Harrison's Garage - Volvo 440 and Citroen XM

[Surface Rust]

I feel your pain, just before Christmas I had only one operational car out of six and that was due its MOT. 

Fortunately it is a Honda so I had nothing to worry about and I'm now back up to the comfort level of having two on the road.

2026 life goal is to get 5 working so I can drive a different one to work each day.

Don't worry, you'll get through this difficult time!

 

[sierraman]

Working in that frost… you are made of sterner stuff than me! 

[Rust Collector]

10 hours ago, rob88h said:

The XM is part way through an alternator swap, which is a right bollock of a job and it’s sitting there while I come to terms with removing some extra bits just so I can manipulate the replacement alternator into place. And daylight. Waiting for free time and daylight to align. 

Ah I’m really sorry that it took me a while to get that alternator out to you mate. Fingers crossed it sorts out the issues you were having with it!

[JakeT]

If it helps I spent the weekend before Christmas fixing my ‘modern’ (2005) daily with a wiring issue else I’d have been stranded until the new year. Bloody old cars.

 

surely though, the answer to this is buying another car?

[rob88h]

I too was fixing* our modern in the weeks before Christmas. 

😆

The answer is normally always to buy another car, to whit I got a Mondeo a few weeks ago.
My previous post does sound a bit doom and gloom, but the Volvo is almost back on the road, so I engaged full responsible adult mode and didn’t buy another new car (although I did spend a few hours on Facebook Marketplace…)

@Rust Collector- no worries on the alternator delivery, it’s still greatly appreciated. I only got stuck into the XM just now as the Volvo had the wrong bits when I came to do that job. The problem with the XM is I don’t have enough elbows to remount the replacement alternator, it doesn’t want to sit on its mount. I think I need to remove some more stuff so I can bosch it on (pun intended, but tenuous, it’s actually a Mitsubishi branded alternator)

49 minutes ago, Surface Rust said:

2026 life goal is to get 5 working so I can drive a different one to work each day.

I’d be happy with three 😆. The two we need and a spare. 

 

[rob88h]

The new and correct track rod end arrived for the Volvo and was simplicity itself. I counted the turns winding the old one off and winding the new one on etc, so the tracking should still be good.

I did have a real battle with the lower control arm ball joints though. They split just fine*, which is what I was expecting to be the problem, but the real problem was getting them physically out and the new ones in. The bracket that holds the ball joint to the LCA goes into a pocket on the LCA and the LCA wouldn’t drop low enough. After I asked a Shitter, RoverFolkUs showed me the way in removing the knuckle from the strut to get enough clearance to get the shank of the balljoint into the knuckle first then line then knuckle back up with the strut. It worked a treat.

While up on stands I treated it to it’s 5k Oil and Filter with added nerd points for having a Sharpie to hand.

VOLVIMUR!! Inflection of volvō (first-person plural present passive indicative). I AM ROLLING!!

(People called Romanes, they go, the house, etc)

 

[rob88h]

With the Volvo back on frontline duties I’ve been cracking on with the XM. 

@Rust Collector  kindly sent a spare alternator of unknown health from his spares. The going theory, because #oldcars, was that the “new” alternator would be broken… but in a different and frustrating way and wouldn’t charge - as the old alternator seemed to be overcharging. This then leaving me with two duds of the one fitment type that is supposedly not DIY serviceable.

Because of the LHM pump the alternator had to come out downwards out of the wheel arch area. Not too much to remove other than the wheel (natch), arch liner and a subframe brace. If the car had an AC compressor I think this route would be impossible. It only took one session to get the old one undone, tapped off its bracket and manipulated out of the gap. Getting the replacement one in was a real pig! Try as I might, I could not get it to sit on its bracket without performing near Rubix Cube levels of logic movements, all holding an alternator in the air at arms length, round a corner, blind.

Looks easy in a picture😂

With that in and everything reconnected and tensioned I was actually nervous to start the car because I didn’t want to a) spend the money on a new alternator or refurb and b) go through it all again fitting another. 

Thankfully, even at 2000rpm with main beam and the heater blower fan on we have NO charge warning light. Major relief. I’m tentatively saying this is fixed!

As it’s been off the road for (I think) 8 weeks, in the shade and in winter, it has gone a bit mouldy… It’s on SORN as well right now, so I’m waiting until Feb to take it out on the road since we’re so close and I had a few other things I wanted to look at. 

[rob88h]

“Other things”

I’ve changed the black paint oil and filter. Seriously, I’ve had old diesels before, but this has stained my funnel 🤣

I’ve thought some more about the exhaust. This XM could do with a new middle (of three!) mufflers. 

(will rotate this photo one day**
**probably won’t rotate)

Since acquiring the XM I’ve been casually looking for an exhaust and I really think they’re not obtainable. Plenty for the 2.0L pez/2.1D, which I think are common and the same routing as what I need, but the turbo diesel I think I’ve read has bigger diameter pipes. I’ve bitten the bullet and have knowingly ordered the wrong exhaust from AutoDoc (so I may never get it or it’ll arrive way after the car has expired anyway) and the current plan is to take it to PipeCraft with a pack of biscuits, money and hope and ask that they can adapt it to fit. 
 

I’m also trying to address the squeaky brake. Which is actually a pad-eaty brake. 

I think these pads are only 6000 miles old. The prime suspect is a sticky calliper, so I’ve stripped it ready to clean it as best I can and then red rubber grease everything. I’ve also manage to get some NOS Bendix/Citroen pads! 

It’s a bit of an odd design in that there is only one main slider and a small pin at the bottom. So it’s all a bit cantilevered and prone to jamming and I’ve read on the XM forum of the little pin sticking and causing this sort of bind. 
 

Finally, I still need to de-mould the interior, but I’m hoping to be back on the road in February. 

 

[rob88h]

It’s back on the King’s Highway 🎉

First of all I had to finish off the stuck calliper. I took it all apart, cleaned up the sliders with an oily rag and my kids toothbrush and put some raspberry coulis on the moving parts. 

It was still, however, stuck as a stuck thing, that seemed to be the pin at the bottom. 
(…The next series of pics are all upside down)

The pin goes through these holes and this stainless steel channel, but the pin itself didn’t fit!

I slid out the stainless insert and knocked out some rust flakes and filed down some of the swelling from the corrosion. 
With the insert back in the pin fits the channel. Once re-assembled you can move the carrier in and out with just your little finger. Satisfaction. 
Finally everything was reassembled. 

More meat has returned once more and hopefully the problem is solved. Time will tell. The calliper could do with a deeper refurb I think; on winding the pistons back the boot/skirt wasn’t looking so clever. Also the NOS pads I was so proud of were wrong, d’oh, so I had to wait for some others. 
 

Next I de moulded the important parts, bought some road tax and took it for a test run. 
 

 

Still to do as ongoing improvements are: to muddle through the exhaust and to clean up/dry out the interior a bit. The passenger door pocket was filling with water - which I hope was to do with it being up at a funny angle on axle stands or something, as it hasn’t leaked until now. An eye is to be kept on that. Also the ignition barrel is now being stupid and not switching circuits on an off as it should in the various key positions. I’m hoping this is just from the damp and will dry out, but as with most things XM electrical, there are pages on these being know to be faulty, so maybe this is just a teaser to the next chapter…