Citroen zx 1.9d 1992, heater woes and OMG hope I can remember how it goes back together!

[Lacquer Peel]

All the XUD9TEs I've tried GLF on boost, it does sound like there was something wrong with your old one.

I towed a heavy trailer of firewood with my NA Xantia diesel and it still pulled ok even over the moors.

It's an engine that punches above its bare figures.

[dean36014]

Well it's all done.....except I changed the fuel filter and the battery hadn't enough life to start it. My own fault should have done it on a warm engine. So battery on charge and tomorrow it hits the road!

I used to have an xantia non turbo and that happily dragged a 21ft caravan around the country. It even get 60mph up on the flat. The zx feels quite sprightly so the turbos must be great.

[dean36014]

Well managed to get enough sparks back into the battery and bled the fuel system again and it sparked into life first turn, so i took into work last night. Runs great, very nippy for na diesel, it does to to be very crackly though so wonder if someone has played with the pump timing. On the downside the brakes are appalling! First time I've drove it with bleed brakes but they don't exactly inspire confidence. For the sake of £30 I've ordered new discs and pads as the front discs are very worn and the pads nearly new. i'm wondering if the pads are some cheap crap from ebay made form granite. But driving it today it doesn't seem as bad, maybe the new back brakes have bedded in or I'm just too used to modern brakes with ABS. Managed to score a used JCV cd/radio with usb of a facebook sale site today for £15 so thats all fitted now as I somehow seemed to have bricked the original radio cassette. Going to put some miles on it today and might inflict it on the ex wife on Monday when we go to Nottingham to watch my daughter in a rowing competion

[dean36014]

Nothing exciting to report. Been enjoying the sunroof in this lovely weather. The brakes feel better, either that or I'm more used to them. new discs and pads to be fitted tomorrow as the original discs are well worn. Its been earning its keep collecting bags of sand and cement from the builders merchant. 200kgs of sand in the boot does seem to lower it somewhat. Going to book it in for a MOT next week, hopefully it won't need much seeing as I've replaced most things over the last two weeks.

[dean36014]

Sold a guitar for a huge profit and invested £40 in a set of these. They need a little painting but no major curbing. Should look good hopefully when fitted, just need to get a set of shouldered wheel bolts for them.

[dean36014]

Well put it in for its MOT today and it only went and passed with no advisories, well chuffed. MOT chap reckons it a good 'un. Went through emissions at 0.7%.

Can anyone photoshop?

Found a picture of a zx with the alloys I've brought on, but wonder if anyone could photoshop the rims to black or grey, thanks in advance.

[mouseflakes]

Good news!
 

[stripped fred]

Well done on the mot pass. I love the shape of these. I had a 5 door volcane TD and it was a great car, economical, felt pretty quick, was spacious and rode like a much bigger car. It was also reliable and didn't need much in my 4 years of ownership.

[Pillock]

 

I hope you don't mind, I built a titty bar too.

[beko1987]

Very nice! May it bring you a year of boring reliability!

[dean36014]

Cheers Pillock! Love the titty bar  Definitely thinking black or dark grey for the rims, looks less brash. Need to take some brave pills then and sort the drivers door out. Either use the genuine citroen door skin and repair the original door, or find a good second hand one and repaint. Been told there are two different type of hinges just to complicate matters.

[dean36014]

Managed to purchase a complete drivers door to replace the badly dented one on the car.  Came from a ebay breaking add, £35 delivered. Its a complete door complete with switches, all electrics and a mirror but obviously the wrong colour. Was told it was next day delivery and would be arriving around noon. Was most surprised to find it was delivered in person by the seller who was a big Citroen fan. In other news, I fitted new front door speakers, but the sound still sounds rubbish. The old girl is clocking up the miles and on the last tank of fuel averaged 45mpg!

 

[beko1987]

Same colour as mine! Shinier though

[dean36014]

It needs paint stripping right back as there is some micro blistering. Current thinking is to lob the door on as is and use the genuine citroen door skin i obtained for pennies and reskin the original door.

[dean36014]

So after studying the door and its dodgy paint I decided to lob it on and reskin the original door. The OCD part of me likes this idea as it will keep most of the original door and hopefully door fit. So removed the old door which was simplicity itself. Undo two 5.5mm headed grub screw in the door hinges, unplug the wiring harness out its socket in the door, two 10mm bolts holding the check strap on, lift and remove door. Slotted the new door on and it was apparent the top hinge pin has some serious wear in it causing a little door droop, justified the decision to reskin the original. Door locks swapped over, wiring harness plugged in and everything works including the remote central locking on that door now. So when the original door goes back on I'll fit the locks and door harness out this door so hopefully eliminating any door locking issues. Car looks now suitably shonky with its odd door.

Now need a decent dry day and will get the grinder out and remove the old door skin. Never done one before so will just grind through the edges and peel the doorskin off. Might bottle out fitting the new one and get some to do it for me, its a genuine door skin so hopefully will fit well.

Next job was the parcel shelf. It had no strings to lift it, nor could i see how any were meant to actually fit through the shelf itself. The are little hooks moulded above the tailgate glass but no obvious means of attaching to the shelf. So I spent a whole quid on a tent guy rope from B&M's. Unfortunately only available in lime green or dayglo orange, I choose the dayglo orange for obvious health and safety reasons! Two small holes drilled through the parcel shelf, guy ropes fed through and the little tensioning plates were perfect to stop the cord going through after tieing a knot in the cord to stop it pulling through. Used the same method at the top too, and it works perfectly......except you have to tuck the cord in before shutting the tailgate. But for a quid i call that a successful bodge! Need to get some spray adhesive as the carpet is coming unstuck off the shelf though.

 

 

[beko1987]

Nice! Are you coming to SF? We could park out multicoloured ZX's next to each other!

 

I don't bother tucking in my cord, it flaps freely in the breeze!

[dean36014]

when is it? i work nights so can't take any time off for a while, might pop in on the day though if its a saturday.

[mouseflakes]

Now need a decent dry day and will get the grinder out and remove the old door skin. Never done one before so will just grind through the edges and peel the doorskin off. Might bottle out fitting the new one and get some to do it for me, its a genuine door skin so hopefully will fit well.

 

I'm sure you can make a good job of it. I did a couple of Mini door skins years ago and it was surprisingly straight forward. Having said that, I wasn't particularly bothered about the end result at the time, so it might have looked terrible to others' eyes (I seem to recall it was okay though).

[dean36014]

Well bit the bullet and broke out the grinder for some door skin removal. I carefully* ground the edges until i could see a faint line appear and then broke the seam open with a sharpened screw driver. Worked slowly around the door, two spot welds to grind away by the mirror area, and viola, one door skin removed. Remarkably little rust on the seam at the bottom, cleaned it up with a wire cup in the grinder and painted on some rust treatment. Trial fitted the new skin and it appears to fit perfectly which you would expect being a genuine panel. Unfortunately i can't progress any further as there is a strengthening panel attached to the skin to stop it vibrating and it needs bonding to the new skin and i haven't any tiger seal to do the job. So ordered some of Ebay and hopefully will get the new skin on by the end of the week.

 

[tooSavvy]

Going to put some miles on it today and might inflict it on the ex wife on Monday when we go to Nottingham to watch my daughter in a rowing competion

...... So, she learned a lot from the parents - pre split?

 

 

TS

[dean36014]

Well the little Citroen carries on providing sterling service. Its even going to go to hunstanton in July on a weekend away. With this in mind i decided having a full compliment of matching red doors would be nice so decided to crack on with the door reskin. Now I freely admit my mate put the fear of god in me when he said that the door will want filler work after the reskin to hide the dents made folding the skin round. I mulled on this for a few days, read a few posts on google and eventually bit the bullet. Now as this job was going to take awhile comfort was necessary due to having had two back ops. A stack of breeze blocks was made and the top of an old garden table added to make a nice working height whilst sitting in a garden chair! A couple of garden bench cushions added to the top to protect the door from damage due to being manhandled around. Door skin fitted, and got stuck in folding the lip round. A proper door skinning hammer, or at least one that looked vaguely like one, I found in my box of random junk was a bonus, god knows how i would have bent the flange on the inside of the window aperture without it. I found that carefully hammering around the flange round about 12 inches at at time, each time bending it slightly further whilst protecting the outside skin with the dolly worked for me. I'm not the fastest of workers but even I was surprised how long it took, best part of two hours gentle hammering and it was done. I went in to make a celebratory cuppa and immediately noticed the internal door stiffener sitting on the kitchen worktop all cleaned up waiting to be fitted,...doh! Thankfully a few skinned knuckles and a couple of pints of blood later I'd manged to work it into the door frame and between the frame and door skin at the bottom with no obvious damage, we just won't mention that bit again, our little secret! Was pleasantly surprised to find only one little mark on the door skin right along the bottom edge made by all the hammering, I call that a result. now need to get the seam sealer out and get the door painted and fitted.

some pictures,

 

[mouseflakes]

Top Johnny! A lot more complex than the Mini doors I did - the skin only goes up to the bottom of the window frame on those.

[dean36014]

it was trying to turn the flange on the inside of the window aperture that gave me more grey hairs. Even with the curved blade on the hammer access was a nightmare. Its where a door skinning tool would have been a god send, but wasn't paying fifty quid for something that would languish unused in the toolbox forever.

[dean36014]

Door still not painted, waiting on some g3 to turn up so I can really polish the hell out the square I cut out the old door skin to use for the paint match. According to the paint code its Venetian red and not a laquered finish. The only bit of laquer peel is on the front of the roof, closer examination reveals this to have been repainted at some point and laquered, hence the peeling. The hot pressure washer at work is slowly removing and loosening up the little bit of laquer remaining.

In other news i took advantage of the nice weather yesterday to ghetto restore the VTR rims. Copious use of a wire brush in the angle grinder, a quick key up with some 80 grit and some silver wheel paint got them looking half presentable. They are definitely a 5 yard finish, they look awful close up but a bit of brake dust will soon sort that out.

Averaged 54mpg on the last tank of fuel including bombing up to Nottingham and bringing my daughters bike back on a roof rack, not complaining at that! 

[JayW]

ZX 19naD, there is nothing simpler and more reliable on the road. Mines on 177,000 and drives impeccably, no smoke, knocks or rattles... better than the bloody BX!

[dean36014]

Few posts been lost of here since the great autoshite crash. Basically, cars great, i'm not, back troubles again and possible surgery on the cards again.

Newly painted door has been refitted, slight colour mismatch but hardly surprising considering the paint is 24 years old and faded.  Took the car to Hunstanton, a task it did perfectly and returned well in excess of 50mpg. Was bored sensless doing nothing on doctor's orders so grabbed the newly purchased polishing mop and some G3 and set to. Have to say it looks fantastic now in my eyes. Next task is try and get the seats cleaner. I've also order a cheap remote central locking kit to see if its possible to upgrade the rubbish system citroen fitted. Got fed up having to have the remote against the door glass and pointing it at the the little globe in the headlining so will see if the cheap Chinese system will give it any more range. At the moment its quicker to use the key. Still on the look out for a decent rear bumper as the Ebay purchased one from a Citroen dealer turned out to be a Pug 106 front bumper!

Have some pictures, starting with the fantastic sunset at Hunstanton.

[purplebargeken]

That looks pretty bloody good! What about that trim strip?

[dean36014]

I brought some trim tape and stuck it on and it fell off in the heat! Guess i'm going to have to fork out for some pukka 3m stuff rather than £3 a roll ebay cheap  tat.

[Rusty_Rocket]

That's looking excellent.  I bet when the black trim piece goes (stays) on, it'll look perfect!

[worldofceri]

That looks well supa-shiny.  I really should keep my eyes peeled for ya, I'm sure you must only be about three streets away from me!