Project A very damp 205 XLD

[Microwave]

It moves!

 

 

Got it insured on Sunday night. I was absolutely terrified when I first got out on the road in it, but it turns out its actually very nice to drive, apart from when parking. A couple of issues have cropped up, such as the fact that the blower motor seems to only work half the time (might be some electrical gremlins, sometimes goes off when the headlights are turned on) so I've stopped using it in case it tries to burn the car down. However, it'll all get fixed.

It was running terribly at first and would try to die everytime I came to a stop, but once I put 10 litres of Shell V-Power in it, it started to run beautifully. The diesel that had been left in it was a solid 5 years old, so it's probably a bit shite. Do plan to run it on veg.

I expected it to be slow from the get-go, but my god is it a dog, especially coming from a car that's literally more than twice as fast in a straight line. However, that doesn't mean it isn't fun. It handles beautifully, apart from a bit of understeer at higher speeds, and the exhaust on it has been the source of many laughs. All in all, it's a cracking little car.

 

[Wingz123]

Nice one! Whats it like on long journeys or are you not able to tell yet? Is it comfortable?

[junkyarddog]

The blower in mine goes slow at times too,more so when the lights are on,

i don't worry too much about it.

 

(the blower in mine is actually a Honda one I bodged in,'cos the original was seized solid)

[Microwave]

Nice one! Whats it like on long journeys or are you not able to tell yet? Is it comfortable?

 

Can't tell you about the long journey thing yet as I've not been on the motorway in it at all, but I can tell you that it is indeed surprisingly dead comfortable. The suspension soaks up bumps really well, the seats are plush and it's generally just a bit wafty. If I'm not mistaken, it being a diesel means that it sits a bit higher, so I imagine it has more forgiving shocks and stuff?

[Marm Toastsmith]

Great stuff.

 

Re electrical gremlins I'd personally suggest using stuff and hoping it fixes itself. Lack of use is often the issue. Switches and stuff that haven't been used in ages can often get dirty and or corroded. If it won't fix itself maybe get busy with the Servisol and/or WD40? If the motor itself was causing the issue then I'd expect it to be noisy when running.

 

Of course, I know nothing.

[Microwave]

Great stuff.

 

Re electrical gremlins I'd personally suggest using stuff and hoping it fixes itself. Lack of use is often the issue. Switches and stuff that haven't been used in ages can often get dirty and or corroded. If it won't fix itself maybe get busy with the Servisol and/or WD40? If the motor itself was causing the issue then I'd expect it to be noisy when running.

 

Of course, I know nothing.

 

Aye, it's noisy at first while it spins up but it's ok-ish while it's running at normal speed (which isn't very fast). I'll probably pull the blower and the resistor thing or whatever out tomorrow and see if any of it looks particularly knackered, as I haven't been able to get it to turn on today at all. I've also currently got no lights on the gauges or on the fan controls, so I should probably also pull all that stuff apart and find out what's going on there.

[junkyarddog]

The blowers on these can fill up with water,if left stood for any length of time.

[Scruffy Bodger]

Sometimes the blowers get very tired as people leave them on in a very low position permanently as they are totally silent at the lowest setting. I've also known them squeal when the bearings are on the way out but only when going around left hand bends I think it was?

 

They genuinely eat up the miles and are far comfier than many people imagine, grip is also far higher than people expect once you learn to ignore the horrendous body roll. 

[Microwave]

Thought I'd give a small update.

The car's generally been fine, if not for a couple of hiccups. Firstly, every morning I would walk out to this:

 

 

Thanks to a dodgy hose clamp, the bottom hose was not fully attached to the radiator and while the engine was turned off after being run for a bit, it would slowly start to piss itself. Quite simply, this was sorted with a new hose clamp.

 

The next issue was sort of a result of my own actions. I noticed after the first day of driving it that my bumper was hanging down a bit far and was obscuring the exhaust a little, due to the fact that it's absolutely knackered. I did at one point say "I should fix that", but obviously I had forgot to. The next day, I thought it would be a brilliant idea to give the car a blast down the motorway and needless to say, the bumper got a little warm.

 

 

Oh well. It's burned its own little hole out and I've ziptied the bumper a bit to provide a good amount of clearance. Will be reet.

 

Lastly, I said in my previous post that the car was running a bit crap, but started to get a lot better with some fresh fuel in it. Now that I'd put some miles on the car and drained the tank down, it had started to run like a bag of shit again, to the point where it would completely conk out at highly inconvenient times... such as when I decided to have a go at being in the overtaking lane against a much quicker modern car.

I put 20L or so of fresh diesel in it today and it started to get a little better, but the real test will come tomorrow where I have a 300 mile round trip to the North East lined up. If it's still running shite after that, I'll probably be looking at the injectors. Either way, wish me luck.

 

[leanycan]

I've decided that I want to spaff some money on insurance for this thing, so I'll be sorting that on Monday though it'll only be for a month. However, that relies on me selling my other car before then (anyone want an 8 month MOT 2003 Avensis diesel for as cheap as they come? Only seems to attract time wasters) and I've still got a couple of things to fix on this, like a leaky leak-off pipe. Fingers crossed it doesn't explode or kill me... or both.

 

Anyway, here's some bonus straight piped XUD content I found from when the exhaust was getting sorted:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MI3dCZnOEuc

I could relieve you of that avensis diesel. Is probably than the seat Toledo I went to view yesterday which was missing a thermostat and leaking water...

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Microwave]

I could relieve you of that avensis diesel. Is probably than the seat Toledo I went to view yesterday which was missing a thermostat and leaking water...

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Ah already gone unfortunately, only reason I was able to afford to insure this!

[leanycan]

Ah already gone unfortunately, only reason I was able to afford to insure this!

Ah it was a long shot anyway lol. You’ve done a fine job on the pug

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Scruffy Bodger]

I'd be checking all the simple stuff before I started thinking about injectors, sounds like you've got a basic fuel starvation problem/air leak somewhere in the system.

[junkyarddog]

I'd start by changing the fuel filter.

[Microwave]

So, yesterday the car embarked on its biggest trip in the past 4 or 5 years. My day went from this:

 

 

To this...

 

 

...within the space of about 2 and a half hours about 150 ish miles. The car did about 47MPG on the way there which impressed me greatly, and covered roughly 350 or so miles over the course of the whole day. As others have suggested, the 205 is actually a very comfortable place to be on a long trip. Minus the cherrybomb exhaust which gets a little loud at full chat (which is often, with 59 hp), it's generally quite a quiet car, and I'd go as far as to say it is much quieter at motorway speeds than my Rover 25 was. Even with the lack of power, it actually pulls perfectly fine at motorway speeds, and overtaking is something you can do with no bother... as long as you're on level-ish ground and the person you're overtaking isn't speeding up. Nonetheless, the car climbed up to the highest point on the UK motorway system and back down with ease, never missing a beat. Now, on to what was actually accomplished yesterday:

 

A few days ago, I'd picked up a radio on clearance at Halfords for the great price of £35. Upon plugging it in, however, I found that fuck all was happening. I went to my work, found another head unit, plugged it in and found that it too, was not working. One of the things I was scared of with this car was finding crap bodged electrics, partly because it's had so many owners and partly because of a receipt I have for the fitting of a Sparkrite alarm/immobiliser back in 1990. There is obviously no alarm or immobiliser present in the car anymore, but there are a few remnants of what I assume to be the wiring for it here and there. Being that I, myself, know precisely fuck all about electrics, I decided I should enlist the help of a friend, with this being the reason for the trip. Upon pulling all the wiring for the radio out, my fears were confirmed. There was bodgery... lots of it. The wiring was an absolute mess, with cables that made 0 sense and the odd dead short here and there. After an hour or so of fettling, a lot of the bodgery was sorted and the wiring started to look a lot more neat & professional, with the radio now working. Whilst going through the wiring, we also found that somebody had wired in speakers in the rear in the factory position, although this had been done poorly, as expected. Nonetheless, these also worked with a bit of rewiring! So, after all that was said and done the 205 finally had a bangin stereo for me choons. 

 

The next thing we decided to look at was the wiring for the horn. Originally, when I got the car, the horn was working as it should. At some point however, it decided to die. My mechanic managed to get it working in order for it to pass its MOT, and it was alright for a little bit but by the time I'd come to drive it, it had decided to stop working again. While we didn't really come to a conclusion here, as everything seemed pretty normal (going to put a new horn in at some point and see what that does), we did decide to try tackling the issue of the gauge cluster lights not working whilst we were here. We started by looking at the fuses, and discovered that fuse 2 or 3 had gone pop (can't remember tbh). Seeing as we needed bits anyway, we decided to have a trip to Halfords, as that was really our only option at the time. However, halfway there the radio decided to conk out, which we suspected to be the wiring. After we got the new fuses, my friend decided to have a closer look on the internet at the fuse diagram for this thing. Incidentally, the fuse that went pop was a much lower ampage than was needed, and it turns out that this fuse actually controlled the radio... and the brake lights. So here's us, in this dodgy and tatty as fuck old 205 driving through the centre of Hartlepool with no brake lights... even parking next to a police car at Halfords. Honest to god, I have no idea how I haven't been pulled in this car yet.

Anyway, shortly after we had the car like this:

 

 

Again, we unfortunately never really came to a conclusion here. The gauges in the cluster on this aren't backlit. Instead, there's 2 bulbs at the top that simply shine down onto the gauges. We did replace these two bulbs and did quite a bit of diagnosis, but ultimately nothing we did was able to fix it. The circuitry for these bulbs looked a little bit dodgy anyway, so it could potentially be that. Either way, the glass on the cluster is cracked, the speedo needle seems to have Parkinson's and the clock doesn't adjust, so I'm potentially just going to buy a used gauge cluster (which is a bit of a shame, as I do like seeing the mileage, but if it must be done then it must be done).

Deciding that I'm best setting off home before it gets properly dark, I embarked down the A19 homebound. The car, just as before, ran flawlessly the whole way... and I even had the luxury of a stereo this time! The only really scary part was getting onto the M61 near-ish to home, where there happens to be no streetlights. I had to drive with the dome light on for a good 20 minutes in order to see what speed I was doing, though it's pretty hard to speed with an NA XUD. The headlights on this were pretty shocking in the first place, and are now even worse with the yellow caps on them. Good times.

 

 

So, myself and the car ended up back at home after what I would consider to be a productive day. Unfortunately, when I went to start it this morning it took some serious cranking before it fired, and I had to really give it some revs to even get it to idle. Every time I would slow down for a light or junction and put my foot on the clutch, it would instantly start idling at a stupidly low RPM before eventually cutting out, which it did a couple of times. It was running shite in the first place, as I have said, but nowhere near this bad. After some advice from aforementioned friend, I tried pumping the primer thing on the fuel filter housing whilst it was trying to cut out, and this brought it back to a steady RPM, so I believe the fuel system is letting in air somewhere (as some of you have said)? Gonna have a closer look at the filter housing, as it seems a bit sketchy. It does seem to be a proper PSA one, but it's absolutely not the right one for the car. Bit of a shame this is happening really, because I've been really enjoying daily driving it. Such is life I guess.

[Scruffy Bodger]

Glad it got you there and back, that's the main thing. Your friend is correct, the filter housings can leak in air and indeed be hard to diagnose. Fitting a clear piece of tube immediately before the pump is very useful for diagnosing things. Also the fuel pump grenade, the one way valve inside can fail leading to starting problems, replacement ones can be very hit and miss too, some last no time at all as they are basically chinese rubbish. I've actually fitted the larger Sealey fuel pump grenade in the past as I found them to be higher quality.

On a good run I'd have expected a bit more out of it than 47mpg tbh, maybe another sign that something isn't quite right?

[Matt]

[...]I do like seeing the mileage, but if it must be done then it must be done).

It's probably not a complicated mechanism so it might would be worth taking apart a scrapyard sourced one to see if the digits can be swapped onto another mechanism. 

 

The headlights on this were pretty shocking in the first place, and are now even worse with the yellow caps on them. Good times.

A pair of relays supplying power direct from the battery to the headlights that is switched by the factory wiring will help here.

[Lacquer Peel]

I think this is too old to have a primer bulb fitted, it should have the "sandwich" type or spin on filter with a primer on top of the housing. They can leak air with age, I'd recommend bypassing it altogether with a generic filter like this one (https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F253095162366) and seeing if it makes any difference. Remember to fill the filter with fuel before you fit it.

[Microwave]

For better or for worse (the latter I suspect), I've gone ahead and bought meself one of these things:

 

 

205's running like shite still and I haven't done much to diagnose it yet for some reason, will probably end up being a bit of a lower priority for a short time while I make sure everything's going to be ok with this. Getting it Tuesday.

[Guest Conan]

Well hello to another red Rover! Hopefully, it will not end like the last one.

[Shirley Knott]

Love that 205! I've got a bit of a fetish for NA diesels, in fact they make up 66.6% of the current fleet albeit in Germanic flavour as opposed to French.

 

As others have said, if you haven't already then change the fuel filter. It's pretty much an annual job on all of mine and can cause all kinds of running issues if it's blocked or partially clogged.

[Squirrel2]

My son had a 1985 205 with XUD engine a few years ago and it was always a pain to start and run from cold. I found that the problem was caused by the failure of a thermostatic device that was mounted next to the top hose outlet and ‘pulled’ on a cable that was connected to the injection pump. It appeared that this gave extra fuel and/or altered the pump timing for cold starts. A previous owner had wound up the slow-running screw to stop it stalling when cold but that was just a bodge.

My Xsara 1.9D with a similar N/A DW8 engine had the same arrangement but seemed to work OK - but it was the slowest car I’ve ever owned; old giffers in Yarises used to leave me for dead at traffic lights..

 

Squirrel2

[beko1987]

I avoided all the cold start malarkey on my xud xantia as the previous owners had removed it all! Always started fine, even in minus temps at 6am! Sounded immense too

[Microwave]

Right, being that I've got another project car (the 820) that desperately needs bits and that I've just taken finance out on a newer car, this is going to have to go. Anyone here particularly interested in it? It's still got that air leak but it should still get you home alright, though I wouldn't be driving it anywhere more than a couple hours away max. Not really got a price, as it's kind of a difficult thing to value, so if you're interested hit us with some offers or whatever. I'm located near Preston.

[Microwave]

Well, just my luck

Pikey bastards have been on the rob and me brand new Bosch battery has been nicked. Thankfully there was nothing else of value in the car, despite them turning the whole thing upside down. I've had the car sat outside collecting dust (or moss) for ages with a knackered door lock, so it's kind of my own fault really.

[jonathan_dyane]

The air leak is probably the diesel heater on the back of the block gone porous, easy bipassed, TADTS.

[The Moog]

The air leak is probably the diesel heater on the back of the block gone porous, easy bipassed, TADTS.

I was trying to remember who suggested this - Thanks JD. It was the diesel heater! 

[davehedgehog31]

Just caught up on this. Remembered reading it at the time but hadn't twigged it was the same car.

Fuck me, that was grim when you got it!