Xsara - airbag light back on 😂

[beko1987]

2 hours ago, Andyrew said:

 

 

Thanks! What's the total and do you want cash at the weekend or a bank transfer sooner? 

[maxxo]

On 8/13/2021 at 5:57 PM, beko1987 said:

heir like the c5s (your picture of the estate dumped on the verge made me think this) nowadays, on the verge of just being scrapped for silly things, they need people like us to throw small amounts of money and time at them  here and there to keep them happy before they crap something mediumly expensive. Still cheaper than renting a modern every month though! 

agreed, and they aren't the sort of cars which will put up with being used as bangers

saw that C5 again today, being driven like a knob so it has no chance

[beko1987]

We had one dumped outside the back gate for months a few years ago. Was untaxed and a fucking utter skip heap but whilst Amy and the neighbors ranted and raved about it I did glance very fondly at it... 

Was a Billy basic 2002 HDI too which was most of the appeal. After owning a max top spec ph2  and almost boggo basic spec ph1 same make and model of car (the laguna2's) I'd gravitate towards a base spec C5 for the exact same reasons! 

Xsara is far too big for me 74% of the time anyway but is small enough to not feel big so I don't need anything bigger. Probably just as well! Owning one like that silver one would just be a time bomb unless you threw more money at it than it was worth

[maxxo]

6 minutes ago, beko1987 said:

We had one dumped outside the back gate for months a few years ago. Was untaxed and a fucking utter skip heap but whilst Amy and the neighbors ranted and raved about it I did glance very fondly at it... 

Was a Billy basic 2002 HDI too which was most of the appeal. After owning a max top spec ph2  and almost boggo basic spec ph1 same make and model of car (the laguna2's) I'd gravitate towards a base spec C5 for the exact same reasons! 

Xsara is far too big for me 74% of the time anyway but is small enough to not feel big so I don't need anything bigger. Probably just as well! Owning one like that silver one would just be a time bomb unless you threw more money at it than it was worth

is a huge shame though......they somehow seemed to have faired much much worse than xantia's

40 ish left in the same spec as mine, probably 15 of them are estates

same with xsara's, geez i remember when they were absolutely everywhere

never really see them now sadly

[Andyrew]

21 hours ago, beko1987 said:

Thanks! What's the total and do you want cash at the weekend or a bank transfer sooner? 

Cash at the weekends good with me, ill check tomorow it was £52 something. 

[beko1987]

2 minutes ago, Andyrew said:

Cash at the weekends good with me, ill check tomorow it was £52 something. 

Farck that's 1/3 of the value of the car... Maybe we're the silly ones?

(Fab, I'll bring cash!)

[robinmasters]

Why aren't there more of these left? They look modern-ish, like a mini C5, but are as simple (and presumably handle as well) as a ZX. 

[maxxo]

8 minutes ago, robinmasters said:

Why aren't there more of these left? They look modern-ish, like a mini C5, but are as simple (and presumably handle as well) as a ZX. 

because it has chevrons on it

so with these, and especially the C5s people tend to panic when they start to get old and need repairs

so they get scrapped

whereas if it was a VW they'd say "oh it's worth it"

add into the fact most people these days don't seem to bother servicing their cars at all, well that'll also kill them

[beko1987]

2 hours ago, robinmasters said:

Why aren't there more of these left? They look modern-ish, like a mini C5, but are as simple (and presumably handle as well) as a ZX. 

They are better than the look tbh! Their a zx mk3 under the hood. Boring as heck to look at but inside is nice, was a good face-lift. Won't set the world on fire although mines a 110 hdi so is a bit peppy, but say at 70/80 on the mway it's right at home, and not too bad down a back road. 

The main problem  nowadays is finding any info on one from a Google the sodding xsara Picasso always comes up and it's very different in many ways (although not some... Alot of parts from mine are shared with the mk1 Picasso. Of course you always need some hens teeth bit from a xsara vts or other nine left model to do the mods available which is a shame

I've got all the bits I need to do ny aux belt and pulleys now, wonder if I should attempt it at the FoD? 

[robinmasters]

4 hours ago, maxxo said:

because it has chevrons on it

so with these, and especially the C5s people tend to panic when they start to get old and need repairs

so they get scrapped

whereas if it was a VW they'd say "oh it's worth it"

add into the fact most people these days don't seem to bother servicing their cars at all, well that'll also kill them

 

2 hours ago, beko1987 said:

They are better than the look tbh! Their a zx mk3 under the hood. Boring as heck to look at but inside is nice, was a good face-lift. Won't set the world on fire although mines a 110 hdi so is a bit peppy, but say at 70/80 on the mway it's right at home, and not too bad down a back road. 

The main problem  nowadays is finding any info on one from a Google the sodding xsara Picasso always comes up and it's very different in many ways (although not some... Alot of parts from mine are shared with the mk1 Picasso. Of course you always need some hens teeth bit from a xsara vts or other nine left model to do the mods available which is a shame

I've got all the bits I need to do ny aux belt and pulleys now, wonder if I should attempt it at the FoD? 

I suppose they're still very much in the 'an car' stage for most people, it just seems a real shame.  It's like a stealth shite; modern looking enough to be inconspicuous, but underneath it's XUD9 or HDi, can be fixed with a hammer, and the estate looks as capacious as something like a Mk4 Astra van, only without 'being shit' (coz they all are obvs). 

I've been having bad thoughts about a Berlingo van, but this seems like a really sensible alternative. 

[Talbot]

On 8/15/2021 at 7:53 PM, beko1987 said:

Sounds like a fod job too if I order it tomorrow morning... I'm sure @Talbotwill have a 24mm socket to hand

Maybe.  My tools are still in dis-array as I have nowhere to permanently store them at the moment.  Frustrating.

But.  I'll see if I can fish out a 24mm socket from somewhere.  I have one, it's just where!  Did you also need air and a rattle gun?  I need to grab a compressor out of my storage, so now might be time to do so.

[beko1987]

If you've got to fish it out especially then don't worry, I did the job first time with the beaker bar and all went well. Would only be for the bottom pulley anyway as the other ones will be an Allen key to undo

I thought you always bought stuff like that with you tbh

Equally we could have so much fun playing with v*uxhalls we don't do it at all so again, don't do it especially for me

[beko1987]

Dang my citroen caught the vauxhall over the weekend... Drivers window stopped working as I left the fod... Investigated when I got home and aha... 

Twisted them together and got the window up and this morning I set up the soldering iron and got it connected and heatshrink and the window worked again! 

Yey, job done ill go to pack up and... Why is the central locking arming and disarming itself repeatedly... The answer is in the above image... 

Removed the crimp from the plug, and chopped it back and soldered another wire on. The car wire doesn't solder either, it's fucking shit... 

Opened up the joint in the same wire further up and it was ok

So with new heatshrink which is doing a good 60% of holding it all together the central locking has stopped shorting out and the window works again... 

If it fucks about more I'm going to have to replace whole lengths of cable into the car, luckily there's a bit of slack to pull down from under the dash. Oh and the passenger side has the same activity... Gr9! 

Also confirmed there is a drip of coolant sat hanging off the front subframe... It's manageable though and 600 miles after I last checked it needed 500ml which is reasonable to keep an eye on until I have the aux belt off and the cambelt covers and assess, won't be for a few weekends or so though

[maxxo]

8 hours ago, beko1987 said:

Dang my citroen caught the vauxhall over the weekend... Drivers window stopped working as I left the fod... Investigated when I got home and aha... 

Twisted them together and got the window up and this morning I set up the soldering iron and got it connected and heatshrink and the window worked again! 

Yey, job done ill go to pack up and... Why is the central locking arming and disarming itself repeatedly... The answer is in the above image... 

Removed the crimp from the plug, and chopped it back and soldered another wire on. The car wire doesn't solder either, it's fucking shit... 

Opened up the joint in the same wire further up and it was ok

So with new heatshrink which is doing a good 60% of holding it all together the central locking has stopped shorting out and the window works again... 

If it fucks about more I'm going to have to replace whole lengths of cable into the car, luckily there's a bit of slack to pull down from under the dash. Oh and the passenger side has the same activity... Gr9! 

Also confirmed there is a drip of coolant sat hanging off the front subframe... It's manageable though and 600 miles after I last checked it needed 500ml which is reasonable to keep an eye on until I have the aux belt off and the cambelt covers and assess, won't be for a few weekends or so though

haha

same uttery shite cable as what's used in the C5

would not bloody solder

did you give the rest of it a good tug? i found most of mine snapped after doing that

.........i may have one or two cables in my tailgate loom twisted together still

[beko1987]

9 hours ago, maxxo said:

haha

same uttery shite cable as what's used in the C5

would not bloody solder

did you give the rest of it a good tug? i found most of mine snapped after doing that

.........i may have one or two cables in my tailgate loom twisted together still

No I left everything else well alone! 

The crimps came out of the plug nicely though, so if I could find replacement correct terminals for the loom it wouldn't be too tricky to just run new lengths of wire into the car and join (I'd probably crimp them next time tbh) and have the joints away from movement. Sounds like a long and fiddly job though!

[beko1987]

I was supposed to have the children today, but Amys sister wanted to see them and she managed to change her shift at work, did I mind if they went over there for the day? It's been nice and overcast today and I had nothing planned, it was fine

20 minutes later I was staring at this

Old and new belt roughly offered up to each other to make sure the job wasn't finished before it started

 

And we are good to go. I fount the T50 torx bit out and for a laugh popped them on my Aldi 40v impact gun... and 4 seconds of churning it got both bloody bolts out! I was amazed

Old pulley was very dry and noisy...

And the old idler was starting to wear the pulley. Bit hard to picture but the surface is all wavy, where the moulding of the lower bit is coming through

I then locked the engine in the approved* way (in 5th gear too)

and cracked off then spun out with the aldi driver the crankshaft pulley bolt!

This is my little coolant leak...

I did think it was coming from the waterpump at first, and was at this stage poised to remove the cambelt covers but a good look in here shows it all to be dry

So I just refitted everything. Did use the new bolt that came with the bottom pulley but it bound up in the thread and picked up loads of gunk which scared the fucking shit out of me but luckily it hadn't actually threaded anything and the old bolt went in and torqued* up fine...

 

New belt on

 

I rotated the engine by hand a few times and checked the belt was on right, then the locking pin for the tensioner was pulled out with a satisfying snap! Few more rotations and i was still fine so...

 

Smooth as fuck bar the top engine cover, more on that later! Enthusiasm upgraded (that took about 20 minutes at a not fast pace) I slid under and removed the 2 bolts, 1 nut, 1 rusty screw and 2 cable ties holding the undertray on. There's our little coolant leak again

Thank feck for undertrays, the one on the blue laguna 2.2dci practically only got it through its MOT after I cleaned it up so it could soak up more oil...

Nothing immediately springs to mind, and I know the top valve cover gaskets need changing which might sort the issue entirely, plus it doesn't really use any oil at all. 

Anyway, talking of oil, out came the sump plug

And unlike fucking last time I remembered to change the oil filter too...

Woohoo! Lobbed 4l in and checked for drips. Then onto...

This! I have form with these, my first ever car was a HDI 206, and I snapped this doing this exact job. Bless it, do miss that car, it was flipping rapid

Anyway the old filter looked quite dirty

But the new one (and the other 4 new ones I also have...) all look different

The one fitted to the car looks nothing like it on either end

And the new filter does fit nicely on the cap but not in a snug way like the old one did...

So with a final thought to myself to ask @Andyrew what fuel filter I need I put the old one back in and refitted everything and fired the car up to cycle the  oil.  As it ran I took one last look at the little red trail of shame

(Oil slick on the queens highway has absolutely nothing to with me officer...)

I grabbed my fancy new clips which almost fitted fine, and did fit fine after cutting off the 4th leg on a few to make them fit the 2nd of 4 different fucking holes PSA used on these things and got the plastics back in

Then I removed the remains and 2 remaining engine cover bolts and got the new ones

And fitted them which really quietened things down. Of course whilst checking for leaks on the fuel filter I lost bloody 2 of the new caps, which are quite shite so it has the 2 old ones back on now... But it was the snapped studs that the job really fixed (and they were cheap)

Whilst fit ting the undertray back in I noticed a very slight oil weep coming from under the intercooler radiator... 

 

Which is as insignificant as it looks but did come back like that every time I wiped it away.

I also did some bodywork and chipped the worst of the rusty paint with a screwdriver and painted this on with an old toothbrush I use for cleaning bearings in tar remover...

Looking at how far gone it is I wonder if it would be easier to just buy a £60 pattern wing and have it painted (do we know anyone who could paint a wing near Thame?) or remove the wing, sand back properly, rust kill, fill and re-spray with cans. I'm sure it'll survive the winter whilst I decide, but I can see it needing some bodywork repair tape soon if I leave it.

I reset the service indicator as it was at nearly 24,000 miles overdue...

The dash says it only has half a sump of oil though... It sure does not, infact there's less than half a litre of oil in my 5l bottle left so if anything it's over-full. Can't reliably check where I park my car either as it's on a slope so I'll pull it round another day and check.

Nice pile for the bin

And the old belt was due a change...

 

So that was a productive few hours, and does knock a few major jobs off that needed doing. Assuming it all doesn't explode in a massive bang when I first properly drive it the job's a good-un! 

It's winter now, and the mojo declines rapidly and luckily I think I can go into lazy mode now. I'll buy another 5l of euro car sharts pink readymix coolant as that's what's in it now and just keep checking and topping it up with at least not_water, im sure the wing will get a bit worse but meh, next years problem and the door loom seems to be behaving itself but for how long who knows.

I also have the cabin filter to fit, then silicone the cover onto the box and tidy the wires under there up but that's do-able in the drizzle.

It might actually get driven this winter too, don't forget I bought it a month before lockdown_1 and I didn't really drive it at all during winter 2020... Back in 3 days a week now so she needs to get back to earning her keep! (was also a motivator to doing all the above now rather than after the belt's snapped and I've limped home one shitty raining night in late november...

She has fresh belts, almost every spinny engine pulley bit is new, wears 4 almost new* tyres with a brand new spare, rear brakes are new, fronts are totally fine so I think I'm gonna call that done for winter now unless anything breaks before then, which it might do now, I feel a shift in the french stratosphere... Apologies if anyone had a fucking shit day today working on something french, my bad...

[beko1987]

Also a fun fact, I'd probably only loose maybe £50 in parts fitted so far and the cost of the car if I scrapped it... 

Not that I would. Tbh my back up get out of jail free card atm is if something significant breaks on this now buy a sheddy hdi something else and spend an afternoon moving decent parts about from this one 😂

I guess the saddest thing is for the job I did on it today any sane normal person would have probably scrapped it as I bet that's a fair little bill (parts for the above were probably £100 all in at Andyrew shitter supplies prices without needing postage) plus labor... 😢

[Stanky]

Nice work! Well done for getting the jobs done while the weather is still OK and not waiting for the inevitable in horizontal sleet in January when you HAVE TO BE somewhere.

[beko1987]

Just now, Stanky said:

Nice work! Well done for getting the jobs done while the weather is still OK and not waiting for the inevitable in horizontal sleet in January when you HAVE TO BE somewhere.

That was 100% the motivation tbh! I've had the belt since mid 2020,  but not having to drive it meant I didn't do the work! 

[maxxo]

interesting.......my C5 has literally the exact same amount of miles as your xsara as of right now

re engine cover mounts.....

i absolutely swear by these

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/254314946993

they fit nicely

and look qwality

now everyone can see we have a HDi!

good work though! i love the updates and am very glad someone is putting the effort in

[beko1987]

8 minutes ago, maxxo said:

interesting.......my C5 has literally the exact same amount of miles as your xsara as of right now

re engine cover mounts.....

i absolutely swear by these

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/254314946993

they fit nicely

and look qwality

now everyone can see we have a HDi!

good work though! i love the updates and am very glad someone is putting the effort in

Dang they look wicked! In a year or so when I've lost the caps from the current set I'll grab those! 

[maxxo]

2 hours ago, beko1987 said:

Dang they look wicked! In a year or so when I've lost the caps from the current set I'll grab those! 

rock solid!! the normal style used to last me say 3 months before falling apart

fitted the heavy duty ones to the picasso first and they did well over a year, and so far so good on the C5

[beko1987]

Been for the first drive since doing the work and something I've replaced wasn't happy as its silent when driving now! No idea what as I did everything  but it was a something. 

Still sounds like a hdi from the outside but inside now at idle all you can hear is the engine poc-poc-poc at idle then as soon as load comes on - silence! Hadn't noticed how noisy it all was before! Even the arch liners seem to be solid now as it's quieter in that department too! 

And it didn't explode which is always nice

[Dan302]

Always nice when a job has the desired effect! Usually my "repairs" make no difference (or make things worse) 😂

[beko1987]

I did have today booked off work to take my stepdad to an eye appointment. But yesterday this was cancelled. But I have lots of holiday to take at work so kept it off and came round anyway. Car was looking very green and dusty

Mum and stepdad went into town so I got cracking

I had green

Oil from works previous

And a 2nd car to wash in the form of my parets new* zoe... 

Was battling the sun so rinsed both cars off, then filled the foam cannon and foamed my car up

Then went around and brushed the tight work and rinsed it all off before it dried. 

Did the same to the new car which whilst not being filthy on the surface, was quite dirty still.

Whatever stuff motor point used beaded off mega amazingly on the Rinse, but after a foam was gone forever, although the windows sheet nicely. 

Mine came up OK with just a foam Rinse and dry, new frenchy was oozing filth

Rinsed off again and time to fill the buckets and get washing

Time then flew a bit, and I washed both cars and dried them, then a nice light polish and glaze with Poorboys black hole which hid all the swirl marks on the renner. Had to go round with the tar remover alot too as its covered lower down. 

Then wax. 2 layers on each

This took a fair bit of time, plus the glass and luckily not much trim restorer as neither car has much. The end results are nice though

Zoe went fro  a slightly yellow tinge to pure ice white, it hurt my eyes alot! Both cars came up well, the zoe is going to need a clay and more agressive tar removal next year, my car will need it too by then! 

I then fixed the rear bumper by shoving a load of tigerseal in the brackets and holding it for 5 minutes

Then the front window trim

Marvellous! Stepdad has a leaky greenhouse so I gave him the 97% of the tube that was left. Hoping to go to the chevrons show on Saturday so at least it'll look roughly nice when I turn up 😂

And that's probably it until after winter now unless I get lucky and can give both a quick wax safe wash one day in december

 

 

[beko1987]

Ha, the postman left a box in the garden yesterday which was my 5l of coolant as ordered from here

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/5L-Antifreeze-Coolant-Fluid-AF12-Red-Ready-To-Use-Mixed-40-C-Longlife-Mannol-/293211042774?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&_trksid=p2349624.m46890.l49286&mkrid=710-127635-2958-0

Except I've just bought the box in because I cba last night and mmm that's a bit heavy

Ha, oops! Looks like I don't have to investigate the tiny coolant leak for a while now! Topped it up yesterday morning before leaving mums and after about 300 miles it needed half a 500ml bottle of water I filled up. 2 x 5l of readymix is going to last years 😂

[Andyrew]

Some lovely shine on both wagons. Top scrubbage.

Did you get the fuel filter sorted? 

 

[320touring]

Good effort @beko1987.

 

fyi your hdi has a Siemens injection system. So you need filters for that.

 

the new one you have is for the earlier Bosch system

[beko1987]

No, not done anything about rhe fuel filter. Need to look at that. 

Anyone need/want the incorrect 3 fuel filters for free? Can bring to the chevron show on Sat or the fod? 

[beko1987]

Another job done! The headlights, whilst not getting a mention on the mot were looking shit

I'd seen a guy post about doing headlights before on fb and indeed earlier this week he posted again, so I sent him a message, and he came this morning

Their still yellowed but shiny as fuck now, sadly I think that's as good as they'll come, hopefully they last a bit longer now. I may even be able to see better too. The drivers side is worse. 

Pleased with it for £25 though, and he worked through the pissing rain. Annoyingly he wiped his work down and dulled the beading slightly