car park leading to my car.

And this was the view underneath where the droopy under-tray was dripping the spilled LHM in a big puddle.

Today I lobbed the XM up on axle stands and had another look to see where it was all going. After taking off the front wheel and mucking about removing the wheel arch splash guards I sprayed around some brake cleaner and gave the general area of dampness a wipe around with a rag to clear away the already spilled stuff.

 

It took a fair old while to track it down but it turned out it was coming from a union connected to the steering rack and in the least accessible place possible. Its the slightly rusty union above the steering rack gaiter in the below picture:

I eventually managed to get a very small 12mm spanner on this and the union on the other end of the pipe which connected to kerjigger in the centre of the underneath of the car and eventually after about an hour got it off the car.

 

Of course it looked perfect and I had no idea how fluid was managing to leak out the centre of the union. I cut the end off the union and squashed a new flange on the end a few millimeters further down. Its now back on the car, which was even more painful to do than take it off and took the best part of an hour and a half but at least it seems to no-longer be leaking. I'll be driving it for about 40 miles tonight and I know how much LHM is in it so that'll be a good test to see if it is actually fixed.

 

I have also found out why the headlamp washers don't work. The Y piece that splits the water flow to each lamp is broken so the pump just blasts all the water on the ground. Additionally I've found a small blow on the exhaust which I'll weld up soon but its so small I can't hear it unless I'm under the car when its running, somewhere I generally hope I won't end up.

[dollywobbler]

Nice work! Didn't look fun at all but if that's cured it, job's a good'un.

[Lankytim]

What are these like to drive then? Any good? Mine drives lovely on it's weekly commute up and down the inlaws drive.

[philibusmo]

What are these like to drive then? Any good? Mine drives lovely on it's weekly commute up and down the inlaws drive.

 

As it happens they are really good to drive, fairly quick when needed and they handle really well for such a big old barge. The ride is quite good, although I cant give a full report on this as I think mine might have something wrong with one of the central spheres so its constantly stuck in sport mode. I only think this as the ride is a very little harsher than I was expecting and the sport light doesn't flick on when I turn the ignition on like it should.

[beko1987]

My sport light comes on with the ignition now after getting the faults cleared, but I have the same ruse as you. All other spheres have been off, checked and are healthy apart from the centre one, so my money's on that. Maybe save yourself hassle and go straight for the centre.

 

Congrats on fixing your leak too. I haven't had one yet (embraces a tree...)

[philibusmo]

I've checked underneath today and I can't see any new puddles on the floor, although it is getting increasingly difficult on my drive to distinguish between old spillages and new so I won't be putting the under tray back on until next weekend, but still looks promising that it is fixed.

 

Assuming this stays fixed then up next is sorting the cruise control.

[eifion]

One thing that's worth checking when the cruise control isn't working on an XM is the switch in the brake pedal. On mine the metallic strip that is a push-to-make contact has become slightly bent over the years and was in contact all the time, making the cruise control not work. Some fettling managed to get it working again.

 

I'm impressed with the repairs to your LCD display. Mine was always missing a few lines until a particularly hot day this summer when it mysteriously fixed itself.

[caver1]

I've checked underneath today and I can't see any new puddles on the floor, although it is getting increasingly difficult on my drive to distinguish between old spillages and new .....

That surely had to be the quote of all time ... LOL ... Pure autoshite

[flat4alfa]

The cruise control actuator bellows is split.  There is a good one I pulled from a breaker (a tenner!) in that box in the boot.

[philibusmo]

Citroen News!

 

Its fecked.

 

Well it is fixable, its that blasted LHM pipe again that runs from a steering ram to a central silver cylinder type kerjigger. It started leaking again while I was helping a friend move house, but this time instead of a few drips it was a raging torrent.

 

I have made a new pipe and fitted the original unions, but possibly the other way round, and now its leaking from the other end instead. I have tried to remedy this twice but failed to stem the leak both times so I think the problem is the union rather than the pipe. I am now waiting on a new union, if it is possible to get hold of one, which is seeming less and less likely as it seems to be a weird type only found on Citroen XMs, otherwise I will run some weld around the end of the current union to fill any micro cracks and then file it back into shape.

 

This so far hasn't made a great winter daily as it has spent at least 2 weeks (soon to be 3) like this:

 

Still hopefully it will be fixed next weekend and then I can get back to wafting around in style.

[philibusmo]

The XM was fixed some time ago. It turned out to be the union rather than the pipe that was at fault. Fuck knows what the fault was though but a new union did fix it, even if it did look exactly the same as the original.

 

I have been tooling around in it ever since, and apart from welding up a small hole on the exhaust and attempting to fix a rattly heat shield (which then just made it make a more annoying rattle) it has been a superb old barge. It has saved itself from the bridge by being such cheap and comfortable transport so I got in touch with fellow XM owning auto-shiter Lankytim who is breaking a knackered XM to help fix his good one. I belted up to Stoke on Trent to nab a few bits, including a new front bumper, clock, door mirror and a couple of other assorted bits and pieces, including this rather spiffing glass partition. It sits between the front seat and the rear hatch to stop the nice warm air in the car escaping when the boot is opened.

Not something I have ever considered to be a problem, but I should imagine that if the President of France was busy trying to shag his mistress in the back when his security guard opens the boot to find a baguette or whatever then the sudden chill would be a bit off putting.

 

Here is Lankytim's XM with mine. Yet another top bloke, as seems to be the norm with the inhabitants of Autoshite. Highly recommended autoshiter A++++++++++

 

Of course the journey there wasn't entirely smooth. I set off bright and early, zipped off the drive, down the street and onto the main road where it set off with all the pace of a one legged, obese tortoise and then cut out. After much cranking it set off, and then cut out, and then did the same again, and again and then set off without cutting out and proceeded with the accelerator to the floor at a leisurely 28-30mph and not any more, no matter what I tried. Until I had driven 2 miles and then it very suddenly set off like a cat on speed, to my sudden surprise, and was fine for the rest of the journey. To combat this situation I have lobbed in a full tank of actual diesel (for the first time since I've owned it) and some RedX diesel system cleaner. We'll find out tomorrow if that has made any change when I either pull out onto the main road without incident or pull out at 2mph, cut out and and obliterated by an arctic.

[beko1987]

Nice! I'm so scared of mine developing an LHM leak!

[Lankytim]

Great meeting you today! Just had a thought...have you changed the fuel filter? Veg dislodges carbon and shite and clogs filters.

[philibusmo]

I was going to type this up yesterday evening, but decided that drinking beer was a better idea.

It’s MOT time on Monday, and as usual events have conspired against this car passing. Firstly the garage is in even more of a mess than usual as it has been split in half to make a separate scullery and I am currently trying and failing to fit a sink in it which has meant that there are tool boxes and general rubbish everywhere.

The issues with the XM were as follows:

The passenger side sidelight lens was taken out by a suicidal pheasant. A new one has been ordered from Germany and is on its way but looks like ti won’t be here quite in time for the MOT.

On Friday the passenger side indicator and fog light lens exploded on the M5 for no obvious reason and the other side was cracked and almost opaque from before I got it.

As both indicators needed to be removed I decided to swap the full bumper over for the one that I got from Lankytim a few weeks ago as the one that was on the car has always been wonky, wasn’t the original, had some minor damage and the slots for the head lamp washers appeared to have been cut out with a chainsaw by a parkinsons sufferer. So off it came along with the nose cone, revealing some issues and bodgery. These pipes were split, fuck knows what they’re for though, but I have fixed them with gaffa tape anyway. The bumper bar was pretty rotten and the rubber bushes that locate it onto the mounts and stop it rattling had disappeared at some point and been replaced by two half rolls of electrical tape. Finally the alarm should have been bolted to the fibreglass slam panel but had ripped the panel and come adrift. I bolted this back onto a metal section a little further back.

The main reason for the wonkiness of the bumper was that both side bumper mounts were completely rotten.

I quickly fabricated some new sections and welded these back up. Not my best bit of welding of all time but I was on a tight deadline.

The new bumper had a bracket ripped off where the flimsy plastic lugs that hold it on had sheared, this was fixed with some short self-tapping screws and washers.

The new bumper bar was showing some surface rust and so I decided to quickly grind this off, followed by some rust convertor and black Hammerite to hopefully stop it going the same way as the original. The two front mounts were also de-rusted, then I covered them in seam sealer, Hammerite and then built up a few layers of gaffa tape around them to replace the rubber bushes and stop any rattles, this worked perfectly.

With this fixed in place and the bumper brackets welded up I attached the headlamp washers to the new bumper and fitted it in place, complete with new lamps, and then fitted the nose cone back in place. The new bumper is dark green but without getting under the car and really studying it, you wouldn’t notice the colour difference.

Lastly I got a used pop bottle and cut a section out to make a new side lamp lens which was then also taped into place. It Looks practically factory fresh.

With it sorted and all ready for an MOT I settled down to congratulate myself on a fine days’ work and had a few beers. I decided to give it a blast up and down the dual carriage way to make sure all remaining veg oil was out of its system for the emissions test and could not see what could possible go wrong…

Today it went wrong. Very wrong.

 

I was on the return stretch of my dual carriage way blast when very suddenly up flashed “HYDRAULIC PRESSURE LOW†on the (still working) dot matrix display, which had me worried, especially as I was just slightly above the 70mph limit – 71mph, honestly. I knew there was a lay by just down the road and dived in and sat looking at the message wondering if I should carry on. From the lay by I could actually see my house about 3 fields away but to drive there would be about 2 miles. I decided that I would give it a go and went to turn back onto the road, only to find a complete lack of steering was rather hampering progress. The best idea now seemed to be to get out, look forlorn and call the AA. There was a sizable puddle of LHM sat where I had originally parked up.

I called the AA, described my predicament and they advised that someone would be there in an hour and a half. While I waited I topped up the LHM to see how quickly it would leak out and where from. It didn’t seem to be leaking at all, so I got brave and turned the engine on. Now the little level indicator was dropping rapidly and a quick glance across the engine bay explained why. One of the high pressure pipes coming off the pump was firing out LHM like a water cannon all over the radiator, and couldn’t generate enough pressure to return the power steering.

 

When the AA did arrive about an hour later the bloke took one look at it and decided it was fecked so attached it to the back of his van with a tow pole as once moving we thought it would probably be just about possible to steer. I still had something resembling brakes and the antisink mechanism had done its job so it was still possible to tow.

 

This went very well and surprisingly without incident. Once home I needed to get it back in the drive and we both looked at it and the small slope onto the drive and thought it wouldn’t be much fun to push so with much confidence I leapt in to drive it back up there. As the steering was a stiff I reversed back but couldn’t get enough lock to get it in so put it into drive to pull forward and get in on the second run. The brakes took this opportunity to fail completely so I hurtled towards the front fence of the house across the road with no effect from the brake pedal. Within about an inch of the fence panels I realised that pressing the brake pedal into the carpet wasn’t helping anything and swapped to the handbrake pedal on the far left and slammed it into park. It stopped with just space for a cigarette paper between the new bumper and the fence post. The AA man laughed at me.

 

I popped it back into reverse and gingerly pulled back onto the drive, using just the handbrake to stop. It is now sat doing a big green wee with a nice LHM trail showing my nearly disastrous manoeuvring.

Looks like I will have to cancel the MOT tomorrow then and look at how to fix this. What a kerfuffle.

[phil_lihp]

Hope that's a cheap and easy fix, you've not had much luck with the hyraulics on this one have you?  Having seen this particular one in the metal I now have a want for an XM (mostly because of the reverse lights for some reason) so I don't want to hear about problems!

 

Nice work on the bumper though, that's a big improvement.  

[cort16]

What a nightmare. I couldn't cope with all this LHMery it just seems to make running an old complex french car even more complex.

I hope you get it fixed without to much hassle.

[Bren]

I bet the SD1 was laughing to itself at the rot in the front of the XM.

 

I have every faith that you will get the XM sorted.

[catsinthewelder]

Best of luck sorting it,  at least you know what's wrong.

 

After all it could be an electrical problem

[dollywobbler]

Clearly the car was unimpressed with your high* quality sidelight repair. Did you tell it a proper one was in the post?

 

Hope it's an easy fix. Engine bay/front end leaks are generally preferably to a front-to-rear pipe going.

[DSdriver]

Just keep chanting this mantra: "hydraulics are simpler than electrics, you can see where the leak is".

The smaller-than-the-DS red light of doom comes on occasionally on Thunderbird 2* with a low pressure warning but apparently for no particular reason that I can work out. I work on the theory that if there is no (new) green puddle underneath then it must be damp in the electrics. I will work on a new excuse if and when we have a long hot dry summer.

Good luck with the MOT.

 

*named after another big green load carrier.

[KruJoe]

What fun*.

[Lankytim]

Glad to see that bumper getting re-used, it looks much better!

 

Which pipe do you need? I may be able to raid my parts car for it, although it's a 2.5 obviously.

 

Your rear miss with a neighbours fence and no brakes reminds me of my total balls-up getting my spares XM onto the inlaws drive. No brakes, no suspension, mega heavy steering and a big hill with a main road. How I didn't die in a big fireball I'll never know. I literally shit myself.

[beko1987]

I tried to drive mine in low once and nearly took out a bus shelter. Was coming out of campbells actually!

[Asimo]

Oh but I am glad I don't have one of those.

[Partridge]

Pictures of crappy old Citroens in bits. This is what I signed up for

[philibusmo]

I got the opportunity today to have a gander at the cause of this problem today. The pipe at fault was the one second closest to the camera in this shot. It consists of a steel pipe at each end with a flexible section crimped onto either end so that it could be installed easily during production. Sadly this is a slightly different design on the petrol engines and utterly different on the 2.5TD so it seemed unlikely I would be able to get hold of one off a scrapper any time soon.

It had burst just below the bracket holding the pipe in-front and was spraying the LHM at about 3000PSI into the radiator. The pipe at this end was easy to remove, I undid the union and chopped the flexible pipe to free it. The flexible pipe disappeared down into the depths of the engine bay behind the radiator, intercooler and many many pipes and cables.
 
After some investigation I found the other end connected to this kerjigger where the front sphere is sat - and the connection hardly looks like a professional job...

Luckily I don't think the bathroom sealant is there for any particular reason, there is no evidence of any leaking behind the sealant so I think I should be ok, now that I have disturbed it. The pipe came out fairly easily from this end, once I had unbolted the thousands of brackets attached to it. The one annoyance was that to reach this I had to take the under-tray off, which is one of my least favourite things in the world. Especially today as the suspension wasn't pumped up so I had to squeeze underneath with it leaving an oil slick on me and have it drip LHM on my face as I undid the multiple bolts. This time it had also picked up a stick, which had punched a nice hole in it and got stuck in the sound proofing.

With the pipe removed I popped to my local* Citroen dealer in my ever reliable Mk1 Fiesta.
*20 miles!
The helpful old boy behind the parts counter came back after a few minutes trying to find the part to say that it was no longer available. Instead I went half a mile down the road to Pirtek with the original pipe and left it with them to fit a new flexible pipe between the two steel ends. They said that it would likely be tomorrow that it was done, so I blezzed home and set about changing the spheres underneath the car.
 
I know the two spheres on the front corners and the two on the back had been changed, but the regulator spheres and the accumulator sphere are from 1996 and 2002 respectively, so well past their best. Hopefully this should make the already comfy ride, super comfy. The accumulator sphere was a pain in the arse to change, a constant struggle to get enough leverage on it, without smashing the shit out of the inter cooler. The front regulator sphere wasn't so bad, as it was much more accessible, but as it seemed to be the original (covering over 170,000 miles!) it was a little ceased.
 
While changing this sphere I got a call from Pirtek, telling me the pipe was done and I could come and collect it. I finished changing the sphere, washed the vast amounts of oil off my hands, arms and face and leaped in the Fiesta to pick up the pipe 20 miles away in rush hour traffic with only 45 minutes before they shut. I kept my foot down where possible and got there with 3 minutes to spare. The new flexible section is a braided hose and looks pretty substantial. I look forward to fitting that tomorrow in the pouring rain.