My Xantia HDi - Minor Electrical Question!

[Supernaut]

Here we go again...

 

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[Supernaut]

Great, Tapatalk isn't attaching photos... Imagine a photo of the entrance to Aberdeen airport.

 

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[rantingYoof]

I'm assuming you are clicking the small up arrow next to the quick reply box, which opens up more options and allows you to attach photos?

 

For me, on my Samsung, I have to then click the second icon from the left which opens my photo album, and NOT the paperclip 'attach' icon. This is counter intuitive, but it works for me.

 

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[oldcars]

Great, Tapatalk isn't attaching photos... Imagine a photo of the entrance to Aberdeen airport.

 

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Here you go, along with some period chod

[billyboy406v6]

11.16 and no pez shot ? Waiting !!!

[billyboy406v6]

Still waiting.................

[rantingYoof]

The silence hopefully means that all is well, and it might be the sheer excitement of XUD ownership that has prevented Supernaut from posting any updates.

 

Or maybe there are technological failures occuring. Hopefully with his phone and not the new car...

[17-Coffees]

Plot Twist, he go on the wrong plane and is currently wondering around Paris thinking how he ended up there, rather than Preston... 

[rantingYoof]

At 4.35pm he was at Gretna, meaning just under 100 miles had been achieved, with 220 to go, because Scotland is ridiculous. I think a detailed write-up and photographs are incoming, although perhaps not for a few hours yet!

[17-Coffees]

Just had contact, said car was in Dundee and will now currently be Northbound on the A90 to Aberdeen!

 

I will be greeting the car with a Laurel and Hardy handshake...

[17-Coffees]

I've seen the car firsthand, rode in it as if I was in a Parisian Taxi and and took photos of it all for you!

Having been on the road since silly o'Clock, he cant be arsed posting today. 

 

But he did have this to say:

 

My God, it's a shed

Off to a good start then...

 

Anyway, photo's...

Generic style 'scene' photo.

 

Giffer spec wheel cover, as it doesn't fit my Lexus...

 

The powerhouse that is the 2.0 HDi.

 

#Stance...

 

#MoreLows....

 

Body wise, a bit of a dog, some lacquer missing and the paint is scratched all over, but mechanically is okay, other than the heater blower not working....

[Lacquer Peel]

My friend is breaking a phase 2 Xantia HDi if it needs anything.

[Supernaut]

Blower motor please! Steering wheel would be nice too.

 

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[Supernaut]

Proper write up.

 

I arrived in Manchester just after 10am yesterday, and was collected in this:

 

 

We drove to Preston, where I was greeted by this:

 

 

 

Looks alright, doesn't it?

 

No, it's a fucking dog.

 

 

 

So I removed the wheel trims to help keep the theme more cohesive, or something.

 

 

Besides the fucked driver's seat, the blower motor doesn't work. However, the air con does, so if you're going above about 40mph with the vents open, you get properly cold air through them! It also has a blinking airbag light...

 

Besides those, everything seems to work as it should, and it covered just over 400 miles on half tank at a cruising speed of '70mph' *ahem*

 

I also realised that half the dirt I was seeing on the windscreen was on the inside. This car needs a really good clean.

 

My plans so far are:

 

- fix blower motor

- fix airbag light...?

- clean out the interior and fit a seat cover to the driver's seat

- potentially remap it

- drive it

- try to ignore that I paid FAR TOO FUCKING MUCH for it

 

The paintwork all over the car is properly ruined though, scratches everywhere but no actual dents. Oh, the driver's side mirror seems to be loose too, it rattles a bit at speed.

 

I'm genuinely considering going over the car with a roller and some matte black paint...

 

Oh yeah. The suspension stays at whatever height it was set at when you switch the engine off. It doesn't 'sink' down again. Is this right? The height adjustment does still work though.

[rantingYoof]

Looks like top sheddage. I have to say that the photos in the advert you showed me made it look a LOT better cosmetically.

 

But if the mechanicals are good then claggy remap fun is still easily on the cards.

 

Also, 400 miles on half a tank? That's insanely good.

 

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[dean36014]

With regards the air bag light first thing to do is cut the plugs out under the seats and hardwire them. That cured all the airbag faults on mine. If i remember correctly non aircon xantias use a different blower fan to aircon models, might be wrong though as i have a dodgy memory at the best of times. Great cars though, i had two, a 1.9d sx and a 1.9sd, a rare low pressure turbo model for emissions. front strut tops need careful checking as they corrode under the rubber coating resulting in a large bonnet bulge!

[Lacquer Peel]

Only the earliest Xantias sink.

[Supernaut]

Cool! Thanks for the replies folks!

 

I found a forum thread on some citroen forums suggesting the transistor packs on the blower fan can be at fault. I have the blower motor on my lap right now and I'm unscrewing the transistor pack. You can get a new one from ebay for all of £14 so I may give that a shot. It's an aircon model too.

 

With regards to the under-seat wiring, that's the first thing I suspected! I may actually whack in another driver's seat before doing that though.

 

Lacquer Peel: Where is your mate's Xantia? Is he up your way (Inverness way)? I can't do next weekend as I'm on call so can't go more than an hour from Aberdeen, but the weekend after, I'd be up for smoking up there with my tool box and having a good going over it.

[Lacquer Peel]

Lacquer Peel: Where is your mate's Xantia? Is he up your way (Inverness way)? I can't do next weekend as I'm on call so can't go more than an hour from Aberdeen, but the weekend after, I'd be up for smoking up there with my tool box and having a good going over it.

 

Kent unfortunately!

[Supernaut]

Oh bloody hell.

[Supernaut]

So... one thing I've noticed with this is that the suspension can be a little bit reluctant to change height sometimes.

 

For example, I'll park it at the lowest setting for a while, then I'll start it up and move the lever to raise it up. It'll click a little bit then the STOP light comes on. With a couple of attempts at wiggling the lever back and forth between the positions it'll decide to raise up and behave itself again.

 

Part of me thinks this is a big super-terrible terminal thing, and the logical part of me thinks with it being a fluid-based system perhaps it just needs bled.

 

Which is it?

 

With this being a later model Xantia though, I can just leave it at the normal driving position and it stays there, as it doesn't sink when switched off as alluded to earlier (which is perfectly fine on the later Xantias) so I can just get around its reluctance to raise by doing that, but where's the fun in that?

 

EDIT: Googling my symptoms suggests it's the accumulator sphere not holding pressure properly.

[dollywobbler]

They do take a while to respond if they've been left 'slammed.' That's true of pretty much any hydraulic Citroen. Wouldn't worry about it. Just leave the lever alone and wait. It'll get there in the end. Quick tip - if jacking it up, put the suspension on high first. Then there's less chance of it collapsing onto the jack when you lower it down again.

 

Another thing to note is that no hydraulic Citroen will sink as soon as you turn it off. The pressure is maintained for a while, even on the sinkers.

[Supernaut]

By 'a while' I'm talking about a minute or so after starting it up. Is that ok?

[Urko]

 With a couple of attempts at wiggling the lever back and forth between the positions it'll decide to raise up and behave itself again.

 

 

 

Not Xantias - but both my BXs were like this (and I had one of them from brand new).  I really wouldn't worry too much.

[Supernaut]

Fair enough.

 

I'm reading lots of posts on other forums that are scaring me into looking at the accumulator sphere, but you lot are just saying to live with it.

 

I wasn't expecting it to react immediately, but it does sometimes take a minute or two to get any movement out of it when it's 'slammed'

[JohnK]

I wouldn't worry about it. My BX sinks flat on its bump stops overnight and can take a while to fully raise on a morning.. Maybe about 30 seconds or so, but the suspension is healthy on it.

[Supernaut]

This doesn't sink at all when left overnight. If I do decide to slam it though, it takes more than 30 seconds (sometimes a good minute or so) to begin raising sometimes.

 

Admittedly, what I've been doing is

 

- put the lever at the position for 'normal height'

- waiting

- STOP light comes on, so I immediately put the lever back to 'slammed'

- wait a second or two

- then put the lever back to 'normal' again

 

Should I just whack it to 'normal' and wait, ignoring the STOP light?

[rml2345]

Mine is occasionally reluctant to raise from low too but giving it a wee blip of the throttle seems to help. I'm probably doing something horribky wrong and it'll kersplode on Thursday but it's alright so far.

[The Moog]

 

 

- put the lever at the position for 'normal height'

- waiting

- STOP light comes on, so I immediately put the lever back to 'slammed'

- wait a second or two

- then put the lever back to 'normal' again

 

Should I just whack it to 'normal' and wait, ignoring the STOP light?

Yes 

The STOP means you cant drive it but it will go out once the pressure is back up 

[Supernaut]

Cool beans. So it's not as fucked as I thought.

 

It even has the original dealership sticker from Preston in the rear window. I don't think it's ever moved very far in its life, now it's in Aberdeen!

 

I have the transistor pack for the blower motor on order and it should arrive tomorrow / Wednesday. I'll whack that in and see if it works. Appears to be a common problem on lots of PSA cars of this era, and the transistor pack fits a stupid amount of cars!

 

I now have a question about the brakes. The fronts seem to squeak a little bit (so I think I'll look into replacing the pads). Do I just take the cap off the LHM reservoir and push the pistons back, like you would on any other car? Well, except for it being LHM instead of brake fluid.