Xantia of Desires - Farewell xantia!

[vulgalour]

Great news on the pass!  I saw a dark coloured Xantia hatchback on my way home from errands, it was clearly a good omen and not one of doom.

[Dick Cheeseburger]

[SiC]

Pass! Get in there!

Do you think Arthur paid up the garage in advanced to get a pass?

[beko1987]

Do you think Arthur paid up the garage in advanced to get a pass?

If he did, then thank you!

[Arthur Foxhake]

Haha, I was on the wrong website.

Saw it had MOT and thought it had passed, forgot it still had some left on it.

[Shep Shepherd]

Superbe! 

[DSdriver]

Yay, that'll make Xmas a lot more enjoyable for you. What is it with Citroen battery terminals?  My XM ones randomly loosen themselves which plays havoc with the alarm system.

[beko1987]

The drive home was alot nicer! In silence too, as it turns out I don't know the radio code off by heart, and I keep the manuals in the house and not the car...

[beko1987]

Just getting the paperwork together...

 

First MOT - average smoke reading of 4.97

Secind mot, with the fuel turned down a bit and a new air filter - 4.42

Today with a non ground lda pin and the fuel turned down alot - 2.40!

 

I do like mechanical fixes! That lot can all go in the folder now and we can hope to never have to repeat this next year, I doubt the exhaust would have rusted away by then

 

Ive also lost several fails and advisories :

 

Number plate light - came on like a good boy

Drivers seat insecure - not anymore

Handbrake - spot on

Exhaust - no mention, not even about the decat

Brake pipes insecure - bye!

Oil leak? What oil leak? (I wiped the drop up when I did the exhaust and its obviously not leaking that much.

 

Kept the wheel bearing one though, and gained the rest, so not too bad!

[twosmoke300]

Seriously though - get the bearing sorted - these aren't adjustable and slight wear is usually beginning of failure and they can go downhill pretty quickly

[beko1987]

I'll prioritize that then! I presume it's a take the hub to someone with a press job?

 

Ill do some reading on that one

[twosmoke300]

Yeh a press job really . You can do it without using a grinder ,welder and a blowtorch but it's a ball ache

[conkerman]

Nice! I approve of this MOT pass.

 

Sent from my Vodafone Smart ultra 6 using Tapatalk

[egg]

three randoms please

 

(oh come on, someone had to)

[beko1987]

Got given a blokes number who runs a garage in wycombe, gave him a call and he said £40 an hour plus the bearing... Reasonable? Not actually ever used a garage before. Or is it not too much bother to strip the hub off myself, get a bearing and get him to just push it in? (he said that would be fine too)

 

Never had a hub off, and I daredn't read the haynes book as that will make it look 60% more tricky than it probably is...

[vulgalour]

Pretty sure Ruffgeezer did a bearing on this one and can confirm they go collapsey-dead very, VERY quickly.  I believe he fitted a second-hand good one as he had one available to save me forking out for a brand new one as I was skint at the time.  Can't remember which corner it was that he did, possibly front passenger?

[beko1987]

It's front passenger thats gone again. I'll have to hope it doesn't go collapsy dead very quickly now then, as I'm skint too! I can't hear noises through it, I'll avoid drain covers and the like for now then!

[beko1987]

Also good, uncle ruffgeezer, please could you tell me a story of how to get the hub off? Means it shouldn't be all seized on either if it's been off before

[vulgalour]

If there's no noises you should be okay for a bit.  As soon as it starts droning you're on borrowed time and motorway speeds make it worse.  I remember being limited to about 50mph for the last few miles of my journey to chez Ruffgeezer after there was a clonk from the front.  I think from picking the car up to it failing I got few hundred miles out of it and it was making noise when I got the car off Moog.  It's a year or so ago now so it's difficult to remember.

[beko1987]

Lol I do 23 miles of the m40 every day. It'll be fine!

[The Moog]

£40 an hour sounds good. I pay £30 an hour in Accrington

[PhilA]

That's pretty good. Cost me $34 to do a a front wheel bearing and that's because I walked in carrying the hub and bearing, having cleaned it up and removed the circlip...

 

 

Congrats on the pass!

 

Phil

[Jim Bell]

Congratulations!

 

Its a boy!

 

You can stop pacing the waiting room now sir. Would you like a cigar?

[twosmoke300]

If there's no noises you should be okay for a bit. As soon as it starts droning you're on borrowed time and motorway speeds make it worse. I remember being limited to about 50mph for the last few miles of my journey to chez Ruffgeezer after there was a clonk from the front. I think from picking the car up to it failing I got few hundred miles out of it and it was making noise when I got the car off Moog. It's a year or so ago now so it's difficult to remember.

Yeh cos bearings always fail in exactly the same way 😄

[Lacquer Peel]

Popping the hub off is a piece of piss on any car with a MacPherson-style strut.

You'll need a 35mm socket for the hub nut, slacken it off with the wheel on the ground, jack the car up, remove wheel, undo the caliper, put the caliper and disc aside, pop the track rod end and balljoint out, undo the hub nut fully, wiggle the driveshaft out of the way, crack the hub strut bolts off and whallop the hub with a hammer. I've probably missed something but it isn't hard and you'll work it out when you see it.

[beko1987]

Congratulations!

 

Its a boy!

 

You can stop pacing the waiting room now sir. Would you like a cigar?

There was a pub down the road from the hospital when eva was born, whilst they cleaned Amy up I ran out and had a pint and a rolly! Wasn't one near the hospital Charlie was born at so I had to just wait...

[fordperv]

Great news on the pass, now get it turned back up, I bet it's painfully slow

[beko1987]

Great news on the pass, now get it turned back up, I bet it's painfully slow

It is very slow, but not painfully. TBH for 97% of the driving I do (home to work, work to home) it's still overpowered! The other 2% of the time it's fine (driving to wycombe for my speed course apart from the M40 where I could have sped but didn't I don't think I got over 45 the whole way to town. Yet to come across the 1% I would want the speed back, maybe in the summer when I can hoon about a bit more. It'll only take 5 minutes if I do fancy it, I keep enough tools in the boot to be able to pull up in a layby, spend 5 minutes doing it then GLF away!

[vulgalour]

Fair point, well made twosmoke.  

[beko1987]

So, driving home from work, traffic was quite light etc, 10 minute takeover was playing a decent tune, all was well. Until I came to this corner, changed down from 5th to 4th, and the engine cut out...

 

 

No fuss or drama, it just turned off, and the stop light turned on. My buttocks firmly massaged the seat foam, and I assessed my surroundings, aiming to just go straight ahead and hope the dead accumulator sphere had enough pressure to stop me before hitting the wall you can see in the distance, and that no cars came around the corner the other way.

 

Whilst doing all this though, I popped the clutch down and turned the key and it turned straight back on again. Radio went off, and I drove the rest of the way home feeling a bit tense and confused...

 

This is the second time it's done it, the first time I assumed I stalled it as I was slowly approaching a junction, but I was doing 45 this time. My only possible theory is that it idles at just below 800 revs now since Arthur de-tuned it, could the sudden de-acceleration have dipped the revs briefly down enough to stall the engine? I have been meaning to wind the fuel back in 2-3 turns and swap the LDA pin around, was going to message Arthur actually to ask for his advice on this.

 

I popped the bonnet when I got home to have a look, and all was in order. No streams of bubbles in the fuel line, no fuel pissing out of leak off pipes, all was in order, it was it's usual, clattery self. I have been meaning to replace the fuel filter as it's possibly quite old and has probably seen alot of veg in it's life, but I get none of the symptoms whilst driving I had when the ZX had a clogged fuel filter...

 

Very odd. It's low on fuel, the stall and restart popped the fuel light on, but only just, so I can't imagine it's that.

 

Most odd, I shall see if it happens again.